“come celebrate with me that everyday, something has tried to kill me and has failed.” - Lucille Clifton
I feel like I’m fucking up.
I’m trying to drink enough water, I’m trying to exercise five days a week and keep my house and body clean. I’m trying to heal my inner child, I’m trying to date and make sure I make time for my friends, I’m trying to manage my hormones and my mental health, I’m trying to remember to eat a salad with every meal, get enough protein and fiber and no gluten and take my vitamins. I’m trying to keep up with the news and what’s happening in Palestine and in my city and prepare for the election. I’m trying to work on my mental health and go to therapy and be accountable and self aware and also be kind to myself. I’m trying to keep up with new music, movies, and TV and I’m trying to read enough books. I’m trying to pray regularly and journal regularly and write this newsletter and work and create and promote myself on social media and save money and check in with my family and have hobbies and did I mention drink enough water?!
I’m overwhelmed by so many things I feel like I’m supposed to do and I don’t feel like I’m doing any of those things right. And that feeling of failing honestly makes me want to stop trying. And that’s when I enter a depressive mode and I don’t get out of bed and I don’t do any of the things I’m supposed to do even if I want to do them because how in the hell am I supposed to do this life thing right anyhow?!
During a recent depressive episode, while laying in bed staring blankly into the void, a phrase popped into my mind: “everyday something has tried to kill me.” It’s a line from a poem, a poem I love but haven’t read in a while, Lucille Clifton’s “Come Celebrate With Me.”
It’s such a beautiful, poignant piece of prose wherein (in my interpretation), Lucille Clifton invites the reader to celebrate the fact that life has been hard for her, especially as a Black woman yet she survived and possibly thrived. The last line of the poem reads “come celebrate/with me that everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed.”
That last line has always resonated with me and apparently, it sums up how I’ve been feeling lately since it popped into my head. There are so many ways in which life be life-in’. For Black women, we have the microagressions of racism and sexism sprinkled on top of all of the other stresses that life throws at us. It truly feels like everyday, something is trying to kill us, to make us give up.
But in revisiting this poem recently, I’m realizing that reflecting on the struggles of life might not be the point of the poem (or the point of life). The point is (again, in my interpretation) to do what the title says: to celebrate. To celebrate being alive, to acknowledge how, despite all the things, life is good. And this life you’re living is yours to live. Clifton’s poem speaks to about shaping your life, being proud of all you’ve accomplished, and the fact that just existing is an achievement.
Lucille Clifton’s poem inspires me to look at my life not as an endless to-do list, but as something to take joy in and to take control of. I don’t have to do things the right way, I have to do things my way. I just have to do the things. I need to remember to celebrate this life of mine. And to keep going, no matter how hard it gets, keep showing up for what I have shaped into a kind of life, my one hand holding tight the other hand.
This entry was written for WEEK 3 of the Finding the Right Words February Challenge under the theme INSPIRE. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompts. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at jdoggett9 [at] gmail.
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!
I agree and I'm interpreting the line in the poem the same way. We can get so caught up with not doing enough of this and that, that we forget to celebrate what we're able to do in the first place. This is a great reminder.💙
This is a very nice read into the weekend, thank you