“You are lost, hope is gone. But you must go on and do the next right thing.” – Anna from Frozen 2, from the song “The Next Right Thing”
Sometimes we can do everything right, and things fall apart anyway. We try so hard to be the best at what we’re doing. The best mother. The best daughter. The best wife. The best sister. The best friend. But there are misunderstandings. Hurt feelings. Unintended consequences. Utter sadness.
Last month I wrote about the best feeling in the world—being loved. This month I write about the worst feeling in the world—betrayal. I don’t mean being lied to or having your trust broken by someone you care about. Those are terrible feelings, too, of course. But I think if you can go back and recognize that you did something wrong that brought about whatever calamity you are experiencing, in a way, there is solace in that. Because if you can look back and see what you did wrong, then you can fix it. You can do better. You can make the right choice next time.
What’s worse is to look back and not know how this thing happened. How did I get here? What did I do wrong? How could this have happened to me? You remember all the things you said, all the things you did, and you just can’t figure out what you could have done differently. It’s not a person who has betrayed you. It is fate, the universe. And it is heartbreaking.
But once your emotions are spent and you’ve dried your tears, you have to move on. It’s the only thing you can do. I haven’t watched the movie Frozen 2 since it came out, but I thought of the song I quoted above recently. I couldn’t even remember the words, but I remembered the emotions I felt hearing it for the first time. It’s the song that Anna sings when she learns her sister Elsa has died, and the intensity, the weight of the grief she feels is captured so well. Later in the song, Anna sings “I won’t look too far ahead. It’s too much for me to take. But break it down to this next breath, this next step, this next choice is one that I can make.”
We will all experience crushing loss and devastating grief at some point in our life. It is unavoidable. We may think we are as perfect as humanly possible, that we are truly living right, but bad things will still happen to us. Because we are not perfect. Those around us are not perfect. The world is not perfect. Even love is not perfect. At least not the love that we as human beings are capable of expressing.
All we can do is keep trying. We need to gather ourselves up, take the next step, as small as it may be, and do the next right thing. We have to beg forgiveness, and we have to forgive, even when it isn’t asked of us. We have to take the next breath and move forward, even if we don’t know what’s ahead. And we have to remember that our hearts were made to withstand grief so that we can arrive at the joy on the other side.
- Kathryn Amurra