Knockdowns and victories can sometimes be found on the same side of a coin.
I remember feeling my husband’s footsteps coming closer into our closet. He had found me on the carpet floor, spread out, face down. I could hear him trying his best to lighten his footsteps as he hurried to run downstairs. I could tell he was trying not to panic and so, in his calmest voice, I heard his muffled words to our three oldest kids. I know him too well. I sensed he had told the kids not to go upstairs.
I wasn’t dead. But, that day, I felt like I was. All I remember was returning home exhausted from a long day teaching. Nothing in particular. Just a long day after another long day, after another long day, had most likely compacted my heart, mind, body, and spirit.
We were in continued focus of our children. Our oldest were actively talking downstairs about school, sports, and their multitudes of extracurricular activities. Their dad was in on their conversations. You would think this is the very thing that everyone hopes for when they walk into a house. It truly is. However, the body doesn’t always follow along with the feelings of the heart, mind, and spirit.
My three children and I commuted to and from school together. What many may not realize, as a teacher, a mother, and a wife is, from the moment you wake to the time you put your head down, open talk is happening even before sunrise.
My heart was always in, loving every moment I had with my oldest children even at times I hardly must have shown it. Quietly I knew those days were numbered and so, I tried my best not to take those times with them for granted. However, when the mind gets filled with many distractions of life, staying focused on what’s most important becomes difficult.
As much as I wanted to just laugh with and listen to my children, there were moments where I hardly had any sense of humor to be found in me and any ears not plugged by all of the many thoughts whispering to me all at once. And, even as I took the forum at times to talk, those voices inside would continue along with all voices around me, from my husband, my children, to my students.
That day, even though it was probably one of the least demanding of my children’s schedules, I was done. I wanted silence before school was over. I wanted silence as all students were leaving for dismissal and my children were meeting me to leave for the day. I wanted silence once I was in our car driving home. I wanted silence the moment we all were walking in the door as my husband had greeted us all in the eating area.
I wanted silence. The infamous lyrics, “You can’t always get what you want” sung by George Michael, is befitting. And, I didn’t. And, I didn’t. And, I didn’t. Until, I found myself quietly sneaking upstairs to my room. There, I locked my door. Then, I walked over to my bathroom and locked that door. Then, I walked over to my closet and closed that one (if it had a lock, I would have locked that, too).
My husband, always taking note of my presence, must have quickly taken note of my absence from amongst all downstairs still doing their everyday conversing. I know it hadn’t been long because it felt like just five minutes before I could hear him jiggling our bedroom doorknob from my closet. I heard him call out to me from downstairs, but unlike all other times, this time, I didn’t answer.
When you have known someone for so long, it was as if I could feel his hesitation and read his thoughts as he waited for me to open the door. I heard him ask me if I was okay. Yet, I had not a strength in me to get up, walk, answer him, and unlock my front door. I was going to manage to say I was “okay”, but before I had a chance, he had given just another moment’s hesitation before walking away.
I already knew he would be returning shortly to unlock the door. Still, I didn’t move. I just laid on that darn carpet, still face down, arms spread out, just completely surrendering to the stillness of the floor. The only reverberation I could feel was the voices of my children coming from downstairs.
I heard my bedroom door unlock. I heard my bathroom door slide open. And as I listened to my husband quietly call out my name from the moment he walked into our room as if we were playing a game of hide and seek, I felt a surge of unrestricted panic coming from him at the moment he opened our closet door to where he found me lying on that floor. I don’t recall if he touched me or just hurriedly walked back out. This is when I recall feeling him do his best to contain himself as he calmly went back downstairs to briefly talk to our kids.
He quickly returned and this time, feeling his hands on my shoulder, I recall him asking me if I was okay. By this time, I managed to tell him I was fine. He asked me a few more questions whereas I was able to confess to him that nothing else was the matter. I simply was just tired. As lame of an answer that had been, it was all the truth I had to give.
I asked that he just leave me there for awhile before I promised to go up to our bed to rest before coming back down.
Life had caught up with me, even in the midst of wonderful and beautiful moments, I had run out of energy to take it all in and just breathe. Like someone once told my husband and I, as if reciting my favorite Guns and Roses lyrics, “Every rose has its thorn.”
It is not always that life gets overwhelming in an instance. Burdens aren’t always the bad and the ugly. Sometimes, life is full of blessings, one great moment or achievement after another. While the spirit keeps going, cheerful with the heart and mind, it is to be noted that the body does all the work and inevitably, tires down.
