How do you deal? I have a friend who recently told me she had sequential wrecks totaling 3 cars. In the midst of that, she went through a divorce and the plant that she works at is closing, leaving her and 599 other people unemployed over the next year. That's a lot of shit. No other way to say it.
How do you come out on the other side...how do you survive?
I have another friend who tells me, "At least it's not cancer." He's trying to help me put things in perspective. Yes, but what if it is? How do you make it?
Human beings are resilient. Most of the time. Some fail and cower and escape through drugs or alcohol or suicide. Some don't make it.
Work, of late, has been tremendously stressful or me, on my husband, on my family. Since I work with my husband, it doesn't make for a happy home life even after 5 p.m. I drown on a daily basis. I tread and tread water until 5....just enough to breathe. That's what it feels like. I'm scared my husband may have a heart attack from stress and that burdens me even more. I worry that my children are not doted on enough. I don't read enough books or spend enough time playing. They may possibly grow up to be idiots because they just turned two and I haven't started potty training them. I struggle with feeling indefinitely behind. To never catch up and sigh.
I went to the pool Friday night, alone. I haven't been able to swim all summer because if I go to the pool I am too busy trying to keep my twin toddlers from drowning to get in the water and enjoy it myself. But Friday, I went and I swam. I had almost forgotten how. The buoyancy of my 40 year old body is substantially more than any previous age. Fat apparently floats pretty well as I found out on my attempts to touch the pool floor. Great, now I'm too fat to even swim right.
That only left one thing. To float.
So I floated on my back with only 2 inches of my face/nose above the water. I was submerged in the watery sounds. The occasional splash of a kid nearby is all I heard. I felt like I had entered another world and it was so peaceful. It felt like I stayed there for and hour. I didn't care how I looked in my swimsuit or if anyone was looking at me wondering if I were playing dead to test the lifeguards. I didn't care about anything in that watery solace. However, one eventually starts turning pruney after being in the water so long and I had to leave my liquid quiet.
I retreated the rest of the weekend as well. After my swim, I took myself out on a date to a restaurant downtown. Just me. Because I am drowning in my real life.
My marriage is rocky at best. My job is never-ending and unrewarding on a daily basis. I am trapped in this life I've constructed or at least let be constructed around me and I can feel the air being pulled out of my body every day.
It's not cancer. I know. I have a lot of positives..a whole lot. I know....I KNOW. I have all the reasons in the world to look at things and be happy. But I'm not.
Is it the age? Is it the fact that I realize I have more years behind me that I probably have in front of me? In the least, my life is half over.
Is it the ideal? So many pictures of ways I would like to spend my life, things I wish I had time in the day to do. There's just no way to fit them in right now.
I am scared that I keep hoping and planning on one day loving my life and it never getting here. One day may never come and this is all I will have to show for myself.
I started working out. Even hired a personal trainer. He's sweet to me: calls me beautiful when I enter or leave the gym. He's handsome. He's also so young. 25. I am a forty year old mom with a horrible body... and I have an admitted crush on my oh-so-young trainer. Not that I would ever do anything, but God I hate looking at me in spandex. I feel for him having to. All this exercise, more than I've ever done in all my years combined, has given me no results at all. The scale doesn't move. My pants don't fit better. My body parts ache the worst I've ever felt...for nothing. It's very disconcerting. But, you know why I go? Because of my little trainer. I am so sad that I need to pay to see someone just so he can tell me I'm pretty, even though I know he's lying through his teeth.
But, It's not cancer.
There's so much I have that is good. I know there is.
I just can't see it in the waters..the dark murky water that swallows me daily. I am so tired of treading this water. And putting it in print makes it even more oppressive.
You want to know what I don't usually blog about? This. The reality of life. But I'm going to start because if I don't, there may not be a me to resuscitate.
2 comments:
When I first read this blog entry, sadness… and empathy… filled my heart. I identified with you so much it brought tears to my eyes. It took me back to a time a few years ago when I was in a similar place in my mind... the total lack of control in my life; the knowing that most of my best years were probably behind me; the feeling that I could never be good enough or fast enough to keep up with the needs of my children and my work; the man that I’d given my heart to had become an estranged roommate... this man had been my best friend who had at some point vanished while this distant, uncaring creature had been left in his place… it was devastating…
No one goes through the exact same thoughts or changes in their lives during these dark times, but the one common denominator is the feelings that overtake and overwhelm. I have always heard, “wait three days and things always look better,” and sometimes that has been the case. I will say that it took quite a few hundred more for me to come out of the despair I was in, however, it did happen. You asked how does anyone survive such tragedies, and although the coping mechanisms we reach for are different, it all begins with: breathe, just breathe…. get through this minute, okay now this one…. get through this hour, good now get through this one… get through this day… and so on until you build up enough strength that it doesn’t become so much work just to make it through the day. You are absolutely right, it is treading water until you’re back in the shallow end where your feet finally touch the ground. You do it because you know in your heart “this too shall pass” and you pray for guidance.
I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, and I wish that for you too. I made some major life changes (family, work, life priorities) that were EXTREMELY difficult, but I’ve climbed out of the dark, deep hole I thought would surely cave in and suffocate me. Everyone has to find their own recipe for a happy life - I wish that type of knowledge and strength will come upon you so you can someday be the one who says, “I’ve been in a dark, deep hole but climbed my way up to happiness.”
Thank you so much for your encouragement.
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