I feel spoiled and not a little ridiculous
having the worries and concerns that I do. I know there are all kinds of
terrible problems throughout the world with awful situations I can’t possibly
imagine. Still though, my problems are my own and they are real to me and I deal
with them every minute of every day. There are times, often, when it seems like
I just can’t handle another day and no amount of thinking of other people’s
greater problems helps in the slightest. I dream of what it would be like to
never have to fight a particular battle again. The peace, the joy, the
blankness. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to die. Not yet at least. I just
often fantasize about existence without struggle. Not all struggle really, just
certain never-ending battles that plague my life. I dream of freedom from these
particular worries. I let myself imagine, perhaps foolishly, what my reality
would be if I never had to concern myself with a, b or c again. Knowing me and
knowing life, some other problem or concern would then likely move forward and
take the forgotten worry’s place but at least it wouldn’t be this one. This one
that I have fought all of my life. Occasionally I have gotten the upper hand
but more often I have been on the losing end, defeated and miserable. Does all
of this qualify me as a tortured writer? Or just a tortured soul? Or just
human?
What other great things
could I do or thoughts could I think if I never again had to worry about this
frustrating, aggravating, painful problem? With all of that freed up mental and
emotional and even physical energy, what might I do for myself and for the
world? One can only wonder. I’ve tried every solution I can find. I have
prayed, begged the universe, God and all the holy angels. I’ve even resorted to
the demons a few times. Still I struggle through the mire. I know my life won’t
be perfect with the absence of my overwhelming problem. I see people, so many
of them, who do not suffer from this problem, who in fact enjoy the benefits of
the opposite existence. And still I see them agonize through skirmishes of
their own that I would never wish to experience. The absence of my situation
and circumstance does not equal a guarantee of peaceful, meaningful existence. It
just means that I would be minus a certain set of problems and complications. I’d
still be alive, still vulnerable to whatever life, God, or mankind might send
my way, for good or ill. I’ve tried to let these facts bring me peace but
always they come up against the barriers of reality that are everyday struggle
and pain, discomfort and disability.
What is the point of all
of this? I know what I’ve been taught and what religion has promised. For a
long time I held onto the desperate belief that eventually, in the distant
future, somewhere in the realm of forever, I would be blessed with a perfect
body, a healthy mind, a whole existence. I’m not entirely sure anymore that I will
get there and enjoy those long-awaited blessings. I have so many questions. I wonder
how the trials are doled out. How was it decided that I, Julie, would be put
into this particular set of circumstances with these specific difficulties? I’m
sure I wouldn’t want the variety of discomfort and sadness and hardship that other
people have but often I wonder. Maybe I would prefer the lot of another, just
maybe. What if I was able to trade like kids do with baseball cards or 90’s
youngsters did with Pogs? Your low level intelligence for my weight problem?
Your lack of self-esteem for my bad knees? What if it worked that way? Or maybe
a kind a of trial run problem buffet…. Go down the line and try each horrible,
awful, difficult thing on for size and then pick which ones you were willing to
deal with for life. But then, would we pick any? Or would the forced decision
be just another malady that we had to suffer through and from which we would
seek escape and freedom?
I don’t have the answers.
And the more I ponder and think and pray, the more confused and disheartened I become.
Perhaps it would be better to just stop fighting this war of mine? But then you
have to deal with the ramifications of surrender. Those are often far more
unpleasant than the scars of battle. At least in my case they would be. So what
is one to do? What am I to do? Bumble around blindly until some answer
mystically and magically finds me? Or at least until I die and am free from
this mortal captivity….
Really, since I choose
life and believe that there is at least enough of the good and happy and
worthwhile to make getting out of bed still a reasonable choice, I suppose all I
can do at this point is to just keep on keeping on. Trudge through and try to
do it happily. I don’t like misery. I don’t seek it. It does find me but maybe I
can hold it off? I can build my fortress of smiles and positive thinking and
set out sentries to keep watch, barring negativity and those thoughts and
people who would seek to pull me down from my protected place of gladness and
gratitude. My life, I accept, as long as I live it will continue to be a war
zone where each day I must attire myself in the armor of determination. No one
can take away these struggles. At least, not yet. And until I find some magician
or magic pill that can, I suppose I will force myself into a contentment, if
not a complete acceptance, of and with my circumstances. I will keep fighting. I’m
not good at giving up and even worse at losing. This leaves me with only one
option and that is to pull up my big girl panties and head out into the fray of
the human experience to face the conflict each and every day, searching for
another way to defend the fort while also looking for the weakness in the enemy’s
armor through which I might breach the seemingly indestructible wall and claim
victory. VICTORY! OR DEATH! Or life with a little bit of victory and a little
bit of death and some compromise and some self-help and lots of in-the-mirror
pep talks. That’s life, friends. My life. Oh look, the sun is shining.
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