Perseverance: Knee Pads and Duct Tape
My middle name should be GRACE as in graceful because I am so not. Speaking of gracefulness, do you ever wake up feeling as if you have two left feet for the day? Those mornings where you start the day rough no matter your morning ritual or attempt to remain composed. In fact, not too long ago while working I tripped. Not the small stumble where someone may not notice but the BIG launch yourself across the space, hope to catch yourself before you hit the floor, look like an idiot stumble. One of those moments where you hope no one saw but there had to be all sorts of people who happened to have a front row seat to the whole 1.5 seconds which personally seemed to happen in slow motion.
It is moments like these we have a choice. I turned around while trying to recombobulate myself and I could clearly see the looks of shock, laughter and even embarrassment on my behalf. What is a girl to do? I could either OWN what happened, try and deny what happened, try and explain away what happened or simply MOVE ON. Part of me wanted to sink into the floor while most of me was wishing I had some immediate super power to turn back time and erase the last 10 seconds. Yet, I dusted myself off and explained what I had been doing prior to my stumble and moved on. Maybe you have been there before too, but I needed to own who I was graceless and all with my head held high.
That night as I crawled into bed I must admit my hip hurt and my wrist ached. As I drifted to sleep I thought about my child and how often he had stumbled as a little boy. I guess gracefulness or lack of does not fall far from the family tree. By the time he was eighteen months old he had fallen so much that when he did stumble he would get up, dust off his little knees and exclaim “Nice”. Some days the fall would require a band-aid, a. quick hug and the drying of a few tears. Other days, those little stumbles would become big dustings of road rash that left him with more than the little scrape that his mama could kiss away. When the band-aids failed to be big enough out came the gauze and medical tape. Soon enough the knee pads, elbow pads and wrist guards were purchased amid a hubbub of fuss. And yet, he still persisted and still found ways to scrape up the places not protected. Even better, he would damage the pieces designed to protect him. Does any of this ring true within you? The need to persist through the bumps, bruises and scrapes of life. Some days I wondered if it would be okay to literally duct tape his protection to him. Yet, each and every time he would get up and do whatever “it” was again. He would not let “it” defeat him. He was determined to overcome what was in his way.
Through each stumble and fall there has been a unique opportunity for a learning lesson. I have aptly called this ability many things over the years but its most common name is simply PERSEVERANCE. It is the MOMENT OF CHOICE to not throw in the towel, to not ring the bell, to not walk away when one would want to call it quits. To somehow muster from within the “I will pull up my boot straps”, “I will not lay down”, “I will dry my tears and move on”-ness that each of these statements embodies.
To tell one’s self what to do and do it. To be able to stumble, fall, get back up, move on and do what you were created for. You see, we all get bloody knees. It is in those moments after we have them that determines who we are and what we are made of. Will you strap on the knee pads and duct tape? Will you persevere to pursue the life of your dreams?
