The last eighteen months have included some of the most
difficult months in my life. There’s been illness and death—that dreaded word: cancer. My body is healthy, but my heart
is weighted. Each beat is a heavy pull of blood through the chambers. If you
know me, you know that I bury that pain deep within me.
You know that I don’t cry about it. I keep chugging through
life, the wheels turning uninterrupted. In fact, I keep myself so busy I leave
little time to think. I clean too much, organize too much, and relax too
little.
It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve had to deal
with things that are difficult. We all have those moments in time. I know my
way to get through it is quiet. I know that I bury myself in books and writing.
I sequester myself away from people. But my patience thins. I appreciate good things
in my life a little less. If I’m numbing myself to the pain, I’m also numbing
myself to the joys in life. I’m indifferent.
My body might hold all the stress; I might look perfectly
content on the outside, but I can’t fool how my system handles it. Occasionally, my heart beats a little faster for no reason. My ability to tolerate simple
stressors reduces and I become irritable more often (sorry Cory). Not always, just sometimes. Caffeine and
sugar only make it worse which is horrible because I love to bake and
subsequently eat it. I can do without the caffeine, but sweets!?—come on.
This past weekend, I was able to go back to the Chicago area
to see family—some of whom I haven’t seen in nearly eleven years. It made me
realize how much I love these people. It doesn’t matter how much time has
passed, cousins will always pick up right where they left off. My heart is so
full for a different reason. It made me realize, that maybe I should disrupt
the spin of the wheels moving me forward.
I should slow down and pay attention to the way my kids
laugh when they’re happy. I look at my nine-year-old (ten next month), and I
realize that he’s not such a kid anymore—and it has nothing to do with the fact
that he’s almost as tall as me. Another year (crossing fingers). My daughter
has broken out of her shy shell and blossomed into a girl, comfortable in her
skin. My youngest still gives me the kind of hugs only a toddler can give even
though he’s almost six, and we’ve managed to survive his crazy antics. That
will all be gone soon; I need to pay attention. I can’t afford to miss it.
Writing is an outlet as much as it is a passion. I consider
it work—it doesn’t necessarily relax me but I enjoy it tremendously. If I don’t
get all the stories in my head out, I feel stressed, so writing is therapeutic.
If I could afford to write all day, every day, I absolutely would. Same as
reading, it helps my heart to slow and provides a canvas for me to bleed out my
pain. Let me rephrase that, not pain, but bleed out my indifference. My
numbness. It wakes me up and affords me the ability to live.
Life experiences feed creativity—no matter how good or bad
they are.
So...I'm expecting some decent book writing from myself. :)
