Lent 2026 · Day 19: Life Isn’t About Flawless Filters

Some posts don’t need to be rewritten. They just need to be shared again.

I wrote this last year when I was more or less face-down on the floor trying to pick myself back up. Trying to learn how to love myself again. Trying to figure out who I was and who I was becoming.

My time in the wilderness of KCMO and Kansas made me question just about every life choice I’ve ever made.

There were moments earlier in my life when I struggled with intrusive thoughts, especially when I was younger and trying to understand my sexuality. After one terrible breakup. Then another. The thirteenth one probably should have been my clue that maybe the problem wasn’t just a bad picker.

There were moments when I wondered whether my life still mattered. Whether staying was worth the pain I felt in my head, my heart, my soul, and sometimes my body.

So I understand something about the darkness that lives in people.

I understand the moment when someone decides, "Nope. I’m done. I’m out."

We don’t talk about that enough. Somewhere in some research study, someone decided that talking about suicide might give people ideas. But the truth is simpler than that, the people who are thinking about it have usually been thinking about it for a long time.

No one suddenly hands them the idea like a lightbulb moment.

Sometimes it’s a long quiet erosion.

Sometimes it’s an impulse.

Sometimes it’s a plan.

A permanent solution to what might have been a temporary storm.

So today, let’s talk about Robin Jorden. I think what people want to believe is that if everything is perfect, the perfect job, the perfect spouse, house, and dog, the perfect children, then you’ll be happy.

Maybe.

But no one is happy all the time.

Happiness is fleeting. And without sadness, you can’t truly appreciate happiness. Without tragedy, you can’t fully understand joy.

Life isn’t just a roller coaster.

It’s a freakin’ funhouse, a carnival, and one of those spinning rides that makes you want to puke. That’s what life feels like sometimes. A gosh darn carnival ride.

Mine certainly does.

This one is hard to talk about because I didn’t answer her last call. It was November 2013. Thanksgiving week.

Robin had called to talk about a movie she had just watched, "Blue Is the Warmest Color." It’s a movie about exploring sexuality, falling in love, and experiencing heartbreak... the kind that changes you.

She was trying to heal a broken heart and wanted to talk about it. The movie had made her think about everything she had been struggling with after that breakup.

Robin and I talked a lot when I lived in California. And we kept talking after I moved to Minnesota. She was one of the only friends who braved a Minnesota winter to come visit me. She knew, just from the sound of my voice on the phone, that I wasn’t doing well. That I was homesick. That I needed someone to show up.

And she showed up.

She loved tennis and went to the US Open every year.

She asked me to go with her that year.

I told her I’d see if it worked with my schedule.

It didn’t.

So I didn’t go.

She did. And that was the year she took her life.

I knew she wasn’t doing well. I could hear it in the way she spoke. In the silences between her words. But I was a thousand miles away and I didn’t know what I could do to help.

I listened.

I talked.

I tried my best to be there for her.

And yet…

It still wasn’t enough.

I saved the last message she left me. Sometimes I listen to it just to hear her voice again. I don’t talk about Robin enough.

Maybe because I still feel guilt.

Maybe because I still can’t believe she’s gone.

But I know she’s gone.

Because if she were here, we’d be on the phone right now talking about how completely messed up the world is. Goddess, I’ve had so much loss in my life that sometimes I don’t even know how I get through the day.

But I do.

I always do.

My world has not been the same since she left. It is still a struggle to make sense of the nonsense, but I persist. Sometimes I think I try to live a good life because that’s what she would want.

Maybe I’m just hoping to find some way to fill the void her friendship left behind. But it doesn’t work like that.

The void stays.

The missing stays.

You just learn how to live around it.

I want to believe that her essence, her spirit, her energy, her ancient universal dust, has moved on to the next life. The next dimension. Some corner of the universe where she is finally happy and no longer in pain.

I want to believe that.

But the pragmatist in me sometimes thinks it’s just emptiness. That she is gone and there is nothing where her life used to be except this strange quiet absence.

And still.

We carry on.

We carry the memories of the people we loved.

Their hearts.

Their names.

Their laughter.

I still catch myself looking at my phone, hoping her name will pop up.

I know it won’t.

I know it never will.

And yet the world keeps turning.

Round and round.

There is so much more I could say about Robin, and yet I struggle to say it. My feelings are tangled. My heart is heavy. Sometimes it feels like my grief is a dam holding back an entire river.

I don’t know if it’s a gift or a curse to love people so deeply when you know they will eventually leave.

But I do know this.

Loving her was worth it.

Our friendship was worth it.

And that is what I carry with me.

Lenten Reflection

Lent is a season that asks us to sit with difficult things, loss, grief, uncertainty. But it is also a season that reminds us we are not alone in those moments.

Psalm 34 tells us:

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

That verse doesn’t promise that heartbreak won’t happen. It promises that God is present when it does.

Grief is the weight of love that suddenly has nowhere to go. When someone dies, the love we had for them doesn’t disappear. It lingers. It searches for a place to live.

Sometimes it lives in memory.

Sometimes it lives in the way we care for other people.

Sometimes it lives in the quiet ways we keep someone’s story alive.

Robin is gone.

But love stays.

Her kindness.

Her laughter.

Her friendship.

They remain in every memory I carry forward.

Maybe that’s what faith really is.

Not certainty.

Not perfect answers.

Just the willingness to keep loving, keep remembering, and keep moving forward. Even when it hurts.

Life isn’t about flawless filters, curated perfection, or pretending we’re fine when we’re not.

Life is about loving people while they are here.

And honoring them after they are gone.

I honor Robin by remembering her.

By living a life that still has room for joy.

By carrying her love forward.

She loved mint chocolate chip ice cream.

On her birthday, April 4th, I’ll eat some in her honor.

You should, too.

Love stays.

Always. 💙

Take care of yourselves.

Take care of each other.

#lentreflections2026 #40days40nights #grief #healingjourney