I know that once despair fades, progress can begin. Despair is what I feel though, heavy and dark. Despair is the dividing line between those who can take impossibility in stride and those who wilt with its weight. I'm strong, I know, but even the strong can stumble and fall, even strength can be worn down. A sympathetic friend said to me this morning, You've been around the bend this past year, this is the last thing you needed. That's it right there, my erosion and, the last thing I needed, my fall.
In the past few days I've come to understand that despair absorbs strength, strength gives way to weakness and the weakness robs us of our will to overcome.
I know I need courage to find that will again. I know I need to be brave. I know the despair needs to fade so that progress can begin. I am doing what I can.
5 comments:
Alison, it isn't about courage and bravery, and you don't have to overcome anything. You just have to hold on until things get better. And they will, eventually.
This may not be the classiest analogy, but I'm reminded of something that happened when I worked for your father's company. Being located in a semi-rural area, we had a septic tank instead of a city sewer system. The tank was located just a few feet away from the back door of the building. Sometimes, when the wind blew just right, the smell was awful. In fact, the odor never went away long enough for us to completely forget what lay beneath that grating.
One year, some green leaves began peeking out of that stinking septic tank. On closer inspection, we discovered it was a tomato plant. It grew into a beautiful, healthy tomato plant, and before long there were plump tomatoes growing on it. We celebrated that tomato plant. We admired its spirit. Somebody even wrote about it in "Groth Quotes," in an article entitled "One Grew Over the PooPoo Nest."
That plant had its origin in one tenacious little seed, probably part of a sliced tomato on someone's lunchtime sandwich. The seed held on all the way through the digestive system of the person who swallowed it, then made its way through the pipes of the building, and landed at last in a steaming mound of crap and chemicals in the septic tank.
The little seed didn't have to fight, didn't have to be courageous or brave. It just had to hang on and BE until the conditions were right for it to grow. And grow it did.
Now, you may have landed in a pile of crap, too, and you may not have much tenacity left, but I'm betting that somewhere inside you is at least a tomato seed's worth of will to hold on.
So hold on, Alison. You can grow later, when you're ready.
you need bubbles, alison. bubbles and hot chocolate.
Alison, what needs to happen is whatever you need to have happen and at the speed you need it to happen, too. It'll take as long as it takes and follow whatever path it needs to follow. Don't worry about how "well" you're doing, or not, just keep doing and everything will work out the way it needs to work out.
And, of course, none of that is any help or comfort right now, but, that, too, is just as it should be. You'll get to that other place where this all hurts less whenever you're meant to get there.
Hang in there.
Let yourself feel...it's ok. You've put your feelings on hold for the past two years. We are all behind you and there to hold you up. Hang in there.
Alison, you are not only doing what you can - in my opinion, you are doing it wonderfully. I am in awe of the fact that you can give words to your feelings, and that you share what you are feeling.
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