Struggling To Be Perfect

As he drove the car, I stared out the window from the passenger seat. Daydreaming. Watching my life pass me by. Reflecting on everything I had voluntarily and involuntarily given up. Knowing I was about to surrender one more part of myself.

We were traveling to a party and I had agreed to be someone else. I have played this game before but this time it didn’t feel right.

Mentally steadying myself

Upon arrival, I mentally steadied myself. Before we exited the car, I placed my cane in the back seat. En route to the house, I stumbled three times on the sidewalk while trying to keep a normal walking pace. But luckily I made it safely without tumbling to the ground.

We met the host at the front door and she invited us in. As we crossed the threshold, I quickly grabbed my partner’s hand. It looked like a sign of love. But the truth is I did it for balance.

The front room of the house was full of fake friends making noise. And despite being surrounded by a group of people, at that moment, I felt so alone.

They only knew the lies

Everyone was a stranger to me. Not because I didn’t know them. It was because they didn’t know me. They only knew the lies. The lies he asked me to tell. The one’s that stopped me from being me. The one’s that hurt my spirit.

I’ve been dishonest so many times; my bright eyes have become dim. And when I’m in these situations, I don’t really smile. I don’t really laugh. I don’t really feel. I only concentrate on being inconspicuous. Trying not to let my foot drag. Pushing through fatigue. Giggling at jokes my cloudy mind doesn’t understand.

All the while he keeps whispering, “You are doing so good. You’re perfect.”

The Best Thing to Do Is Live

The best thing to do at this moment is…Live.

Life happens

Life ‘happens’ to each and every one of us. We have joyous, sorrowful, strenuous, fun, fearful, confusing times and everything in between. If you get from one phase to the other– especially the difficult ones – pat yourself on the back because that means you’ve made it through one more thing, obstacle, day.. What you have successfully done at those moments is…live.

Looking back as we get older

Some people approach milestone years – 30, 40, 50… with disdain. However, there is but one alternative to getting older. A different perspective would be to allow yourself to age gracefully knowing that you are wiser, sensationally seasoned and a conqueror. Life is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. The older we get, we can look back with warmth at the pleasant memories from the good times… And we can look back with pride that we are still here after enduring the storms that clouded our trajectories. New years bring new opportunities, experiences and lessons. We can then apply what was learned in our yesteryear to navigate wiser to our future. Welcome each year, each day with gladness and should there be a moment when apprehension or spurn creeps in relative to getting older, the best thing to do is to just send those thoughts where fleeting thoughts abide… and with determination and zeal, live.

My Alienating Perspective

As I sit on my couch, scrolling through social media on my phone, I notice a torrent of updates from a family member complaining about some recently delivered cleaning product arriving damaged. As I read up on the tirade, it became clear that this was more than an inconvenience to them, it was just another sign of how their life is somehow worse than they’d like it to be. These sort of complaints are common, especially in this day of social media, where it seems like we can often have a steady view into people lives any time we want (or don’t want). This often unfiltered view into people’s lives and their daily problems can often make me feel alienated from and resentful of many people. As I struggle in a fight against Multiple Sclerosis, the many mundane problems of most people begin to feel trivial and greatly impact my perspective on them.

Everyone has problems

I get it, I do, everyone has daily difficulties in their life. Let’s face it, everyone sees their own issues as the most important, the most difficult. As I sit here and complain about someone’s mundane problems and compare them to mine, there could be someone dying of cancer seeing me complain and think the same thing about me. You can never truly be in someone else’s shoes, so we shouldn’t judge them on what they complain about. Not everyone can handle the same threshold of pain and problems that life throws at you. I know all that, I know that any sort of judgment is wrong. With my perspective, when I see someone complaining about a crappy day at work, when I’m unable to workand wishing that I could even have that bad day at a job, frustration begins to build and I can’t understand them. But perspective is the key word there, I’m not seeing it from their perspective, only my own. I fully understand this, but it doesn’t make it easier.

Finding Hope

*Disclaimer— This post will talk a lot about my faith. I know there is a lot of controversy on that subject, and while I would never try to push my beliefs on anyone else, I wanted to give you all a fair warning before you dive into this one. Also, I respect your right to believe or not to believe, so please respect my right to believe and write about it as well. I share and write everything I do in hopes that my personal experiences can help others as well. And if religion and faith isn’t your thing then that’s ok, I love you anyways!

Coping with loss

I recently dealt with the death of my grandfather, and while it hasn’t been even a month, its still something I think about daily. The thing about death is that even though a part of your life is now missing, life still goes on around you as if everything is exactly the same. I think that has been the most difficult part for me. He is gone, and it feels like a substantial piece of me is missing, but I have to keep living my life. I know that’s exactly what he would want me to do, but it is harder than I imagined.

The finality scares me

Death is very surreal to me. Even though we knew his time was coming, I didn’t expect to feel this way after he was gone. It doesn’t feel real. It feels like the next time I go to his house to visit he will still be sitting in his recliner to meet me with an ornery grin and ask me how I’m doing. It’s made me rethink life and everything that I know to be true. The craziest thing to me about life is how you do everything in your power to grow to be a good person. Our parents raise us to be functioning members of society, we go off on our own and find our passions and success. We work hard, and we strive to live and to love to the fullest, and then one day we’re gone. When we leave this earth, our families are left to grieve, to preserve our memory and to pick up any of our loose ends. It’s bizarre to me after I’ve had this much time to think about it. He’s just gone, and that’s like a huge punch in my gut. It leaves me breathless and it hurts. I’ve always been scared to lose my loved ones, and losing him was no different in that sense. The finality of it is scary to me. The only thing that makes sense to me when I think about how confusing and life changing this has been is my faith.