SURVIVAL TRAINING
Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019
I know resilience when I see it.
Learned it at home. Not from parents. They weren’t teaching it, but because resilience was necessary to survive there, as it is integral to survival anywhere.
Resilience, sadly, is not available in every situation or moment – but when we find ourselves stretched to life’s limits by events, circumstances, and people (most often that’s ourselves), we feel it. Hard to define, we know it when AND as we are feeling it, or seeing it. You might think the best time to find it, to feel it, is when broke or unemployed or when a venture fails, or when a relationship disintegrates.
Isn’t self-preservation as much as self-determination, isn’t self-love or self-hatred twisted around somehow; it’s living with lonely, living with consequences of our own actions or failures, and pushing ahead anyway. We don’t need to beat ourselves up. We’ve done that plenty enough.
Learned it as ‘not one of the cool kids’ in school. Acquired, not from books, not from classes or teachers or bosses; resilience is a skill-set, mind-set necessity for survival. Survive our families, bullies down the street, oppressive bosses, and passive-aggressive customers. Surviving and thriving are co-combatants which seem, like a sit-com re-run – they repeat and repeat and repeat.
Learned it when I needed to. Re-discovered it many times where I shouldn’t have needed to.
Staring in mirrors during ‘horrible days’, feeling ebullient on ‘very encouraging days,’ I simultaneously admit, lament, and boast my best and worst moments in life were manifestation of resilience more than any other ingredient. No pomp or circumstance, just thickening skin and wrinkles.
Don’t leave home without it.
