Last week on Twitter, Samantha said in a conversation we were having that she was ālearning to live vicariously in the mistakes.ā
The context was about making drafts of what we want to say and checking them before sending so that we could catch spelling errors. And yet it felt profound in what has been a difficult week during a difficult 16 months, where all too often I hear from friends and readers that we are all struggling with mourning a life that doesnāt look like we thought it would back in 2019. Iāve had this conversation with so many people, Iāve lost track. So 2020 didnāt work out the way we thought it would. And maybe 2021 isnāt shaping up how we imagined either. We arenāt alone in feeling this way at all. It just feels like we are sometimes.
I wondered, can I⦠how can we⦠look at what we have been through with more acceptance in a way that finds what little good there was or might be and⦠take comfort in that? Should we throw it all out or save the pieces we are left with and find a way to make them more beautiful?
The analogy I guess Iām trying to make doesnāt apply to literally everything or all of life. I certainly donāt want to gloss over the losses that have changed families and entire communities forever. But I do think thereās something about a life that looks more like a piece of beautiful Kintsugi than one more like a new and flawless piece of pottery, straight from a store - thatās worth considering.
What is Kintsugi? I answered that a bit in this tweet ā¬ļø and you can see Samanthaās thoughts about it after that.