You’re Trying and That’s Brave

Half of working towards an easier tomorrow is showing up today

On a plane ride home from vacation I finished my boyfriend’s favorite book, The Obstacle is the Way. I sat next to a dad who spent the two hour plane ride beating his little girl’s candy themed iPad game for her and I wondered what kind of obstacles stand in his way.

Would he have trouble letting her grow up? Did he commit to beating the iPad games during the plane ride because he knew that once they deplaned his time with her would be limited because of work? Was there something on his mind that he wished there wasn’t?

As I tapped my way through Kindle pages I let someone else’s words ask questions of me.

Are you scared of change? Do you know what you want but realize it takes work to commit to the goodness of it? Are you afraid that hard work will make your soul feel as challenged and tired as your body feels after time in the ocean?

So much of life comes down to showing up. Showing up for yourself, for the ways that matter to those around you. It’s challenging someone (yourself) with tough love in hopes that they don’t just see the “tough” part.

Showing up is anything but easy though. It’s getting out of bed for yourself when depression likes the comforter you bought at Target. It’s putting on makeup like it’s armor because you know it’ll make you feel a little more alive. It’s giving yourself permission to feel simultaneously brave and scared of what being present will mean.

No one knows how hard the battle is you wage every morning before you’re able to make it out of bed. Or how difficult coming home and sitting with yourself can be. The writing is on a wall only you can see, that day by day you try to break down in hopes that there’ll be a little less of it there the next day.

And that’s brave. And that’s enough. You’re trying, it may not break down all at once, but there’s a little less of it there the next morning and that’s progress.

As I got closer to the acknowledgements in the book, I realized that the obstacle is the way isn’t a battle that’s fought once and won; it’s a mental shift applied to every single moment when life seems to get the best of you.

It’s the equivalent of the peace those with mental illnesses have to make that every day is a battle they’re worthy of fighting. Its the reminder I tell myself every morning when I write myself out of my bed because it’s easier to act with words you can stand by.

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I’m the founder of toodamnyoung.com. You can find me talking about mental health, grief and work-life on Living Vulnerably: https://medium.com/living-vulnerably

I also host Creating Espacios, podcast for the next generation of Latina trailblazers.

Follow along as I condense essays into 140 characters: https://twitter.com/vivnunez