Don't Borrow Trouble...or Stress, for that Matter!

Things are currently better for me than they’ve been at any point in the last year. The thing I was waiting on came through for me in the best way possible, and I’m now firmly on the path to wherever my new life is going to take me—with the tools to be successful every step of the way. More importantly, however, is the fact that I can actually see the damn road and even, if I squint my eyes, look up ahead into the future a bit. This, as anyone who has been reading this blog will know by now, is a huge relief for me. Gigantic. Epic, even.

If I needed any proof about how much happier my soul is when it has direction, I got it the first night after I heard my good news. I slept, through the night, without any artificial help, for the first time in almost 11 months. Then I did it again the next night. And the next. And the next. That’s right, my insomnia has disappeared into thin air. Poof!

It is amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for your outlook on life. I’d forgotten. But now that I’ve been reintroduced to the concept, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anything snatch it away from me again! Unfortunately, there are still one or two lingering things from my old life infringing on my ability to ride off into the rising sun of my new life. I’m headed in the right direction, but I have a couple of unwanted stowaways in my luggage. These stowaways seem determined to peck away at my fledgling happiness (I’m just full of metaphors today, folks!), and they might be successful—if they were dealing with the old me. But they’re not. They’re up against the new me, the one who has walked through hell (not a metaphor) and come out the other end alive. The new me is stronger, re-forged by adversity and misery and all the things that make you stronger if they don’t kill you.

Also, the new me has slept. Seriously, I can’t even tell you how glorious that is after all this time.

So, right, stowaways. They can take a hike. For the most part, they’re things I have very little control over at this point. So, why let them stress me out? Yes, I want them done and gone, but it’s just not happening right now. I’m not ignoring them; I’m quite aware of their presence. I’m simply choosing to keep them at arm’s length for the duration of their stay with me. Frankly, I’ve been through worse. It’s incredible the way my outlook on life’s struggles has shifted over the last year. I have a feeling it’s going to take a lot more to faze me from now on. Because after everything I’ve been through, it’s simply not worth it to take even one baby step back into the darkness. I know what’s back there, and it’s nothing good. These days, I’m all about the light. And the sleep.

Lesson of the Day: Step into the light. And get some sleep!

This Virtue is Running Out of Steam

I have always been a patient person. I figured out long ago that very little in life is set up for instant gratification, and I’m a firm believer that some of the best things in life are that way precisely because they take some effort to get to. That’s not to say I don’t put my share of the work in; I have simply always been good at accepting that I can only do so much, and after I’ve done all I can possibly do sometimes the only thing left is the waiting.

Now, however, with all that has happened to me in the last ten months, I find my patience wearing very thin. It’s probably a byproduct of having to redirect all that patient energy into keeping myself together, but whatever the reason I am beginning to be a whole lot less graceful about the whole “waiting” thing. In short, I’m over it. I’m over the endless patience with people who don’t deserve it, I’m tired of the patience I’m supposed to be exhibiting with the universe as it works out major decisions that could make or break my life path, and I am sick unto death of being patient with myself. All the patience I have exhibited with the hand I’ve been dealt should just about qualify me for sainthood, but I will happily stick with just being me if I could get some action going and stop all this incessant waiting!

I do better with a plan. I do better with direction. And I do better with control. These three things have been sadly lacking in my life lately, at least at the levels I need to feel secure. I’m tired of feeling insecure about my life and where it’s headed. It bothers me that I can’t accurately predict where my life will sit a week from now. A week! I’m not even talking long-term planning here; I’m talking about a completely reasonable timeframe that most people can at least provide the highlights for. I got nothing. And it’s really starting to get on my nerves. It seems that, with so many endings in my life lately, all that stress (instead of dissipating) is focusing on an ever-smaller subsection of my life—a subsection that can and will change everything depending on how it goes. I’ll know something for sure by this time next week. An answer is on the horizon—but if it’s the wrong answer, I’m back to square one and more stressed out than ever.

Am I whining? A bit, I suppose. But if it were all sunshine and roses, I wouldn’t need The Reinvention Project.

Lesson of the Day: Whoever first said “patience is a virtue” left out the part about what to do when said virtue runs out!

An Overabundance of Perspective

Just when I think I have all the life perspective I can possibly handle, the universe finds a way to shove some more down my throat.

I have spent the last month dealing with the unraveling of one of the few aspects of my life that has remained more or less stable through this mess: my physical health. I went to the doctor in early February to get an explanation for some highly unpleasant symptoms I was experiencing, and came away with the number of a specialist and the name of the very cancer that killed my grandfather a few years ago echoing in my ears.

