On Gooey Gunk and Becoming Unstuck
They don’t tell you, growing up, that love is like chewing gum. But it is.
For so long (off and on, but mostly on), I’d been aggravatingly and seemingly hopelessly stuck. Stuck like gum on the sole of a brand new dress shoe — stuck in my heart and stuck in my head on something I knew I couldn’t have. I scraped and scrubbed and tried to get the last of that gooey gunk off, but traces of that miraculously stubborn substance just refused to be gotten rid of.
After wrestling with this for months, I finally began to realize that life will not wait for us to solve these inexplicably complicated and vexingly heartrending mazes. The trick is, I found, to let it lie. And…. that didn’t mean playing mind games and pretending it wasn’t there. Nor did it mean attacking the shoe with every chemical substance known to man in order to obliterate each last trace of gum from the ridges of the sole … the soul … where it had wedged itself, seemingly for good.
No, the key was regaining perspective, resuming life’s mission, and continuing. Going. Walking, gum on shoe and all.
* * *
This morning, after hesitating for half of a blink of a barely-awakened eye, I called in a favor today, and it was only after the fact when I began to question whether I had overstepped my rights.Consequently, my double cousin and I engaged in a sharp analysis, volleyed in urgent whispers across sixteen inches of space in an otherwise silent room. The atmosphere of that cavernous library reading room was thick with the intellectual tension of minds desperately seeking to saturate their brain cells with reams of legal knowledge. In our little zone of debate, however, the bar exam was far from mind. Rules of motion practice, race-notice statutes, and hearsay exceptions were shoved to the outer corners of our psyches, as much more important matters pressed for immediate attention.
In the end, our impromptu dissection of the situation yielded a relieving conclusion. Part one. In calling in the favor, I effectively communicated acceptance and forgiveness, for within the actual asking was this latent message: I trust you enough to tell you I need your help. Part two. In receiving the favor, I was given more than just the material benefit of my request — I also received proof of something deeper, a bond transcending the awkward dance we’d been tiptoedly two-stepping around our ill-fated past. We may not be what we were yesterday, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing today.
* * *
The timing for this healing is good. In two flips of a wall calendar, an ocean, a continent, and the mysterious power of time will divide us on many levels — and I think I’m ready for the change.
I’ve been walking, with the gum on my shoe, finally learning to just accept it as part of me. It bothers me less, as a consequence. There are days now when I don’t even realize that it’s there. As time passes, the pages are turning. The seasons are changing. The pieces are shifting. And I’m not going to go and check, but I’m pretty sure… the gum is unsticking.