TIVOLI JENSEN

The other day, I almost bit through a fork.

It was a strange occurrence, albeit embarrassing, and I was left bemused.

I was sitting at a restaurant with my family, my son asleep in my lap, my daughter asleep on the bench opposite.  Beside me, my husband moaned with a sort of pleasure only induced by superb food and well-brewed beer.  His grandmother was telling us a story of her blind friend who is a published author.  I was intrigued.

I then bit into my chopped salad– a fantastic meal, mind you– and almost bit through my fork.

Jarred, I extracted the silverware from my mouth and glared at it.  A prong was bent the wrong way, out of line with the others, as if a fallen soldier.  My teeth tingled in pain.  I had fleeting worries that I had, once and for all, ruined my smile by making the bottom teeth somehow more crooked (this, sadly, is my aesthetic flaw, and one that causes me much distress).

Testing the pain, I chewed the salad with my back molars.  All was fine from thence.  I applied more wine to my system, and went back to listening to the blind woman adept at prose.

But I found my attentions elsewhere.  I almost bit through metal, like some monster not used to the finer comestibles in the world.  Ruminations are allowed.

As my husband drove home that night, a phrase kept turning in my mind.

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

This is, of course, a quote from the fantastic A.A. Milne, and what Christopher Robin says to his rumbly, tumbly bear of very little brain.  And, it is something that should be said, shouted, and whispered to every human, every single day.

Because you are braver than you believe.  You are stronger than you seem.  And you are smarter than you think.

And in all those things together, you are so much more than you realize.

Many days, I dream of throwing in the proverbial towel (I cannot throw a real one anywhere– it is either buried in a dirty laundry hamper or hidden away by a little girl).  It’s hard, this whole life thing.  There are so many things to be done, to be mastered.  Everyone has a timeline running before them, and if yours is off then you’ve already failed at so much of something, however intangible.  If you weren’t married by twenty-five, or accepting an Oscar by thirty, or at least sleeping better at night by next week, then you feel as though you’ve failed.  And failure, even self-imagined, breeds fear, and fear breeds weakness.  Weakness manifests primarily in those areas of life where one thinks something is lacking and one believes there’s nothing more to be done about it.  Weakness grows, likened to mold, in the hollows of one’s mind where negativity reigns and the whispers of “You can’t” become “You never will.”
In that moment of almost biting through metal, I realized I was stronger than I thought.  All the times that I think I’m about to break or shatter from the stress about me, all the times I think I can’t go on– I am lying.  To myself.  Which is uncomfortable to think about, but nonetheless true.

I believe in those times of stress, where one feels so close to breaking, it is easy to forget how stress can condition one for greatness.  After all, the brightest of diamonds endure the most stresses.  The most successful of people endure tremendous heartache.  And the “you’s” and “me’s” of the world forget the inner tenacity and submit to weaknesses imagined.

Because, in the end, my diamond of a friend, you’re braver than you believe, you’re smarter than you think, and you’re unbelievably stronger than you seem.  

I pray you don’t need a fork and a toothache to prove this further.