The Price of Admission to a Meaningful Life
Disclaimer: The dialogue in my posts has been fabricated (unless otherwise stated) but the stories I share are true personal experiences.
I run up to hug you as soon as I see you walk in. I'm sitting at our usual spot in Four Corners, a booth by all the freshly baked goodness, far enough where I'm away from everyone, but close enough to see the door. I haven't seen you all summer, and the excitement becomes me.
"Nataliaaaaa!" You pull me in to a tight hug. "I have MISSED you. So much to tell you. Wow."
"Gah! First of all, never leave me for this long again," I respond playfully. "Secondly, you look SO tan," I gush. (Idk what even happens to me when I'm around friends I really love, especially after I haven't seen them for a while, but I turn into a giggly, squealing mess.)
"I bought so many new clothes. I got some new shorts you'll probably want to borrow," you say. I smile. It's sweet to be back with you.
I make you tell me all about your travels, as you'd just spent the summer interning in Spain and making the rest of us question our lives.
"How's your summer been, though, Nat?" You ask. We'd barely gotten to catch up over crappy airbnb wifi through your travels, so we'd check-in regularly and agreed on saving the big stuff for when we see each other in person.
"You know, it was pretty sweet until a few weeks ago, actually."
"Wait, what happened?!"
"Well, um. I ran my boyfriend over... like, with his own car."
Your eyes widen. "Oh my god. Natalia.... What?!"
"I know."
"I'm sorry, but, um.." You burst out laughing.
Phillip and I have told this story so many times within the past few weeks, and acquaintances will usually wince and ask if we're both okay. But our best friends? They start cackling. It's a sweet time.
"So like," you start laughing again. I glare at you, smiling. "What even happened?!"
So I relay the story for the umpteenth time. I'd been driving back in his car from our friend's house after Sabbath lunch. We get to my place, I grab some stuff for the afternoon, and slip back in the driver's seat to drive us back to Phil's place. Before then, though, Phil requests we have a little practice sesh, since I'm trying to finally take the driver's test and get my license soon. I ask him if I can practice parallel parking behind the one car in the parking lot. He says sure, but gets out of the car to be the marker between me and the car. If I get too close to him, I'm getting too close to the car.
So I try to align myself next to the car slowly. It seems to be fine at first, but as I'm realigning myself behind the car, I start to have some difficulty with just everything? and start to get slightly frustrated for not being able to figure it out. Phil starts motioning at me to stop, frantically. My brain goes static. I blank out. I lightly press the gas, then the break, and none of them are freaking stopping the car (!!!). By this point, the car is incredibly close to Phil, and he's slamming on the hood of the car, imploring me to find it in myself to stop this vehicle. Part of my brain is all like, "I'm sorry, what?" "Did you say stop, sir? I didn't catch that. Could you repeat?" And he's all, "Natalia. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200." (Why am I making monopoly analogies?) The other half of my brain just gone.
I somewhat smack into senses and realize I need to do something FAST, so I slam into the gas instead of the break, and the last thing I see is Phil's hand slamming on the hood before the car pins him into the other car, and he collapses, yelling and clutching his leg.
I'm in the car thinking, "I just broke my boyfriend. I am a special kind of monster." I jump out of the seat, assessing the situation. My Phil is literally yelling out to God in pain, a piece of skin on his hand is completely torn off, and I injured both of the cars. The other car is a sweet little bug, bright as the sun, crying over it's bruised rear and broken tail lights. Phil's car is a grandpa, a lean, green machine, just staring at all of us in disdain. Probably boiling with anger at me (Apologies, my guy).
I run into the dorm bathroom to get towels to stop Phil's bleeding. There's blood stains all over my shirt and hands, and I must've looked crazy when asking the receptionist for the bathroom key. I run back out to Phil, towels and water bottle in tow. I need to get him to the hospital.
I call everyone within a few miles from us for help, but everyone is conveniently not answering, until Phil tells me to call his landlords. I cry into the phone and they rush over. One of them is a nurse, so that worked out. I don't remember much of that afternoon, mainly because I cried through most of it, tbh (shout out to my gal Kristen for holding it down for me that day). But we spent the rest of the evening in the ER, and I had to repeat to 5 different doctors our tragic Saturday afternoon story. I can totally imagine them going to a doctor's lounge that evening, exchanging stories. "So guys, you'll get a real kick out of this one. I got a young couple in today. The girlfriend ran over the boyfriend with his own car. How about that?"
We leave the hospital hours later with Phil on a wheelchair and 12 stitches in his right hand. He'll be able to walk in a few days, they said. Glad it wasn't worse. Still traumatized it happened. And because I'm an anxious person, my mind likes to think of the worst possible solutions for everything (just for funsies, you know???) So I'm paralyzed the rest of the night, fearing that Phil's family will hate me for breaking their baby, that Phil's leg wont fully recover, that the owner of Sweet Little Bug will hate me for existing, etc. etc. (but, you know, this is all just for kicks and giggles).
This was three weeks ago. Although Phil can now walk almost normally and is back to work, his car is fixed and his stitches are out, I still go through phases where I'm angry that it happened in the first place.
