When Life Knocks You Down

“When life knocks you down, you get back up again.”

I’ve heard this said many times over the course of my life. Too many to count. And yes, I’ve gotten back up every single time I’ve been knocked down, like almost everyone else around me. You just do it. No matter how hard the circumstances are, you get up and keep going, one foot in front of the other. There have been times when I’ve arrogantly viewed this ‘moving forward’ with pride, a symbol of my worth.

But recently, a very close friend of mine summarized in a few sentences what he was going through, which made me look at that statement again, and when thinking of my own experiences, seeing it in a different way.

Because at all the times, over all the years I’ve heard this saying, not once has anyone ever mentioned what it costs to actually get back up again; the collateral damage involved with getting knocked down in the first place.

No one ever talked about that part of yourself that gets lost because it was knocked right out of you when you hit the ground.

No one talked about how you can be overwhelmed with several different emotions, or become completely numb, and how you can go back and forth between those two extremes.

No one talked about those actions or words you say, those behaviors you regret, and hope will be forgiven for, because they didn’t come from the real you, but from the you that now has pieces missing.

No one talked about how when you pick yourself up again, that a part of you, like skin, remains on the road, and in its place are dirt and rocks and the scar tissue growing over it.

No one ever talks about how you will never be the same again.

It’s not f*ng easy to keep moving when you’re not whole. It’s not easy to be there for your kids or show up for work when you’re having to redefine who you are and how to live your life after it radically changed without your consent. It’s not easy bringing order to the chaos, calm to the internal turbulence, and make sense of the world again.

It’s hard not to feel angry or resentful about it at times.

The bitch of it is, that the alternative of not getting up – becoming Life’s ‘road-kill’ – is so much worse than the cost of getting up again, and yet some days it doesn’t feel like there’s even a difference.

I’ve never acknowledged to myself the sheer will and determination it’s taken me to face tomorrow, the cost of getting up again, because I’ve never really looked at it before. I think I’ve been afraid to truly know and understand.

But I see it now. I see this for what it means, I see what being knocked down has taught me. I’ll never arrogantly view the inner strength and the courage it takes to stand up again, to work through the mental anguish and the physical exhaustion, to go from drowning, to surviving, and then finally to thriving.

I see you.   

For S because you inspired me.