You know when you’re at the deli and the deli assistant weighs the plastic container and then deducts it from the weight of the olives?

I think life is a bit like that.

We see and quantify the substance of a person as we find them today, but what of the weight of past sorrows?

Sadness stacks up over a lifetime. Death, sickness, divorce, redundancy, lost loves and lost friends.

What does that weigh? And can that burden be reduced or removed?

I think the answer lies in strengthening ourselves, rather than the futile pursuit of trying to escape sorrow. We can’t change or avoid the sorrows we’ve been given but we can learn to bear the load and build muscle.

Unobserved, some sorrows might fall away, or dry out and turn to dust. Some might lose their meaning, like beloved childhood toys or out of circulation coins.

By focusing on what makes us strong, we might miss the moment that our sorrows slide into the ocean to feed the waiting birds.

And then those birds take flight and the weight is gone; transformed.