How do you eat an elephant?
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
Do I find joy in sanding the bottom of our boat? No, definitely not. But I can find peace in it. I won't lie; the first two hours, I cursed in my respirator and shot Patrick a dirty look or two, especially when I realized the noise level of the sander/shop-vac combo wouldn't let me drown my thoughts out with a good podcast — I don’t have noise-cancelling headphones. It wasn't until after I screamed loudly, "I f’ing hate this" (which, with all my gear on, sounded more like "Mmm-hmmmph-hmm-hmm-hm"), that I was able to accept my fate and relax into the meditative potential of hours of tedious, repetitive motion.
Something happens when your muscle memory kicks in, and your mind is let loose to wander onto other things. Problems get solved, epiphanies occur, dreams are realized. I'm a pretty big dreamer. I like using the future to whisk me away to possibilities yet to unfold. It's the small steps to the big dreams that I have difficulty with. The individual bites.
My sanding experience feels a lot like my experience with running, another activity I got bamboozled into by my ambitious other half. I hate running and for many years used the quip, "If you see me running, call the police because I am being chased." Nevertheless I was persuaded to sign up for a Spartan Race. Every other morning, we would wake up and trail run. The first two and a half miles were the worst. I absolutely couldn't stand it and fought against every step. My quads hurt, my calves were cramping, my throat was dry, and the tag on my T-shirt kept itching my neck. I couldn't get past all the small physical discomforts and would usually quit around three miles. One morning, we got to a half-mile stretch of the trail I had come to loathe for its elevation gain and switchbacks. I could feel myself slipping into that defeatist mentality when I suddenly couldn't contain it any longer. I let out an echoey "I F’ING HATE THIS." Something happened in that release of energy. I was able to bear down and push two more miles out. Instead of continuing the fight against my discomfort, I had reached acceptance of what was. I eventually came to enjoy our runs. I actually miss them now. I started seeing my capability, and before I knew it, this newfound resolve was spilling into other areas of my life. I found it easier to accept other difficulties in my life.
I suffer from anxiety. I know right, who doesn't? Anyway, when I started really making gains on how to deal with my anxiety, it was about this time that we were training. There was a correlation to be made here. If I could lean into the discomfort of my anxiety instead of fighting against it, I could accept it for the temporary present moment that it was instead of fighting it. Fighting the anxiety only made the feelings bigger and more prolonged, accepting the anxiety actually helped to calm my nervous system, and eventually it would pass. It's like a rip current; you swim with it until you're out of it. I was gaining resolve. Resolve, probably the characteristic I respect most of Patrick’s. He doesn't back down from a challenge, and I'm lucky enough he brings me along sometimes, kicking and screaming as I tend to do. He has rubbed off on me, and I will say in the two and a half years I have known him, I have accomplished quite a bit. I have worked through frustrations in keeping a successful short-term rental afloat. I trained for and completed my first Spartan Race finishing in the top third percentile of females in my heat. I climbed a mile and a half and over 3,000 ft of elevation with a 20-pound backpack strapped to me. I have ticked off the first three boxes to get me headed toward a career I have been dreaming about since grade school. We decided to challenge ourselves this year by abstaining from alcohol, and we are over halfway there. Now we find ourselves days into painstakingly sanding a 41 foot boat inch-by-inch, and we will get it done. Maybe resolve is a muscle to be exercised. Maybe my resolve muscle is getting stronger. Maybe at 39 I learned to like the taste elephants.
