Sunday, July 18, 2010

JULY

Well, most of my writing has been fiction and a few opinion pieces I post for another site, but I thought I should take a moment to discuss some of the personal struggles I've had.

I found myself in a pit. So many changes, so much confusion, so little surety in anything in our lives has taken a toll on me. My beloved brother moved away just months after we moved to be closer to him (coincidence?) I know this is not an accident. One minute he got a call that he was losing his job and five minutes later he got a call that they wanted him on a different site hours away, requiring him to move in a short space of time. I admit to being really thrown by this. Angry, too.

I was quite willing to live in this tiny apartment but able to spend time with my brother and his wife. I was so excited about it. But within months they were suddenly gone and I just felt that it was TOO MUCH. On top of all the trials and struggles and disappointments over the last few years, it took the wind out of me.

So much of life seems to be about me getting the wind knocked out of me, being thrown to the ground with a sucker punch and crawling back, standing back up and getting my wind again only to repeat the cycle. I think the point is to strengthen me, to deepen me, to reduce my reliance on myself and my own understanding and to force me to rely on the only wise God. I'm not great at this. My basic training is going on far longer than most peoples it would seem. I assume they must be faster learners. Either that, or I made it through basic training and the training was for a war that I didn't realize had started.

Whatever the case, I was worn out, exhausted, sad and confused. It showed all over me. What made it all worse is that my fibromyalgia has been in a major flare for the longest period yet--well over two years now. Amazing. I was tired of all of it. Tired of the pain, the physical inconvenience, the financial struggles, the losses, all of it.

I let myself get depressed. I know better. I know how to be happy. I've learned that through great pain and long study. I just stopped practicing what I knew. When someone commented on my smile as if it were a rare or nearly-nonexistent thing, I realized what I had allowed. I allowed myself to quit practicing, to quit CHOOSING to be happy. So I once again have chosen to be happy. Trust me on this. It's totally doable. If I can learn to be happy, anyone can. I find it hard to imagine a more dismal soul than me, at least the old me.

The problem of pain and attitude is that it is hard to maintain a positive attitude when you are in pain, but the severity of the effect of pain is increased in proportion to the depth of your own misery and depression. If one can maintain a good, positive attitude, pain is not diminished, but the effect of that pain is. Plus misery drives others away.

Soooooo, rambling as this has been, I have had an attitude adjustment. I allowed myself to focus on the circumstances rather than the one who holds me in the circumstances. I forgot that I am not dependent on jobs or what I can see with my own eyes for my sustenance and my stability, but that I am dependent on one who is not affected or concerned by the things which I can see. he is utterly reliable when nothing else is.

Forward, ho!