I have likely written about it here before, because it’s a bell that tolled so loudly throughout my childhood and young-adulthood that I will likely be hearing its echoes until the day I die…

But my father has a saying he’s rather fond of:

You can hold your breath that long.

He says it in response to whining children distraught adults his offspring when they feel they are in an unbearable situation and cannot stand it one second longer. [Updated to add: Unbearable-seeming situations for which there is no way out but through. The only way to survive them is to endure them until the bitter end.]

For instance: Sleep away camp.

(I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, Internet, but my sleep away camp experiences were fraught with disaster. The first one – 4-H camp – ended [for me] early when I came down with pneumonia. Another camp involved an unstoppable nosebleed that resulted in a cauterization at a doctor’s office and an embarrassing fainting episode.)

If I were to start crying and carrying on about how scary and horrific sleep away camps were, my father might cheerfully say something like, “Buck up! Camp ends in three days. You can hold your breath that long!”

If I were to whine on and on to him about how college finals were destroying my very soul, he might say, “Winter break is two weeks away! You can hold your breath that long!”

If I were to suggest that the years of feeling unsettled and lonely as a wife-of-a-medical-student seemed to stretch interminably before me, he might say, “It’s just a few years. You can hold your breath that long!”

I have learned that I can hold my breath for years at a time, Internet.

Usually, he is right on the money. Time passes more quickly than you think. And even fairly awful situations end eventually.

(Here is where I add the obvious disclaimer that I have led a very fortunate life and I have not really FACED any truly horrible situations. Furthermore, I KNOW it would be ridiculous and cruel to suggest to some people that they simply “hold their breaths” and deal with ACTUALLY horrific situations. My father’s mantra works only in first worldy type situations of drudgery and discomfort.)

I used to HATE when my father would hand out this mantra. Partly because the delivery was so very cheerful and definitive. But partly because whatever horror (not ACTUAL horror, mind you) I was facing seemed like it would NEVER END.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to repeat it to myself. It’s similar, in some ways, to the harsh “you’ll live” and the softer “this too shall pass,” of course. But while that saying still irritates me (in the case of kidney stones, the passing IS the concern), I appreciate the cheery wisdom of “you can hold your breath that long.”

For one thing, it implies some control. You’re not sitting idly by as a large steamroller crushes you into the ground. No. You are boldly jumping into icy water, challenging yourself to stick it out.

For another, there’s a “safety net” hidden within the phrase. You obviously CAN’T hold your breath THAT long, so the phrase itself implies that the unpleasantness will end in an endurable amount of time. No one would reasonably expect you to hold your breath for 50 years. It’s impossible. (The breath holding alone will kill you!) But you can do it for a short time.

For a third (and maybe this isn’t FOOLPROOF proof of the value of this saying), if someone is telling you to keep your chin up because you can hold your breath that long… well, the situation must not be THAT bad. It might feel bad. It might feel unbearable. But it’s not going to do serious damage, otherwise your kind, loving, protective father would tell you to get the hell out of the water.

(Leave it to a former English major to get 175 words of analysis out of a seven-word phrase.)

Now, repeating this mantra to yourself may not always work. Especially if you have to say it often.

But I find that another trick that DOES help is to think of other seemingly unbearable situations that suck but are nonetheless endurable.

–          Getting blood drawn.

–          Eating a meal at the house of someone you must impress (a boss, the President, your future in-laws) that is disgusting but you MUST eat it or risk having your hosts disrespect/hate you forever.

–          The stomach flu.

–          Visits to the dentist that involve ANYTHING pokey, scrapey, buzzy, or X-ray-y.

–          Moving, particularly if your cheap ass decides that it will be WAY BETTER to do all but the really big items yourself.

–          Childbirth. (I’m guessing on this one.)

–          Oral presentations.

–          Being away from home for any extended length of time, particularly if you are ALONE away from home. Double points if you are away in a place where you don’t speak the language. Triple points if you are away in a place where you don’t speak the language with a crazy person.

–          High school.

(Please do not tell me about your aunt/friend/roommate who had such a terrible case of stomach flu/a botched blood draw/an unfortunate run-in with a moving van and died. I am sorry for your loss, but this exercise is for imagination purposes ONLY, not for proving that some of these situations may actually NOT be endurable.)

You can say to yourself, “This situation is horrible and I hate my life and it is killing my spirit, but at least I am not getting my teeth cleaned by someone who thinks flossing should be approached with the same ferocity as Ultimate Fighting.”

Or you can say, “I do not enjoy crying four times every day over The Hopelessness of It All, but I did manage to spend three weeks in Prague with a crazy person, so I can deal with this too.”

Or you can say, “Well, three years seems like an impossibly long time to figuratively hold my breath, but I DID survive high school somehow, and that was FOUR years, so this HAS TO be better than THAT.”

You know, I am surprised that I wrote that first example, about how “at least I’m not at the dentist.”

Because if anyone ELSE were to say that to me – “at least you aren’t…” – I would fix them with an Icy Stare of Death. Of all the things that could potentially help me feel like an unbearable situation is more bearable than I think it is, the comparing-my-situation-to-that-of-others-who-are-less-fortunate is the least likely to work.

Yes, I realize that I am not dying of an itchy flesh-eating rash on an island where there is no water or calamine lotion or cable TV or tacos. Yes, I realize that I have it GOOD and that whatever thing I’m going through is not the worst thing to happen to a human – not by a long shot. Yes, I realize that there are a kabillion people who would feel LUCKY to be in my shoes, you ungrateful brat.

This kind of perspective is a good, valuable thing. It is IMPORTANT to realize how good you have it. It can even be INSPIRING, when it’s not being pounded into your skull as a reason why your pain does not count.

Sure, it’s incredible that three boys survived in a tiny dinghy for 51 days with no food. But I am not on a boat, nor do I even LIKE boats, nor is Boat Survival in any way related to what I’m going through so telling me my situation is nothing compared to those boys’ is NOT HELPFUL.  (Sometimes it makes me feel worse, like I must be one hell of a schmuck if I’m all wound up about my measly little kitten of a situation when there are people who are EATING THEIR OWN BOATS TO STAY ALIVE. )

Sometimes, you just want to know that YOUR version of unbearable isn’t going to last forever.

That’s why, I think, I find it useful to examine situations I’ve already been through (as opposed to situations that other people are going through). It’s proof that I have dealt with worse or at least equally bad and come out the other side.

I do find that the other kind of perspective – the “maybe you can’t see the forest for the trees” kind – IS helpful.

Sometimes it helps to take a step back and say, “Oh yes, I feel miserable NOW. But this is only one part of my life, and I feel pretty damn happy in the other areas of my life.”

Or, “Wow, I am spending all this time fretting over this one thing, but I bet that I’ll look back on it 10 years from now and laugh at myself for being so wound up over something so insignificant, big-picture-wise!”

Or, “Yes, the walls of this room are dark and sticky and covered with spiders, but if I open the DOOR, there is sunlight outside! And bug spray!”

There are, of course, outsiders who can give me perspective. I sometimes email my mom and demand pep talks from her. And I frequently force my husband to tell me that everything will be okay. But at the end of the day, we all need to stop bugging our loved ones lest they throw in the towel be able to square our shoulders and move forward ourselves.

What do you do, Internet, when you feel STUCK and MISERABLE and it seems as though you’ll always feel that way? What does your inner cheerleader say to you?

And, if you have no answer to that question, why don’t you contribute to my list of Things That Truly Suck But Are Bearable Nonetheless? That will make you feel better, I promise!