Defeating Defeat

Today, while trying to work out yet another budget, I became overwhelmed by the expenses of everyday student life and had a silent, but deadly meltdown. I had just finished having a stressful conversation, although it was really more of a rant, with my parents about all the money I owed to my school and I listed off my concerns:

1. I had to pay back a few thousand in just a few months in order to enroll next year.

2. If it wasn’t paid in full, I would miss the courses that would allow me to go into the second half of my university career at another campus.

3. I had a trip coming up that I needed to save for.

4. I still had bills to pay in the meantime.

And on and on and on.

As the echo of the conversation became unbearable, I took a break and went surfing through my phone. I came across a photo with four squares, each containing quotes about why worrying is useless. One box said “Everything is only just inside your head. Stop worrying.” I gave myself a few minutes to let those words sink in.

While I sat back on my bed, holding back the kind of tears that come from feeling entirely helpless, I got a text message from my Dad. The text said:

“Remember Steph, I love you and we will work this out. Ok? Love, dad.”

My eyes welled with tears and began to stream down my cheek. I’ve cried thousands of times throughout my lifetime, but this time, the tears felt so different. They weren’t the tears that come from feeling sad. Or the kind that come when you’re angry. They weren’t even the tears that fall from feeling happy.

They were the kind of tears that come from having no hope in one instance, and more hope than you know what to do with in the next.

When I got that text message, I felt relieved. Something about the question mark after the “ok” made me feel like he was almost reminding me that this was no big deal. It was just a part of life that everyone goes through, but a part of life that cannot be faced, dealt with, and overcome without some sort of strength, and much less worry.

Ultimately, life doesn’t “just flow” for everyone. In fact, life doesn’t “just flow” for anyone. It is people that make life go smoothly. It is the decisions that they make, the words that they speak, and whether they take it all in stride.

It was really a case of:

“Whether you think you can or you can’t-you’re right.”

I looked at all the numbers and felt defeated, so my thoughts, actions, and words followed suit, and if there hadn’t been the intervention of that picture, paired with the text message from my Dad and my memory of Henry Ford’s quote, I truly believe I really would have been defeated and consumed by this debt, or rather, the illusion of it.

When I got back to budgeting, I broke it down monthly, then weekly. I did all the calculations I could that allowed me to live comfortably and productively. In the end, I saw that only a few minor cutbacks were needed, I would still get to go on and enjoy my trip, and by the time September came around I would be in great shape.

Henry Ford must have found himself in my exact situation, or at least one like it, when he spoke those words of wisdom and genius. Although I highly doubt that in his time, he was juggling a Rogers bill and a student loan, unless of course they had those in the early 1900s. But the fact that even one hundred years ago, these words rang true, is a testament to the power of your own thought.

That picture with four quotes about the uselessness of worrying, reminding me that “worry is a misuse of imagination” made me feel like maybe I hadn’t been imaginative enough. I should have been using my imagination to construct the scene of victory, rather than a war-torn path to bankruptcy. Instead, I clouded my own thoughts, my own imagination, with pessimism, ew!

If I were optimistic in this instance, I would’ve seen that I had the tools to help me get through this rut:

1. I got a new job that pays twice what my last job did.

2. I recently created the Gail Vaz-Oxlade budget (which I will be blogging about this sometime this week).

3. I was living rent-free.

4. I had a vacation to look forward to.

And on and on and on.

If you ever find yourself feeling defeated, which might be anywhere from a few times daily, or a few times yearly, it is up to you to defeat the feeling of defeat. Find some sort of ritual; listen to a certain song, have a good cry, get lost in an amazing book, or have a very large class of your favorite alcoholic beverage. Do something that allows you to be a stronger person for the time it takes to overcome whatever situation you find yourself in.

More than having a go-to ritual though, we have to set ourselves up for victory; mentally, physically, and emotionally-which means preparing for breakdowns such as the one I had today. The truth is; most people set themselves up for failure too easily. When we hear people tell us that we can’t do it, we believe that we can’t do it. It might not get to us at first, but after we continue to hear it, we start to believe it.

Take that and flip it. If the more we hear something, the more we believe it, then everyday we should be telling ourselves that we are winners. Everyday we should tell ourselves that we can do it. And in the case we, for some reason, cannot find it within ourselves to say the words, we should have people there to tell us what we need to hear to keep us going.

In this case, it was my Dad. It was his short text message, the thirty seconds he took to type it, and the need in my heart to hear it, which in turn allowed me to believe that yes, we will work it out.

Because everything always works out.

