In Reality It Is All About the Climb
I’ve been doing some pretty deep thinking these past several days. I guess it was time for a mental checkup to see where I am as compared to where I was. In the process of the day today I listened to one of my favorite songs that I plan to play for some students at a local college where I am going to speak next month. The song is called The Climb by Miley Cyrus. I know she has gone down a pretty rough road lately but that song is a masterpiece. The words spoke to my heart and made me think. I particularly like the part that says:
There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose
Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waitin’ on the other side
It’s the climb
I’ve noticed since I had the minor surgery on my left hand that my mind hasn’t been as well as it was doing before. I tend to be extremely forgetful, I’m isolating like crazy, I cry a lot, and to make matters worse I have been dissociating too. That costs money, which is a very big problem when you are on a fixed budget and supporting four people. The impending loss of
Paula as my therapist haunts me too. I feel time spinning past me and I don’t seem to be able to keep up. I hate that feeling. I realize this set-back will pass and I will have learned a lot about myself in the process, but man is it ever painful right now. Those mountains look pretty damn high! Why don’t I just give up? I mean after all, I can just sit in my room and play with my computer all day for the rest of my natural life and keep collecting SSDI, why am I trying so hard to get over this hump? Because I am stubborn, curious, and just downright determined to rise above all this crap. There’s always going to be another mountain and yes I’m always going to want to make it move. I have so many things I want to accomplish before my time on this planet is over and I feel rushed and like I’m running out of time, like I used to feel when I was small. The anxiety is terrible sometimes because I want to move to Springfield and start school today not in five months, yet I know when I move I’ll never see Paula again. That sucks! It’s a paradox I don’t seem to be able to resolve. Don’t’ worry, I’ll be discussing this with her this Thursday, you can bet on it. That song woke me up to the things that I’ve been trying to deny, that things aren’t rosy in my mind right now. God, the money that I’ve lost this month because I’ve dissociated. I hate being out of control of my life. It is a climb to remain sane sometimes. It is a climb to go out of my room. It is a climb to go out in public. It is a climb to live with my family who are facing challenges of their own. It is a climb that I have to have surgery AGAIN next month! I feel like I’m in the damn alps! But you know what? There is another side to these mountains and I will get there. I’ve come way too far to quit now. I should be dead a hundred times over and yet here I am typing away at my computer. In the shower this morning I thought of how close to dying from breast cancer I came just two short years ago. I’ve only been living out of the long term facility for five years. I’m not sure what the purpose of this blog is, except to say, hey I’m human. I’m flawed. I may come across as a super strong woman who has it all together sometimes, but that’s far from the truth. I am a battered up mess of a woman who is trying in her small way to change her little corner of the world. Perhaps that is why peer support works so well because we can talk to one another and say “Hey I’ve been on that mountain, and the other side is beautiful but you know what? There’s another ridge beyond that! That’s just the way life is!”
I really have no idea where I am headed from here except of course to school. What lies beyond that is a mystery. No one, and I mean no one, knows their true destiny. I plan on meeting mine with all the dignity and dissociated poise I can muster. Sigh. I guess it’s just part of the adventure we call life.
“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” Author Unknown