The Lift Before the Push

Notes on making peace with the brain you live in

Photo by Jonathan Cosens Photography on Unsplash

I have been thinking about doors lately.

Not metaphorical ones — actual doors. 

The one in my apartment won’t budge unless you lift the handle slightly before turning it the opposite way you normally would! 

For months, I fought it. 
Threw my shoulder into it. 
Cursed it. 

And then one day someone showed me the lift, and after that it opened every time, effortlessly, like it had never been difficult at all.

I think about how much energy I spent fighting that door.

---

For a long time, I fought everything.

The diagnosis. The medication sitting on the counter like an accusation. The mornings. The mirror. The version of myself that needed help. 

And then I got tired. Not the tired that sleep fixes. The tired that comes from being your own enemy for too long.

---

You cannot move the walls that hold the house.
But you can decide which one to face when you pray.

You cannot choose the weather,
but you can leave earlier,
carry an umbrella—
a small belief in your own preparedness.

---

I once asked my great-grandmother,
one hundred years old, 
what the secret to life was.
She said: Go with the flow.

I thought that was a boring answer.
I thought it meant to be passive.
To do what everyone else is doing.

But she had buried children.
She had outlasted wars.
She did not mean float.

There is a word for it —tawakkul—
having a belief so strong
you no longer question
the door,
the weather,
the walls…

because in knowing the current so well
you finally stop rowing against the stones, 

and then give the rest to God.