Resilience

Karla Barrios receives the Barbara Yaroslavsky Courage Award.

I’m always amazed by how resilient children are.

They can bounce back and move forward from almost anything at the drop of a hat. I can have the most horrific fight with my kids. We yell, doors are slammed, stupid things we don’t mean are said. The next day, I am a mess. Actually, sometimes, I am a mess for days. My kids? 10 minutes after the argument: “Hey, Ima, what’s for dinner?” as if nothing happened at all.

A few weeks ago, at the 10-year celebration of The Advot Project, we gave an award to a student for whom the word “resilience” doesn’t begin to cover what she has overcome. I am amazed, perplexed, and in awe of how she is able to come back again and again from the most horrific of things.

The capacity of the human spirit and body to be resilient and to heal never ceases to amaze and inspire me. I have witnessed youth who have been broken into pieces and yet come back, head held high, stronger that you can imagine. 

“Ms., people from my past came back to haunt me. I ain’t gonna lie. I got pulled back.” When he said this, it got very quiet in the room. We all know this was not the beginning of hearing something good. “I did some shit I’m not proud of. I didn’t have a choice. I had to do it.”

There is dead silence in the room. I breathe. “I am sorry,” I say. “I am sorry you felt like you did not have a choice, because I think you actually did.” He stands up and yells, “I didn’t” and he sits down. I walk closer to him.

“You were locked up for so long. Inside those walls maybe you did not have choices. Outside you actually do.”

“Why you go standing so close to me, Ms.?” he asks. “I want you to hear me. You want to go back?” I ask. “Fuck, no,” he says.

“Then make better choices. You can. I know it’s easy for me to stand here and say that.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “You can.” 

I walk back to the center of the class.

“I have gotten through serious shit, Ms. Sometimes it’s the little things that make me snap,” he says. 

“I know. It always is the little things.” I smile.

“There is so much to get over,” a different student says.

“Yes, there is.” I say.

 “Try to think of all the things you have gotten over and say ‘Wow! that’s amazing! I am amazing! When the demons come to haunt you, your resilience is your power. Think of everything you have gotten over and say to yourself, ‘I got this.’”

“That is fucking stupid, Ms. Sorry, but it makes no sense. Sometimes you are just tired from all the shit and you can’t anymore.” She looked down after she said that.

“Then flush the goddamn toilet” someone yelled out. “When you are tired of the shit, just flush the goddamn toilet. Get rid of it and move on.”

We all laughed.

“Ms., resilience is being able to move. Flush it down the toilet and move the fuck on. Let go, forget it, and move the fuck, fuck, for fucking hell on.”

 As a person who holds on to words and feelings, a person who deliberates, remembers, and feels everything, to just “move the fuck on” seemed very novel to me. 

“Here is the thing,” this amazing student of mine said. “Sometimes the shit is so bad and so hard, all you can do is move on. The pain can kill you. You say ‘Okay, that hurts like a motherfucker but it ain’t going to keep me down. I am gonna move on.’ And you?” 

She looks at the first student who spoke. “You were locked up for so long. Fuck the motherfuckers that came back into your life. You wanna go back to prison? Make better choices, man!”

If I told you what this woman has been through, you would give her the resilience crown.

When she is done, I point at her and say, “What she said!”

We all laugh again, not because it is funny, but because it is true. Because there is so much pain and trauma in the room that all we can do is gently laugh at how hard it all is.

As he left the room, the first student came up to me and leaned in. “I heard you, Ms., Better choices. Gonna try. Gonna try.” And he walked out of the classroom.

As I drive home, I am overcome by a wave of emotion. I think about each of my students. I think about my kids. I think about brave, brave Karla whom we honored at the event. I think of how incredibly hard it all is. 

I watch the sky start to turn red and gray as the sun begins to find her way to set, and I sit on the 10 West freeway and begin to cry.

I am not sure if I am sad or relieved or just a little amazed by it all. I think of my own journey, where I was, and where I am. I let the wave of emotion take over and am seriously happy that I am alone in my car and that I can have a nice, but totally ugly cry that led to a little bit of hysterical laughing.

Then, as if my own private DJ was hearing my thoughts, on the radio came Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and I sing really loud.

“I’ve got all my life to live and I’ve got all my love to give and I’ll survive. I will survive. I will survive.” I think yes. We will all survive, broken, scared, hurt. We can and will survive. 

This Thanksgiving, I invite you to be grateful for your resilience. I invite you to have a sense of humor. Acknowledge not only what you have but also accept what you don’t have. Be proud of how far you have come, even if it is only one step away from where you were. Know how incredibly worthy you are. We all are, no matter where we were, what we did, and the mistakes we made.

 As my wise, beautiful student said, “Flush the shit down the toilet and move on.”

I know it is not easy, but I also know it is definitely possible. 

Most important, of all, love. 

Love, and then love some more. 

And please, love yourself the most.