Friday, December 17, 2010

A big, wallowy whine

I’ve been careful to try to focus on the positives in my life during this illness. Mostly because I don’t want it to define me, but also because I believe that thinking positively can affect things. I also want to be the kind of person who can accept trials humbly and gracefully.

But.

When I had my first baby (colicky), I got hit with major post-partum depression, though at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was. I thought was that I was a horrible, ungrateful mother who sometimes, late at night in a crazy fog, didn’t like her child (her red-faced, screaming child), and I carried around a lot of guilt about these feelings—which guilt, of course, made things worse. But if I had known how normal those feelings were, I could have eliminated the guilt and recovered sooner.

So later, when it was all behind me, I felt a sense of mission about telling people how hard things had been for me, so that they could at least know they weren’t alone if they ever felt that way, too. I came to bemoan the cultural norm in the church of hiding difficulties and presenting a positive front. I really believe that more openness about struggles would be only good in our society.

So, out of respect for that belief, I’m going to gripe here. Once. And then (hopefully) be done.

I HATE HATE HATE this illness. Hate it. Hate it.

Hate what it does to my relationships. There are times (many) when I don’t want to be touched. When I don’t have the energy to be positive, make small talk, forgive immediately, control my emotions when I feel utterly spent, put up with pettiness or phoniness or argumentativeness. I hate having to go to bed early AGAIN and miss out on precious time with my family. I hate that my children and husband and friends have so much to forgive me for when I let them down because I don’t feel well.

I hate how it impairs my ability to serve. I feel muddled, and don’t recognize when others need me or how to help. I feel selfish about my energy and want to conserve it. I let sign-up sheets go by without signing them.

Which leads me to another thing I hate: this illness has changed my definition of myself. I used to be “a person who always signs on the sign-up sheets.” I am no longer. What else has changed? Who am I, really, if I am sometimes grumpy, often tired, often self-centered?

I hate how this illness has taken away the extra-curricular activities that used to help me define myself. This year, I am not a writer, or a teacher, or a thinker, or a critic, or a fosterer of connections in Mormon letters, or even much of a friend.

I hate the time this illness has taken from me. Not even counting the time I have spent in bed, I can’t imagine what I would have accomplished this year if I had not gone to a single doctor’s office, waited on hold for a single nurse.

And the money! With the money we’ve spent on medical testing for me this year, I could afford to reapply to the MFA program I dream about.

I hate how this illness has pitted me against my own body. I don't like or trust it anymore. I hate how my body’s faulty adrenalin system makes it impossible for me to feel peaceful for good chunks of most days. I’ve always felt that I can cope with anything as long as I can feel peace about it. Cancer? Death? Whatever. Bring it on. As long as I can feel peaceful, feel the Lord with me through the process, telling me that all is well. But that’s the one thing I can’t have, often.

And most of all, my biggest loss: I hate how this illness has taken away my ability to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. Because I have always relied on my body as a means to recognize spiritual feelings. In the past, wrong answers have left me feeling befuddled and nauseous. Right answers brought clarity of thought and energy. But what if I always feel befuddled and nauseous? What if there is no energy to be had, except an abnormal adrenalin rush that leaves me shaky and red-faced? I feel so lost and alone when I can’t rely on spiritual guidance anymore. This has been the most painful of losses and I am still mourning it deeply. Will I ever, ever get it back?

OK. The rant is over.

And now that it’s over I remember one of the biggest reasons I don’t let myself rant. Because it looks so ungrateful. I truly recognize the ways that I have been blessed through all this. I complain about the money, and yet we have always had enough. How big a blessing is it that we have been able to PAY those medical bills? HUGE. And I have been blessed with many sweet moments with friends, children, spouse, through all this, and with an added ability to recognize their sweetness. I have been able to fulfill callings, keep up the house (mostly), do all that is necessary, and many things that are nice (vacations, etc.). I have had enough, so it’s absolutely childish of me to complain about what I haven’t been given. I am grateful, and recognize God’s hand in my life in many ways.

(Still, I’m going to post this anyway.)

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Blind Side

We finally saw Blind Side last night. It was a sweet-enough movie and enjoyable. But the ending really bugged me. Not the ending in which Michael goes off to college, but the very, very ending, in which the mother’s voice-over talks about the tragedy of another boy from the hood who showed great athletic promise but who dropped out and ended up dead of gang violence or whatever, and the camera showed newspaper clippings about the kid. She was comparing what happened to that kid with what happened to her own Michael.

What bugged me was the implication that it was such a tragic waste that an athletically kid was lost because no one cared to take him in.

But what about the athletically non-gifted kids, eh? Is potential athletic talent the indicator of whether a kid is worth being rescued by a wealthy woman with time on her hands? I couldn’t help thinking about how this story would have been different if Michael hadn’t happened to be talented (and large) and the woman hadn’t happened to be rich. I’m just saying.

I do have to say that I've always liked Sandra Bullock, and I especially enjoyed the character she created here. I wish I had the guts this woman had--the sassiness, the lack of fear of others. I wish I were less timid.

Monday, December 06, 2010

I'm just sad I wasn't invited to participate . . .



I don't get enough chances to sing this during the season.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Come Together

Friends of our were telling us how they met and how their courtship developed. I was charmed to hear that the moment they began falling in love was when they realized how much they both had loved one particular book: Winnie the Pooh. It seems so sweet to fall in love over a book. I wonder how their mothers feel when they hear this story—how amazed they must be that their own choice of what book to read to their children would influence their children’s future choice of spouses!

Several relationships in my own life have become closer because of a shared passion for a particular book—or music. I remember the day I looked up at the bookshelf of my brand new, previously unknown freshman roommate at BYU, and saw Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. That’s when I knew we would be kindred spirits. And we were, and we went on to share many more cultural experiences together, passing books back and forth or discovering new passions together, such as International Cinema and live jazz.

I made another discovery of a kindred spirit when Cheri led a book group discussion on one of her favorite authors, Anne Tyler. Any active LDS woman who loves Anne Tyler is going to be someone I want to hang with.

There was the time my friend Kathy referred in one of our many discussions about trying to live right to a book that has influenced me so much that I regularly re-read it: Terry Warner’s The Bonds that Make Us Free. Our friendship grew deeper because of that than many days of conversation could have caused. She gave it to me for a gift later that year.

Music, too, brings people together. In college I had a good friend, Justin, who entered my life when I stood behind him in line for dinner at the ward dinner party. He was softly singing to himself the da-da’s from U2’s “Surrender.” This was in the late 80’s, when everybody claimed to be fans of U2 because of Joshua Tree. But here was a guy who knew War. I joined in on the da-da’s, and we were instant friends.

My old high school buddy, Paul, endeared himself to me when we found that both of us were equally skilled at quoting The Sound of Music. And knew all the choreography to the “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” We acted it out over and over (sans kiss).

And, most importantly of all, my relationship with my husband moved to a relationship instead of just a date when, on our first date, I told him we would be watching What’s Up, Doc? (a test of his sense of humor, of course) and he responded with lit eyes, a huge grin, and several quotes from the movie. Done deal.

Has this happened to you? What books or songs or movies have helped you grow closer to someone?