When I was twenty, I had what was called a pseudopapillary tumor removed from my pancreas. Since my spleen was in the way, they had to take that out, too. I always kind of chuckle when I think about what my insides would look like in that old childhood game called “Operation,” where there’s the plastic outline of the man and you have to tweeze out their organs. But that chuckle comes years and years after what was one of the most traumatizing incidents of my young adult life. I was twenty years old, about to start my sophomore year at UC Davis, with interests like my college major, getting amped about whatever themed parties were coming up on campus, and riding my bike to Wednesday evening farmers markets. Then, with a single CT scan and a single phone call of “Ms. Donovan, it appears you have an 11cm mass in your abdomen region, we are going to have to remove it as soon as possible,” I became a twenty year old whose lexicon included phrases like “anesthesia” and “recovery.” Eager to push the surgery behind me and dive back into “normal life,” I showed up at the door to my would-be apartment at the soonest possible window that the surgeon okayed me to start doing everyday activities.
I was determined to move my things in before the school year started, and to go back to just being a regular ol’ comms major who rolled their eyes about the confining nature of scantron exams and who made full use of the new apartment complex’s pool. And dive back into the “normal swing of things” I did. Probably too soon for my body to come to terms with what had happened to it, but that’s a story for another day. Because there’s another part of this story that I rarely share. For a number of months after my surgery, well into recovery mode, well after my incision healed and I could lift a milk carton again without the risk of getting a hernia, well into the academics and everyday life of fall quarter, perhaps even well into winter, I carried around a huge sensation of loss. Of confusion. Of despair. I physically felt in my bones as if I would never truly feel happy again, never fully feel healed again. When I was alone in my room, I would panic that the euphoric feeling of being giddy about something, of being delighted about something, of being thrilled about something, would never return. Were those feelings valid? Of course. Was I wrong? You betcha. Am I happy ten years later? Ummm, I’ll tell you about it, pack a lunch 😉
They say the body forgets pain. Maybe it’s an evolutionary mechanism for us to continue having babies, maybe it’s our brains working in our favor to keep us moving forward rather than dwelling on how awful something was. But for whatever reason, it’s true: we so often forget that we have endured some really really difficult sh*t. And we haven’t just endured it, we’ve triumphed in the face of that really difficult sh*t. We’ve overcome, we’ve problem-solved, we’ve negotiated, we’ve strategized, we’ve moved forward. We take it for granted in our present circumstances, but it happened. And that’s huge.
We go about our daily lives clinking through our routines and immersing ourselves in comfortable, familiar, everyday conversation that sometimes we forget how magnificently equipped we really are to take life by the horns when we are called to. We see ourselves as ordinary, when really, each of us is extraordinary because we all have a story. We’ve all had obstacles that we’ve overcome to arrive where we are currently.
So when something comes up that knocks us off our feet, or we see a tidal wave of deadlines closing in on us, or we get heartbroken, or we want to accomplish something that just doesn’t seem doable, and we’re grasping for evidence that something of the sort has been done before—all the evidence we really need is smack dab in the middle of our selves – we’ve done something of the sort before—we survived and we thrived.
We are built for recovery. The human body and the human mind are incredible forces. Cells repair themselves and mental perseverance has the capacity to push us forward. We are walking resilience machines. Life will be marvelous and life will be difficult. Life will be majestic and life will be confusing. Life will be exhilarating and life will seem unfair. Life will be fascinating and life will be infuriating. Life will be full and life will have its moments of loneliness. It will be satisfying and it will have its moments of feeling lost. Life will be gorgeous and life will be tricky. But through all those moments, across all those circumstances that feel like dilemmas, we have what it takes to push through and to heave a sigh of victorious relief on the other end. We have what it takes to heal and to strengthen and to cope and to consider and to land on our feet.
So. The next time you hear yourself saying “I’ve literally never had this many things on my plate at once,” or “I’m too afraid to take this on because what if I fail” First, finish your humble brag or your venting, because we all deserve healthy amounts of both of those acts, but then, go back and catch yourself mid-declaration. Flip the script on yourself. You have had this many things on your plate at once. There has been a time when you have been daunted to the point of despair. Inconsolable, perhaps. And what did you do? You prevailed. You’re here now as living proof.
There’s a phrase many of us have likely heard or seen on bumper stickers, Instagram, or yoga studios: Trust the process. As woo-woo as it may sound, I quite like the phrase. I feel like it’s another way to kind of say “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Everything will turn out alright.” There’s something I’d like to add to it though, which I urge you to adopt no matter what your philosophy is or your level of woo-woo persuasion: Trust the process, and trust yourself in the process. Because you have everything you need to persevere and come out on top. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. You can, and you will.