Too Many Dang Bites

Q:  How do you eat an elephant?
A:  One bite at a time.
Q:  Who in the world wants to eat an elephant?

I don't think anyone WANTS to eat an elephant, at least metaphorically speaking.  But the thing is, we tend to have a lot of elephants to deal with in our lives when we don't keep it simple.

As I write that, I wonder if there is such a thing as "simple" when it comes to the human experience.

Simple is defined as "easily done."  (I actually went to look it up.)  When I think about simple, I tend to think of it as something without many layers.  However it seems to me that many layers could still be simple if they are "easily done."  I also tend to think that something isn't "simple" if I am feeling overwhelmed like I have been lately.  When I think of simple I think of not having to deal with all of the stuff I need to deal with.

So maybe I just have the wrong word.

Interesting how words are.  We rely on them for so much, and yet there are times words can be woefully inadequate, even if used properly and at other times we just don't have the word that truly suits a situation so we interact differently with it than we might if we knew the "right" one.

I almost feel like I have more than one elephant to deal with.  And I don't know where the heck to start.  "At the beginning" I hear in my head.  How funny.  Where the heck is that?  I tend to think it is the fact that I have heard that so many times, it is a conditioned response.  There may be some truth to it in there somewhere, but I think meanings get lost when the words are casually treated.  Ever notice how there is a gloss to many of the "feel good" sayings?  They sound good.  But if you were in the middle of the trial or thing they refer to, it takes on a whole different feel - and isn't always so helpful then.  At least, that is the case - in my experience.

I have used the elephant metaphor many times.  It really does sound good.  But right now I really can see how it is an incomplete one.  I have so many things I am looking at, so many things I am doing, so many people I am reaching out to, so many different things, and even though it might have still been a lot before all of this, it feels like so much more now.  And which one is the "right," first one?  I wouldn't feel so much pressure if it wasn't for the fact that I am big trouble financially.

I don't want to drop any balls.  Yes.  I guess I am now mixing my metaphors.

There is so much going on, and I am scared.  I am scared of what people will think of me if I do drop one.  I am scared of what they will think of me acting so scattered.  I am scared of what the effects of not being able to be "professional" will be.  There are occasionally some unrealistic expectations even when one is seemingly healthy.

When I was undergoing chemo I didn't do much because I didn't want anyone to expect anything of me because odds were I wouldn't be able to meet the expectation.  Now that I am no longer undergoing it, I still don't want anyone to expect anything because I feel so wobbly.  I feel so disorganized.  My right brain is seriously challenged to help me do what the left brain would usually help with.

Even before this, I was very right brain dominant. I guess you could almost say that is a good thing.  If I had been dominantly left brained and lost that ability, it may have felt a lot worse to me.  But what seemingly little I may have had over there was something that I really need to depend on to be able to function in a way that makes me money, and pays my bills, and prepares my taxes and paperwork, and...

When we think that we know how things should be, we create standards.  And at this moment in time, there are many standards that I feel quasi pressured to meet.  I am in some ways afraid that if I don't, I won't succeed.  I suspect I could be wrong.  And I am really hoping I am.

It is like learning things all over again.  The speech therapist I spoke with basically told me as much. It brought me to tears.  When you know you were once capable of something, and then you're not, and you have to go back to the ground level and start over, it's like wtf?  I was already somewhere else. You're making me go back there again?  I don't remember how I learned anything before.  I don't even know how I got to where I did, and now you are telling me I have to do it all over again, and even worse, do it in the presence of a world and people who expect me to be in the vicinity of where I once was?  And not only that, I feel like I keep confronting the same stumbling blocks over and over again.  You really gotta be freaking kidding me.

It occurs to me that to begin again means that maybe I will find a new way to do it.  But that doesn't really help too much when I see the mess that is my life at the moment.  The mess that is my life that I have to add more to as I continue to move forward and try to get back to some semblance of me.  If I am lucky, maybe it will be an enhanced version.

In the meantime, I am just gonna have to keep trying to balance the fact that I am here, there, and everywhere minute to minute.  No wonder I get so tired.

Interestingly, I am not sure that has anything to do with the elephant.

Not Having a Good Day

Yesterday I was in the kitchen.

