Beatings Continue Until You Toughen Up: A Country Song

Panama City Beach is a fascinating place.  I was there once a long time ago – so long ago that the memories are few.  On a hot, ocean-choppy night, I was coaxed into going into the water, not too deep.  But enough to be hit by some pretty big waves.    The challenge was to stand where the receding tide reached the knees and remain standing after being hit by a wave - but…without being able to see the waves coming.  Honestly, it wasn’t possible.  It’s one thing to be strong enough to withstand it, but entirely another when getting hit by surprise.

That is not me. That’s what it felt like though.

The first hit was shocking.  Put me on my face, and I had to paddle to get back to my feet.  Then, before I could stand, a second wave smashed me down.  Then a third.  I got frantic – literally on all fours, moving as quickly as I could toward the beach.  I like sitting by the ocean.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t go in.  I don’t like it - and this is one reason why.  Chlorinated pools, especially the heated ones, are the way to go for me.

The physical feeling of being smashed down before I could stand has stuck with me for decades.  It was physically shocking – bad.  Frustrating to say the least.  And scary, too.  I shouldn’t have been out there.  I know now that if I went down and got swept back a bit, the struggle would have been increasingly real. It was night.  If I were to go under, you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now because I’d still be out there somewhere.

In a famous song by Kenny Rogers, a woman named Lucille left her husband with four kids and a crop that needed to be harvested.  Then, to add insult to injury, hubby catches up with her while she’s chilling at a bar with The Gambler himself. Kenny watched them.  Listened.  Then wrote a song about it. So many country songs are jacked up like that.  Live Like You Were Dying, He Stopped Loving Her Today, Friends in Low Places, Whiskey Lullabye – these singers are just losing friends, family, lovers, jobs, pets, you name it.  It’s as if the greater the losses, the more famous the songs.

Old School Kenny - I was 4 years old when this one came out.

The jabs.  The punches.  The knives in the back.  The waves.  They keep coming.  Not just for me, but for everyone, always.  I think we get a little more torqued about hits when they come in bunches.  The reality is that you are likely to lose a job at some point.  No disrespect to wedded couples, but statistically speaking, the longer you are married, your odds of divorce don’t go down…they go up.  But worry not – if you make it past year seven, you might just get to year 14.  Friends and family are going to let you down, and the ones who don’t – the ones you love the most – you’ll miss them or they’ll miss you when the time comes.

Intellect, friends in high places, and luck are important things to have.  But without resilience, they are useless.  At some point you are going to be called upon not by someone else, but called upon by you yourself to suck it up.  Roll up your sleeves and get to work.  Don’t stop to look in the mirror at your bloody lip. It’ll be there for you to gawk at after you’ve finished your fight.  This one’s about perseverance—a muscle you only build by going through the kind of pain country singers turn into platinum records.

For me, the last five months have been in that water—just trying to stand, only to get knocked flat again before I can even find my footing. One hit, then another. A small breath of air before the next crash. Find sobriety, lose my house.  Get in amazing shape, but working out like a freak can bring tendinitis with a vengeance.  Love the mountain bike as a primary mode of transportation – until I went over a rock wall.  Seriously.  That hurt like hell. 

When things feel like they’re finally good, that's often when the next wave hits. We can almost feel it coming—even if we don't want to admit it.

Guess what, though.  I’m still here. You're still here. And that counts for something. That counts for a lot because the people who don’t get knocked down are just people who haven’t stood in that water. The rest of us? We’ve been hit. We’ve been rattled. We’ve spit out salt water and wiped blood off our chins. But we get up. Again and again. Not because it’s easy—but because we’ve decided that getting up is who we are now.

Reality check: Some of the strongest people I know are the ones who’ve had the most reasons to quit. They didn’t. They learned to bend when the waves hit. They figured out how to breathe under pressure. They kept moving – toward the shore, toward the light, toward whatever came next. That’s what I’m doing now. And if you’re reading this – if life has you dazed, drifting, disoriented – I want you to know something: your strength isn’t gone. It’s just a little wet from a wave. But it’s still there.

Ever feel like the frog?

This chapter isn’t about winning. It’s about refusing to stop fighting. It’s about staying in the ring. Standing in the surf. Crawling when you have to. Laughing through the pain when you can. The tide will recede. It always does. And when it does, you’ll be stronger, not just because you endured, but because you chose to believe in something better. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what you can do, too. Keep going. You’re closer than you think.

If this resonates with you, please let me know. We’re all just trying to get back to shore.