Yet still, we worry. Still, we get upset. We get frustrated, and we get angry. But how far can a car make it with the engine light on, the oil light on, the gas light on, and the service light on? Every piece of worry, every piece of frustration, every piece of anger, is like a light on your dashboard that needs to be turned off in order for you to run better, perform smoothly, and most of all, arrive at your destination.

If you’re going to be in the car, you really ought to think about taking the driver’s seat.

Letting Go

Everyone has that one song on their iPod that they listen to and turn all the way up.

You almost wish that everyone in your immediate area could not only hear the song, but experience the feeling that it brings to you.  You wish that at the height of the song, that one part that makes you go crazy in your head, they too, could feel. You wish they knew the hidden beauty of the beat, and the one line that you’ve repeatedly considered getting tattooed on your body. But sadly, it doesn’t happen like that. Sadder, however, is that even if they did hear the song, they might not react the way that you do. Not to that song.

All my life, I’ve been that song. That amazing sound; so worthy of a broken earpiece. And all my life, I’ve wished that people would react to me the way I react to myself.

I got a call last night at 2:00 a.m. from an on-and-off lover of 4 years. The affair began when I was a tender 17. I would stop by his house everyday to see him, because he didn’t get out much. Despite being polar opposites of each other, I thoroughly enjoyed the only quiet area of my life-him.

His life was a mess. I felt that the universe hired me to be his maid, and chase after him with a broom and dustpan for all the things he left scattered about in his life. I was the professional organizer that assisted in filing away everything from his thoughts to important documents. But I also felt that I had been chosen to be his night nurse. The one who would bandage his wounds with my love.

He has made great progress over the years. He went from being a dropout to working full-time and being in school simultaneously.

While this is all great, there are a ton of void emotional cheques that need to be deposited into the bank account that has survived on overdraft for four years. Me.

When my birthday came around this year he asked me what I wanted. And I looked at him and said, “Just take me to dinner.” He asked me if that was all and I said yes. Then he asked me why. And I said, “Because we’ve never been out to dinner together.”

The night before we scheduled our dinner, he held me close and apologized to me for absolutely everything he had ever done wrong. He had the same itemized list that I had written in my head, and scarred in my heart.

“I’m sorry for all the times I said I would call you and didn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry for leaving you when you needed me the most,” he said. “I’m sorry for not knowing how to return the love you gave me,” he said.

Then he made me a promise. “I never want to hurt you, disappoint you, or let you down again. I promise I’ll be better.”

The next day, he didn’t call, he didn’t text, and when I called to ask if we were still going out, he said no.

Despite his reason being valid, and more importantly, being true, I could not help but feel my heart break inside my chest. I felt the pain that I knew too well in the first few years of our…love. But this time, there was a greater pain within me; letting myself endure that after coming so far.

Last night when he called me, I awoke from my sleep and listened to everything he had to say. I waited patiently for the tears to come, I was ready to swallow the lump in my throat, and I had the First Aid kit ready for my heart, in case it ripped into two yet again.

But when he spoke, I felt nothing.

When he choked up, I felt nothing.

And when he apologized, I had already forgiven him.

The reason we are so afraid to walk away is because we always think we’ve come too far, when in most cases, we have come just far enough.

I felt nothing because I knew in my heart that my job here was done. I was not his maid, nor his organizer, or his night nurse. I was there to support him in his pursuit, there to cheer him on. That is why I never received his love, not the way I wanted to anyway, in return.

Because I didn’t need his love as much as he needed mine.

Now that he is where he’s supposed to be, doing what he’s supposed to be doing, one might think that this is where I take my passenger seat and enjoy the rest of the ride. But I want off, because I did my part in teaching him what I could through aiding in his elevation, and carrying him through the transition of boy to man.

But he’s still got so much to go that the universe has contracted other people, like me, to help him with each lesson. There will be someone there to teach him how to keep promises. There will be someone else to teach him how to love himself. There will be someone else to teach him how to love someone else. Then, there will be time. And time will teach him, show him, how much he should appreciate me and all of his other teachers.

We play our song over and over, anxious for someone else to hear it, when really, they don’t have the ears for it yet. We play our song so much that we doubt whether it’s a good song anymore. We think of changing the components to it. But we have to realize, we have to believe, that the song is fine; some members of the audience are just deaf.

If someone isn’t dancing to your song; it’s because they haven’t heard the music yet.

They haven’t heard the guitar in your rhythm. They can’t hear the bass in your beat. They don’t know your words, and they surely don’t know your chorus.

But you know it. You know the introduction; you know the hook, the chorus, and the bridge.

So cross over it. 

In life, you can get people to hear the music by doing one of two things. You can either sing your heart out and hope they hear it. Or...

You can turn off the music.