In high school we used to keep notebooks full of quotes. Lots of Indigo Girls and Tori Amos lyrics were in there, I'm sure. Our yearbooks overflowed with these phrases, interspersed with silliness of our own uttering.
Lately I've paid not a whole lot of attention to quotes. I read them, internalize them, and immediately forget who said what to whom and where and for why.
What I have heard, a billion times over since Calla died, is platitudes. Do these count as quotes? Clearly SOMEONE was the first to say, "Everything happens for a reason," or "It will get better."
I remember sitting in my hospital bed, waiting to deliver our dead daughter. So many times I wanted to scream "WHY ME?!?!?" But I couldn't. It just didn't make sense. Because to me, WHY ME? implies WHY ME AND NOT SOMEONE ELSE? And really, who would wish this grief, pain, sadness, emptiness on anyone?
Words that stick to me are usually the most simple of phrases. Maybe it's because I can't remember an entire sentence, or maybe that's all I can handle in my brain.
"Just Do It."
"It Is What It Is."
These two phrases have played over and over in my head on steady rotation for months now. JDI is how I have to live my life. I have no choice. One foot in front of the other, on and on, slow and steady. But I have to just do it. I don't have to like it. And IIWII is the answer to all my WHY'S? It just is. There doesn't have to be a reason other than it is what it is and was what it was.
Not exactly inspiring, but right now they are my words to live by.
About Me
- Mary Beth
- My life on the run. Balancing family, mental and physical exercise, and all the emotional baggage accumulated throughout several decades of living.
"It is what it is" really just nails it. I remember sitting outside one day with my mother and a whole flock of birds were sitting by the deck squawking, and it sounded like they were saying, "Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it." And I said something to my mother and she said, "Now, you are just looking for signs to make the decision inside of you." Anyway, I did just do it. But sometimes when I am undecided about something I think of the birds--do it. do it. do it. do it
ReplyDelete