I'm Not Gonna Make It

One of the best parts about my CPE experience is the array of conversations I get to have around American culture and the English language with our two international students. One of them was asking me the other day what the phrase, "I'm gonna make it" means. I laughed. Of course this would not make sense to a new English speaker.

First of all, you have to mentally break apart those first words into I AM GOING TO but then to decide how you MAKE IT. Make what? Why are you making something. So then it turned into a conversation about survival and exaggeration. I tried to explain that although it means survival in the hospital (this patient is going to make it vs. he's not going to make it), we Americans like to exaggerate... a lot. So when the clock says 4:28pm and you are leaving work at 5, you may roll your eyes, lay your head on your desk and sigh, "I'm not gonna make it."

It was then that the international student started laughing and nodding. THIS was how he heard it used - not the other way (despite our being in a hospital!). Oh, America. THIS is what we are teaching other countries about us!

But that got me thinking how much we sap the importance out of certain phrases. Think for instance on the terrifying phrase "I'm gonna kill you" and how we playfully use it when someone mislaunders our favorite blouse or tickles us two seconds too many. We don't mean kill just like we don't really wonder if we are going to survive until 5.

I just called my grandma to wish her a happy birthday and she said that when she was born she was just over 3 pounds. "They didn't think I was gonna make it... but I did!" She turned 81 today. She "made it" for sure. But how odd to pull that into comparison with all the things I've seen in the hospital this summer. Those patients who didn't make it. Despite prayers and wishful thinking and the work of the doctors and nurses, they died. And in one case in particular, how a doctor was telling a patient's family that he was going to make it when they thought all hope was lost. I'm happy that he's around. He made it.

Funny choice of word though, "make" (or "made") is. You aren't really making anything.... are you?

Let's Merriam-Webster it:
MAKE
: to cause to exist, occur, or appear : create (make a disturbance)
: to bring into being by forming, shaping, or altering material : fashion (make a dress)
: reach, attain (made port before the storm) —often used with it
-make it
: to be successful (trying to make it in the big time as a fashion photographer)
: survive, live (half the cubs won't make it through their first year)

Interesting. I had even forgotten about the making it big time version of making it. Oh well. I wonder if there is some kind of life analogy (you know I am always wondering that) about our making it being completely out of our hands. In other words, if we are talking about making it through something, our goal is survival but ultimately it is out of our hands.

Frankly, I'm just giving thanks that 81 years ago my grandma did MAKE IT so that I could be alive today. Thanks gram... er, thanks God?