Can’t You See That She’s Trying?

I wrote a song about how much you are trying.
At what? Well,
I think we all know…
We don’t say it out loud,
because it’s awkward to admit that you’ve been drowning on dry land for over a decade,
but darling,
one listen to those lyrics and they’ll all know that you’re trying.

You are a few steps into a new year,
knowing nothing about how it will end,
but needing it to lend you the slightest sliver of hope.
There’s just ten more months to take,
and you’ve made a promise to an estranged parent.
If a carpenter can cast off his splinters and his sorrow to strut from his grave,
you can go 40 days without falling back into bad habits,
and then, when the sun rises on Easter Sunday,
Jesus will be rising,
and you will be the mistress of the brand new habit.

Not hating yourself!
What a novel idea!
What a noble ideal!
Perhaps if you pass 40 days, you’ll make it through a whole year?
Maybe two?
Maybe twenty two?
Maybe you’ll look at yourself with as much admiration as your long suffering mother looks at you,
and you’ll be grateful, at last,
for the one parent that stuck around to raise you,
and to love you, without question.

This is not self loathing,
by the way.
It is not cheating,
or a hungry devouring of the things we are fasting from,
just a gentle nudge in the right direction,
a soft, sunlit kiss as you awake,
so that you know you’re on the right track.