In the six months prior to meeting my honey, I was having an extreme problem sleeping. Sometimes I wouldn't sleep at all. I was also clenching my teeth so hard it was giving me extreme muscle ache in my head, jaw and neck. It was probably one of the toughest times of my life, and considering all the many, many tragedies I've lived through and difficult times I've gone through, that's saying something.
Most people have a memory of being a kid and feeling safe and well-taken care of. I do not. It is not that I wasn't loved or cared over or mothered...I just had this thing inside of me that compared my life to the lives I thought the kids at school were living, and it made me really sad, and I felt very confused, not understanding why my life had to be so hard. One of my earliest recollections is from when I was a young child - probably around 4 years old. I know I was that old because Jamie was born then, just a newborn, in the trailer we lived in at that time. I was sad and contemplating why my life was so hard (at 4 years old?!?!?). Somehow in my mind I came to this realization that it was because God was preparing me for the life I was to lead. So right there, 4 years old, I figured out that life was going to be hard and that I would have a lot of sadness in life.
Now...could it be that I am living a self-fulfilling fantasy, so to speak, by living a life that has had so much grief? I doubt it. When my daughter died, it wasn't because of anything I did. When my husband died, it wasn't because of anything I did. The years of harassment and legal battles I've had with my ex-husband are also not my fault and not caused by anything I have done. My cervical cancer and my life-changing stroke weren't caused by anything I did. I suppose an argument could be made that had I handled things better, I could have somehow overcome each of these tragedies in a more victorious way. But that is bullshit. It's the kind of thing Christians like to say because it makes them sound learned and highly evolved and utlra-spiritual. The truth is that we all face hardships and tragedies at different points in our life, and we all have our moments of triumph and moments where we completely blow everything up into rotten little bits. And I've done both.
When I was going through that six month period of time when I wasn't sleeping well, I knew it was one of the hard times in my life. I knew I had made some mistakes that had led to the place I found myself at that time, and that only I was to blame. It - like the other hard places in my life I had fought through - was a place that taught me a lot and helped me resolve the horrible experiences I had gone through. So when Chris came along, I was pretty much ready for my life to begin again.
And indeed it did. Chris and I were together for 8 wonderful, happy years. For the first time in my life, I felt safe and well taken care of. I didn't worry about not having food. I didn't worry about the lights or the heat or the cable being turned off because of nonpayment. I didn't have to be alone or lonely. He was so much fun, such a great partner. We shared life together, deeply in love, persevering through whatever harships came our way, until he passed away on January 5th of this year. And everything changed. Again.
Now I find myself in a place I thought I would never have to go back to. I am alone, without a spouse or life partner. Back to one paltry income. Back to trying to parent on my own. And most hilariously, my stroke still hampers my ability to be an adult in the face of emotional or turbulent times. Still, I am trying to put my life back together, form a plan and move forward. And perhaps this time I will do a considerable amount of tragedy-preparedness planning. I mean, it's not like it hasn't happened before! It very well could happen again! I could lose my job, lose my car, lose one of my children, get in an accident and lose what's left of my brain. Or use of my body.
But maybe, just maybe, life will be good. Maybe I've used up all the tragedy points in my life and can move on to happiness points, financial well-being points, kids-who-grow-up-into-good-adults points. And just maaaaaybe....life won't be quite so hard.
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2 comments:
I would have to agree, your life has been hard. But please don't forget that after my sister and father died and my mother emotionally abandoned me, the love of my life physically and mentally abused me, and my only choice was to leave him and live in poverty as a single parent, you were exposed to my sadness! Do you think my sadness affected you, being so young and sensitive, as children with high IQ's tend to be? And perhaps colored your views of life? Maybe you need a 12 step program to go back and re-interpret life, Laura, because after all the crap that I went through I found that happiness is NOT letting life's events control you. Wish I had known that earlier! I, too hope and pray that life is moving inexorably towards a time of peace and contentment for you. But you must be willing to allow it, and work on not being so wound up all the time.
Regardless of what it looks like from the outside, I'm not wound up on the inside. If I express frustration, it is because I'm frustrated...NOT because frustration has been building up for six months. I don't think your sadness affected me and caused me to be sad. I think the things that have happened to me in my life cause me to be sad. But when I think of my life, I think of myself as being an overcomer. I may not have traversed the comfier roads of finishing college and getting a well-paying job to ease my way into adulthood. Instead, it rather crashed into my life like a ton of bricks. The fact that I have two great kids, a decent full time job, and have prospects to make my life better shows me that I'm not some emotionally crushed individual. It's weird...I'm sad but I don't LIVE sadness, I don't feel overcome by sadness and I don't feel like I'm trying to avoid sadness. I guess my stroke gave me that - when I'm sad, I cry. When I'm mad, I yell. When I'm happy, I smile. But most of the time I'm pretty placid. And that's pretty ok with me....considering where life has lead me, I think I'm doing pretty darn good. Overall.
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