Hold On

Hold On For One More Day 🗝️

Resilience, the Familiar Weight of Staying Stuck, and What It Actually Means to Hold On

I was fifteen when “Hold On” came out. Fifteen is not the right age to hear this song properly. You have not yet accumulated enough of the particular kind of stuck it is describing, the kind where you have been in a hard place long enough that the hard place has started to feel like home. I heard it as a pop song and filed it that way. It took about thirty more years to hear what it was actually saying.

Wilson Phillips were the daughters of famous people. Chynna Phillips’ parents were John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. Wendy and Carnie Wilson’s father was Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Both families were famous and both families had a lot of damage running through them, the kind of damage that gets handed down whether anyone intends it to or not. These three women grew up inside that and then wrote a song about holding on through pain. That context does not change what the song is, but it changes how I hear it.

The question at the center of the song is the one most people skip past: “Or are you comfortable with the pain?” That is a hard question to sit with. Nobody would say yes to it directly. The honest answer, the one the song is trying to get at, is that comfort and pain can occupy the same space. You can be miserable in a situation and still choose to stay in it, not because the misery is good but because the familiar misery is known. The unknown is not. I have made that trade more times than I would like to admit. I have stayed in versions of stuck because the stuck was at least legible. The way out required information I did not have about who I was on the other side.

The chorus is the part everyone knows: “Don’t you know, things can change / Things’ll go your way / If you hold on for one more day.” When I was fifteen this sounded like a guarantee. The older I get, the more I hear it as something quieter. It is not a promise that things will be fine. It is a smaller claim: hold on for one more day, and the possibility of change stays alive. That is different from being told it will work out. It is just being asked to stay present for one more rotation. I can usually manage one more rotation.

There was a period in the summer of 2020 when I was not sure I could. I have written about it before on the blog. I was unemployed, a recently adopted dog had just been killed, the marriage was under real strain, and my mental state had slipped somewhere I had not been before. The concept of one more day was the right size for what I needed. Not a plan, not a recovery arc, not a destination. Just: stay for today.

“No one can change your life except for you.” I have complicated feelings about that line because I have heard it used as a reason to dismiss the real things that make change hard, the biology, the circumstances, the structural weight of a difficult life. The song does not mean it that way and I do not take it that way. What I hear is: the change, when it comes, requires your participation. Nobody can do the inside work for you. Donna can love me well and my therapist can give me the tools and my kids can give me reasons, and all of that matters enormously. The actual movement, the decision to try again, the willingness to get uncomfortable, that part lives in me and nowhere else.

I needed someone to ask me “are you comfortable with the pain” more times than I got asked. The answer would have unlocked something earlier. I am grateful the song asks it.

Take gentle care of yourselves and of each other.

Keep going,

Blake

Disclaimer: While music can be a powerful tool for emotional well-being, it is not a substitute for professional mental health support. The information in this blog is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. I am not a trained mental health expert. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified therapist or counselor. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. You can also contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.