Don’t Stop Believin’
Jul 31st, 2014 by Kimberly
My friend Terry set a goal to lose some weight, and checks in at Weight Watchers to keep on track. She holds herself doubly accountable by posting the results on Facebook. Like everyone else, she has good weeks and bad weeks. This past week the scale ticked up. Her comment on this news: “SO TIRED of yo-yoing up and down but if I didn’t come here every week I’d probably be way up.”
More motivating than our director.
I met Terry some fifteen years ago. (Yes, T, it really has been that long). We both got cast in a production of Guys and Dolls featuring arguably the worst director in the history of theatre. Dinner theatre. The Swedish meatballs in the buffet provided more inspiration. In what I can only call a bout of mutual insanity, we went on to co-star in the same man’s version of Fiddler on the Roof, notable for being the only show I’ve ever quit mid-run. Remind me to tell you the story of the sick dog he carried around in a basket. It’s as bad as it sounds.
Terry was a bright spot in that onstage-and-off theatre of the absurd. She ran lines with me, listened to my romantic woes during a brief and depressing dalliance with another cast member, and let me stay in her guest room when we had rehearsal till 2:00 am and I couldn’t stay awake long enough to drive home. The moment she found out about my writing endeavors, she took out her metaphorical pom-poms and assigned herself a prominent place on the Kimberly Cheerleading Squad.
Needless to say (but I’ll do it anyway), it tore at my heart to hear her trying so hard to achieve a goal and having to watch it elude her. I wanted to post something supportive and almost typed, “You’ll get there! I have faith!” But that seemed trite. I of all people can understand the frustration of trying for a goal and not getting there. (See 80% of my previous posts.) I wanted to let her know that she was accomplishing something, right now, even if she hadn’t seen the results she wanted. I finally ended up typing, “It’s frustrating, but it will be worth it. You’re taking care of yourself, and that’s the important thing.”
Lame, I thought as soon as I pushed the post button, but it was the best I could come up with.
Over the next couple of days, though, I found myself thinking about the exchange, and decided maybe we both had the right idea in our comments. She’s not where she wants to be, but her efforts do help her keep up healthy habits, and that matters. When you get sick and a friend looks after you, she probably does not possess magical healing powers, but each time she fetches you chicken soup or brings you an aspirin, she reminds you that you’re worth looking after. That in itself has to help your body harness its powers of rejuvenation. When we do things to take care of ourselves – exercising, eating healthier foods, taking our vitamins – we send a message to ourselves: I’m worth the time and energy it takes to do this. I deserve to be the best, healthiest me that I can be, and to occupy space here for as long as I possibly can.
No, that’s not me, but I know how the girl from Google feels.
It’s valuable to remember, when the goal seems further away that I think I can stand, that keeping up the effort serves two purposes. Not only does the endless paddling eventually get me to the other side of the lake, it tones my muscles and strengthens my heart so that I have the energy to enjoy what’s waiting on the shore.
Next month I will turn forty-five, a point I regularly hear described as “middle-aged.” I hate that description, and I debate its accuracy, since I intend to be around until at least 110. (It’s a stretch, but we do live a long time in my family.) However, if forced to divide my  life into halves right now, I’d say the over-arching lesson for the first half was “Learn to let go.” I didn’t learn it gracefully. I stuck out many relationships, friendly and romantic, longer than I should have, before learning that some people will bring you more pain than joy. (And that “they need me” is a bogus excuse. If they aren’t improving your life, the chances are good you’re not improving theirs, either.) I had to make peace with leaving my hometown, and to realize that good could come from it. I got rejected from several master’s programs for acting before realizing that that my true vocation lay in another direction. Eventually, though, I understood.
Sometimes I think I learned the lesson too well. Now, my inclination is to jump ship at the first sign of choppy waters. Maybe in seeing the journey as having merit of its own, I can learn to face the waves with courage.
Who knows? Maybe the lesson for my next chapter of existence is “Don’t give up so fast.”
Kimberly celebrated this new life lesson by buying Journey’s Greatest Hits. “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Faithfully,” and “Be Good to Yourself,” all in one package. As motivation, this may even beat the Swedish meatballs.
So maybe . . . Don’t let go, but don’t hold on too tight either? Though now I really just want to hear about this awful director and his sick dog!
So maybe not so much “Don’t Stop Believing” as 38 Special’s “Hold On Loosely”? It’s an all 80s post either way!