Some thoughts from a dreary Tuesday afternoon:

Every thing contains and creates its opposite. Our pain enhances our capacity to feel future joys; the extent of our mis-steps defines our potential for later success. Duality is necessary for life; without it, there can be no change, no progress in either direction, no movement.

In good times, knowing this is bittersweet. It encourages me to enjoy every moment, because I know it is in the nature of everything to eventually end. I know that sadness and hardship will return. But it is comforting to know in times of anguish and darkness that the sun will shine again, that I will rise from the ashes of what once was, and that I will be stronger and able to experience even deeper joys than before. Happiness will find me again when I am not looking for it, will sneak up on me when I least expect it. First, in small fleeting moments of peace and clarity, and then more frequently, until the moments of gladness outnumber the moments of sadness.

My husband and I are getting divorced. It seems impossible that we were married barely a year ago, and that the end of the relationship has followed so soon after its beginning. But so it is. This, too, shall pass away. Nothing lasts forever, not even grief, small comfort that that is.