Grace, Gonads, and Gumption

While driving along a country road covered by a dusting of snow, my friend had an epiphany. The Subaru in front of her, traveling too slow for Rachael’s New Year’s Eve state of mind, had a license plate with the letters GGG.

I need a reasonable, doable, and achievable New Year’s Resolution, she thought, and the license plate on the car ahead of her provided the opportunity for which she’d been hoping. Her impatience turned into gratitude. She smiled then lip-synced thank you to the slow-poke as the car turned right onto a private road.

This year I will seek the three G’s, she mused: “grace” in my faith journey and relationships, “gonads” for getting courage, and “gumption” to act on what’s best for me. When she shared her resolution with me I stumbled over the middle letter—her embrace of the slang definition of gonads seemed incongruous with the woman I knew.

Frank Sinatra would have called my friend a “classy broad,” a “ballsy one.” Once I got beyond the slangy use of gonads I could see that she was a risk taker, a tough and courageous woman who would not be cowed by adversity—she’d survived a serious illness, and raised three children as a single parent. Frank would have enjoyed her company.

“Men and women have gonads,” she declared rather sternly, “the reproductive cycle starts with an egg and a sperm produced in the ovary and testicle respectively, and when the cycle is successfully complete, a birth occurs. (She’s a biology professor so I trusted her explanation—something I’d probably learned in 8^th grade biology but soon forgot).

“I want the courage to give birth to a ‘new me,’” she said, finishing her thought.

“I get it,” I said. “Do you mind if I borrow your anecdote for my next post?”

“Not at all,” she said with a grin.

Today, as I think of her resolve and new beginnings, I’m reminded of Guy de Maupassant’s short story, A New Year’s Gift. The single, male narrator has a lover who’s married. She shows up at his residence on New Year’s Day. It’s a great read from this master, the originator of the short story, so I won’t summarize the plot—better to read and sit with his words. My memory of the lover’s story was a reminder of how complex and difficult our choices and decisions can be. Successful implementation of our resolutions requires my friend’s three G’s—not an easy task for most of us.

Too often I think I’m smarter, and more savvy than in fact I am, and when that realization occurs—and it does with frequency—I’m surprised. And so it was on a snowy day’s drive into my Middlebury office that I had an epiphany—a necessary but uncomfortable one.

My parents not only gave me the gift of life, but they also enabled me to experience opportunities or “gifts” that enriched my life. Those “gifts” also included traits or characteristics I wish I hadn’t received—in the case of this epiphany—the fact that, like my mother, I hold onto resentment. It ebbs and flows in my soul, moving from warranted righteousness to “that’s not me” denial and disavowal.

I needed and wanted to change my approach to a relationship—a hurtful stance that was exhausting. Initially I balked, and then remembered my friend’s three G’s: grace, gonads, and gumption. I decided to let go of the tethering and suffocating feelings of anger and resentment.

Epiphanies don’t announce themselves, they just appear. I grabbed onto this one, and it worked because within moments of “giving it up”—my righteous need to be the resentful angry victim– I felt weightless and free. I broke into a hilarious version of James Brown’s anthem—I Feel Good!

“All is forgiven,” I wrote in the card. I meant it. It was a pardon, a genuine extension of forgiveness that took more ballsiness than I thought I possessed for this kind of endeavor, and a level of gumption I exhibit in other areas, but not so seamlessly when forgiveness is warranted.

There were no conditions attached. No mea culpa admission required on the part of the other, and no expectation (for anything) from the recipient—all I wanted was the chutzpah to live fully into the three G’s to which my friend had introduced me.

Not quite sugar and spice, but I do feel relieved and good!

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