Just A Bit of Applesauce Will Do

Many things have changed in just the little bit that I have been in Granada. But thank God I have changed with them too.

A month or two ago I came across this therapist on Instagram named Racquel Hopkins. She was talking about how a lot of people in society have the definition of mental health all wrong. Many people are under the impression that that mental health is something we are supposed to protect. That it is this fragile thing that we have to cradle and make sure that peace is nestled itself within its swaddling folds and no harm gets in our way. But your mental health isn’t a little puppy, nor that precious vintage mosaic lamp you got at that estate sale. Nope, it’s an intangible and resilient asset that is our muscle and greatest tool.

I’m not a psychologist, nor a therapist, nor a nothin’ really. But it suprised me that I had never heard mental health described that way before. Of course we can’t handle absolutely every morsel of hardship, but we can always handle a little bit more than we think. If mental health is a muscle, then you train it. It isn’t just conceived to withstand the passage of time at this predetermined bandwidth where we find ourselves suddenly at capacity. This month I had more tough conversations in a short period of time than, well, phew I don’t know when the last time was. It was exhausting holding in tears on the metro, shopping in the grocery store, riding on the bus, so I would just let them go. Not as many people look at you everyday like you think they do. But we aren’t robots and we can’t compartamentalize emotions for when it’s convenient. Sometimes the frustration follows us to bed, the confusion walks to work with us, or the sadness wakes up beside us. It hurts having things in disarray, but you also don’t get to choose when conflict happens.

But despite the boomerang of April, I felt very blessed in the same way. I felt like I had this intensive bootcamp of practicing how to emotionally regulate. For every relationship that was on the fringe, seemingly shriveling up at the root like a wilty turnip, I had another one to my right slowly blossoming and opening up like a little North Carolinian dogwood in the spring time. That was the best part actually. The sugar cube in the bitter brew. It is tiring to try and navigate conflict and feelings and opinions and details and feelings and opinions and details and conflict. But all the while, I felt like God was putting some really gentle things and people in my way. Looking back, I was like a baby strapped in a high chair—crying and hungry, and at the end of a hand bigger than mine, a little rubber teaspoon of sweet applesauce was pressed against my lips. I consumed it with wet eyes and a tense jaw, savoring the sweetness amidst all the discomfort. Babies always look so confused when you give them something sweet during a tantrum.

But hurt doesn’t wash away all at once and applesauce doesn’t fix everything. You can mourn a bit over the things that are coming to a close, but it’s up to you to remember you are still present. You can still feel a little stirred over conflict after it happened, but after a little bit of time, it’s up to you to let it go.

So as to not consume all the hardships in the full swing they have been swung, like a razor scooter to the ankle, I’ve been practicing the act of absorbing versus observing. Observing that there is a conflict, that there is disagreement, but not absorbing it into my each and every pore. Because things are never as personal as you think they are.

Dissent and disagreement are absolutely inevitable. In fact, I have learned it’s just short of a miracle when two people can even arrive on the same idea. Like you and and your neighbor for instance; even though you share the space together now, before your residential proximity, you both had varying experiences: different quantity of relationships, different profundity of harship, different parents, different teachers, different interests, and so on. Therefore, it only makes sense that you don’t feel the same about something, albeit a lot of things. Besides, it would be absurd if all of your friends thought the exact same, arrived at the same conclusion down to a tee. Of course I believe there has to be some overlapping margins in friendship but listen, if you were to number their days on earth, multiply that by their unique daily experiences, divide that by their biological makeup, carry the two on the quirks and particularities we naturally picked up along the way, then their reaction makes .. perfect sense.

And I think that is just what I am finally learning. That conflict isn’t the enemy, disagreement doesn’t mean this falter in connection, and observing is more sustainable than absorbing. I don’t expect you to arrive on the same conclusions as me since, well, you are not me, and I am not you. I have some beautiful friendships like this in my life, where the differences in thought are even celebrated, I think my little Nordic looking friend in New York is refined in the act of observing (looking at you miss Ally). But I have to give a shoutout to the boys on this one. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friends from jiu jitsu who are predominately guys, and in my anthropological findings, I am fascinated with their ability to stay unrattled in their times of discord. They disagree and any lingering tinge of tension seems to evaporates seemingly immediately. They observe the difference but don’t absorb it.

Maybe some boys have to scrap it out and bruise their knuckles to resolve their tiffs, which might not be A+ problem-solving either.

Who’s to say?

So I’m learning that disagreement isn’t the peak of a rollercoaster going down, it’s just an opportunity to observe. Now I find myself seeing these conversations as vehicles to highlight my personal values, all the while enhancing the character of the other. Whether I share their idea or not, at least we’ve been using our freewill for thought. I think of disagreement now kind of like a movie theatre usher in a dark cinema, leading two people to their spots reflected on their tickets. And oh so reverently, the usher will take me to row 5 seat C. Then he’ll take the other guest to row 7, guiding them to seat B. We’ll carefully follow the floor lights quietly, trying not to spill too much popcorn, and we’ll plop down in our respective separate seats. But in the end, we’re both just watching the same film.