HOW?

I have heard that there ARE people who never cry, never struggle, never feel like life is caving in on them.  My response would be either, "They are delusional and in a rubber room, right?  Or, what mood stabilizers and anti-depressants are they taking...I want some!

Of course, I would be grimly joking about both of those responses...well sort of.

It's about to get, really, really, real in this post so if dark reality offends you...RUN AWAY NOW!  Before I climb into that dark reality may I just share a short story?  Of course I can...THIS IS MY BLOG!  I can do whatever I want!   (Of course you can also chose NOT to read it...)

When times were awfully, darkly, dark for Nyle and I we would do our best imitation of Sir Robin in "Monte Python's, Holy Grail."  "Run away, run away!"  This was "brave" Sir Robin's response to any part of life that got just a little bit TOO real.

Nyle and I ran away into music, thrifting (visiting thrift shops and garage sales), books, but mostly movies.  Nyle earned his undergraduate degree in Film and Theater Directing.  An irony in his college education, he quit attending college for many years, for many reasons.  One of the reasons was that he would often HIRE his professors when he was working professionally.  He had to humble himself to take classes from men who he had sometimes taught the material that he was now learning from them.  (If you find the previous statement confusing, think about Nyle)?  He finished his diploma because he had the most credits from this college, AND my job earned him free tuition.

Well I am now facing another one of the hardest challenges of my life.  My beloved Mother is 95 and dying slowly, by inches, of kidney disease.  The cursed illness has chased her all of her life.  NOW it decides to eat her alive?  I guess I should feel gratitude that she has been able to live an incredibly full, selfLESS life.  I am...it just seems that with all the good that she has done in this world God should graciously let her go to sleep and just wake up in a better place, instead of letting her come apart in teeny, tiny, little inches.

Far be it from me to understand why one house is destroyed with the people inside in a mud slide, and the house next door is completely intact, with the people inside?  Why do
 people decide to kill their neighbors over nothing, or everything? Why did my precious baby boy die inside me at 4 months of pregnancy, and my beloved Mama lives to be 95?

I DO believe that asking WHY is an exercise in futility.  On the other hand, asking HOW?  Now that is a power question.  HOW, do I face this?  HOW do I cope with the loss of my Mother, Husband, Father, and health, and still find ways to find joy?  How do I keep getting up in the morning and living when there is so much and so many types of pain in my universe?

I ask this HOW question as a rhetorical question.  I DO have some answers in my life.  Today I had a rip, snorting pity party.  It was attended by a party of ONE...after all that is who I will be for the next however long I stay on this planet, which if I follow after my Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother will be a ridiculously long time.

There were times in my married life that I adored, loved, my brilliant, creative husband.  There were also times that I loved him, but I wanted to strangle him!  In other words I loved him but didn't LIKE him from time to time.

So, why would I believe that I would ALWAYS enjoy my own company?  The worst part is that when I didn't like my husband, or the many, many roommates I've had in my life, I could LEAVE...and do something else for awhile, and then I was usually pleased to return to whatever relationship we're referring to.

When is the last time that you tried to leave YOURSELF?  If I go in another room, I follow.  If I go to a movie, I come with me.  I just can't seem to chase myself away!  I can't even run away into a movie like I did with Nyle because it just makes me miss HIM EVEN MORE, and I'M still there with myself

This post is not intended to inspire, uplift, or anything particularly positive.  Except for one last idea.  I am NOT quitting.  Tomorrow morning will come, and I WILL go back to living the best that I know how.  Maybe that in the end is the true answer to HOW.  Just keep putting one foot in front of the other...or if those feet are no longer capable of standing, keep living...whether you are in bed, a walker, crutches or a wheelchair...and I have done some of my best singing and dancing from a wheelchair.   Just keep doing your best...and allow yourself to throw a brilliant pity party once in awhile!