Last year I didn’t set any new years goals. It felt trite and silly like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. (One of my husband’s favorite expressions.) My brain was still screaming—we’re going down, anyway—so I didn’t have the motivation to worry about arranging something that was about to drown.
This year felt different.
I swirled my favorite iced coffee listening to the familiar clanging of the ice cubes and sipped on the straw. I had just gotten a root canal but I felt strangely happy and proud of myself.
The root canal was a result of the rapid decay my teeth experienced during my pregnancy, another not so cool gift of the daily vomiting. Another not so cool thing I learned about myself during my 3 day labor after 2 failed epidurals is that my body doesn’t like to get numb. And maybe it’s silly but I was proud of myself when I got my root canal done because I told the guy I could feel it and it hurt.
I told him about my labor and medical trauma and that I could feel my C section more than most people because (I guess) that happens to people with red-ish hair. In my mind he would be like an evil villain in a cartoon and give a big cackle, throw his head back, and then drill on my tooth anyway.
In real life, he said, “Wow, I’m so sorry. I won’t start working on this until we know you can’t feel it.”
After way more shots, lots of testing, and a full hour of just trying to numb my mouth he looked at me triumphantly, we’d done it. Later he told me the red hair thing is actually scientifically proven, a genetic thing, and affirmed what I thought he’d laugh at.
At home, with my half smile while my face came back I felt proud, and even hopeful. A part of me wondered why it felt so hard to stand up for myself. Why I assumed the dentist would think I was silly for telling him about the red hair thing. But I already know the answer thanks to many, many counseling sessions.
Trauma has changed me. I hate that it has. I wish I didn’t feel like there was a “before” and “after” in my life. I don’t like how I feel so scared now. I don’t like that I feel like planning for the future is always like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
But something strange was happening to me.
My son was asleep, a candle burned on my desk, I wrote something I was proud of. When I looked at the year ahead there was a lot of uncertainty. Many things I wanted to put on my calendar firmly in red pen, I couldn’t.
But as I felt the familiar feeling of staring at a blank page and didn’t feel scared—I felt hope.
It startled me a little. I wanted to jump back and say, “hey now! You wait right there. I’m not ready for that!” But it was persistent. A part of my soul I hadn’t fully felt in a while started to rise up within me and say, what if? in this tone full of wonder, joy and possibility.
At this point you may be wondering what my root canal has to do with this. Or maybe you already know. It’s not fun or exciting or joyful to get a root canal. But for me, I proved to myself in that moment that I can speak up for myself, I can voice my needs, I can tell someone I’m hurting. I can do something hard and listen to an audio book and get through it in a way that feels as best as it possibly can. And for me right now, this is an image of hope.
Because I don’t know what the future holds and truthfully it will likely hold some pretty hard things. But I find comfort and hope knowing I can do what I can control and find joy in those possibilities.
The expression my husband often uses about the titanic started to capture my curiosity. So, I did some research.
There was a violinist on the titanic named Wallace Hartley. When the ship began to sink he didn’t help get life vests or board a lifeboat. Instead, he played his violin.
Survivors from the titanic don’t recognize him but they remember the songs that were playing when they said goodbye to their loved ones. Some mentioned feeling calm because of the sound of the live music in the background.
Maybe, rearranging the chairs doesn’t make sense. But if you’re an artist, keep making the art even when it feels hopeless. As soon as you know what God has called you to—drop everything and keep doing that.
Wallace Hartley drowned. But I like that his legacy lives on.
I imagine that he didn’t look around and panic and fight the reality of the dire situation around him. Instead, he did what he was there to do. He did the most courageous and hopeful thing he could do. In my imagination, he thought to himself, there is one final act of beauty I can create, of joy I can find, of hope I can posture myself in—so he played his violin.
If I’m drowning, I want to be the kind of person who decides it’s as good a time as any to make some music.
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