Meg Dowell Writes

You press the pause button. Nothing happens. You press it again rapidly and repeatedly. Still nothing happens. Even banging the remote control on the nearest wall won’t stop it. And then you begin to remember that you really aren’t in control. It’s a fake remote. (Darn it!)

You can’t stop life from going on. This statement is a proven fact. Not even God can freeze time. He can keep the sun from setting, but time goes on. And as you can’t stop life from happening, you can stop it from hurting you, either. It’s like getting hit in the face with a basketball. Most of the time, it’s already causing you pain before you’ve actually realized it was flying toward your face several seconds before.

Reality has a tendancy to come up to us from behind and dump buckets of ice down our backs. It wakes us up. From what, we’re not really sure until we turn around to glare it in the face. And then, there it is. Truth. What’s heading straight for us. The one thing that had the potential to crush us before Reality came along. But reality doesn’t push us out of the way. We’re still deer in headlights, staring right into the face of danger. All that it has the capability of doing is waking us up and turning us around.

So what, we ask, do we turn to then? There’s a vicious monster running straight for us. We haven’t even been running from it. We’ve been ignoring it. So much, in fact, that we forgot it was there. We just kept on walking away from it and keeping our reasonable distance. Think about it. You didn’t even know, did you? At least, not in the front of your mind. But deep inside, you knew it was there. You knew all along.

I remember clear as day a time when the only thing I ever did was run and ignore; ignore and run. I put myself through a lot of strife doing this. Such a routine wasn’t healthy for someone as young as I was. It never is. But I didn’t know how to face Reality, let alone the big, ugly, sharp-toothed monster behind it. I was scared! I thought for sure that if I ignored my worries and fears, they would just go away on their own.

Wrong.

I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Maybe I got hit really hard in the head (or the face), and it suddenly just dawned on me. Snap! Just like that. All I remember is one day waking up, thinking long and hard about my life, and eventually making a decision that would change everything.

No one ever had to tell me what to do. I never read a book or seeked advice from friends or a Higher Power of any sort. I simply figured out somehow that Reality is hard to get along with. What’s even harder is learning not to ignore it. For, you see, Reality is jealous. When you don’t pay attention to it for extended periods of time, it jumps onto your shoulders and wakes you up, only to watch you turn around before it sends its giant monster minion after you. It doesn’t like to be ignored. It’s a handful, but yet can be handled just the same.

Somehow, though I don’t know how, I learned to stare Reality (and its monster minion) in the face, open my mouth, and roar. I’m completely serious. I roared. Long, loud, and strong. And so Reality and its friend backed up and let me have my space. Though yes, I am constantly reminded that Reality is not the best to ignore, at least I know how to handle it. And now, so do you.

Come on. Do it. Just roar.