People are so interesting. And complex. And complicated. And still interesting. Being a therapist has given me a front row seat to viewing human behavior and I have found it fascinating over the past 36 years. For example, many of us have spent the last ten months restricted in one way or another. Some people have missed out on eating at their favorite restaurants or have been working remotely at home. Some people have longed for the company of their loved ones or the connections that they enjoy within their faith community. In one way or another, many of us have probably been spending more time isolated at home than have in the previous decade. And yet, the forecast for last night’s snowfall had some of my clients giddy at the idea of having a snow day today.

For me, their excitement brought to mind how as human beings, we can experience two opposite emotional states at exactly the same time. I may want to draw you close to me by sharing something vulnerable and yet, fear may trigger my desire to back away and be quiet. I may experience anticipation at what is newly unfolding in my life and in the exact same moment, I may long to cling to what once was. In my last blog post, I shared about the experience of suffering and gratitude sitting side by side, complimenting each other rather than displacing each other. These conflicted feelings can appear through every aspect of our life, where emotion is not simple: where emotion is never 100% true; where emotion can be confusing.

I am in that place right now. There is a two inch incision from the middle of my forehead to the side of my nose. It is the result of my most recent cancer experience. The surgeon is 99% confident he got all of the cancer, for which I am grateful. But at the exact same moment, I am coping with the reality of a scar that jumps out at me every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It is probably much worse in my mind than in reality, but I swear it jumps the f*** out at me. When I was communicating recently with a friend about it, she told me, “that scar is your story.” So here I sit, grateful beyond measure, distressed by a scar, and carrying a deep desire to own my own story.

Why is this worthy of writing a blog post? Because when we embrace the complex, complicated, messy experience of being a human being, we don’t have to pathologize our experience. We can live in a place of acceptance. Acceptance is not neat or clean, but it is certainly more peaceful. So, I’m going to encourage you, my dear readers, to lean into the complexity of being you, of being a human being. Because no matter how hard you work at it, a human being is what you will always be.