Her first baby come out sideways. She didn’t scream or nothin’.
October 11, 2021
I never felt as frustrated with my own upper body strength (or lack thereof) than I did when I moved into my house. I was blessed with enough disposable income to hire some guys to come and move my furniture for me, but still stingy enough to insist on moving “anything I can carry myself” on my own, just to save a few bucks on moving costs. I spent days loading up my RAV4 with boxes, driving the 50 minutes from Arlington to Aldie, unloading and then heading back to rinse and repeat. I carried every box up the stairs to where it belonged, and unpacked it myself. The one trip I’ll never forget was the box of books I carried to my office, which I, being the clever girl I am, decided would be on the FOURTH floor. I lost about 5 pounds during the week in August that I moved, mostly from going up and down stairs carrying boxes that I honestly had no business carrying. It’s a miracle that I didn’t hurt myself, pass out from exhaustion, or take a tumble down the stairs. This move has been an ongoing struggle between me and my body. Even last week when I gave my office a little attention and turned it into the workspace of my dreams, I ordered a new desk and chair for the space. I barely got the boxes of furniture from the front stoop to the inside of my house – I think I lost about half of my hit points in that battle. Yet, being the hard-headed woman I am, I still set my sights on getting them up to the fourth floor on my own so Josh wouldn’t have to fool with it on his weekend. Somehow I succeeded, but with much gnarling and gnashing of teeth – and honestly, a lot of frustration heaped onto myself for not being stronger. Why can’t I just be stronger?
Now, I know the answer to that question – my lack of upper body strength could have something to do with me sitting in my bed with Maudie, writing this blog under our blankie, eating the bag of Halloween candy I bought “for my trick-or-treaters” instead of hitting the gym. It also has a lot to do with biology, and the fact that my mother never forced me to eat vegetables or drink milk as a child (yes, Mom, this is all your fault!) resulting in the 5-foot-nothing ball of sass that I am. I am told, however, that there are many other ways to be strong – strong of mind, strong of wit, strong willed, mentally tough, strong in the face of adversity, emotionally strong, strong earring game. I’ve been called each of these at points in my life (most frequently, the earring thing), but I’ve also felt like the opposite of each of these from time to time as well.
One of my least favorite moments of my moving experience was a situation that forced me to face my lack of physical strength and emotional strength head on. It’s such a trivial situation, I feel silly even repeating the story. I had ordered a king-sized mattress for my bedroom, and when it arrived, I discovered that the delivery people were not going to help me get the giant mattress up the stairs. When I handed them a tip and they left, Josh and I stood there with the mattress, each staring up at the stairs we would have to navigate to get it up to the third floor where it belongs. Josh immediately began doing mental calculus – figuring out exactly how the physics would work. And I – well I simply burst into tears. Josh getting that mattress up the stairs with little to no help from me – partly due to my weak body, and partly due to my little melt down, was one of the most impressive feats of ingenuity and strength I’ve ever beheld. Once we got the mattress where it belonged, I hung my head in shame over the strength that I didn’t have.
I love the show “90 Day Fiance”, and on one of the bajillion spin-off’s in the 90 Day universe, I was introduced to a woman named Darcey Silva. Darcey has had her fair share of tribulations in life and especially in love. She spent two seasons of the show with a controlling, 24-year-old (Darcey is in her late 40’s) named Jessie, and two others with a British man named Tom who called her fat. These were obviously not nice guys, and Darcey has earned a bit of a reputation for falling apart and ugly crying on tv. My girl Darcey and her twin sister Stacey are like walking Instagram posts. They indulge in plastic surgery the way I indulge in soft pretzels, and wear really insensible shoes and flashy outfits. They also have little catch-phrases that they repeat to each other, the way people on instagram shout hashtags at each other. #SilvaStrong. #BossBabes. #StrongIndependentWoman. Something goes wrong, and one twin is in the other’s face telling her “Eye on the prize!”, “Out with the old and in with the new!”, “You need to focus on yourself!”, “You’re a strong woman! You have two beautiful daughters!” and so on. I love these women and they make me laugh out loud, but they are perfect examples of how strength is so much more than a hashtag you put below a selfie on social media or a mantra you repeat to yourself over and over again. No matter how often they repeat these words to themselves, they don’t seem to gain much strength from it. They still fall apart on tv all the time, and cut themselves open to fulfill some version of physical perfection that they will never achieve, and are just generally sad people.
Telling yourself that you are strong is not the same thing as building that strength by putting the work in. I can pat myself on the back each time I can’t carry a heavy box up the stairs and say “It’s okay, Rebecca, you are still strong!” That’s true. It is okay, and maybe I am strong. But if I want to be strong enough to carry a heavy load, then maybe I can go to the gym and lift weights to work on building that strength. I can tell myself that it’s okay that I burst into tears over a mattress, because everyone gets overwhelmed and reacts in hyperbole. That’s true. It’s also true that I can look at that moment head on, recognize that I was lacking strength in that moment, and find ways to build strength up for next time.
I think about strength a lot. One of my friends was telling me a bit about a depression she is experiencing, and she traced it all back to not feeling strong, which made her feel like she’s not a full person. Then she made this really excellent point about how being in that headspace – feeling weak – put her in a position where she is doomed to fail in a perfect negative-feedback loop. Being the less-than-perfect friend and trusted advisor that I am, my knee-jerk reaction was to tell her that she is strong. #BossBabe. #StrongIndependentWoman. Here’s the thing – those words don’t mean a damn thing if I can’t make her believe them, and they are also not actionable steps she can take toward addressing her problem. What I should have said is that her telling me about this depression and feeling weak was an example of a strength-building exercise she had already done that day. I should have told her that facing her lack of strength head-on, and recognizing the headspace she is in and the effect it has on her is an example of her strength-building. I can liken it to standing in front of the mirror and looking at your biceps and telling yourself “I can work on this” before you pick up the dumbbells. That’s what I should have told her – that it sounds like she’s ready to pick up the dumbbells.
I know strength can mean different things to different people, and I’ve found that strength inside of myself is even open to my own interpretation. I have done my fair share of falling apart and begging people to stay in friendships and relationships, and often I look back at those moments with intense regret for being weak. Other times I can reflect on those same moments and marvel at my willingness to be vulnerable and honest about my feelings – maybe that takes strength too? Maybe it takes strength to even look back at those moments and reflect on them at all – maybe that’s part of the act of strength building – finding out what being strong means to you. There are a lot of strong athletes who can bench press more than their body weight. There are many strong athletes who cannot, because strength means something different to each of them. That’s ok. It’s ok to remind yourself of the strength you have built over your life and celebrate it, but I am more encouraged by the fact that strength is always something we can build and improve upon.
Cluelessness is the Mother of Invention 