February 7, 2017

My Least Favorite Comment

Last fall, I wrote about my least favorite questions. Now, I'm explaining my least favorite comment.

I could never do that. 

I hear it in two instances.

#1 In regards to teaching.

The conversation looks like this:

Them: What do you do? 

Me: (cringe...as this is a question I try not to ask) I'm a teacher.

Them: Oh, what grade?

Me: 4th. 

Them: So they're like how old?

Me: 9 usually.

Them: Fun! And you teach all the things?

Me: Yeah, they're with me all day.

Them: Oh man. I could never do that.

Well, true. Because anyone who wants to do it, can do it and, if you wanted to be a teacher, you would be a teacher already.

Side note: it blows my mind that people don't actually remember elementary school, but truthfully I remember it all so well because I've never actually left school. It's all I know.

So in that case I could never do that is perfectly okay. If someone tells me they're a nurse or anything related to the medical field, I would say I could never do that because I hate needles and blood and all. I met a phlebotomist the other day...I can't even think about that job.

#2 In regards to the military and deployment.

Them: He's deployed?

Me: Yes.

Them: I could never do that.

Well, yes. You could. You just haven't had to.

I've also gotten...

Them: I don't know how you move around so much. I could never do that. 

Well, yes. You could. You just haven't had to.

This is a case of I can't do that...yet. If you had to, you could and you would. I did not come into this marriage almost 8 years ago believing we'd be through deployment #4 right now. I didn't plan that and I didn't want that. I wasn't built for that. It slowly came to me, week after week and month after month. I don't enjoy it but I adapted and now I can barely remember the days of crying and saying I can't do this and hyperventilating and having panic attacks and all that good stuff almost every day. Happens much less often now. I still feel all of that, but I've adapted in a way that makes me a functional human being at the same time.

My friend has a toddler, a baby, and a full-time teaching job. I've often told her that if Scott were gone and I had a kid to take care of and get to daycare in the morning and two dogs and a job that I didn't think I'd be able to do it. That I'd have to quit the job because I'd never get out the door on time in the morning (that is questionable, even now) and life would just all become too much. And she told me Yeah you would. You'd do it. You would figure it out. 

That's the whole point here. When you assume you can't do something or you assume you can't do what someone else is doing, you're assuming wrong. YOU CAN DO IT. You just can't do it yet. Or you just haven't HAD to do it (yet).