So, the last week has been anything but "normal."
This time last Friday I was waking up after about four hours of sleep and feeling horrible about facing the day at work. A couple hours of deep conversation with Jeph brought home some harsh realities about choices I need to make and a new way of life I need to figure out how to live if I want to move forward. Every day seems to throw something new at me that I don't want to catch--ball mitt or not. I realize that sounds lame, and I always feel guilty when I am lame.
I feel guilty, because I survived a pretty rough childhood, and theoretically, adult life shouldn't be able to throw anything at me that I can't deal with. If I had a penny for every time someone told me how strong I am, I would never have to work again, and some days, I feel like if I hear it again I'm just going to vomit. I know people think they're paying me a compliment when they say it, but what they're actually doing is throwing down an expectation. "There's no room for you to have weak moments," they seem to be saying. If I was like everyone else, and had never faced abuse and possible death, could I just wallow in self-pity for a day? Would that be okay?
I've spent a lot of my adult life trying to develop a comfortable normal. At the same moment I was feeling horrible last Friday, I was anticipating a weekend trip with Jeph to Denver to have the closest thing to a religious experience I think I'm capable of--I was getting ready to commune with U2 for a seventh time. My new normal is lows and extreme highs. I realize my good fortune, and the expectation of my strength makes it difficult for me to accept when I have to give up on something. How could anything be so bad that I can't hack it?
The concert was a huge bright spot after some long months of gray and sometimes black. Nothing does my heart better than an hour or so with Bono. I have yet to experience a U2 concert without that all too familiar lump in my throat forming. I am so moved every single time. It was a good weekend.
The pendulum swung dramatically the other direction within an hour of our arrival home, as we learned that a giant chunk of Jeph's hometown had been destroyed by a deadly tornado. Suddenly I was watching Jeph fill with worry, nostalgia and a deep sense of confused loss. I say confused, because I think there was no way to fully grasp the gravity of the situation from two hours away.
His loss, again, made it difficult for me to stay in my moments. How could I be sad about my issues in the face of something so horrible affecting the person I love most? I guess it's just life.
This week, another milestone came and went. Love her or hate her--and I have done both--Oprah signed off Wednesday. Damn her, if she didn't leave with a message that we all forget. "The universe speaks to us in whispers." She goes on to remind us that if we fail to listen to those whispers, they will become painful, jolting, screams. If something feels extremely wrong or extremely right in your life, you have to listen to what the universe is telling you about that.
I hope it's not normal to have to recover from a rough childhood, because for me, that's just unacceptable. It's not normal to question your words and actions everyday because you worry others don't understand your motivation and see you as a threat or a thorn.
It's not normal to see the place you grew up happily turned inside out and destroyed.
Or is it? Could it be that life is exactly normal, no matter what is happening to you?
Things happen everyday that we don't understand, we don't want to deal with, and sometimes that are overwhelmingly and surprisingly wonderful. Life is every thing we have to live, no matter how good or bad those things are.
Night before last, Jeph asked me if I thought he was going back to Joplin this weekend to help someone else or for himself. I told him that he was going for himself, but it's okay, because the side effect is that it will help someone else. I think my words made him feel selfish, even though that wasn't my intent. I thought it was important for him to be able to look at the situation with truth in his heart, because I think that's the only way any of us can move on from a tragedy. We have to know why it is we do the things we do. We then know what we are giving and receiving.
It's normal to need to be in the eye of the storm in the town you grew up in and with the people you know and love. It's normal to need to face it. And I think for me, it's normal to see what is happening around me and to believe it has a message for me too.
Good or bad, living life is the thing we normally do.
http://youtu.be/U3jzvVPWy2I
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