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The Diaries

Eight months & 14 days in -- What doesn't kill us ...

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Greetings to everyone. Here in middle Tennessee, we have lived through a sticky-hot, smoggy week, heat indices in the 100s, slathered in sweat and humidity. Too hot to work the gardens, except in the early mornings. And even then, going inside the store (which we consciously keep very cool) already soaked in sweat. Having to move fast whenever we got new shipments of produce to get that food into our walk-in cooler or inside the store, so it wouldn’t spoil.

However, because I lucked into buying some barbells and other free weights last week at a garage sale across from the store, I have not let the heat keep me from starting a weight-lifting routine at work, in the little time left between when I clock out from work and when I am due back at the halfway house. I am happy to start this exercise regimen because it will help balance the benefits of riding the exercise bike. And since I am now (and forevermore will be) a convict, lifting weights is one hobby I can share with my dormies, one thing I can gladly have in common with them, rather than sharing bad teeth, too many tattoos and using the phrase “m---er-f---er” in every sentence and as every part of speech.

On Friday, a strong cold front blew through town, dropping our temps 25 degrees and bringing sunset, late night and early morning rain. You could just feel everyone – and everything – take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Driving to my Saturday morning 12-STEP meeting in Franklin was a treat, getting out on the highway with both windows down on my rattle-trap pick-um-up truck, enjoying the natural air conditioning that Canada sent to us here in the mid-south. Thanks, y’all.

At the 12-STEP meeting, a good friend spoke up about having to sort through “issues” from her past, from her dysfunctional family of origin, from being raised (as many of us were) by wolves. As always, the meeting was a good one and the experience, strength and hope shared in that hour was what I needed to hear. It has stayed on my mind, the thought that (if we’re lucky, or blessed) what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. So that’s what I wanted to write about today. I think of all of you sometimes (and some of you all the time). Take care, stay cool, and keep getting stronger (and keep enjoying what your own life experiences are allowing you to be, to become.)

This is for Sue, and what she is going through these days, one day at a time.
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We’ve all heard it said (and said ourselves so many times) that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But is that necessarily and always the case? Maybe so. Maybe not so much.

What doesn’t kill us may just scare us, may just keep us slumped and sad, regretting the past (unable to shut the door on it), fearing the future, because what came before might soon come again. Sadly, what doesn’t kill us may simply scare us, once again and always, whenever sleep slides in, for slippery seconds, for too short a time. For some, what doesn’t kill us may not scare us straight, just scare us stiff -- or scare us hard.

And maybe, for some, what doesn’t kill us makes us silent, hollow, haunted and alone. Always empty, evermore. Then again, what doesn’t kill us may simply make us selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, never satisfied. Never still.

There may even be times when some of us might wish that what hadn’t killed us would have indeed done so. Because – instead – what didn’t kill us made us unseemly super-achievers, surrounding success with soullessness, on ice (or crack or meth or X). Or made us simple, simpering sods. Or made us mad -- that is to say, insane. In other cases, for some of us, what didn’t kill us fast just killed us slow, robbed us of our senses, one by one, starting with the good sense to (finally) say “Thanks, but no. I’ve had enough”.

Then again....

As much as what doesn’t kill us may scar us severely, in the ways I’ve seen before, today – right now – I can’t be satisfied with making those scars my soul’s shut door. Because, for me, I know there is an easier, a softer, way to solve this riddle, to make the answer to this question much more about affirming this life than fearing the death that’s still to come.

Today, I know that what doesn’t kill us can make us safer and more sensible, less likely to live life on the slippery edge, anymore. What doesn’t kill us can make us softer, can smooth away our hard edged sores (sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly). Can help us finally settle up, and -- finally -- settle down.

It can be (it is) that what doesn’t kill us can make us more sensitive, more in tune with others’ hearts, because we’ve also been there, done that – and have the soft, tear-cleansed memories, and the milder manners, to show for it. And if we’re lucky (and in-tuned), what doesn’t kill us can make us soulful, can make the blues our lullaby.

What doesn’t kill us can make us (despite ourselves) sometimes even saintly (though I can’t help but smile when I write these words), can make the turn, turn, turning of our other cheeks a calming, a caring, a conscious cause; the effect of which brings a moment and a mirror, carries a message like no other that came before to the one who wants to hurt us, the one -- who knows -- the one we just might win over. The one to whom we might simply, so softly, just pass it on.

What doesn’t kill us makes us, makes us ... whatever it is we are today. If we’re blessed (or choose to view ourselves that way), what didn’t kill us has made us softer, sensitive, supple, sensible -- quite strong but calmly quiet, more peaceful than before. Solitary, but not alone. Sober. Smiling. Sweeter than we might have ever been. Surrounded by the sounds of the universe singing, sighing (seemingly just for me but, really) for all of us.

What doesn’t kill us makes us celebrate, makes us thankful for the life we have, and the life we’ve had, and the life that’s yet to come, the life of sharing secrets so that what didn’t kill us won’t harm others, or harm us either, anymore. A simple shelving of the scythe, a second (or a sixteenth) chance at a satisfying life, helping stimulate (or helping celebrate) a turning point in the lives of friends, of families, or of other faces in other countless rooms, each of which forever holds a space just for us too.

What doesn’t kill us brings us deep and satisfying sleep (even in crowded cells, surrounded with surly cell-mates we would not otherwise have sought), settles us down in our soft dreams, takes us to those misty moments of rolling in our (maybe) sweet babies’ arms, suffused in (salty-sweet) scents of our soon-to-come lovers’ silky sweat.

So, for now, that’s my two cents, my sense of what gifts (or burdens) those deadly dangers can bring. For now, I have come to believe that what didn’t kill me showed me how to truly live, showed me how to celebrate the here-and-now, how to see, how to sigh, how to smile. Silent, solitary. But never alone.

What didn’t kill me made me what I always hoped I’d be – sweet and soft, satisfied and strong, sane and sober, in surrender. Because, when all is said (and not said), what didn’t kill me sowed in me the seeds of my serenity. What didn’t kill me set me free.

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