When I was a kid, my dad told me a story. Well, truth be told he told me LOTS of stories. Thomas Oldham inherited the story telling gene. There was one particular, story, however, that has stuck with me over time, popping back into my head when the going gets the toughest.
My father graduated high school in the mid-1960s. Coming from a low income, somewhat dysfunctional family, he decided to go into the army to both escape his home life and find a stepping-stone to a better life. This was just prior to the Vietnam "conflict" and I remember he told me they were two weeks away from the end of boot camp when they got the official word that troops were being sent. But that's a story for another time...
Boot camp is a tough experience. You don't even have to go through it to know that. It's grueling. Back then it was even more grueling than it is now. Dad's story said the days were filled with marches - I swear Dad told me they marched 20 miles some days, but that may be my faulty recollection (or his exaggeration). So in an effort to be fair, let's say he marched 5-mile hikes with full packs. One night, they got to go to sleep, then were awoken and rousted out of bed. They were marched out to the obstacle course, which they had to go through (crawling under wire, through the mud, live fire overhead) in the dark. Dad said it was so hard, being so tired, but that he kept thinking he had to find the energy somewhere, because at the end of it he would still have to march back. He told me he wasn't sure if he could do it. He was afraid he couldn't, but was prepared to try, because he had to do it. He said he honestly didn't know if he could. Just as he was trying to gear up to do it, a truck showed up and drove them all back.
I always think of this story when I am feeling like I am out there at the end of my rope. When I am struggling to hold on to things. By nature, I am tenacious. Sometimes I am too tenacious. But that doesn't mean it's easy to hold on when you just feel like quitting. When you can't imagine that you can do something, it's not easy to give up either. You get caught in that place. How good would it feel to keep going and prove to yourself (and others) that you could do it against the odds? But if you do push, how bad would it feel to fail anyway - to find yourself on the ground in the mud - or to hurt yourself by trying too hard and then be unable to continue anyway in the long term?
That conflict has come home to me since I got the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia. It's about learning limitations and how to push past the without going too far. If I push too hard, I feel it for days. When I have flare-ups, they last for a few days rather than just having one bad day. Emotionally, I have had a lot of "obstacle course moments" -- lately, especially. I just keep going, because I have to. I don't see another option.
Every time in my life that I felt like I was at the end, I've found out one simple truth. There really is no other option than to keep going. You can sit down and let life defeat you, but you have to get back up eventually. At least I do. And I guess that says more about me than anything else. No matter how heavy my "pack" seems to get, I have to make that march back, even if it takes me a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment