progress

okay, we're not where I promised you we'd be by now.

I noticed this tiny scribble on the wall right next to where I was sitting in my Chaucer class, and it took me by surprise so much that I had to take a photo of it with my berryberry after everyone had left the room (so I wouldn't look weird. But now you all know of my weirdness, so I guess it really didn't matter if someone saw me or not.)

The sentence is something you'd see on a typical PostSecret card - so simple, so honest, but its interpretation is up to your imagination.

Of course, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this was the status of a relationship. A guy promises a girl that things will work out between them if she just stays patient. A girl still struggles with baggage even though she promised a guy she'd be better by now. Or maybe one of them is still trying to get over their failed relationship as the other one waits.

Or maybe it's referring to the status of a friendship. After a significant fight, one friend promises another that he/she will try to return things to normal, to forgive and forget, but it's not quite working out.

I can also imagine a parent saying that to a child, when the family's on a road trip. "When will we get there?" "By 4 o'clock, sweetie. I promise." And then when 4:01 comes along, the parent looks into the rearview mirror to see an exhausted toddler confined to the restraints of a cumbersome carseat. "Okay, we're not where I promised you we'd be by now, but hold tight for 30 more minutes, okay?"

What about 12-step recovery programs? Alcoholics trying to become sober for life, chain smokers trying to quit for good - telling their doctors, their loved ones, even their own psyches - sorry, we're just not there yet.

Sometimes, we're even telling God this. Hey look, God, I promised you that I'd commit to You, you know, spend time in the Word and in prayer. I promised I'd become more mature and step up and take responsibility for my faith walk, for other people. I promised I'd stop worrying about X, Y, and Z but you know what? We're just not there yet. I'm not there yet. I broke my promise.

They teach us in school and at work how to keep deadlines, how deadlines determine how our lives should be lived...efficiency, punctuality, responsibility, finito. So, if you're a pessimist or somewhat cynical, you could look at this phrase and think, okay, well, since we're not where we're supposed to be, I guess there's no point in trying anymore, because it's too late, because I/you/we broke my/your/our promise. Cut, extract, forget, move on.

Yet there's something about this admittance that gives the speaker freedom, whether he or she intends to follow through on it in the end. It's the truth. It's acknowledging the true status of the promise - that it's a work in progress. Life is more than just deadlines on a calendar. And there's a redemptive quality to it, especially if you believe in the power of promises. Yeah, in this lifetime, we're going to make a lot of promises we can't keep. The point is to keep trying to keep the ones we can.