Item: 4 broken pieces of wood
These are boards that I broke in 2004 as part of tae kwon do training (before I hurt myself). A more reasonable person would recognize the symbolic breakthrough value inherent in these boards and maybe pick one of the lot to keep. I tried this approach, but I couldn't decide which one I wanted the most.
I came at each from a different angle. The first one was really easy to break; the next one was harder; the third one was perfect; and the last one was a seemingly endless, humiliating, sweaty, frustrated struggle.
The obvious choice would be the first one, since it's officially signed and dated and everything, and this one was a moment of discovery. I was more surprised than anything to have succeeded at it: certainly I had no expectation of what that board would sound like when it splintered. It was the sort of unreal moment when you'd look at your fist and think "what just happened?". You can take the sweet, one-time victory and be grateful, but they weren't all going to be so easy.
The other choice would be the last one, the jagged uneven one. The one that took the most out of me should be the most potent reminder of what I can do. Strangely, I often cling to those things which are associated with my most ugly times, the episodes I don't even want to remember. I still marvel at how much I cried years ago when I left one of my jobs, the job I've hated the very most in my entire life. There's something about the things which almost had me beat that pay me more of a subtle compliment. It's not a pretty victory, but still - I won.
The thought occurred to me yesterday, taking the last load of stuff out of the car, that maybe having a lot of things doesn't always have to mean a person is greedy or undisciplined. Maybe it just means a lot of things have happened to her.
I came at each from a different angle. The first one was really easy to break; the next one was harder; the third one was perfect; and the last one was a seemingly endless, humiliating, sweaty, frustrated struggle.
The obvious choice would be the first one, since it's officially signed and dated and everything, and this one was a moment of discovery. I was more surprised than anything to have succeeded at it: certainly I had no expectation of what that board would sound like when it splintered. It was the sort of unreal moment when you'd look at your fist and think "what just happened?". You can take the sweet, one-time victory and be grateful, but they weren't all going to be so easy.
The other choice would be the last one, the jagged uneven one. The one that took the most out of me should be the most potent reminder of what I can do. Strangely, I often cling to those things which are associated with my most ugly times, the episodes I don't even want to remember. I still marvel at how much I cried years ago when I left one of my jobs, the job I've hated the very most in my entire life. There's something about the things which almost had me beat that pay me more of a subtle compliment. It's not a pretty victory, but still - I won.
The thought occurred to me yesterday, taking the last load of stuff out of the car, that maybe having a lot of things doesn't always have to mean a person is greedy or undisciplined. Maybe it just means a lot of things have happened to her.
posted by Karen at 8:16 PM
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