The Promise of Someday
Someday.
It's such a hopeful word.
It carries the promise of better circumstances, brighter mornings, and a life beyond whatever difficulties we are presently enduring.
Someday, things will be different.
Someday, I'll have enough money.
Someday, my health will improve.
Someday, I'll take that vacation.
Someday, I'll finally begin to live the life I deserve.
For much of my life, I believed in that promise.
I didn't realize how much of my life I was surrendering to it.
Today, I found myself reflecting on the years I spent struggling with a chronic skin condition.
Eczema.
To someone who has never experienced it, the word might sound relatively harmless. A little dry skin. Some itching. An occasional rash.
But for many years it was anything but harmless.
There was the physical discomfort, the relentless itching and scratching, the inflammation, the breakouts across my entire body and face.
And then there was everything people couldn't see.
The embarrassment.
The self-consciousness.
The reluctance to be seen.
For years, it grew progressively worse, and there were times when I wore long sleeves, no matter how hot it was, because I was so concerned about how other people might perceive me.
It is a very particular kind of pain to look in a mirror and not see yourself, but only your flaws.
Financial insecurity only compounded those feelings.
There were years when it was so bad that it was hard to hold on to a job because I called off too much. I ended up taking jobs as a temp.
I wanted a better job. I wanted to earn money to provide for my family. I wanted to travel, experience new places, and enjoy things that seemed so ordinary for other people.
But I kept postponing them.
When my skin gets better, I'll find a better job.
When I make more money, I'll start enjoying myself.
When I'm finally comfortable in my own body, I'll go out and experience the world.
I was always waiting for something.
And somewhere along the way, waiting became a way of life.
Over the years, I missed birthdays, weddings, and even funerals.
Some of those absences were unavoidable. My condition genuinely limited what I could do. But there were other times when the fear of being seen kept me from experiences I might otherwise have enjoyed.
I wasn't simply hoping for a better tomorrow.
I was withholding myself from today.
What I didn't fully recognize at the time was that I wasn't suffering alone. My family endured the years of hardship, mood swings, and depression too.
I was with my wife for twenty-five years. We got divorced last year.
Over the years, when I would talk to her about my condition, she would always tell me, “I don't see your illness. I just see you.”
She always saw my worth, even when I could not.
I wonder how many moments I missed because I couldn't see myself the way the people who loved me saw me.
How many invitations I declined.
How many experiences I postponed.
How many ordinary, beautiful moments passed while I was preoccupied with everything I believed was wrong with my life.
The suffering was real.
But so was the love.
So was the laughter.
So were the people who wanted my company.
So were the mornings I woke up, the conversations I had, the opportunities to show kindness, and the countless small experiences that make up a human life.
I had allowed one part of my existence to overshadow nearly everything else.
And today, something occurred to me.
Even in suffering, there is life.
I don't believe we have to celebrate suffering.
I don't believe pain is inherently noble, or that every hardship arrives carrying some hidden lesson.
Sometimes pain is simply pain.
Sometimes suffering is senseless.
Sometimes the things we endure leave wounds that never completely heal.
And there is nothing wrong with wanting relief.
But suffering is not an interruption of life.
It is part of life.
We enter this world vulnerable. We experience disappointment, illness, rejection, grief, uncertainty, and loss.
We love people we cannot keep forever.
We build things that may not last.
We make plans that circumstances overturn.
No amount of preparation, wealth, wisdom, or faith can guarantee a life untouched by suffering.
And yet, we so often behave as though living must be postponed until suffering has passed.
As though joy and pain cannot occupy the same room.
As though gratitude is somehow dishonest when something hurts.
But life has never been that simple.
A person can grieve and still laugh.
A person can be afraid and still experience wonder.
A person can struggle financially and still know generosity.
A person can live with illness and still experience love.
Joy does not invalidate suffering.
And suffering does not invalidate joy.
They coexist because both belong to the human experience.
I have experienced bitterness in my life.
There have been times when I looked at my circumstances and wondered why life had unfolded the way it did.
But I have never wanted bitterness to become my permanent residence.
