Hi. It’s me again. It’s been a long while since I was last on here blogging my thoughts and feelings about the world. Truth is, the reason for my absence is that I’ve been too busy spinning my wheels and letting life get the best of me. It’s been a rough few weeks… months… years. But alas, it’s a new day… nay, a new decade, which means it’s time to get back on this horse and gallop off into the great unknown. So here we go.

As I was alluding to in the previous paragraph, life has been kicking my butt. For the past few years, I’ve been in this weird cycle of life just knocking the tar out of me, I bleed out for a minute (or ten), I wipe off the blood and sweat, and then I come back swinging – it’s exhausting.

While drudging through the muck of this harrowing saga, I often think about random moments in pop culture to help me cope. In this instance, my mind looked toward Christopher Walken for inspiration. Yes, THAT Christopher Walken.

In Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, Mr. Walken plays Frank Abagnale, Sr. (a.k.a., Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad). There’s this scene where he and Leo are out at a fancy dinner where he’s about to hand Leo some solid life advice by way of a parable. Now get ready and mentally tap into Christopher Walken’s voice as I regale you with this same tale.

The story goes that two mice are trapped at the bottom of a bucket of cream. One mouse starts kicking up the cream and fights to get out of the bucket while the other one doesn’t even attempt to move. Mouse #1 fights so hard that eventually all of his kicking leads to a solid butter staircase and he survives. Meanwhile, mouse #2, because he didn’t even try to move, just drowned in the cream and met a sad, milky fate. After telling this story, Frank Sr. looks Frank Jr. square in the eye and says, “So which mouse do you want to be?”

Frank Jr., just as any of us sitting on the listening end of that story might’ve answered, chose the first mouse. You kick and you fight to survive until you eventually get out of that bucket. But let’s get real here for a second: sometimes the butter churns too slowly or we take five steps up that slippery buttery slope only to end up sliding back at least ten. It’s exhausting! (Yes, I did say that just a few paragraphs ago).

So what do we do? How do we cope when it feels like an ocean of cream is consuming us and the easier option is just to drown in it? (I know that kind of sounds delicious, but hang with me here).

Well, here’s what we can do: we slide, float on our backs for a little while, get up, and start kicking again. As I’ve endured this over-extensive series of unfortunate events over the past few years, I’ve learned that the best way to survive until you break through to the top of the bucket is to: 1.) Acknowledge the hardship, pain, and/or disappointment of your situation (a.k.a., sliding), 2.) Give yourself a break. It’s necessary to put yourself in time out and do some self-care in the middle of your battle (a.k.a., floating), and 3.) Get up and start kicking butt-er.

All three are necessary components of making it out of the bucket. First off, it’s absolutely vital to acknowledge whatever you’re dealing with – life just really sucks sometimes and can truly take the wind out of our sails. Next, you HAVE to give yourself time to breathe. I’m not talking about self-medicating through destructive behaviors; what I am talking about is doing some proper self-care and TREATING YO’ SELF. Be kind to yourself and do what you need to do to find comfort and process through it all. Lastly, you HAVE to get up and fight again. Steps one and two without step three will just lead you to being the second mouse who doesn’t make it out alive, as will attempting step three without doing the first two steps. The fight is exhausting (there’s my favorite “e” word again!) and you’ll burn out faster if you bypass steps one and two. So keep kicking and get out of that bucket!

I’m honestly not sure how much longer I need to kick to get out of this particular bucket – it’s a pretty big one – and I think that moving through life requires us to paddle through buckets of varying sizes. However, as deep and harrowing as this bucket has been, I’m truly grateful for the lessons learned through the churning and I’m hoping my next inevitable bucket will only be the size of a cowbell (*wink wink* – points to anyone who gets that reference). So keep sliding, floating, and kicking. The bucket may be overwhelming, but you, my friend, are an overcomer. You got this, you sweet butter churner.