The wait between that initial doctor’s appointment and my appointment with the specialist was awful. The wait between the specialist’s appointment and the procedure he wanted to do to rule out cancer was even worse. I had to make a very unpleasant call to beg for a halt to some of the other things going on in my life (things that necessitated The Reinvention Project in the first place, and things I just want to END, not drag out) so I wouldn’t lose my medical insurance. I had flashbacks to when my grandfather died. I had nightmares about having cancer, and all the things that could go wrong. I ran scenarios in my mind about whether I’d even be able to handle such a blow after all the blows I’ve already taken. If there was anything that would trump every other disaster in my life that I’ve been clawing my way through, it would be a cancer diagnosis.

This last Tuesday I found myself being checked in to the hospital, with a friend beside me who I will love forever for stepping in to fill the void left by the person who decided seven months ago that standing by my side was no longer a job description they wanted. This friend stayed with me until the second I was wheeled away for my procedure, suffering through my inevitable freak-out at being in the hospital and having an IV put into my arm (even typing the words makes my heart rate go up—I do not do well with hospitals, and have a phobia of needles that makes all things medical akin to psychological torture for me). She was also the first face I saw and the first voice I heard when I came out of anesthesia afterwards, and though I’ve forgotten the bulk of what happened between when they first gave me the anesthesia and when I was wheeled out of the hospital to my friend’s car due to the medication’s effects on my short-term memory, I will never, as long as I live, forget that her presence kept me calm and feeling not alone.

Feeling “not alone” while you’re waiting to hear if you have cancer is a very, very important thing.

And, as it turns out, I do NOT have cancer. I had something else, which has since healed, and I am as healthy as I ever was. But in that short amount of time when the possibility loomed, I gained yet more perspective on this life I’m trying to rebuild from the ground up. Hence today’s lesson…

Lesson of the Day: Living may sometimes suck, but the alternative is unacceptable.

Relying on Self-Reliance

It has been roughly five years since I’ve had to clean a tub. Or lift something heavy by myself. Or kill a spider. It’s not that I can’t do any of these things. (On the contrary, my independent streak is fairly legendary.) It’s that I’ve had someone else to depend on, someone to take over a few of the less desirable tasks of domesticity, or at least split them with me. I’ve had a partner. I had a partner.

Everyone likes having someone they can look to when they’re in need of a helping hand. In the most intimate of situations, that person is a spouse or significant other, and they fulfill more than just the title of resident bug-squasher. They close the circle of emotional, mental, and physical needs that help make us complete human beings. The longer they’re in our lives, the more we become dependent on them. We set aside what we know we can provide and do for ourselves because it’s simply no longer necessary to provide or do them. We limit ourselves unconsciously, willingly, to make room in our lives for a relationship more important than our independence. So what happens when the circle is broken, when we’re suddenly left holding the scrub brush or the heavy furniture or the flyswatter?

I found myself pondering that very question a couple of days ago as I stared at the smallish but (I was fast realizing) really heavy bookshelf stuffed into the back of my SUV. I had bought it from a thrift store, fully assembled, without a second thought. Three burly employees loaded it for me, and I drove my merry way home, pleased with my find. Unfortunately, I realized my mistake as soon as I pulled into the driveway—I should have bought the three burly employees, as well! I considered my options: I could go next door and beg the help of the neighbor I barely knew beyond the occasional “good morning.” I could leave the shelf in my car for an indefinite amount of time until another friend was able to come over and help me. I could try to disassemble it, though it was really more of a “once it’s together it’s together” piece.

So, there was nothing for it but to channel my inner weight-lifter. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I eventually managed to remove the shelf from my car and get it into my living room with no damage to either of us. That would have been cause for celebration—if the living room was its new home. Alas, the shelf I had just spent the last fifteen minutes maneuvering was destined for my office on the second floor. I would have to keep going. And I did. After some plotting, I finally ducked my shoulder inside the shelf, stood up straight, and literally pulled myself up the stairs by the railing. Was it the safest thing I’ve ever done? Definitely not. Honestly, the whole venture was pretty precarious, and I would have been in some serious trouble if I’d slipped. On the other hand…

It felt damn good to remember that while I have been relying on someone, I don’t necessarily need to rely on someone. I’ve been feeling quite keenly the devastation of my own broken circle, and the massive gap sometimes seems impossible to shrink, let alone close up. It was empowering to feel even the tiniest sliver of a shard fall back into place. I’m not about to declare triumph over my struggles or anything—I’m nowhere near that—but I do smirk a little every time I walk into my office and see that shelf.

It’s a start.

Lesson of the Day: You’re stronger than you think—channel your inner Hulk!