I was doing some things, and at one point
I had the inner core of a paper towel roll
in my hand, and I just started to bang it
(as much as flimsy cardboard will bang)
against the counter.

I started to do it, and it started to draw
anger out of me. And I did it some more,
and then I started to verbalize.

And I kept doing it for a bit.  Amazing
how much that core took.  It probably
could have gone a few more rounds.

As I was banging against the countertop,
I was saying that I had had enough.  That
I was tired of being sick.  That I was tired
of a life of barely getting by.  That I was
tired of being hidden.  Tired of not knowing
what to do.

Tired.

I found myself talking to whatever might
have been within earshot (God? Angels?
Guides? No one?) and saying enough was
enough.  This was no life.  I had much to
offer the world, and there must be a reason
for me to offer it, so why in the world can
I not get it "out there."

Many times I have had these "conversations,"
some more calm than others.  This, obviously,
was not one of the more calm times.

I found myself crying, too - just like I am
as I write this.

Prior to sitting down to write what I have
been feeling and thinking I was working
on some new artistic work.  As I was doing
it I was having a hard time in my mind.

I found myself thinking about my life and
the obstacles I face at the moment.  I was
thinking about my frustrations the last few
years and how I just don't know what to do.

Then I added in the medical bills and the
financial uncertainties, and how without
knowing how I am going to make a living,
I don't know exactly where I will live, and
I don't know how I am going to make it.

I feel like this might sound fairly dramatic,
but I don't really have options, at least not
obvious ones.  And the thought of not having
the resources to take care of myself and the
inability to create them - for whatever
frustrating reason that is - not only scares
me, but makes me wonder if I should even
be here.

And that scares me, too.

I don't want to give up.  I really don't.  But
I just don't know what to do.  It is one thing
to not know what to do and be healthy, but
it is another thing to have something that
could very easily just end it all.

In my mind I also imagined a movie like
scenario of someone who had given up.
But in the middle of giving up, they suddenly
realize that they don't want to die.  They, in
turn, have to fight the wheels that have been
set in motion.  He is told that he is being
given what he wanted, what he agreed to.
He is told that he has no choice.

I suppose since it is the work of my
imagination, he can find a way to come
back and live life.  At the same time,
I am so stymied in my own life that
I don't know how that would happen.

So many times in movies, and in relation
to some of The Secret "gurus," there seems
to be a way that things just "magically" work
out when you know what you want.

I have had a few occasions like that.  But
then I have had many more occasions where
things just did not work out the way I wanted
them to...no where near.

Of course, I must have been doing it "wrong,"
right?  I have a hard time believing that.  I
have heard "desire is prayer," and that you
are never given a desire that you cannot
fulfill.  Well...I have had many desires that
have not been fulfilled, and at this point,
never will.

When I think about this, I can't imagine that
I am the only one with this experience.  And
I also can't imagine that I am the only one who
is stymied.  And I can't imagine that I am the
only one who is in a situation like this.

And when I think about it, I think there has to
be something more.  I figure there has to be.
But then, as I type it, I wonder if there is
anything more, or if it is just a desperate need
to find something that makes sense that has me
not settle for an answer that doesn't really
seem to help.

Maybe the answer is that there isn't one.

Maybe the answer is that there isn't JUST
one.

I really don't freaking know.  I just have to
hope that somewhere in the midst of all of
this pain and anguish and uncertainty I will
get to wherever I am meant to get to.

UGH.
I hate the sound of that.
It sounds so...
unhelpful.

If there is no problem to fix...as per my previous
blog entries...then...what exactly do I have?  I
wonder, as I scratch my nearly bald head.

It is so easy to theorize and ponder things when
you don't really need to deal with anything
significant.  It is so easy to create positive things,
and read positive sayings and in general think
you understand the point of what is being
expressed - when there is nothing immediate
pulling on you.

Yeah.
Those things SOUND good.

But when you are in the midst of something that
suddenly, truly turns your life upside down and
your emotions inside out, I would have to say
their messages for me often come off in a very
different - sometimes unwelcome - way.

It is one thing to hear the words.  It is another thing
to live with something that challenges them, and
pretty much damn near everything else, too.

Not having a good day.

Well...if I was going to be fair,
it hasn't all been bad.

So hard to be fair right now, though.