Count Me In
So, last year I binge-watched this show on Netflix called The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - maybe you’ve watched it? It’s a really silly, funny show about a girl re-learning to live life in the big bad world after being kidnapped as a teen and held in an underground bunker for 15 years (sounds hilarious, right?). Anyhow, the point is that after she’s freed she goes out spreading her naive, but eternally sunny optimism around a world that’s often skeptical and heavy handed with doom and gloom. In one such scenario she’s trying to encourage a friend that thinks they can no longer go on, (like I said - cue the laughs), and reflecting on her time in the bunker, gives her friend this piece of advice, that stopped me right in my late-night, bleary-eyed tracks…
“I learned a long time ago that a person can stand just about anything for 10 seconds. Then you just start a new 10 seconds. All you’ve got to do is take it 10 seconds at a time.”
I cannot tell you how often I have told myself this exact thing since the day Kimmy bestowed that gem on me. Because it’s TRUE. I move through life in a general state of feeling awkward and uncomfortable. I almost always feel out of place and self conscious so my solution for years was - you guessed it - Avoid! Avoid! Avoid! This became impossible when I resolved to start living outside of my comfort zone though, so what was I going to do? Well, I started by reminding myself that I could do anything for 10 seconds.
And the beauty is you can apply it to almost anything! I’ve gotten through dentist visits, epic toddler meltdowns, painful smalltalk, and even the mother of all hangovers (shout out to Vegas!) 10 seconds at a time.
If you happen to follow along with my Instagram stories you’ll know that there is little I hate more than working out, and yet I have recently been doing just that. Quite regularly too I might add. So how does a girl that truly detests all things exercise get through a workout? 10 seconds at a time. Literally. I will watch the timer on whatever machine is torturing me that day and count down each 10 seconds knowing that I am now that much closer to being finished. And then 10 seconds will turn into 10 minutes, and I’ll think ‘well I’ve come this far, might as well see it through…’. Sometimes all you need to do is find a way to start the hard thing.
If I think about the months at a time that Luke will be away from us this year, it easily overwhelms me. I feel the weight of the all the things that will have to be done to keep the house running, I won’t feel capable of meeting all the needs of 3 kids, and I question where I’ll find the energy, let alone time, to maintain my business. But, if instead of looking at it as a whole, I just remember that I can make it through that week, or that day, or that 10 seconds even, then it instantly feels more manageable. It’s easy to feel inadequate when faced with the big picture but taken as singular moments, or individual tasks, suddenly it begins to feel conquerable.
I’ve also had days that felt like the only way to survive the grief of losing my dad was those same damn 10 seconds. When I felt like it was swallowing me whole and I would cry forever, they were a reminder to me that not even that unbearable sadness will last forever. Whatever pain I feel from missing him I just have to face in the moment it comes, knowing that I’ll survive like I have all the ones before it. Trusting that soon enough something will come along to distract me from my grief long enough to get back on my feet and face a new 10 seconds.
Sure, this was only meant to be a comedic blip in a half hour Netflix series, but it actually turned out to be pretty sage advice. I think that’s because the essence of what Kimmy was trying to tell me was exactly what God has been saying all along. Matthew 6:34 says “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” He’s telling us to stick to the present. To the 10 seconds we are living right now. Because his promise is that whatever it holds we are capable of handling. He already knows what happens 10 seconds from now- what tomorrow holds. He knows that Kimmy gets her happy ending and that Luke will come home, and that some day, 5 million 10-seconds from now, when I think about the sound of my dad’s laugh or the feel of his huge hands holding mine, I’ll smile instead of cry.