June is here and once again I feel perched on the edge of something. School will be out in a few weeks for both my son and my teacher husband. When I think of the long sunny days before us I see possibility and the wonder of how we might enjoy those days. I think about hikes and drives and catching the moments when we can do absolutely nothing. I hope this time might be as bountiful as the thick foliage of the trees in our neighborhood, as colorful as the coneflower that will soon bloom in our yard, as surprising as the sight of hummingbirds that appear occasionally to feed on the petunias in the planters on my deck.

But this is a cautious, sometimes fragile, hope. I recall another June, seven years ago, when I’d bought my son his first pair of hiking boots and planned on exploring all the child-friendly hikes I could find in our state. Then suddenly, within a few days of each other, both a beloved friend and one of my sisters died. I’ve written about this event in my books Love’s Long Line and This Child of Faith so I won’t go into details of the past. I’m writing today in terms of how that past affects my life now.

Sometimes when I recognize that I’m anticipating summer and feeling hopeful and happy I sense a hesitation in my being, like I’m watching my back or waiting for some devastating other shoe to drop. Suddenly I don’t trust the goodness I’m feeling. More than once I’ve had tragedy follow a strong feeling of positivity. The morning of 9/11, before walking to work, I’d sat on a stoop and marveled over the brilliance of the blue sky and a gentle moon above my head. I remember specifically feeling that I felt safe and life was good. Years later, the day before the Sandy Hook shootings, I even wrote that phrase “life is good” in my social media as I sat in our church’s library listening to my son and the children’s choir rehearse Christmas carols.

I’m continually having to release this suspicion and re-learn trust. Actually, I’m not sure if this trust is something one can learn or if I just have to do it, like jumping from a diving board. I do know I need it. Otherwise I would always be on edge, unable to move forward, unable to plan, unable to hope. If I’ve learned anything it’s that life moves forward regardless. It’s up to me to figure out how I will handle it and walk in God’s love as it does. I explored some of this in my recent column for Ruminate, “The Shape of Grief,” which you can read at this link. I wrote about the loss of my dear friend, the noted audiobook narrator Katherine Kellgren, and how I’m trying to understand this back and forth between grief and enjoying everyday life, seeking a balance of being able to endure the slings and arrows of this outrageous world while still believing in life and love.

Acknowledging I have these feelings is important, though. I can sense that. These thoughts led me to read The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The two spiritual leaders, close and loving friends, affirmed my feelings are indeed among the obstacles to joy. But I don’t have to let them spoil my experience of life.

“Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves,” said the Dalai Lama in the book. “Often it comes from the negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us.”

How does one do that, appreciate and utilize? They offer up many practices to work with and at the heart of them all is this particular thought, which hits home for me: “What the Dalai Lama and I are offering,” said Archbishop Tutu, “is a way of handling your worries: Thinking about others.”

My way of doing this is writing. I know I’m not the only one who might feel a tug in the stomach when a crystal blue sky recalls the morning of 9/11, or when noticing the ordinary hubbub at the start of day was the same as that of 12/14. So I share this with others, with you. I open the door—and my heart—to whatever might come next. And then I move on, with hope. As Archbishop Tutu says, “To choose hope is to step firmly into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.”