The world is still recovering. COVID 19 changed us forever, and while things in Northwest Indiana seem to be “getting back to normal,” we’re still participating in Celebrations of Life from those who passed away. We’re just now celebrating weddings and graduations that were put on hold because it was unsafe to gather for those Rites of Passage.
So much of being an event planner is logistics; but wow, so much of it has emotional components as well. We plan in order to make things go smoothly for the hosts, guests, friends and family who show up to commemorate the somethings. They do this by grieving or dancing, crying or laughing, flipping through photo albums or watching a slideshow, fasting or eating. We decorate, plan menus, create a playlist of music. There are so many ways we do these things, even when the world is normal.
The world is still not normal. And even though my colleagues are busy in 2022 and will tell you, “Events are back,” there is still this new emotional component of dealing with “the after.” People died. Memories were stolen. The people that didn’t die healed, and that experience carries its own set of memories and emotions. It’s a lot.
I’ve read before but heard again recently about this Japanese artform called Kintsugi. The idea is to take broken pottery and repair it using gold so that the cracks actually become part of the artform. The brokenness becomes part of the overall artistic expression and manifests itself as a part of the beauty of the piece. The finished product wouldn’t be the same if it had never been broken.
Whoa.
And so here we are, event planner in 2022 with the privilege of coming alongside our clients, with permission to celebrate again. We do this against a backdrop of brokenness; and can take our gatherings from here on out and do a number of things. We can ignore all that has happened to humans since 2020… we can blame each other for how we’ve handled it all… we can wish it had never happened to begin with.
Regardless, we have another choice to add to the mix: embrace the brokenness and make it beautiful. Yep, I think we’ll choose that one. The vendor team at Orchestrated Events will choose that one. My home and my marriage, we’ll choose that one. I… I will choose.
That one.