I am usually pretty good about not comparing my problems with others or vice-versa. Just because one person’s “worst day ever” wouldn’t even make my top ten list, does not diminish the fact that they are having a really hard time. That being said, I do believe I have hit the end of my rope. My co-worker, after complaining that her dogs kept her up, saw me trying to relieve the pressure in my sinuses by pressing on pressure points and she said, “I know exactly how you feel.”
She knows exactly how I feel. Really? Really!?!?!?! She is so tired that she can hardly sit up because she has mono? She’s in pain every time she breathes because her cough has aggravated her rib injury? She has toxic stomach because stress has triggered her IBS? She is completely heartbroken because her aunt was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer? She has been so stressed out by watching a family member deal with her own worst nightmare, that she, herself, has been sick on and off for an entire year? Really? She also has all of that going on too? Because if she is simply referring to the fact that she’s tired and has a sinus headache and that is how she knows “exactly how I feel” I swear to God I’m going to punch her in the face!
No! She does not know how I feel. Because despite the fact, that she knows about everything going on in my life right now, she hasn’t made the slightest effort to actually understand how I feel. To sit here and watch the people that I love fall sick with serious and life-threatening illnesses and then feel like a complete fraud because I’m “sick too.” Because I have an auto-immune disorder that normally is controlled through diet and isn’t a big deal at all, but because of large amounts of stress it’s been exacerbated and therefore every virus I’ve ever contracted is coming back to haunt me with a vengeance. So yes, I am sick, but I’m not sick like them, so who am I to complain? Unlike them, I can get better, and I will get better . . . eventually.
So I’ve been listening to Christmas music. Yes, I know that it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but Christmas makes me happy, and at this point, that is really all that I care about. Except that it’s not working. You see I love Christmas, but not because of warm happy memories. In contrast, my grandmother died a couple of days after Christmas when I was a kid. When I was twenty I spent the holiday checking to see if my mother was still breathing, because her DNR was signed and we were pretty much just waiting for her to die. A few years later a short, but damaging, verbal altercation took place on Christmas day itself that forever changed my family dynamic. The first Christmas memories that pop into my head are not necessarily happy ones.
But several years ago, I decided that I was reclaiming the holiday. That I wanted to see the magic of the season, feel the warmth of goodwill toward men and all of the other junk, and that no one could take that away from me. So I go overboard. I watch Christmas movies until I’m blue in the face. I decorate every available inch of my apartment, not even the puggles are spared. There’s Christmas music, presents under the tree and, now that I live in SoCal, a trip to Disneyland to see all of the glitz and get “snowed on” after the fireworks show.
I love Christmas and December has become my favorite month. But standing here on the corner of Overwhelmed and Hurting not even the Chipmunks singing, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” can lift my spirits. Instead it’s simply acting like a pillow to the melancholy that is already surrounding my heart. I can’t decide if I need to openly weep, drink a couple of bottles of wine and pass out, or hit something over and over again until my hand breaks . . . maybe all of the above . . . although I’ll probably skip the hand breaking bit . . . okay, I’ll skip the wine too.
I know that I will be up again. I always rise, people seem to point that out to me quite a bit, so it must be true. But for right now, I need a moment of being down. A moment to let my guard slip, let the smile fall from my face as my shoulders slump, and just sit and be broken. Not trying to fix anything, or make anything better. A moment to acknowledge the breaks and let them ache for a spell. Let them make me aware of where I will need to rebuild. But not now. For right now, just sit. Be broken.
Thanks for sitting with me.