I have three scars: one on my right shoulder, and two on my stomach under my belly button. Most days, I actually forget about them and the experiences they have immortalized upon me. But some days, while I’m examining the efficiency of my bow arm in the mirror, I see the thick purplish pink line on the back of my shoulder, and I remember. Some days, when I’m putting on my gym shorts, I look down and I see the thin little lines, and I remember. Life was so hard at one point, and life is so ridiculously easy now in comparison. Would I know my life is easy now if I didn’t have that comparison to make? Would I understand how many reasons I have to be thankful and joyful and at peace, if I didn’t have that comparison to make? One day last week I woke up and I thought to myself that I must be the luckiest woman in the entire world. I felt so happy. I didn’t even have a particular reason! I just woke up feeling super, super satisfied with my life. For those who know me well, that is not usually my first reaction to the morning. (Haha) I was contemplating on why I felt so happy, so satisfied, so content with my life. Then, as I was running at the gym, it struck me. This is one of the happiest periods of my life, because after going through the thick of it, I’m finally NOT going through the thick of it anymore. I don’t wake up with pain, and I used to wake up with pain everyday. I don’t wake up with uncontrollable anxiety, and I used to wake up with uncontrollable anxiety. For the first time in many years, both my body and my mind feel healthy. This is something I used to take for granted: physical and mental health. I never will again. Do I feel perfectly happy everyday? No. Am I immune from colds or the flu? No. But do I understand that I have it pretty dang good and I’m pretty dang privileged and lucky and blessed? Yes, 110% yes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how pain has helped me to understand joy, because I’ve been feeling a lot of joy lately, and I think my joy is richer than it ever was before. Last week in chamber class, it finally all clicked in my head. The concepts of “tension” and “release” are discussed so much in chamber class, and at conservatory in general, that it often becomes humorous to many of us. However,  when for the millionth time someone said that if you don’t build up enough tension the release is not as satisfying or as powerful, I finally realized why pain and struggle help us understand and feel joy in a deeper and more profound way. Just as tension does not only teach us about tension, pain does not only teach us about pain. Tension teaches us what release is, and pain teaches us what joy is. We understand and appreciate the best of life, after having experienced the worst of it. There is “opposition in all things”, and without that opposition, life’s climaxes would not be fully enjoyed and understood. We need the hero’s journey to understand true joy and happiness. 

Will I be this happy for the entire year? For the next five years? Only for this semester? There is no way to truly tell. But what I’ve finally decided is that just as you can enjoy a beautiful and triumphant cadence without worrying about whether it is the end of the piece or the beginning of the most dissonant section, you can enjoy the happy seasons of life without worrying if they will end soon. I’ve also learned, most important of all, that struggle is not something to be ashamed of or afraid of. It is simply a part of life. We all end up with scars, in one way or another. But what matters is how we live on after the healing, and what we learn from the journey along the way.

I think the human relationship with joy can be explained very well using T.S. Eliot’s words:

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Each time we return to joy, it is a new place; just as each refrain of the primary theme in a symphony or a sonata or a quartet is played differently depending on what occurred in the development. Each occurrence of joy is just as beautiful as every soaring and soul-filled melody.

(Scars described are from previous battles with skin cancer and endometriosis, which thanks to modern medicine, good health insurance, and extremely wonderful and generous parents, I have been able to put behind me)