On Doing Hard Things

We can do hard things.  That phrase turns and bumps around in my head on constant replay.  I’m pretty sure it’s from Momastery.  It sounds like something she would say.  (If you’ve never read Momastery, go right now and do so.  She says everything I would ever want to say one billion times more beautifully than I could ever hope to say it.) 

We can do hard things was all I could think as I sat in the audiologists office while she explained the inner workings of cochlear implants and what the surgery and year’s worth of follow up appointments would look like.  We can do hard things, like spend months fine tuning an artificial hearing device so that my son can do what most people don’t have to think twice about.  We can do hard things, like put my son through months of relearning how to hear.  We can do hard things, like stay engaged through this meeting, tears streaming down my face, when all I want to do is leave, sit on my couch and watch hour after hour of old Office reruns.

When faced with hard emotional things I find myself completely paralyzed to do normal non-hard things.  In the face of uncertainty and fear for Monster’s future reading the packets and pages of literature on the different brands of cochlear implants feels like an insurmountable hard thing.  As does making dinner, figuring out the logistics of our upcoming move, and cleaning my bathrooms.  All of these relatively simple tasks feel like impossibly hard things.

I know that in the face of hard, emotional, big, scary things some people find comfort in the mindless tasks.  Keeping their bodies busy relaxes their mind and they lose their anxiety in the mundane chores and busywork.  I am not one of those people.

The truth is I tend to avoid things that feel hard.  Convenience is so readily available in this day and age and if I’ve learned nothing from my procrastinating ways it’s the reality that if you avoid something long enough it really might just go away.  I want to skip over the hard things and dive into the fun, beautiful, easy things.  I want the dinner party without all the cooking, cleaning, planning.  I want to take beautiful pictures without having to pour through the 500-page manual that accompanied my new fancy camera.  I want to raise kids who are polite, respectful and obedient without the one million and one time outs.

But some hard things I’m realizing are unavoidable.  Monster has lost more hearing.  So now we are heading down the road of cochlear implants.  Doing the research that accompanies this road is annoying and overwhelming, but I have to do it.  Making appointments and faxing immunization records and keeping track of all the paperwork is not “in my wheelhouse” as one might say.  But loving my little boy is.  And giving him what he needs, regardless of how hard it feels is what I need to do. 

I don’t want to be someone who can’t do hard things.  I don’t want to teach my kids to avoid hard things.  I want them to be able to because life is all about hard things and if I curl up in a ball and avoid this hard thing my son will suffer.    So I’m trying to do it.

And I’m also giving myself grace.  Because if I can just do one of the 15 hard things on my list today then that will be better than none.  And if I give myself a weekend to only do easy things I may just find that I’m much more equipped to do the hard stuff come Monday.  So that’s what I’m doing.  In a timing only God could orchestrate, Tommy and I are flying to San Francisco this weekend to celebrate a dear friends’ birthday.  I’m declaring it a weekend of easy things.  I’m going to read all the books and magazines I’ve been meaning to read.  I’m going to watch the 5 episodes of Project Runway I loaded on my iPad.  Tommy and I are going to enjoy each other and laugh and play and try to forget about Monster’s hearing and the packing and moving waiting for us at home. 

I can do hard things.  And sometimes the hardest thing is giving myself grace when I need a break from doing hard things.