Why I Can't "Get Over It"

Mali at No Kidding in NZ wrote a post that resonated with me: "I'll Never Say Never". Read the post, but the quick and dirty is that while the phrase "get over it" is often used to silence people who are experiencing pain and grief, it is also used as a badge of sorts when talking to people about your pain, as in "I'll never get over it," and that can be extraordinarily unhelpful for a new person to childfree not by choice (CNBC) living to hear.

It reminded me just how much I hate the phrase "get over it."

Here are things you can get over:
- a speed bump
- a hill you are hiking
- a cold
- a disappointment, such as not getting a job, getting fired, not getting an accolade, having a project not work out the way you'd hoped, laying thick hints for a birthday present you'd like and then not having it appear in pretty wrapping, etc.

A speed bump is a temporary tiny hill, that you slow down for, jog your shocks for a moment, and then continue on your way.

A hill you're climbing is a longer process, usually a challenge you've sought out. It is sweaty business, but when you've climbed over it you have that sense of accomplishment and endorphin rush, and sore muscles that last a few days.

A cold sucks while it is invading your face, throat, or chest, and you can feel like you are Patient Zero of the new pandemic and you will surely die, but then it does eventually go away and your voice goes back to normal, your lungs go back to normal, your nose and throat and sinuses all go back to normal. The only reminder of your cold is a third of a bottle of NyQuil under the sink and a trash can full of tissues.

Disappointments are difficult, but solvable -- if I don't get the job I wanted, I look for another one. If I get fired (which I have, and it is no fun), I have a chance to remake myself, to find a new job, to reflect on what happened, to learn from it, to figure out how to survive. If you were hoping for an accolade and you do not get it, it hurts and can impact your sense of worth, but you try again or go for something different. If a project goes sour, like planting a new garden and most plants don't come back the next year, you figure out what went wrong, you feel sad about the plants that didn't make it, you make a new plan. If you've hinted and flagged catalog pages in the bathroom and thought that you were transparent and possibly telepathic but those puffin slippers do not arrive for the holidays, you can order them your damn self and call it a recuperation present.

"Getting over it" is possible when it is something that is temporary, that does not have lasting impact, that makes you upset or frustrated or disappointed but doesn't sink roots deep in your psyche. You can get over a cold, but pneumonia could have lasting impacts on your body that ripple out well into your future. You can get over getting fired, but if you repeatedly lose a job or have difficulty with steady employment, that crosses over a threshold into more than just disappointment.

In my mind, "Getting over it" is for disappointments. It is not for loss. Disappointments make you sad but don't last. Loss results in grief, and changes your life. It cannot be "gotten over," because that is too simplistic for something that has infiltrated the very fiber of your existence.

I agree with Mali -- hearing "I'll never get over it" or "you never get over it" as a person new to a particular loss (loss of parenthood, loss of health, loss of a loved one, loss of marriage, loss of lasting employment, loss of independence, etc.) is not helpful. When you are facing a life different than the one you had imagined for yourself, when the inevitabilities you thought were promised don't happen or are wrenched away from you, you want to know that there is hope for that different life.

This is why the phrases I prefer are "getting through it" or "moving forward."

Facing the end of our journey to become parents and the devastating death of a dream two years ago was a loss that at first felt beyond comprehension. It didn't just hurt, it felt like the world was ending. Almost exactly two years ago we were having difficult conversations following my physical and emotional crisis, and I didn't know how I could ever feel whole again. There was no getting over it. There was just lying facedown on the floor and wondering why everything had gone so wrong and why we no longer had it in us to continue down the punishing path to parenthood that seemed just a twisty, dark  road through a swamp, full of wrong turns and sinkholes.

It was so important to think about not just the end of what we'd so wanted, but how to move forward -- how to rearrange our life and look at this as a new beginning as much as a tragic ending. The trauma part was real, though. It was not a disappointment. It was a huge loss: of a person we'd hoped to meet but who never got to exist, of a life that was vastly different than the one we were facing, of a generational legacy that wouldn't exist -- no children, no grandchildren, a family tree with no branches after us. It is woven into who I am now. I cannot get past it, I cannot climb over that and be the same as I was before.

I can, however, get through it -- I can slog through the swamp and be left with scars that fade over time. I will not stay in the swamp. The swamp is temporary. The swamp has the deep pits that you can fall into and feel dangerously like you'll never resurface again, but you will. It is possible. Those roots that scratched and tore your skin on the way down will help you climb back out.

Getting through the pain is necessary to moving forward, to reclaiming a life that is different that what you'd hoped for and what seemed to be just "next steps" for everyone else. You can absolutely get to a point where you love the benefits of the life you have, now that the swamp is an unpleasant memory.

Or maybe, to get away from the swamp metaphor, which makes everything seem terrible and stinky and squelchy under the feet, it's more like the t-shirt you wear to a color run. (Something I have never done, because you'd have to run, and it became a thing after my brief running period in high school and college.)

You go into the race with a white t-shirt, and as you run it, you are colored with those powders along the way. You have a record of each milestone, each curve in the road, because of the colors on your shirt. And when you finish, your shirt is not at all the same as what you started with -- it is a riot of color, not all of it beautiful. But it is transformed, and it is a record that THIS HAPPENED. You can wear your shirt and enjoy the beautiful and the clashing parts and know that it is a record of something you went through. Your skin is no longer pink and purple and green, I assume that washes off eventually, but your shirt continues to tell the story.

"Getting over it" and "getting past it" deny you the right to wear your shirt proudly, to remember the hills and tough second mile and the cramp in your side, but also that you went through the finish line and you made it. That shirt, those scars, are part of who you are. So I think sometimes when people say "I'll never get over it," they are thinking of the scars that linger or dye that will never come out of the shirt. Perhaps to follow that up with "but I did get through it" or "I am moving forward" would help with giving hope to the newly dazed and skin-stained.

That you can build a beautiful life, even if it doesn't match societal norms or what you'd dreamed of until the dream was gone. That you can move forward from something devastating that seemed like the pain might end you, and while you still can get floored by a painful moment and the sadness can creep up on you, the joy and gratitude and LIVING of a fulfilling life far outweighs that. The balance shifts over time.

It is amazing to me that I am only two years out from the most difficult days of my life, and I can look at my life and be so very grateful. Because I am moving forward. I did get through the toughest parts. I am wearing my color-spattered shirt with pride, and I feel honored to join the people who helped me through the finish line in being here to cheer for those who arrive, exhausted and rainbow-stained, at the other side of the race, give them a hug, and let them know that on this side, life is beautiful.