Wow, a lot has happened in just this first week and a half of the new year. I know that we’re not very far in yet, but I have really taken to heart my decision to embrace things in my life. I am loving and feeling more “on” with my work, feeling more present with my kids, and overall I have felt so very joyful. I think what has made the biggest difference is that I consciously chose to COMPLETELY forgive and love myself. What a huge change that has made in my life already.
It’s not really surprising I suppose, but choosing to completely love myself, try to see and accept myself as God does, has made me feel so much more love for the people around me. Exponentially so. I really like people, always have, but now it feels like I truly do love everyone. I feel connected to them as a child of God, and feel such compassion for all of us going through this human experience, trying our best to make it through. (Although don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people with whom I greatly disagree about things, or who make choices that I certainly do not condone.) I know that I couldn’t have said that even a year ago (my thoughts were not all loving during that election….)
More than anything, I just feel more like myself. I’m not sure if I’ve felt so completely like ME, Suzanne, for at least ten years, or even since I’ve had children, despite the fact that I have had a full, happy life. (Meds can be a wonderful thing, and I think we’ve now finally figured out mine.) I’ve had the opportunity recently to be reading through a lot of letters and journal entries from when I was in college, and it has reminded me of how very happy and hopeful and full of life the “real me” is. Here’s an excerpt from the first letter I sent Kenny on his mission that seems to describe how I have felt this past week: “But oh, Kenny! I am truly so excited. You know how I get when I’m really excited. I feel just so FULL of energy that I think I’ll explode and I feel like hugging the whole world.”
It’s interesting to note, though, that this change of attitude and outlook hasn’t been contingent on my circumstances finally being easier. I have a child, for instance, who received some official diagnoses that are certainly daunting, heavy to be fielding on my own as a solo parent. I also spent last Saturday in the ER with one of my children.
Yes, being in that hospital was triggering. We started at the urgent care that happened to be the same one (even the same exam room, and maybe even the same doctor) where I took Kendall in multiple times for excruciating back pain and “weird tingling,” where they kept completely misdiagnosing him (no, he did NOT have shingles…) and didn’t ever order the imaging that could have caught his tumor so much earlier. Then there was the harrowing drive to the ER that unavoidably brought back memories of frantic ER trips with Kendall, not knowing if things were life-threatening and I would make it in time. Running inside to get help and a wheelchair. Sitting by myself in the room while my loved one was in so much pain, helpless to fix it. Being told by doctors that they didn’t know how to help or exactly what was wrong, and sending me home with a long list of symptoms to be on alert for. All that pressure that was, once again, seemingly put on me to make sure they were OK. And man, the sound of that dang blood pressure cuff going off. There were so many days and weeks with Kendall when his cuff would go off every few minutes and we would all stop everything to read the numbers that kept falling so dangerously low. Hour after hour after hour of that anxiety. Watching him in pain every time it would squeeze his arm (his skin was so bruised and torn by that point), and him not fully understanding why it kept happening.
So yeah, lots of triggering things on Saturday. It was certainly a long and tough day. But things WEREN’T the same as with Kendall. My child is already doing so much better, and I believe she will be OK. A friend came to be with me for the last hour at the hospital, bringing me food (we had to leave so quickly that morning and I hadn’t had a chance to eat all day) and more than anything, emotional support. I was able to have people come inside my house while I was gone to help my other children, like Grandma showing up to help my son with the science fair project we had planned to finish that day, or my sister bringing my kids dinner. And that same wonderful friend came back with me to the house after we were released from the hospital and stayed well into the night, letting me verbally process through the events of the day. Which weren’t all bad. She even noted how surprisingly positive and hopeful I was, further evidence that that “real me” truly is emerging.
I’m so grateful for the capacity to fully embrace this wonderful life of mine. I can’t help but feel a kinship with some other words I wrote to Kenny as he was about to start his mission: “I’m not looking at the next two years as a time I’m just trying to get through, or as something to be dreaded. I’m so excited! About life, about where I feel my life is going, about how much I can improve each and every day. I’ve been so happy lately, and that’s something I’m going to try very hard to maintain.”
I have no idea how long I will still have on this earth, but I plan for it to be a good long time yet. I’m not viewing it as something to merely have to “get through.” I really am excited about where my life is headed. I like the person I am becoming, the growth I can recognize from the past eighteen months, especially these last nine. I can’t help thinking that Kenny would have so loved this “newly discovered me” too and is proud of me even now.
(After my toothpaste post, a dear friend of mine surprised me and mailed me this box. I have not laughed that hard in a VERY long time.)
