TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN . . .

. . . is it possible they can work together?

I’m sure you’ve noticed, but the words that earn a post-it flag in a book I’m reading are rarely an entire scene or even a full paragraph. They’re usually a sentence or two—sometimes it’s the context that makes me stop and ponder and sometimes it’s simply the sentence itself.

In Lyla Sage’s newest (just came out the end of September), it was both. Contextually, the main character, Collins, thinks this thought early in the book. She has returned to her hometown (emotionally) searching for “something.” Something she can’t quite identify.

Searching for something “just out of reach” could be its own post, but today, I want to chat about the other thing this sentence made me think about—the balance of longing and sadness. How one pulls us toward what we hope for and the other anchors us in what’s been lost or broken.

And how that feels like where we are as a country right now.

There seems to be so much longing—for decency, for fairness, for safety, for leaders we can trust. And so much sadness—for how divided we’ve become, how loud and cruel the noise can be, how exhausted everyone seems.

It’s easy to think one emotion cancels the other out—that hope requires us to move on from grief, or that sadness erases momentum.

But maybe they coexist for a reason . . .

When we rush past our sadness, we lose sight of what it’s trying to tell us: that something matters enough to care about it or to mourn it.

The temptation is to tune out—to stop caring because caring feels too heavy. But healing, both personal and collective, begins in the quiet work of paying attention to where it hurts.

So maybe the next time the headlines make us feel hopeless, or we catch ourselves rolling our eyes instead of engaging, we pause. We take a breath. We remember that sadness and longing share the same root: love.

Love for a world that could be gentler. Love for people who deserve more kindness than they’ve been shown. Love for what we believe is still possible.

Healing rarely happens in sweeping gestures. It happens when we soften toward one another. When we stop shouting long enough to listen. When we hold both longing and sadness at the same time and realize they’re both trying to guide us.

Because the truth is, we don’t have to choose between hope and heartbreak.
They can exist side by side. They can, as Collins thinks, be two sides of the same coin.

 

As always, here’s a few journal prompts for you to noodle on:

• Where in my life am I longing for something better—personally or collectively—and what small action could I take to honor that longing?

• If longing keeps us moving and sadness keeps us still, how can I honor both taking action and knowing when to pause?

• How can both longing and sadness teach me about what matters most to me?

And, if you’ve run out of scraps of paper to write down your thoughts on, might I suggest one of the journals from my shop? Maybe THIS ONE?