Times of Discombobulation

“Everyone has something. This is yours. Each life has a defining crisis.” from Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

I waited until a public library copy of Belle Burden’s bestselling memoir was available instead of ordering it on Bookshop . Ordinarily when I really want to read a new book, I order my own copy. Impatience.

I didn’t really want to own a copy of Burden’s book although I wanted to read it. I loved her 2023 Modern Love essay. And her story said so much about the choices and assumptions about men and women, husbands and wives. But Burden’s privileges (multiple homes, vaunted family tree) made me wary that most of us could relate. It’s a quick read and especially interesting, perhaps, because of her privilege. Gwyneth Paltrow will be playing Ms. Burden in the Netflix series.

Nevertheless, it’s true that every life has a defining crisis and I’ve spent my professional life sitting with people in theirs: the sudden death of loved ones, the long slog of death from terminal diseases, betrayal, violence, poverty, defeat, abandonment, self-destruction.

For some people their defining crisis might be something seemingly less catastrophic like the death of a nonagenarian parent or knocking out a permanent front tooth. (Seriously, I remember an acquaintance who told me that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to them – losing a front tooth at summer camp when they crashed into a diving board.) For other people, their defining crisis smacks of an Alexander Hamilton childhood. Pain is pain.

My hope, like Belle Burden, is that my children and grandchildren “will move toward people who are in pain, rather than away.” This is how we become community. This is how we become Church.

Our nation is in a state of overwhelming discombobulation right now. Legal residents of the USA are being detained and held in substandard facilities without their constitutional rights. Both political parties conflate partisanship with the common good, and everybody seems to be out for themselves.

Many of our families are in a state of discombobulation for all the usual reasons. You know them.

Retirement can feel like a state of discombobulation, at least at first. Today marks Retirement Day 158 and I only know that because I have a countdown app that hasn’t been updated.

I’ve known newly retired men who died suddenly months after ending their professional careers, possibly because losing their identity became their defining crisis. And I’ve known retired people who never look back. Personally, I’m still trying to figure it all out and I thank those who’ve retired before me whose advice was:

• Don’t make any new commitments for at least a year.
• Be gentle with yourself. (Naps are our friends.)

[Note: Retirement is an enormous financial privilege. According to The National Council on Aging “45% of older adult households (more than 19 million) lack the income needed to cover basic living costs.” In other words, they will not be able to stop working. Ever.]

Feeling disoriented impacts everything from our appetites to our energy levels to our mental health. When talking with my adult kids, I often ask them – at the end of a phone call in which we’ve reviewed all the ways our world is a hot mess -“Where do you see hope?” At least once, they’ve had to ask me the same question.

Looking for signs of hope is a spiritual practice. And when we don’t have the strength to even attempt to look for hopeful signs, there’s usually someone out there who is feeling hopeful, who can share hope with us. It’s good if we are not all feeling hopeless on the same day.

We need each other. If we have the capacity, one of my hopes is that we will practice gravitating towards people in pain instead of distancing ourselves. Imagine living in a world defined by our shared discombobulation instead of our human isolation.

Image of osprey chicks photographed by Andy Morffew. If you read Belle Burden’s book, you’ll know why I featured confused-looking ospreys.