Contemplating Life

As I sit here watching my niece smile in her sleep, I'm reminded of how the smallest things bring me joy. I don't forget to be grateful for these things or the other special moments and people in my life. I may not say all the time, I may only mention the things that are wrong. But I'm aware of what is right. I hold onto those things. Because I'm also aware of how easily they slip away. I know what it's like to lose the thing you can't live without...and keep living anyway.

It's November, right in the middle of my seasonal depression. High anxiety is inevitable. We're in the month that my grandfather died...one month away from the 7th anniversary of my aunt's death...and the month after that, facing my grandmother's. It's been...horrible?...the past few years. How do you lose 8 people within one year and not go insane? I keep asking myself that - because I'm not insane. I lost my dog, both grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends...watched my parents cry and my relatives look so shattered, and I haven't had to be hospitalized. It all goes into me. But I haven't broken permanently. You can say medication, strong will, blah blah blah. But it's more than that. I don't know what it is. God, I suppose, saving me from myself, saving me for some other purpose, ensuring that I live long enough to meet it.

We got used to hearing bad news every month - the phone calls, the worries, the tears, the planning of what to do next, the funerals, the after. Or someone in the hospital. Again. It's only been recently that I've been able to let my guard down and not expect it. But I still worry. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because it will. The only certainty in life is that you'll die at the end of it. I can't handle anymore deaths. I know what it will do to me. And someone close...no, I couldn't bear it. I prayed, I asked others to pray when my dad was in the hospital this week, when he was getting his stent procedure. Friends were there for me. It helped lighten the load. But I was still stressed and worried beyond my limits. Or at the edge of it, anyway. He's ok. But I hate hospitals. He's home. I still worry.

This situation didn't give me a different perspective on life. I already know what I know. I've seen it. But it made me realize that I'm not going to back down from a challenge...I'll do what needs to be done, no matter how weak and broken I am that day. I've done it before. But now's such a turbulent time. I can't be who I was before. I didn't want to die. And I knew what my father's ___ would do to me. So it was unacceptable. Couldn't happen.

I'm talking in circles, I think. Sleeping pill kicking in, feeling drowsy. I need sleep. I need to let go.

I wish things could be easier - not every last thing needs to be a fight for survival. I would be a good girlfriend, good mother. Lots of good things. For all I lack, I'd make it up with effort. I'd try, I'll always try for you. I need someone to take that step with me.

Love me for who I am, not for who you think I am. I'd only disappoint you. And wouldn't you rather be surprised, delightfully?

One day.