Time to take the crookeds with the straights
"You got to take the crookeds with the straights."
— August Wilson, Fences
Nine simple words.As Viola Davis said at Sunday night's SAG Awards, August Wilson was able to write the story of the average man - a man who just happened to be a man of color - and to tell their stories beautifully. This line, from the third act, has stayed with me since I watched the movie a few weeks ago.You got to take the crookeds with the straights.In the play, the line is uttered by the older son (Lyons) of the main character (Troy). It's something Troy used to say, and Lyons, as he tells brother Cory that, finally gets what his pop was talking about.Life isn't a straight line. Never is. We may be looking right at the ground and have our hands out to our sides to balance ourselves so we can walk on that straight line, but something is always going to come out of nowhere and knock us off course. If you want to have the straights, you have to accept there will be crookeds in your life, too.The key is to not let the crookeds send you permanently off-course. Don't let the upsets life deals you make you just sit down and not move forward anymore.It's OK to feel like you've had the breath knocked out of you when you deal with the crookeds. And sit out a day if you need to. The crookeds can be difficult to overcome. You might be wobbly for a while afterward. That's OK.Sometimes it will take days, months, years, even, to really get back to the straights. That's OK, too. Some of the things that depends on are out of your control. Even those that are in your control aren't easy to fix.You got to take the crookeds with the straights.You have to. You have to know that the crookeds often sneak up on you and sucker-punch you in the gut. Sometimes they come at you head-on, but you think they'll swerve away in a game of chicken just before the come crashing down on you. That's the thing with the crookeds. They always win a game of chicken.That's OK.You'll win in the long run. Just stand as still and as straight as you can as you get knocked off-course. Weather it the best you can.The thing is, you also get to take the straights with the crookeds.Photo by Denys Nevozhai via Unsplash.