When Life Brings You To Your Knees

It was around Christmas time, a season I love because of lights and music and movies and those are all superficial wonderful reasons. On a Saturday morning a few days before Christmas Day my neighbor came to my apartment door and knocked so hard that I jumped out of bed. I rushed to the door where they yelled for me to come outside because someone was stealing my car. I already knew what this meant and my heart sank to my knees.

I rushed outside in short shorts, no coat and with my hair in a bonnet. Yes, indeed someone was taking my car. It was a tow truck with two attractive fellas who seemed rough but were firm and kind. When I went up to them, the driver told me they were taking the car for non payment. I wasn’t surprised because the only Christmas decor I had that year was on my dining room table which was decorated with a huge stack of envelopes with letters warning me that the bank would be coming for my car soon. I was a poor student in graduate school and I couldn’t pay the car note. The drivers let me get my CDs (this was a long time ago), and a jean jacket out of the car before they drove away. I watched them leave like it was the end of a sad movie. I came back into my apartment and fell to my knees.

This experience of having that car repossessed brought me to my knees where I stayed in sadness and depression for months. My view was that the car being repossessed meant I was a failure and would not have a good life. I ended up filing bankruptcy at the beginning of the new year and never saw the car again.

To give you some background, this was not “my car.” I had co signed to help the person I was in an “entanglement” with get a car. It was a sports car and it was shiny bright red, none of which was appealing to me. However, my name was attached to the loan so it was my car, and my responsibility.

The hopelessness and disappointment of wanting so much more than I had was too heavy for my legs. At the time, I could not see this as a moment instead of a life sentence. It was a comma not a period in a long story of my life and I would survive even though the “entanglement” didn’t.

Recovering from experiences that bring us to our knees is a skill. It’s a skill that we don’t prioritize because who wants to think about overcoming pain? We don’t want to feel pain, so we run from it. Recovering from having life bring you to your knees either from a pandemic, or a tragedy or a heartbreaking divorce or health challenge requires you to have grace for yourself, to forgive yourself and to abandon the self loathing addictions you have to judging yourself for mistakes. This helps you to heal.

I recovered from the repossession. It took more time to recover from the “entanglement” but I used the same approach. Again, the relationship was a chapter in my life there was a comma that kept my story going and there have been many more paragraphs in my life that include healing.

Here are 3 things I learned from the experience that I hope you can benefit from. Or maybe this will trigger you to think of your own lesson you need to notice from your pain.

1. Life is gonna life you. You need to aim for the best and learn to except that life gets ugly and messy. Do not be intimidated by messiness.
2. Feel your emotions, it’s ok to feel angry and disappointed when things don’t go your way. But you must also know that even when it looks like things are not going your way, they could be going the way they need to. In the instance with this car repossession, the experience drove me to work harder to find a job after graduate school. The job I eventually found paid me more money that I ever imagined and allowed me to leave the city I was in and severed the entanglement.
3. You need to develop your courage muscles to get through life. This means you tolerate inconveniences and allow yourself to surrender when you want to control everything that happens to you. This isn’t weak, this is wise. Developing your courage muscles takes work and requires you to do things even when you’re afraid to do them. It requires effort and there will be some pain emotional and maybe physical to recover from trauma and heartache. That does not mean developing the courage muscles is not worth it.

I haven’t had any more entanglements, so maybe that’s one of my lessons too. I also haven’t co signed for anyone else to get a car and maybe that’s another lesson. One of the most important lessons is that I felt the agony of being brought to my knees by life, but so many years later I realize I survived that, and I will survive anything else that comes my way. Even if it’s a loud knock on my door from a concerned neighbor.