YEARNING FOR YONDER YEARS
I hate where I’m at in life right now. I want to go back. Or forward. Anywhere but here. It is a wish guaranteed to come true, because the present moment only lasts a moment, and just yesterday I was holding my now 23 year old son as a newborn in my arms. So I guess yonder years will be here sooner than I might think. In the meantime, now sucks.
Why does it suck? No reason. I just don’t like it. I had a friend ask me today if her own problems are dragging me down. Of course not! I feel blessed to have such beautiful friends and not one moment of time spent with friends is ever begrudged or regretted. No. I drag myself down right now – wallowing around in my own little pity party. I need to get it all off my chest here, so I can put it into perspective, get over it, then move on.
I feel dragged down by the inevitability of watching my 98.5 year old grandmother in rapid decline – she has a fracture in her spine and has been put on oxycodone for the pain. She’s never had anything stronger than aspirin in her life. She’s off her face, totally out of it and will be much the same for the next 6-8 weeks. I’m not confident she’ll make much of a mental recovery at all. She can’t stay awake long enough to sip her tea any more.
I feel dragged down by the inevitability of having to accept I have chronic pain. Not just a temporary backache – a permanent one. It’s never going to go away. I have to learn to manage it and that pisses me off. I want to be more active, do more bushwalks, lots more camping and exciting outdoor activities, not be constantly modifying everything I do to accommodate for back, neck and shoulder issues. But this has been going on for at least three years and despite constantly searching to strengthen and improve everything, it’s deteriorated. The pain is fairly constant now. Not unbearable, just permanent.
I feel dragged down by exhaustion.
Will I ever not be tired again? I slept for seven hours last night. Seven straight, uninterrupted hours. That is the first time in many, many months. And yet I feel more tired today than I have the past week. I feel like I’m going to be tired forever. I keep reminding myself, this too shall pass – but it is passing like a kidney stone and that’s no fun.
I feel anxious about having hidden my scales away. I don’t know what I weigh now. I don’t know what to wear. I have no evidence my weight is staying the same or going down, therefore I make the assumption it is going up. Unless I have a significant change (one way or the other) I can’t know for sure where I am. Maybe tomorrow I should put my “skinny” clothes on to see if any fit. And when (if) they don’t fit, I’ll put my “fat” clothes on and see if they’re still loose. But then maybe if I’m feeling rational in the morning, I’ll do neither of those things, and choose whatever clothing I feel like wearing.
I feel anxious about recovery. I have made really good progress in lots of areas in the past month. I really truly believe that. I have made changes in both the things I do and the things I think. But there are also situations where I choose to make no change at all. Those situations of course are always the most emotionally driven times, and therefore the times where I most need to make the changes. And I’ve made none. I start to rapidly lose confidence anything can change. I desperately want the change, and I desperately want to keep repeating the same destructive patterns every time I’m in a stressful situation. So if I can’t fix it all, is there any point in fixing some of it?
I feel anxious about my future.
What does it look like? What do I do? Why am I bothering? I have a sense of pointlessness, purposelessness, and the inevitability of becoming a big burden on the people around me. And I can’t bear the thought of being a burden. I think it is all stemming from spending so much time at the nursing home with my grandmother and knowing I don’t ever – ever, ever, ever – want to be in her situation. I must keep reminding myself it is 47.5 years away for me. I need to focus a little closer to the present moment for now.
And of course I am still feeling a really strong sense of loss for all the blessings and opportunities that gave me such joy in the past – my children, performing, teaching. I loved those things so much. And I haven’t yet found what will replace them in the future.
Okay – I have cathartically extricated all that negativity from deep within me. Before I wrap up for tonight, I will do another gratitude list and keep repeating to myself the affirmations I shared a little while back – most significantly, I am enough.
I am so incredibly grateful for:
~ a husband who sticks by me no matter what
~ the world’s greatest collection of friends
~ a job I absolutely love
~ an amazing gym and personal trainer
~ more material possessions than a gal could desire
~ the capacity to express myself with the written word
~ the opportunity for recovery – again, and again, and again
