Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The house was creepy.  The old woman standing outside was in her nightgown, barefoot, with a medication bottle clutched in her hand. And then she invited me in.

Before I even pulled up she was standing at the gate of her chain-link fence awaiting my arrival. The overgrown lawn, forgotten flower bed, and crooked shutters spoke more of a Halloween movie set than a middle class home nestled in a suburban neighborhood. This home was not like the others. It looked neglected, lonely.  It seemed the only things missing were dim lighting, a thunderstorm perhaps, and a serial killer.  Or was it?

First Off

Of the two units that were dispatched to check this lady’s condition, I was the first to arrive. I stepped out of my cruiser and walked over and noticed she was muttering nonsensically to the air more than to me.  When I got close she opened the gate to allow me in, and then without acknowledging me, turned and made her way down the walkway to her front door. She continued to mutter under her breath indirectly to someone or some thing.

She wore a long, antique-looking yellowed nightgown, and carried some kind of medication bottle in her hand that rattled like a maraca. Her salt and pepper hair was matted and by the looks of her feet, she hadn’t worn shoes in years.

The Invitation

When she reached the threshold of the front door, she turned, and lovingly cradled the medication bottle in both hands. Then she raised it up just below her chin, grinned, and with a gesture, invited me in. The home was a single family home with a staircase right inside the front door. I looked in through the open doorway and paused as the hairs on my neck stood on end.  The home looked lived in but unkempt, not like a hoarder, more like someone whose mind was otherwise occupied.

She began walking upstairs, repeating aloud to herself in time with each step, “Two steps forward, one step back, shake, shake, shake!” while shaking her medication bottle with each repetition of the word shake. And that’s how she made her way up the stairs: up two, down one, up two, down one…

“Two steps forward, one step back, shake, shake, shake!” she happily repeated.  It was an unsettling kind of happy.

Her Babies

With her near the top of the stairs and I at the bottom, I became unsure how deep into this house of horrors I should go. When she reached the top of the stairs she turned, paused, and her demeanor changed. Her voice lowered almost to a whisper and she slowly asked me with a smirk, “Do you want to see my babies?”

No, no I do not.

She then indicated with an outstretched arm and pointing index finger down the hall to a room with a closed door. I took a step forward, then up one stair, and craned my neck to try to get a view of what awaited me further inside. With that single step of mine, she spun around and abruptly ordered, “Lock the door!”

Casual.  Just keep it casual.

Backup, Anyone?

I used my thumb to point behind me and over my shoulder while casually trying to explain that my partner was on his way and should be right behind me … so I didn’t want to lock him out.

“Lock it!” she ordered a second time.

At this point I wasn’t sure if I needed a cop or a priest as backup. This was getting weirder by the second. So, I humored her and only pretended to lock the door but making sure it was unlocked (It’s called tactics, people). Satisfied that the door was now locked, she moved down the dim hallway. As I made my way up the stairs she again repeated, “Two steps forward, one step back, shake, shake, shake!”

I arrived at the top of the landing and could see her hand on the doorknob of the previously indicated, and still closed, hallway door. With one hand on the knob, hunched shoulders, and a grin, she said, “I’m going to show you my babies!”

A Turn Of The Knob

Fairly certain that door led into a bedroom, my mind was racing, conjuring one possibility after another and then quickly discarding it. My spiraling thoughts kept coming back to, Where the heck was my backup!?

She wasn’t waiting any longer; enough anticipation had mounted. With a turn of the knob and push of the door, it swung open to reveal what I was certain was going to include multiple corpses, possibly posed, seated around a table having a tea party. But instead what I saw was a room full of cats. The cats were her babies.

It was about at that very moment that officer number two arrived at the front door to back me up.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

One Step Forward

Personal growth can feel a lot like the crazy cat lady’s mantra — two steps forward and one step back. We go through seasons of progressive improvement when we’re crushing workouts, following our budgets, eating like a champ, and everything we touch turns to gold. Then there are the other times. The times when we shut off our alarm clock and roll over, have ice cream for breakfast, impulse buy a boat, and can’t seem to do anything right. We take two steps forward and then go one step back. And if we’re not careful we can begin to focus on the failure, not the progress.

However, if my math is correct, two steps forward and one step back is still a net gain of one step. It’s still progress. But it doesn’t feel like that to us — at least, that’s how it is for me — it feels a lot like failure. But the truth is that personal growth is not a straight line, it’s more like a zigzag. And a net gain of one step forward is still taking us in the right direction. It’s easy to feel like a winner when we are winning, and a big fat loser when we’re not. And that’s the funny thing about feelings — they change, a lot — and the negative ones always feel way more pronounced.

Walking On Water

Since we’re not perfect and we can’t walk on water, we have to give ourselves some grace for the times we mess up and go backward. But at the same time, we cannot tolerate mediocrity or settle for less than our best and just accept failure as final. Whether we’re feeling high or feeling low, we need to keep making intentional decisions to do the things that will keep taking us in the right direction. This a process we must repeat, one foot in front of the other, again and again.

Two steps forward, one step back, shake, shake, shake.

__________________________

– How do you view progress?
– What do you tell yourself when you take a step back?
– Do you give yourself the right amount of grace?
-What’s your mantra?
__________________________

Thanks for reading! Do you have a story that you think we could learn from and that you’d like to share with Johnny Tactical nation? Fill out the contact form and include your name, rank, and department, or email it to [email protected] and follow these guidelines:

– It must be a firsthand account
– True
– Have a lesson, principle, or tactic to apply
– Cleaned of names, dates, and places
– Include your call sign

If your story is selected and published in our blog you’ll get the credit using your call sign and we’ll send you a free Johnny Tactical morale patch.