“What punishments of God are not gifts?”
- Stephen Colbert
I am prompted to write this by a TikTok carousel of random facts about Stephen Colbert that I just watched. In this video, I find out that he is deaf in one ear from a tumour he had as a child. I know from past videos that he lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was ten. There is no mention of his age when he got the tumour, except that he was in elementary school. I imagine it was around the same time, give or take a few years. To lose one’s hearing and then three members of your family in mere years. Hm. But I am suddenly transported to an interview of his with Anderson Cooper in 2020. I apologise if you are unfamiliar with these people, which suggests you have almost no knowledge of pop culture, a condition that is unfortunate for several reasons that I do not presently have the liberty to list.
In this interview, they talk about their mothers’ passings and the accompanying grief period. The quote that opens this newsletter is something he says in this interview. I will not quote him verbatim because I think you should watch the video and deconstruct the layers on your own. However, as I am sure you realise, I will now tell you what I think and why it matters.
For the past few years, I have been in a period of uncertainty in my life. I know my plans for the future, but life constantly throws lemons at me, lemons that hit me square in the forehead, indicating that these may not be the things I am meant to do. For now, at least, I gather these lemons. And in this season of gathering, every new lemon feels like a punishment from God. Every decision that doesn’t go my way, everything that I so desperately want but cannot have or do not get, every wish that I lay at the feet of God that goes unanswered feels like another lash of the divine cane. But every so often through this season, I have been brought back to the sentiments Colbert shares in this video.
If you believe that your existence on this earth, in all its unpredictability, is a gift, then you must accept that suffering and life’s “punishments” are a package deal with this gift. Like a drearier version of the purses you buy that come with a smaller purse inside. As I write this, I realise that although this knowledge has helped me worry less about impending doom, it never really eases the pain. The suffering is never easier. The decisions that do not go my way will never stop feeling like slaps in the face. Really, I wish someone would just tell me exactly what will go my way so I can focus on doing them and avoid all this.
Regardless, I have learnt to sit with the pain. To sit with the replaying visual of my grandiose desires falling away before my eyes. I have come to accept that these punishments are sewing an elaborate thread to a greater story. Or maybe they aren’t. Maybe that is narcissistic in its nature, but I think it is much better to know and accept that just like any chain of chemical reactions will inevitably leave byproducts, pain is the byproduct of living. So yes, maybe they are just punishments. Yet, it still feels ridiculous to fear them. Because they will happen. Pain is the punishment and simultaneously the gift of being alive.
So, I continue to dream. Barely 24 hours after one dream dies, another blossoms. The evil timekeeper in my head tells me I am running out of time to be impractical and just to accept that it won’t happen and therefore, not try. But I know. That’s the thing; I know that my new, absolutely ridiculous goal may lead to nothing at all. And because I will have poured a hundred and one percent of my passion and devotion into that dream, it will feel like my heart is being ripped apart. And it will feel like God or the universe is punishing me, but ultimately, I think it will be a gift. Because the more lemons you have, regardless of how they are given to you, the bigger the batch of lemonade you can make. I have no choice, literally none, but to dream another dream, and be helplessly devoted to it, and to hope that this is the dream that God wants me to dream, and to disregard the fear that it might not be, because if it is not, it will be familiar territory. I will have been there before, and I will deal with the pain, and it will be just another lemon for my bountiful lemonade.
Abi make we gather to dey sell lemonade 🥲