It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway: And Other Thoughts on Moving Forward

by Elizabeth Passarella

If the wildness and brokenness of the past few years have taught me anything, it is that whatever you think is solid in this world will shift, and that includes your strongest-held opinions about yourself.

I’ve been reminded, during some of those dark, unsleepable nights in emergency rooms, that I will rest on faith as a last resort if at all possible.

Everyone’s math is different when it comes to how much you are willing to change or cover up to fit in, whether it’s at a job or a garden club.

Every cool club you want to be in is never as great as you think it will be.

I wonder if it was enough for her to remember that this woman raised the man she loved. It’s so obvious, and yet we forget. We can’t have one without the other.

And now that I have children, I, like every parent in moments of chaos and scheduling hell, say the phrase often. In my mind, it’s Vivek’s voice, though, echoing through the house as he ran victory laps. “It takes a village!” Of

The African proverb and Hillary Clinton and 1 Corinthians 12 are all saying the same thing, though—that we need each other, and we aren’t meant to do life or marriage or parenting alone. We’re called to do it with people we don’t have much in common with or even like.

There are so many things I love about being in my forties, but one is that most of us who are allergic to neediness have had to completely get over ourselves. The problems are just too deep and widespread.

When I keep my distance, I am more likely to compare and judge, and bitterness sets in. Communing is the only thing that dissolves it. We have to be in each other’s lives in uncomfortable ways to realize that the shiniest among us don’t have it all together, and the most annoying are still human.