Coping: It's Not Just Hanging On

In a text yesterday, with a friend who is going through his own dementia journey caring for his wife, I used the word “coping.” It was the right word used in the right context but, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that word since yesterday.

When you hear the word coping, what comes to mind?

Probably not something fun. You’re not “coping with a vacation” or “coping with a surprise inheritance.” Coping is almost always tied to something hard—grief, stress, illness, change. It usually signals that someone is just barely keeping their head above water.

But here’s the twist: coping has another meaning. One that’s actually kind of…crafty.

If you’ve ever done any woodworking or home improvement (or wandered into a hardware store with confidence you didn’t earn), you may have come across a coping saw. It’s a thin, flexible saw used to make detailed cuts—especially when you need one piece of wood to fit snugly against another at some weird angle. It’s not about hacking something apart. It’s about precision. Fitting. Shaping.

Now hang with me, because this got me thinking.

Isn’t that a better way to think about coping in the emotional sense, too?

Coping isn’t just about surviving the storm. It’s about figuring out how to shape yourself around a new reality. Maybe life took a sharp turn, and now you are trimming off some old expectations or reshaping the edges of what used to be familiar. It’s slow work. It takes patience. And honestly, some days you might feel like you’re using the wrong end of the saw.

The root of the word cope actually comes from old languages meaning “to strike” or “to contend.” In other words, to deal with something head-on. It wasn’t originally about quietly suffering—it was about showing up and doing what needed to be done, whether that meant going to battle or learning to live with a new normal.

So maybe we should stop treating coping like it’s something sad and pitiful. It’s not weakness. It’s craftsmanship. It’s adaptive, creative, even a little gritty.

“If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”
― T.S. Eliot

We’re not falling apart—we’re just figuring out how to fit into a new corner of life. One careful cut at a time.