One of the ways I've resisted it has been to look beyond myself, acknowledging that there are many in this world who are far worse off than me.
Not because someone else's suffering makes mine insignificant.
Pain is not a competition.
And recognizing another person's hardship doesn't magically erase our own.
But looking beyond ourselves reminds us that our experience, however consuming it may feel, is not the entirety of existence.
There are other lives.
Other struggles.
Other stories.
There is still kindness in the world.
Still beauty.
Still generosity.
Still something worth appreciating.
Sometimes the balance we seek begins with allowing ourselves to notice what remains good.
Not pretending the bad isn't there.
Not forcing gratitude where grief needs to be acknowledged.
But refusing to let what hurts become the only thing we can see.
We cannot control everything that happens to us.
We cannot prevent every disappointment, reverse every loss, or guarantee that tomorrow will be easier than today.
And sometimes suffering genuinely narrows our possibilities. Illness, exhaustion, poverty, and grief can place real limitations on what we are able to do.
But there is a difference between recognizing those limitations and allowing them to convince us that nothing meaningful remains possible.
Within whatever freedom remains, we can try to direct our attention toward more than our suffering.
We can nurture relationships.
We can offer kindness.
We can allow ourselves moments of pleasure without feeling that we must first earn them through the resolution of every problem.
We can make room for living, even when life is difficult.
Perhaps that is where balance begins.
Not in eliminating suffering.
But in refusing to surrender everything else to it.
There is something particularly striking about arriving at this realization now.
My circumstances have changed.
I have experienced things I once thought might remain beyond my reach.
I recently became a homeowner.
I'm beginning to imagine new possibilities.
There are places I want to visit.
Things I want to experience.
Ways I hope to be of service to others.
In many respects, some of the tomorrows I once dreamed about have finally arrived.
And yet, the most important thing I'm discovering is not that I can finally begin living.
It's that I was alive all along.
Even during the years I would rather forget.
Even when I was uncomfortable in my own skin.
Even when money was scarce.
Even when grief visited my doorstep.
Even when the future seemed uncertain.
There was life.
Imperfect.
Uncomfortable.
Sometimes unbearably difficult.
But life nonetheless.
And I cannot help wondering how much more of it I might have experienced if I had understood that sooner.
I don't ask that question to punish myself for what I didn't know.
I ask it because I still have time to live differently.
And perhaps someone reading these words does too.
There is nothing wrong with looking forward to better days.
Hope is a beautiful thing.
It helps us endure.
It gives us something to work toward when our present circumstances are difficult.
But hope becomes something else when we allow it to convince us that today has nothing to offer.
When we begin attaching conditions to our own participation in life.
When we tell ourselves that happiness must wait until we are healthier, wealthier, thinner, more successful, more secure, or somehow more worthy.
When we spend so much time preparing to live that we forget we already are.
Because someday is not a destination.
It is not a guarantee.
And it is certainly not a promise that the difficulties of being human will one day disappear.
Even when the things we have waited for finally arrive, life will still contain uncertainty.
There will still be disappointments.
Still losses.
Still circumstances we cannot control.
If we insist upon a life without suffering before we permit ourselves to live, we may spend our entire existence waiting for something that was never possible.
And that, perhaps, is the cruelest part of the promise.
Not that tomorrow might fail to be better.
But that our faith in tomorrow might blind us to today.
So make your plans.
Pursue better circumstances.
Seek healing.
Work toward financial stability.
Dream of places you have never seen and experiences you have yet to enjoy.
But don't make the mistake I made.
Don't place your entire life on hold while waiting for it to become something else.
Don't allow suffering to persuade you that you have less to offer than you really do.
Love while you can.
Embrace laughter when it comes.
Receive kindness.
Offer it freely.
Notice the beauty that exists alongside the brokenness.
And when suffering comes, as it inevitably will, remember that its presence does not mean life has departed.
Someday may hold wonderful things.
But today is the only day we have been given to live.
And I no longer intend to miss it while waiting for a promise tomorrow never made.
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Silent Sentinel
“The watchman has spoken. Let the sleeper awaken.”
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