Gathering the Life Rafts

Getting out of bed is a chore most days. I dread the day ahead. Here come all the "Are you F*&#! kidding me?" moments. I'm not angry. I'm not fearful. My soul is weary. And although I have recovered somewhat, from multiple events that have happened over the last 2 plus years, the piling on has become a bit much.

I keep hearing and seeing jokes about 2020 being a horrible year. I can honestly say, I can't argue against that point, but for me, agony started before this year. Life has been happening, the joyful, and then the unspeakably tragic. The rest, the middle, it's a blur. I know it's there. I know I lived it. I just remember the extraordinary highs and the unbearable lows, most days, especially right now.

I find myself trying so hard to get, and keep, this cart on the road, so to speak. I also find myself wanting to lay down, flat on my face, and scream. When does this dive in the ditch end? I don’t know how else to describe it. It's dirty, dark, and lonely and honestly, after months and months, years, it's almost unbearable.

I do have good days, the days I get an unexpected call or text from a friend, or the days that something actually goes right at work. That actually happens from time to time. The days I feel hopeful. Those days feel fewer and I'm trying to remember when that happened. Was it in 2017 when my best friend from high school was diagnosed with life threatening cancer? Was it 2018 when I found one of my clients face down in a creek? Was it later in 2018 and into 2019, when my only living grandparents ended up in Hattiesburg, one in hospice and the other in a memory care unit, only to die in early 2019, just over 2 months apart?

There were other things, many other things. I know there were, but now 2020. A pandemic. The death of a co-worker. Talks of layoffs, in which I spent a week paralyzed with worry and grief. Clients in crisis with no answers. Communities shaken to their core by politics, hate, and division. I truly believe if more people exited social media and stopped watching the news, that would help tremendously. I talk from experience. But, I digress. It seems sometimes people just want to be angry when everything is out of their control rather than actually talking with their neighbors. I guess we'll just wait for another Katrina or 9/11 to happen.

Self-care on a normal day for me is more than lacking, but the last few months, I had to make something happen. I felt like I was going to quit, everything. And I was okay with that. I was okay with just not doing or feeling or being. My soul was bruised and broken. So, I started chipping away at the things that made everything harder to cope.

Social media and the news were the first to go. My realization was whatever I was looking for there definitely wasn't filling that void. It was however, making me angry and full of anxiety. It was helping me realize how truly evil humans are, and I was losing all hope that anything would ever get better. How can any good be seen in humanity after spending hours on social media or watching the news? That's rhetorical. You can't. At all. Nope. How many times did I say to my husband, "I mean, I'm not sure why God doesn't just torch this place. If the rapture is coming, I'm ready." Some of my most dramatic moments, I admit.

I stopped eating sugar, which I'm sure added to the dramatic presentation above. Who doesn't wish for the rapture when life is without cake? I started drawing and sending cards to people. I've tried to check on those closest to me, and my clients that are in isolation and have no one else. I've tried to focus on how I can better myself without my usual zero-to- sixty mantra. Change is hard. Changing in crisis seems impossible. Small steps, I try to tell myself, are better than no steps.

One thing that comes to mind that I’m lacking is sleep. I am a horrible sleeper. It's all mental. Well, and a little physical. When you have a shoulder you can't sleep on and on the opposite side, a hip that is the same, it makes for an interesting rest.

Mentally, bedtime makes me anxious. It's the time when the entire world's problems enter my mind. It's the time when I wonder how that bully from 6th grade is living their life. It's the time when I want to write apologies to people I hurt 20 years ago. It's a lot. It's ridiculous, but a lot. Bedtime is always when I have processed things.

From the time I remember being conscious, it has been the time when I would think the most. It's the time I would comfort myself about people close to me dying, by counting up the years they could possibly have left to live. Morbid, I know. All that time, and still never enough, especially when the time comes that they actually die. It’s the time feared most, and it has happened. No more counting. No more wishing it away. Just memories that feed dreams, and dreams that become nightmares.

Bedtime is the time I used to fantasize about what my life would be, where I would work, who I would marry. As I have gotten older, it has become a time of only worry. It has become the time when I think about bills getting paid or laying out a new budget. It has become the time when I worry about work, about my clients, about all the problems that come with no answers. It has become a time of chaos in my mind. It explains my absolute exhaustion. With no rest, comes very little peace and vice versa. After all this, I want to say that life will get better. I want to say we will all make it and resume some since of happiness and calm again. But what I know is that life is going to keep happening. In crisis, crisis comes. It won’t slow down. It won’t make sense. The world continues, even in our pain. We can’t prepare. The lack of control is mind numbing. “Hold on. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!” has taken on a whole new meaning in adulthood.

I’ll hang on. With every fiber of my being, with every tiny bit of hope I can muster, I won’t let go. I won’t surrender. There are others that need my hope, my forgiveness, my love, my grace, my mercy, because just when I believe I’ve hit ground zero, there’s my neighbor, drowning from something much more unfathomable.

Time to put on my big girl pants and see how many life rafts I can find.