Embracing the suck

You know that scene in Cinderella at the very end when she overcomes her circumstances, bags the prince, gets free of her stepmother and sisters and finally has a shot at a happy ending? The premise being, of course, that true love exists and fairy tales come true *eventually*

When I dream of things in my future, I don't dream about all the bad things that can (and could realistically happen) I envision all the happy potential I will enjoy once I get to my Cinderella moment. But what if those moments aren't the reason you're on this particular journey? What if it sucks so bad and your only option is to ride the suck? 

I recently planned a bike ride, all sunny and perfect in my head.  When it came time to bike however, the rain was falling so blasphemously that all I could do was stare in disbelief because I was Cinderella- I had the drive, the bike and the destination but I wasn't riding in a fairy tale. That bike ride was hard, cold and wet but I had to do it to get home so I had to just do it.  I raged inside at the complete audacity of nature to ruin my fairy tale bike ride.  

But that's the thing about fairy tales.  Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White- the stories all stop at the beginning of their fairy tale.  You don't know how hard it was for Cinderella to run a castle or if Snow White had a mental illness, Sleeping Beauty obviously had some health issues after she woke but we don't think about those things.  And for the sake of argument, if we did think about those things, we certainly wouldn't be able to really *know* what living with those extra variables did to their fairy tale. 

I think the reason we like the idea of a fairy tale is that it makes our struggle worth it.  All the bad for the good. But life isn't like that.  It ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes, hills and valleys etc etc.  My biggest struggle is to stop trying to live the Disney idea of a fairy tale and let life's tale happen. 

This has been something I've become aware to as I've learned how to incorporate discipline into my life.  ((Just a side note - discipline sucks- but in a good way I think))

I have learned how to find a goal, make a plan and then just keep fighting for that goal, despite my feelings, my failures, my insecurities and the overall desire to be "happy." But even my definitions for all these things have changed in the few months I've strived.  I argue with myself because I don't want to confront it ( or believe it) but in reality, we make our fairy tales.  We choose how to react when things get hard, we choose how to deal when we find feelings we aren't comfortable with and we choose how the story plays out. 

Life is not in our hands.  I didn't choose what happened to you in your life any more than I chose what has happened to me.  For a long while, (I realize now) I just ducked my head and tried to wait it all out. Just get through it, I have done that my entire life- just hold on long enough for things to get better.  

But as I discipline myself, I realize - I was still hiding from the sucky parts of life.  I found distractions in work, relationships and the complexities they provide, food, drink - u name it and I'm sure I've turned my face to it.  But. Grinning and bearing it, holding on till the happy comes, any other lame platitude - it doesn't actually help because I'm hiding from the wave of whatever makes me uncomfortable still- I needed to learn to ride the suck. To be able to embrace that there will be hard times in my life and there may never be a perfect fairy tale ending because we never see the endings. My ending is what I will make of it and I think we can only know how to do that proficiently when we learn to accept the suck and embrace life as it comes.