You Carry It Well
Scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day I came across a quote that stopped me short and made me sit back with a sigh.
“Because I carry it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”
The person who posted it on their account gave no citation so I’m unable to credit the source though I could have said this myself.
Like many people I’ve carried some very heavy loads in my life, and I’ve been told too often that I make it look so easy. I take that as a compliment of sorts because I’ve never been one to call attention to myself. I do what I do because it’s what I’m called to do. I try and set an example for others, starting first and foremost with my children. Bad things happen, challenges appear and stepping up and facing them is the way forward. Yes, you can roll over and admit defeat and say “I’ll not try again” but that’s never felt comfortable for me. I haven’t the patience to just say “I’m done” or “I quit” because within hours I’m back up and ready to get things moving. Much of the time it’s because other people have been depending on me.
And as that quote says, just because it looks easy, that doesn’t mean it’s not a heavy load to carry.
One year in my role as manager, I had arranged a fundraising dance for my son’s hockey team to take place in early February. The date had been set, tickets sold and people expected the event to go forward. Then unexpectedly my sister died a week before the event. As her only living relative it fell to me to make all the necessary arrangements. There was nothing I could do about the timing – life happens when it does – but I knew I could manage it. Because people were relying on me for both a funeral and a fundraiser.
The fundraiser took place a few days after the funeral and, although I was grieving, I attended the event to make sure everything was in place. I didn’t stay long, just long enough to thank people for being there, to leave things in someone else’s capable hands and I went home where I belonged, to be with my grief, in private.
Weeks afterward at a game, a parent on the team made the comment to me that he didn’t know how I could have gone to that fundraiser. I made it all look so easy he said, and he himself would never have done that. He would have been too upset, too immersed in grief to think about something as frivolous as a dance. He as much as then told me I must be a very cold person to have been able to do that.
That gave me pause. That someone would see me as cold or unfeeling because I honoured a commitment to not let other people down. I explained to this man and the other parents who were listening to our conversation that what might look easy was in fact a very difficult, very heavy load for me to balance. Explaining that my grief ran deeper than I allowed them to see, which is why I had been present for only a short time. If what I had done looked easy that meant that I had accomplished what I set out to do – to give them all the evening, they expected without anyone feeling uncomfortable on my behalf. I left that conversation wondering if it had been worth the time and effort.
People see what they want to see, through their own lens. How often do we judge others without knowing facts? How often do we stop and think about what might be happening beneath the surface? How often do we simply allow ourselves to accept things at face value? How often does a smiling face mask sorrow? How often does the person who makes jokes in public cry in private? How often do we carry on for the benefit of others and not share the weight of the burden? Because other people make it look so easy.