Today a friend called. It was an interesting conversation on several levels. Not the least, an emotional one. I was really tired when she had called, and had just completed the last blog entry.
She wants to help me. And I am finding it difficult to let people help the way they want to help. It's not that I don't appreciate it, but there are ways that can definitely be a help that I have spoken about. Other ways I might be open to, but I don't think it is "fair" to judge me for not working within someone else's framework. I have heard something more than once lately about how I don't listen. Well don't we all hear that when we aren't going by the beat of someone else's drum?
If someone really wants to help, but feels that the only way they can isn't helpful to me, then we both should be understanding of the other. I should understand and appreciate their limitations and desires and they should understand mine. And if there isn't a place of useful compromise, then accept it and move on. But it often does not work that way, does it?
I am having a really hard time with those who somehow think they know better than I do what is right or best for me to do, and then when they label me in some way akin to difficult or stuck when I don't adhere to what they think.
Two people in as many days have said something to me about how doing the same thing I have always done is obviously not working. For starters, I am not doing what I have always done. I am also in SURVIVAL MODE which is not the same as Every Day Life Mode. Everything that I am doing and everything that affects me right now affects me much more deeply than superficially.
It is not a matter of looking at - and packing - pictures. It is reviewing my life, and hoping that it is not the end. It is not about whether or not I put things into storage. It is whether or not I will ever see them again. It is not about whether or not I hold onto things for me, but whether or not it will be something one day someone will have to go through and more than likely decide to discard.
The shadow of cancer is over me. It threatens in ways many do not understand, and maybe don't even want to. I don't want to be someone else's problem and I don't want someone to think that I am their problem. I HATE having to ask anyone for anything. ABSOLUTELY HATE it. It opens me in ways that I can't deal with. It opens me to their judgments. It opens me to their opinions. It opens me to things that just make so many things awkward and painful.
Just because I need help does not mean that the things I want are unacceptable. I think that is one of the things I fear most right now. I think I fear that others who might have a say in things will not agree with what I want. And the problem is that most people who would be close to me often do not see things as I do.
I really hope I find a miracle. If I can't stay with my friend, I really hope I can have my own space. Anything less will be very difficult to cope with, and won't be conducive to my health. I don't know how that will look or be or how it can happen. But it is what I desire most in the world. Some people believe that there is power in words and thoughts. Me? I don't think I believe it. There have been times I have wanted something with every part of me - mind, body, spirit. I have given so much thought and energy to it, to come up empty.
There are explanations offered for this that I think only make it worse. Wayne Dyer apparently says we don't attract what we want, but who we are. So if we don't get what we want, then there is a blind spot. I don't know if I believe that either. It seems to be a really cruel trick to have life as a human be that way. To want something so badly, but no...you can't have it because you have a blind spot that you don't know that you have, and even if you suspect there is one, good luck to you in figuring it out.
The answer there is to "work on yourself." Well when is the work done? When do you know you're "There?" Well. You don't. The process of life is on-going.
So what is "the" answer, really?
People act like there is One.
In speaking with my friend today, I talked about how I hate to think that I am not getting help and getting what I want because I am doing it "wrong." She said it is not about right or wrong, but rather about what works. And what we do and don't do is what works or doesn't. So if it doesn't work, do something else.
It sounds very much like a "fix" to me. It never used to. But it does now. It seems like it is saying, "This situation is wrong for me, so I need to fix it."
What if the world we live in is NOT always able to be fixed? What if the things we want are not the things we can get? What if there is no way to have the clear, easy smooth sailing our fix it society tries to approximate with how it approaches things? What if life just sometimes sucks?
I thought about something today. I realized that I have not once (that I can recall any way) said, "Why me?" Not once played the victim of the circumstances I am under. I have looked at them with as honest and open of an eye as possible and I have posed questions. I have done everything I can to figure things out and to look at them and to take an active role in what is happening in my life. I have taken responsibility for my choices.
And...
I have found myself in one of the worst, God-awful situations known to man.
It is where I am. And I hate it. And I am doing the best I can with what I got. Off the top of my head I can't think of one single person who would have the same situation as I do, so how can anyone possibly tell me what is best for me? How can anyone tell me that I haven't made the best choices for myself? In many cases, based on what I did when I did it, I have ZERO regrets. That is the power of living a life true to yourself. There is no regret. I have done everything that I could within the context that I was in.
But no regret does not mean that things came to be where I wanted them to be. It did not mean no heartbreak or disappointment. It did not mean that I got my "feel good life story." Why do we think we have the ability to have everything we want? Maybe some of us can't. Maybe there are some things that aren't meant to occur. Maybe there are things we just aren't meant to understand. Maybe seeming mistakes are purposeful.
The battle I fight these days is more in regard to wanting to understand what is, rather than trying to fix or change situations. There is a part of me that very much is living in the moment and doing what feels right to do. Those choices - those moments - have created some real beauty in my life. Sadly, those very same choices have created some of the uglier moments in my life, too.
How I look at things may not be the best or right way to look at them, but it is the way that gives me the most inner peace these days. Unfortunately when it comes to having to interact with others, depending on what it is, it has the likelihood of being anything but peaceful. But the thing is is that if I change the inside to accomodate the outside, I will be selling myself out. And that I can't live with.
I used to be tortured about the conflict, thinking that I should somehow give credence to what another said or believed. It was horrible. And I did it for years. In the last year it has changed, and there is just no going back.
I can't.
So while I may not be happy with how my life is progressing at the moment, there is a part of me that is very much at peace about it because it knows that it is doing all that it can with what it has. If my life ended tomorrow, I would know in my heart that I did my best and that I lived the life truest to who I was and what I believed.
(Interestingly I am less afraid of death now than I have ever been. What if part of our fear of death is a fear that we won't have had the opportunity to be who we are supposed to be in the world? A fear that we didn't say and do and be to the best of our ability?)
As sucky as things have been, at least I have that. And how many people could say the same thing? I would venture a guess - not many.
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