Monday, January 26, 2009

Pressure

My grandfather used to do a 'trick' when my sister, brother, and I were young. He'd place a walnut in the palm of his hand, press the palm side of that hand against the steel leg of the dining table, and break the walnut shell open.

Ooooo, we were so fascinated! We'd have him do that over and over again with different, unopened walnuts. We were amazed that after that hand squeeze, he'd get the walnut meat. Eventually, we'd try to do it ourselves.

The problem was that our hands were too small. We could barely make the walnut fit in one of our palms. There was no way that we were gonna get the walnut to stay in place while we wrapped one hand around the table leg. It was either hold the walnut or the table leg. Or try to squeeze the walnut and table leg with both hands. That still didn't work. He laughed at our attempts.

Fast forward to adulthood. My grandfather is no longer living, and I don't know if any of us can do that now. We have adult sized hands, but I'm not sure if any of us can muster up the amount of pressure that it takes to manually open a walnut.

I love that sometimes in life it takes pressure to break the hard shell to get to the good stuff inside. It takes pressure to break the outer shell of who you think you should be to get to the center of who you really are. Even if you don't have enough pressure to break something open yourself, you can have enough grit and fortitude to handle it.

I heard a gentleman say that pressure can break someone or make diamonds. To that I say, "Sparkle, ladies!!!"

2 comments:

GawdessGurrl said...

Well said...you are a great story teller. :)

VADRMGRL said...

I appreciate that, Gawdess Gurrl. I like turning lessons and experiences into words.