The last couple of months have been tough, as Ed and I are both dealing with illnesses and are sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s taken some doings to stay on track and not get whacked out scared nor awash in self-pity as we navigate the infuriatingly slow medical system to get the care and procedures we need. “I don’t want to be doing this” has been my mantra, and Ed, though generally more patient than I, has ventured there a few times himself.
Last week, walking our trail, I was feeling less than unenthusiastic as to how to keep on keeping on. I relaxed a bit, let my mind wander, and remembered an episode of Lessons in Chemistry, a series about a brilliant young woman in the nineteen fifties who struggled mightily with oppression from the patriarchy. Elizabeth did not want children, but, to her horror, found herself pregnant after her lover died. Overwhelmed with the prospect of unwanted and impossible responsibility, she told her new neighbor, a young Black woman with two children, “I can’t do this.”
Her neighbor smiled a gentle smile. “That’s what we all say when the little ones arrive,” she said. “I can’t do it. No way. I just can’t.” She paused and said, “And then we do. We do it.”
“And then we do it”, struck home. Every time of my life had its immense challenges, and way more than once, I’ve thought, “I can’t do this.” And then, as Elizabeth’s neighbor said, I did it. Every time.
Though embracing that reality didn’t exactly make me chipper, it gave me comfort and renewed determination. We think we can’t do it. And then we do.
Our bi-monthly Salon is coming up, where friends gather at our house and share something creative and personal around a theme. This Salon’s theme, “April Showers Bring May Flowers,” the title of a song I heard on my parents’ radio as a young child, involves telling the group about a time something hard and awful ended up bringing us something positive. We hadn’t been ill when I thought of the theme, but as I wondered how it fits now, I thought of Ed’s and my renewed awarenesses that, as we grow older, time is truly more precious. And that we’re hoping to give more of our attention to things that feed us, that are meaningful, rather than plowing through in the semi-present ways we often do (Think “phone addiction”, for one.) We vowed to make something positive out of this time by holding each other accountable to write, read, listen to music, and sit and talk with each other.
Though the prospect of being more present in the world is attractive, I’m sometimes still worn out these days and doubt I can make any changes. “I can’t do this,” I think. But then I remind myself.
You think you can’t. And then you do. You do.
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