One’s Toolbox Should Always Have Resilience Inside

Learning how to breathe

La Chrysanthème
3 min readMay 26, 2022
Photo by Miikka Airikkala on Unsplash

The keyboard makes a screeching sound. It seems to be imitating the black petals of a stealthy rose. Classically beautiful but god, a rude reminder that I haven’t written all day. To a writer that already is a lot.

I’ve been writing medical emails. Belgium welcomed me warmly but my health is not at its best. Not to make a statement bigger than it looks but… yes it is. A quite big iceberg in a hot summer. Freezing my joy away.

What are your lives looking like on a Thursday? I will jump on the ship of assumptions and assume 2/3 of the planet is looking for a job. A job with decency. Almost everyone I come across has quit a job with a horrible boss or is looking for something. Let’s be honest, many of us are in the 7th month of looking. Covid should have been gentler. But, then… people. Changes. Disorder.

I do not feel as If I am dragging you with me when I say, things are strange right now. A veil of robbing possibilities and opportunities. Hope feels smaller. Does that sound familiar or comfortable to hear? I could lie and say the world is amazing and I just ate my chrysanthemums for lunch. But, to be honest, fruit flies got to them before me this week. More details on the friends’ newsletter.

Spoiler alert, my chrysanthemums died. But, I absolutely am not going down that road.

To survive on, to withstand the hard hard slap of this ever-changing actuality means one must have resilience.

Thankfully I am not a book, I write my posts all in my pride and aloneness so I don’t have to expertly describe what resilience is.

You must have discovered the word around the same time as me. Last year, specifically in December. New happenings were gathering and you still hadn’t healed from the time slap. The time slap is your normal speed compared to how everything else seems to be running. Coping mechanisms scrambled like the milk carton that rips the supermarket plastic bag apart on the way home.

But, really. Did you google how to heal? I googled it a bunch of times.

How to heal books
How to heal blog posts
How to heal personal story
HOW

The most important post I read, other than how to make the freshest lemonade for summer, was a human being needs to have resilience. That is how you weather.

The word clicked pieces into place for me. It was the answer to a question. To be resilient, to hold strong during the storm. Things come up many times in the future. Sickness, job loss, self-esteem, mix with the wrong crowd. And all those things will be the harsh wind against a storm. And you are on your ship. Be resilient against the wind. Close your eyes but withstand it as it passes through your life.

I learned a lot about not giving up when I started practicing a different mindset. Things will never be perfect. I am trying to give up on the image of things going back the way they were before Covid. I am trying very hard to inspire people and approach people.

To approach others and be open. We are looking for the same hope, the same open smile. The most important thing I am practicing is giving a helping hand. To those that have less than me, to the simple stranger whose bag just fell and he was one second too slow to pick it up. I will help. And I will help myself the same way.

In the storm, I’ll ride it out. I will cry but my body and heart will get accustomed to the new skin. I will adapt. I will not give up. Nor will I think about giving up. All the beauty my heart has in its sensitivity is slowly being used in different ways. I am being honest and captivating new thoughts.

I tell myself things are difficult, I am not blind. I tell myself the only way to go is forward. I am not blind.

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La Chrysanthème

Mon dieu. She is a sensitive writer that listens to classical music and sends angry letters.