This is Me Trying

Reconsidering What It Means To Love

I am one of those Taylor Swift fans who doesn’t like her music, though I enjoy her generosity, outspokenness and strength. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard a song of hers that I liked, the moody This is Me Trying. It felt less polished and commercial. I liked the atmosphere, the pace and the vampy tone. But what stuck out to me were the questions it raised about life, relationships and our very solid ideas about what it means to succeed.

Most Star Wars fans remember Master Yoda beckoning to Luke: ‘Do or Do Not. There is No Try.’ This tough-love approach mirrors our classic American work ethic. We are taught that ‘trying is lying’ when we don’t live up to sales goals or get poor grades at school. We portray trying as an excuse and a failure. While I’m sure this motivates many, I wonder if we might reconsider our blanket rejection of trying.

The singer describes how her trying feels risky, and yet she moves past her comfort zone: perhaps for the first time. She is navigating old feelings, remorse and feeling stuck. This is a song about vulnerability and overwhelm, but also persistence. Perhaps trying is all we have. Maybe trying is trusting, letting in a little faith that things could be different this time.

Personal relationships are not sales quotas. Doctors can’t try to perform a surgery. They must succeed. But humans who seek a loving union must try. In such relationships, trying is succeeding.

Trying may take many forms in love relationships:

the willingness to trust again after being hurt

giving others the benefit of the doubt

leaving our comfort zone to risk rejection

communicating difficult feelings and expectations

forgiving transgressions

So as we look at our current and previous relationships, we can honor ourselves and our partners for the times where we and they were courageous and tried when so many voices inside protested.

When we put pattern recognition aside and trusted someone who looked and sounded like someone who hurt us

When we admitted we were acting small and didn’t know what to do about it

When we saw someone we loved give everything they had for us

When we accepted that someone we loved couldn’t try in a key moment

Trying is the point of departure. Trying is the gesture that says:

You’re worth the effort

You’re not a collection of your worst moments

I see how much you love me

I see your innocence and goodness

So when relationships end or fail, one or both parties have decided not to try anymore. Maybe their trying wasn’t being reciprocated. Maybe trying wasn’t enough. Perhaps the parties couldn’t align. Perhaps doubts or fears crept in. Old patterns and overwhelming life circumstances. Misunderstandings and unhealed ruptures. Bad timing.

A rueful insight that keeps coming to me:

Even when you have two kind souls with a sacred bond and loving intentions, there are so many pitfalls:

fear, lack of trust, misunderstanding, communication issues, external influences, and traumas.

No relationship is invincible. There’s no sure thing.

Another sad realization dawned on me:

In real ways, this was me trying for the first time in my life.

Nothing I have ever experienced approaches this level of pain and loss.

This is me trying to let go.