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Resilience vs. Fortitude

"When I was a child, I spoke like child and thought like a child and reasoned like a child. But when I grew up...." 1 Corinthians 13:11

When I grew up...I was able to understand some of the things in my life in a different way. Being born to two people battling addiction, experiencing the death of a parent, the death of many family members and loved ones, eventually the death of a partner and many other trials in my life; I was always searching for answers.

I was told once that great writers write what they know - I write this, because it is my story.

When I would do "free writes" for class, or speak about my experiences, I felt I left my teachers and classmates stunned. Many times after returning from a funeral they would tell me "DJ I just don't know how you do it..." or "you're so strong...if it was me, I don't know what I'd do." People would always ask me "how did you get through it?" to which I would answer..."I just don't. know." When I was a child.

Now...as I've grown up...I KNOW. I was able to endure loss, disappointments, go to countless funerals and still show up to class walking straight and semi-smiling because I was not going through these things alone! A higher power (to me, GOD) was there with me, guiding me, holding me and protecting me through it all. People use to referred to me as being resilient. I used that word as if it was my middle name. During that ice-breaker game that asks you to define yourself using one word...my word was Resilient! To be resilient or show resilience means someone/something having the ability to return back to its natural state after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc. For so long I felt as if I was resilient, I could go back to how I was before....BUT NOW, I am able to see, there is no way we go through being pulled in different directions, stretched so thin, pressed down or bent side to side as humans and come back from it all somehow unchanged! I have been changed! The way I walk through life is because of my past and the experiences I've endured. My spirit of Fortitude has allowed me to adopt a strength of mind to begin facing obstacles in life, bear pain or adversity with as much courage as possible taking away lessons from each.

We all go through our life day to day, but not everyday is filled with sunshine and rainbows. On those cloudy days, do we sit and sulk in it? Or do we go through the season of darkness with courage, come out on the other side CHANGED ready to take on whatever else comes our way? The answer is up to us. Let us not sit and sulk in it, adopting the mindset that bad things always happen to us so we expect it...NO, lets recognize it as a season, sure to pass, and learn from it, to become better individuals & examples to others!

with love,

-D