I recently had dinner with a girlfriend whom I hadn’t seen in a while. As we sat down to catch up, one of the first things she said was, “Your life looks so amazing!”

I was actually a little surprised. Amazing? Really? For a moment, I wondered whose life she had been looking at? Then I thought about everything I had posted recently. There were pictures from Costa Rica with my dad, birthday celebrations with girlfriends, beautiful places, and wonderful adventures. From the outside looking in, she was absolutely right. My life looked pretty darn amazing.

The funny thing is that while everything she saw was real, it was only part of the story. Because the truth is, this has been one of the most difficult seasons of my life.

The Life Behind the Pictures

On my 60th birthday, I returned home from an extraordinary trip celebrating a milestone I had dreamed about for years. Instead of continuing the celebration, I came home to bury one of my beloved aunts. Two days later, I learned that another aunt, whom I adored, had terminal cancer. Just like that, the joy of a milestone birthday collided with the heartbreak of loss.

The summer that followed was spent watching someone I loved slowly slip away. There were beautiful moments, difficult conversations, and precious time together. However, there was also the unbearable reality of knowing that every visit, every hug, and every goodbye might be the last.

At the same time, one of my oldest and dearest friends was struggling with an illness he had battled for almost six years. Watching someone you love suffer is a special kind of heartbreak. There is nothing you can fix, nothing you can say, and no amount of love that can make the pain disappear.

Ultimately, saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest and most beautiful things I have ever been privileged to do. So much love. So much loss. So many goodbyes in such a short time.

Some days, I honestly don’t know where one grief ends and another begins. It all feels muddled together, like a giant emotional pile of laundry that I haven’t quite figured out how to sort. And yet, there I am on Instagram, smiling in Costa Rica.

 

Two Things Can Be True

Here is what my girlfriend’s observation reminded me. We are all walking around carrying stories that nobody else can see.

Social media gives us beautiful little windows into people’s lives. We see the vacations, celebrations, accomplishments, and smiling faces. What we rarely see are the sleepless nights, the hospital rooms, the tears, or the moments when someone is simply trying to hold it together.

Of course, I am just as guilty as anyone. I don’t necessarily want to post a picture of myself crying in the car after leaving someone I love. Who wants to see that? But perhaps the bigger question is why we assume that the happiness we see is the whole story.

 

My trip to Costa Rica with my dad was extraordinary. Every laugh, adventure, and memory was real. In fact, after so much loss, that time together felt even more precious. The joy wasn’t pretending. Neither was the grief. Both were true.

I am learning that we can be deeply grateful and profoundly sad at exactly the same time. We can laugh until our stomachs hurt and cry ourselves to sleep that same night. Life doesn’t ask us to choose one emotion at a time.

Maybe that is one of the gifts of getting older. We begin to understand that life isn’t either wonderful or difficult. Most of the time, it is both.

The Gap Between What We Show and What We Feel

As I have gotten older, I care less about what the outside world thinks. Don’t get me wrong, I still care. I’m human, after all. However, I am beginning to care much more about whether my interior life and exterior life are aligned.

Am I living the life I want to live, or simply showing the world a life that looks good? There is a big difference.

 

My girlfriend’s innocent comment made me realize that perhaps I had created a picture that didn’t tell the whole story. Not because I was trying to deceive anyone, but because I was choosing to focus on the beautiful moments. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Still, I wonder how we bridge the gap between the life we show and the life we actually live. How do we honor our pain without allowing it to define us? More importantly, how do we take the difficult seasons and turn them into something meaningful?

Taking Out the Trash

For years, I have talked to audiences about taking out their trash. Not the kitchen trash, although that needs to happen too! I’m talking about the emotional garbage we all carry. The heartbreak, disappointment, grief, fear, and experiences we would never have chosen.

Through decades of interviewing nonprofit founders and extraordinary human beings, I have witnessed something remarkable. Again and again, the people who have experienced tremendous pain are often the very people bringing the greatest joy and healing to others. Their brokenness becomes their beauty.

They take the worst thing that ever happened to them and somehow transform it into something good. A tragedy becomes a mission. A loss becomes a legacy. Their suffering becomes a source of hope for someone else. These remarkable people have taught me that our pain can become our fuel rather than simply our burden.

That doesn’t mean the suffering disappears. Nor does it mean we should be grateful for the terrible things that happen to us. I certainly wouldn’t choose this season again. However, we do get to choose what happens next.

We can allow our pain to harden us, or we can use it to soften our hearts toward others. We can close ourselves off, or we can reach out. Sometimes the smallest act of kindness becomes the first step toward healing. After all, the helping is healing.

Making the Beautiful Life Real

As I reflect on this difficult season, I realize that perhaps my emotional trash can is simply being refilled. As much as I wish it weren’t, there is more pain to recycle, more love to share, and more good to create. I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet. Grief doesn’t arrive with an instruction manual or a convenient timeline.

What I do know is that every goodbye has reminded me how precious our time together really is. Every loss has made me more determined to love deeply, show up fully, and use whatever time I have to make a difference.

Perhaps that is why those pictures from Costa Rica matter so much. They aren’t evidence of a perfect life. They are evidence of a life I am choosing to live fully, even when my heart is hurting. And maybe that is the lesson of this difficult season. We don’t need perfect lives to have beautiful ones.

We simply need to recognize the beauty that exists alongside the pain. To be grateful for the moments of joy, even when sorrow is sitting right beside us. Most importantly, we need to remember that the difficult chapters are not the end of our stories. They may just be the beginning of something meaningful.

So, if my life looks amazing from the outside, I hope one day it feels just as beautiful on the inside. Not because the pain has disappeared, but because I have found a way to use it for good. After all, isn’t that what changing for good is really all about?

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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