"Wowowow. I'm so happy it wasn't worse, though," you say. "And I'm happy you both are okay. Confusing the gas and the break, that happens to literally all of us."
But not everyone runs over an actual person while down so, though. "Yeah, I guess that's true," I say."
I order my favorite turkey panini (with pesto, because, yum). You order a strawberry smoothie, as per usual. The owner of the restaurant comes to say hello, as usual, and asks about our summer and remarks on how we're always here together. Like he will literally call us out if we ever come without the other. Aside from First Watch, Four Corners Cafe is our favorite spot. A family owned restaurant in its little corner of Collegedale. It's cozy and quiet and homey. And the food is so good.
"I guess I just don't always know how to handle mild inconveniences," I say. "Or inconveniences in general, really."
"I get that. It's almost like I'm ready to throw in the towel for any minor challenges."
"I will literally complain about having too much clothes, about my coffee not being warm, about having too many food options to choose from. It's like life is so easy for us that we have nothing to work for, and seem to need something to complain about."
"Right? We often joke about "first world problems", but we're actually just victims of our own luxury. We have so much at our fingertips and immediate access to so many things that we struggle to make it through life's trivial challenges. Our brains become paralyzed by the thought of putting in more than minimal effort--because God forbid we have to put in actual effort.
"Exactly. I mean... you know I legit BS'ed my way through high school (as most of us did). Never putting in any real effort but always getting good grades. I never learned to study or how to work hard to excel academically. So when I started my college classes and I was like 'Lol, this will be just like high school but with more work. I'll be fine.' And then I discovered that, um, I actually had to study and invest in my academics to do well. It was a low point for me, and it turned out to be one of the most difficult transitions, too. I spent that whole year kind of crawling through classwork, never really knowing how to college right. I didn't like compromising comfort. I wanted things to be immediate and simple."
It took me longer than it should have to realize that my desire for perfect interactions, perfect situations, and an overall easy life is actually destructive. My always wanting a positive experience is ultimately a negative thing. And in turn, my being accepting of negative experiences is a positive thing. When we stop being afraid of and/or avoiding the negative things in life, we become unstoppable.
Pain and discomfort are necessary. They serve as immediate mental feedback and let us know when something is out of equilibrium, when a boundary has been crossed, or a limit has been exceeded. Pain keeps us in check. Avoiding it and/or repressing it will not only make life more difficult, but it will also eradicate meaning from the things we do. Avoiding difficulty also limits us from achieving anything we deem purposeful, because we're not taking the risks for the things we actually care about.
Some people strive for a high-paying job, for a great body, or to have solid romantic relationships. Few are we actually willing to invest into those things. When it comes to relationships, for example, few are willing to stay consistent with a person past the talking/dating stage, actually see them at their worst, or show up for them even when we don't want to. Loving someone doesn't exclude us from relational hardship. Everything meaningful will involve pain or discomfort, so we have to choose which pain we want, and which pain is worth it. Going through hardships in a relationship is obviously not ideal, but you're choosing that person and the baggage they come with because they're worth it to you, and the love you've built softens that blow.
The same concept applies to our relationships and interactions with anything. Our relationships with friends, family, and ourselves.
When it comes to our relationships with ourselves, the biggest acts of self-love aren't always the doing the easy, pleasant things. It's not always "treating ourselves," posting a selfie on social media, or taking time off work for self-recharging. While these things can be nice, they're mostly temporary fixes, and self-love actually runs way deeper than that. Sometimes it requires you to let go of toxic people in your life, break off an unhealthy relationship, be real with yourself about your issues, and be aware of the parts of you that require improvement. Sometimes--and this is the worst one--but sometimes it means sitting in your pain, processing it in the way it demands to be, and building a life you don't need to run away from.
"What do you want out of life?" I ask you.
"I used to be so quick to say happiness, financial stability, a job I find purpose in," you say. "But like, everybody wants those things. I think the harder question to consider is 'what pain do I want in my life? What do I want to struggle with?'"
"Hmm. So what did you come up with?" I ask.
"I want to struggle with disciplining myself to fight for the things I find meaningful. I want to struggle with writing, with my parents, with my friends..."
"Those are good things to choose to struggle with."
"What about you?"
I pause. I'd never considered it in this light before this conversation.
"I want to struggle with bettering my mental health, with trusting God, and with the important relationships in my life," I respond, processing out loud.
I start to think about our friendship. Tempered with awkward confrontations, misunderstandings, distant phases, and many times when we intentionally and unintentionally hurt each other. But I also think about the times we've laughed really really hard, having each other's back through our parents' divorces, and keeping in touch no matter what. Our friendship is a struggle we've chosen continuously, because we found each other to be worth it. Doing the little things for each other--listening to each other's issues, setting out time for each other consistently--these are good struggles because we love each other, so we don't mind doing these things. If these struggles were forced on us, we'd be miserable.
"I guess I also don't mind struggling with being friends with you," I say sheepishly.
"Jokes on you, then, cause you were already stuck with me," you smirk.
I laugh. You're right.