punching the air

Last week, I took a boxing class through my Peloton app. I have never in my life been attracted to boxing, nor have I ever hit something. Or someone. (Thought about it? Maybe.) But when I saw that Peloton was featuring the music of Eminem in a 30-minute boxing class, I felt like the Lord gave me a gift, for two reasons: One, because I’m definitely feeling angsty enough to hit something, and two, because a little known fact about me is that I deeply love Eminem.

On the surface, I’m sure that raises some eyebrows from the saints. Eminem is, like all of us, a flawed human being, with questionable standards for his content and certainly lyrics I don’t want the kids to hear. 

However.

Put on “Lose Yourself” and tell me your head isn’t ever so slightly moving left to right, eyes narrowed in solemn intensity as the music starts with the piano and then transitions to the guitar, imagining yourself on the brink of something fantastically hard and you’re about to take it the hell on. The way the music builds and the cadence speeds up in just the perfect rhythm, you can’t not feel like you’re capable of doing the hardest thing possible right in that moment.

Or maybe it’s just me.

(But I don’t think it is.)

I digress. Back to boxing. For thirty minutes I clumsily followed the instructor’s directions and I swung at the air as hard as I could, picturing an invisible enemy in front of me like I was directed, on my toes and squatting to duck whenever she yelled at us to. When it was over, I felt proud, my sweat and red cheeks both signs of a great workout, and you already know I loved the music.  

But it wasn’t until the next morning, when I could barely lift my arms, that I realized just how great a workout it was. From my triceps to whatever muscles make up the area around the shoulder blades, it felt like everything north of my belly button yelled at me whenever I needed to move. Which, of course, means it worked. Punches, jabs, upper cuts, they all activated muscles I don’t use all the time, and that was the whole point. 

Still, as I moved around that day, feeling the soreness every time I lifted a toddler or turned the steering wheel, I couldn’t help but think about the irony: that 30 minutes was such a hard workout, but all I did was punch the air.

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You’ve seen Finding Nemo, I’m sure. (If not, come on over to my house on any given weekday and there’s a fifty percent chance it’s on.) But I’m sure you remember, Marlin the clownfish loses his son Nemo, and he teams up with the forgetful fish, Dory, to travel the ocean and find him? It’s one of my favorite Disney movies, hands down. Witty and charming and characters that make you love them. I still remember seeing it in the theater with my high school boyfriend and laughing so hard I cried (this reveals so much about me as an 18-year-old, I know. But, as admitted, that same teenager was singing along with Eminem so suffice it to say I’ve been a study in contradictions for a long time).

At one point on Marlin and Dory’s journey, Marlin breaks down in exasperation. They have been through so much and still haven’t found Nemo. He’s frustrated that all the other fish can so easily ignore him as he swims around asking for directions, or for any help at all, and they all just go on with their lives. Finally, in a moment of anger, he says, “But it doesn’t matter, because no one in this entire ocean is going to help me!”

Then Dory, ever so sincerely, says, “Well I’m helping you.”  

It’s a whole moment. A wake up call of sorts.

For some reason, Dory’s help wasn’t enough for Marlin, because she was forgetful or not getting him where he needed to be fast enough or who knows. But when Marlin looked around all he saw was an ocean full of fish that weren’t helping him. He didn’t see the loyal, willing friend right next to him. 

Marlin, I get this.

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Right now, my husband is nine weeks into a fifteen week addiction rehab program. An addiction I did not know about, well, until I did. Without a doubt, and for many reasons that are only for me and the Lord, this has been the hardest nine weeks of my life. But I can tell you that solo-parenting six children – one with autism, two potty-training toddlers, one baby, and two who are excellent observers but terrible interpreters of what’s going on in their family – is not for the faint of heart. Doing this while navigating my own hurt has been enough to make me want to stay under the covers on many mornings. 

But the truth is, we have had more love and support than I can even name. When I let people know what was going on, the hands and feet moved in within minutes. Best friends booked plane tickets. Strangers from the internet sent me coffee money or Uber Eats gift cards. Friends I haven’t talked to in years overnighted gifts to my front door. People in my daily life dropped meals and soft blankets off on the porch. For the first few weeks especially, I was completely and totally overwhelmed with kindness and tangible love from so many people. 

But here is another, much uglier truth. As the weeks have gone on and the shield I felt around me started to fade as everyone continued on with their lives, I’ve started to notice something: I get angry at things I can’t even see. I will start thinking about who really hasn’t said anything, who never offered to drop a meal off, who hasn’t checked in. I’ll start to scoff when I hear people complain or ask for prayer for this or that thing in their own lives, as if there is a who has it harder? competition going on. I’ll feel jealous when I see other people living their lives, going on their vacations, acting like my whole world didn’t just have an enormous seismic shift – as if they should have felt it, too. 

Before I know it, I’m in a tailspin of bitterness. 

Because when you’re hurting, or scared, or anxious, I think you deflect that pain in all sorts of sideways manners, to all sorts of places it’s not going to be helpful to point it. In times of grief, the human heart can go from feeling like they have all the love and support in the world in one moment, to no fish in this entire ocean is going to help me the next. And the enemy loves it when we do that, because then we can’t see all the ways God is saying, or showing, ever so sincerely, “Well I’m helping you.”

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Two months of the darkest days I've ever experienced have shown me many things, but this is one of them: the only way through is through. I have to go through this. And I am so blessed that I do have a sister-friend who checks in every single day, and I do have people bringing us dinner three days a week, and I do have co-workers and teammates and family and friends on the internet telling me all the time that they are praying for us. 

I am so, so helped. 

And still, on the days it hurts the most, when the anger rises up in my heart, all of that love is not enough to take away the hard. I still have to go through this – like all of us do in difficult seasons – ultimately, alone.

But when I don’t want to feel that, when I don’t want to live in its reality, I blame. I put my pain somewhere else, mostly on people who I am demanding more from than our relationship even merits. It’s just easier, more automatic to me. I start swinging at the air in frustration, at the anger I can’t even see, at the stories that live in my head and, not surprisingly, grow in correlation to my hurt.

And let me tell you, from what I hope is the other side of this now, I think it’s those invisible fights that leave our hearts the most beat up the next day. 

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There is hard work to do in our lives every day, one foot in front of the other kind of moments that we have to show up for even when nothing in us wants to. 

But If I blame my pain on the things that didn’t cause it, I’m only giving myself more to heal. Some of the hardest battles just might be the ones we don’t even see, the thoughts and the bitterness and anger that keep us from the work we have to do. I think the enemy would love for me to stay in that place, swinging at the air and not making a bit of progress walking in grace, keeping people on the hook I very likely unfairly hung them on to begin with. 

I’m not going to. I’m going to make it the only way anyone makes any journey: through.

Take it from me friends, if you’re going to swing at nothing and wake up exhausted, make it a boxing workout to the tune of Marshall Mathers. Your arms will be sore, but your heart won’t.