My One Word: A Guest Post

Charity Craig has become a dear friend and is one of my favorite writers on the web. She has started a wonderful new series called My One Word and invited several to contribute. The whole post can be read at her site today:

My nephew, his bride, and my niece, who was her brother’s ‘best person.’

Disappointment

  noun \ˌdis-ə-ˈpȯint-mənt\

: the state or feeling of being disappointed

: someone or something that disappoints people : a disappointing person or thing

 

It’s been on the calendar for a year — one.full.year. And I had to miss it. My nephew got married last Saturday. A stellar occasion, according to those who were there. A two-day event in northern California, alongside the Russian River, a stone’s throw from a beautiful stand of redwood trees, a short drive from some of the most beautiful vineyards in the world. My son and his wife were there, my brother and his wife were there (of course!), but I?

I was right here.

Here at home, crying quietly and feeling deeply disappointed. Here’s why: I injured my foot about a year ago. And things got worse over the months between then and now, requiring two different kinds of surgical intervention and a long, LONG recovery period. We thought we had planned things well — we counted backwards from the wedding date the eight weeks the doctor told us recovery would take, and scheduled the surgery for that week.

He did not tell us that eight weeks was the minimum recovery time, that in real life, not a medical textbook, this recovery takes more like twelve to sixteen weeks. Though I am now able — just this week! — to do full weight-bearing, I am not yet able to walk without a boot or without a walker. And this wedding was outdoors, on rough terrain — not possible for me yet.

So, yes. I’m feeling disappointed.

And living with disappointment is a tough gig. Nobody chooses it. Yet somehow, we all experience it. Life is filled with disappointing moments and disappointing people. If we let it, disappointment can sometimes move to center stage and maybe even begin to define how we understand ourselves and how we experience life.

Please join me at Charity’s lovely space to read the rest of this reflection.