Several Fridays ago I was in a local coffee shop, sipping a hot latte and sitting next to my spouse on a fairly comfortable brown faux-leather couch. We were hanging out for a couple hours while waiting for a phone call letting us know our vehicles were ready (where we live, people have to switch from “snow” to “summer” tires). Jeremy had a tiny adorable pot of tea to refill his mug, and doesn’t it just sound like it was the most lovely of mornings? If you would have walked by us, you may have thought just that.

Save for the tears of frustration taking a slow roll down my cheeks.

We were both looking at screens—me at my computer and he at his phone—that showed the same gut-punching information. The screens showed our EveryDollar budget, and the tears showed I had reached my breaking point. We had been poring over our budget at that point for about a month, ever since our tax person found an unfortunate flaw repeated over the past four years. A flaw that added up to right around $30,000 of taxes owed.

So on that particular Friday morning, the tears came.

A week prior to this scene I am describing, Jer and I celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary. We celebrated that day where we made big promises to each other. You all know what I am talking about. We were young and giddy in love. Could we have anticipated the inevitable struggles we would have? Like the time our daughter took what could have been a fatal fall when she was fourteen months old. Or the time when we struggled defining boundaries, and then struggled appropriately communicating about the shame and guilt and uncertainty about what to do next. Or the five times we moved to new states. Or the numerous times when we have had differing views surrounding money. (Guess what is not sexy? Communicating about the family budget.)

Could we have anticipated the struggles? Of course a part of us understands there will be struggles in life. But “life” is a verb, and we have to experience things—amazing and awful things—for ourselves. That seems to be the way it works. Like it or not (I generally do not like this fact.)

Why am I sharing this? I am sharing because (I am pretty sure?) our situation is actually super normal. (I don’t mean the tax situation. I hope that is not normal and not happening to any of you, (but I do wish it felt more “normal” to talk about money in a more detailed way than we generally do. Maybe we can touch on that more in the future)). I mean it is normal to have to consistently deal with tricky situations.

Tricky situations that might include money, health, accidents, loyalty, and everything in between.

This world can be pretty amazing. And it can be, yes, “tricky”. So what can we learn from this situation? To be honest, I think I am still in the middle of learning, and thus cannot say for sure quite yet. I did stop crying, and I got a few extra summer jobs.

Will this be the last time Jeremy and I experience struggles in this partnership of ours? (That feels pretty rhetorical, so I won’t infantilize). Will this be the last time we won’t be sure exactly what to do, or how things might turn out? (Again, I know you know.)

I share this because I feel like we don’t share the struggles enough. We are good at sharing the shiny social media side, which is okay, but I want to encourage you that it is okay to share the not-so-shiny sides as well. We all have struggles. And that is tricky.

And normal.

Remember that. It is normal to experience both exciting situations and sucky (eloquent, I know) ones. There’s that “both-and” paradox again.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, be encouraged that you will be discouraged. And that is okay.