The heart is full, complete with contentment and gratitude. The spirit moves forth, taking for granted that the body has yet to rest from all the wear and tear of occurrences and demands in life. The mind, thinking of too many things all at once try and keep up. Suddenly, all are no longer synchronized together. Though the heart, mind, and spirit continue to push forward, there is no communication between each any longer. All just move forward, assuming all is in motion as usual. Whether it is the heart, mind, or spirit to feel any weighted pressure or burden, the body is the first to fall. And, my body did just that that day for me.
You wish you were a robot. Actually, you try and be one. You want to keep moving forward with the great attitude that all is going well and you should have no reason to feel heavily burdened. And yet, you are. You don’t want to share how you are feeling because you think to yourself, This is my own challenge. How I am feeling is to no one’s fault or control. Up until your body takes not one other step, you tell yourself this, thinking to just put yourself on autopilot. The only part you realize to have forgotten is, you were pushing forward without checking if the fuel was nearly empty or that the battery percentage was already on a single digit.
All is great and yet, the body is not. You are struggling to accept that the body is tiring, not wanting to disappoint the heart, mind, and spirit still going. Who to tell to burden with the inexplicable, unsolvable bottling emotion that is to no one’s intentional doing? You try and rehearse in your head how to convey your internal complexities, but even you are at loss with words. And, what help would any of your attempts to share your feelings of weakening to anyone? How could that, how would that strengthen anybody else’s mind, heart, body, or spirit? You don’t want to be tired, but the body just has other plans sometimes.
My husband needs me. My children need me. At school, my students need me. This is what my heart, mind, and spirit always remind me. Like oxygen to my fire, all components give the body the fuel to keep on. Like all machines, though, breakdowns can happen.
While the heart, mind, and spirit may make all the demands, it is the body that physically carries all forward. No matter how strong all other components are to move, when the body closes, there can be nothing to open up the rest. All can stomp and shout. When the body is done, the heart, mind, spirit can cheer on. The body isn’t moving.
I recall seeing Pacquiao’s last fight. He looked strong and ready as usual, letting out his ubiquitous calm and gentle smile for all spectators familiar of his character to see. Though a bit older, all seemed to be in his favor still. And then, as he accepts defeat, I saw the disappointment in his eyes.
I know he wasn’t expecting to take a loss. He, like any remarkable fighter don’t walk into a fight planning to lose.
I’m not sure what was exactly happening to Pacquiao’s body, but I can only imagine the silent shock he must have been undergoing for some time before the announced defeat. I recall hearing him mention something about his legs giving out. He didn’t have to say anything. We could all see he wasn’t the same Pacquiao we were used to seeing in the ring. This one, though jabbing and weaving, the swiftness was hesitant, speed and movements slowed down.
When you can relate to a body defeated when your heart, mind, and spirit are telling you to keep going, accepting defeat all together just doesn’t feel fair. It is a saddening surrender.
When I found myself flat on the floor, face down, in the dark, in my closet, all of me shamefully hid from my family to take a loss, I felt I was letting them all down without them even knowing it. I was hoping no one would notice. I was hoping to come back down and just resume my role as a mother and wife with a strong, uplifted spirit as I always work to have each day. The body had other plans that afternoon. The heart, mind, and spirit had no other choice but to follow.
Like Pacquiao, I had prepared for another victorious day. I just wasn’t thinking that no matter how many victories we’ve had in life, sometimes the body could care less to get another one.
Have there been victories? Absolutely. Have there been moments where a defeat was more probable than a win, but still, resulted in victory? Absolutely. Will I keep having a mindset, a spirit, a heart that believes to get back up and still resume after a knockdown, however? Absolutely.
I’m aware now that the body can fold; that it can stop even when you don’t want it to. But, will I let life go or slow down, avoiding for such to happen again? No.
What I envision always is that if the body should get knocked down again, it will be because great things are continuing to happen around me. I may have to hide away and take my own quiet defeats, but not to the cost of those I care for deeply and love. As long as they want me, I’ll be front and center to take part.
I believe this is why the writer of Psalms, King David to be said, along with praise, must have written such endless words of prayer and plea so as to not share such feelings of defeat and spite with anyone else. I read this book each time like a journal of one’s most genuine and deep hidden thoughts and feelings. Prayers and pleas of the strong fighting the good fight, but at times, struggling to keep going. And yet, while the writer questioned, arguably cursed, and expressed irrefutable anger and spite, there was evident forward movement to where he was able to pass on his riches, silver and gold to note, aiding his son to complete the infamous temple even after his death.
Although there are attacks after attacks to take down greatness, clearly ups and downs, pushes and pulls, joy and pain of endless battles, one takes silent knockdowns without ever needing anyone to know.
Pacquiao may have had to accept defeat under the eyes of many, but all champions have had falls, whether it be inside a well-lit boxing ring or inside a darkened closet.
Silent knockdowns happen. Rise knowing that victories still do, should, and will thus, live on.
