Friday, April 09, 2010

April Showers

Some days, it takes a lot of external support to remind me that this is what life is like. Sometimes it all feels so unusual and makes me feel like I am absolutely alone in my circumstances. Firmly grounded in the belief that things could always be worse, I waiver between guilt over my self-pity and gratitude over waking to see another day.

And then I go to therapy. I pay good, hard-earned money to have a heart-to-heart discussion with another human being to reassure me that I am navigating through everything in the best way I know how at any given moment. My therapist delivers this message perfectly each and every time, and yet I always seem to lose the sense of his message as the week or so wears on.

I cannot say enough about my therapist. I wish I would've started earlier, maybe I would've avoided a few pit-falls along the way. I'm almost a year into it and every time I feel like maybe I've done enough therapy, I realize that it's probably best to continue going, continue talking and exploring, continue writing that check.

My brother's condition still consumes me. It's been a little over five months since the world came crashing down and he has made remarkable progress. The sequelae of the ordeal is still very much alive and kicking today in the form of tremendous pain in his feet and lower legs. The nerve damage in those areas was extensive and he still suffers a lot from it.

And I feel a little bit defeated about life over this, and over other things. Is this what growing up means? That people die and get sick and you are left to deal with it? I am still figuring out life as a widow with two kids. I still get random flashbacks about anything and everything concerning Rob's passing. I ruminate over what happened with my brother and what I could have done to prevent it. On top of this I'm juggling kids, chores, work, paying bills, planning for the future.

Sometimes, I just want it all to STOP. Just stop already.

I wish I could rewind time. Go back to a place when there was some sort of peace and simplicity. A time when we were all healthy, alive, and happy.

However, there was no such time to rewind to. At any given time we may have been those things, but not all simultaneously. When I was not yet a widow and I did have a nice house with a dishwasher and everything, Rob was sick and my brother was beginning his path to destruction down in Glassboro. Rewind earlier and my brother was still some-what innocent but suffering in his own way, and Rob, who I didn't know yet, was dealing with his first failing marriage, and I was being tormented to shreds by my ex-boyfriend. Rewind earlier than that, and we were children and dealing with a fantastically dysfunctional home-life.

So let's not rewind. There was no perfect time. There is nothing to be nostalgic over, even though my mind wants to trick my memory into believing so.

It all boils down to now. It always does. Now is the only moment I have any control over. All I can do is keep trying, but remember, I'm paying good money to be reminded that I am doing the best I can...right now.

1 comment:

~Free said...

So poignant and true. It IS growing up, but only if you are a caring person, who with age and experience, begins to understand the impact of all that happens around you. Those earlier years seem easier because things lacked depth, and appeared to be solved with more ease. Now we know better. With that depth, though, you can identify the beauty in it all. You consistenly do such a remarkable job recognizing it. And I'm doing a poor job commenting.