Fight or Flight?

You always hear kids saying how unfair life is, “it’s not fair that so and so gets a TV in their bedroom!” Or, you know, insert some material thing that some friend of theirs, or classmate, has.

As adults, life is still anything but fair.

It’s not fair to get cancer at 33 years old. It’s not fair to kick it’s butt and then struggle with crippling depression after getting the news that you’re all clear, making you, in ways, sicker than you were when you were actively fighting and going through all the treatments.

It’s not fair to grow up dreaming of motherhood, being a young adult and doing everything right to prevent a pregnancy, working incredibly hard as an adult, waiting until you’ve reached a “respectable” and “fiscally responsible” time of your life to start trying, and then finding out that you can’t have kids naturally. It’s not fair to spend 10’s of thousands of dollars and still come up empty. Causing you to feel a void greater than you ever thought was possible.

It isn’t fair to lose your dear brother, your best friend, to cancer, watching him slowly and painfully die and leave behind a family that loves him with every breath they take – and will ever take.

It isn’t fair that, when you’re doing everything your instincts are screaming for you to do, so much that you end up losing yourself in motherhood to protect the baby you almost lost, and then your husband’s response is anything but compassionate and empathetic. It’s not fair to devote 11 years to a man, when he only devoted 10. It’s not fair that now he wants to be a husband and blames me for tearing apart our family because I cannot look past all that he has done.

Life. Isn’t. Fair. You know it, too.

Insert your reason here. You know you have one. We all do.

So what do we do with that? So, okay, life can be shit. My best friend coined the phrase, “shituation.” We all have shituations.

Do we let it overtake us? Do we become bitter and jaded, holding on to the hurt and the anger caused by the shituation? Do we actively escape our own lives in whatever way we can?

Well, yeah. Maybe. For a while, at least.

And then what?

We all know it isn’t healthy to live in that space. Not for any extended period of time, at least.

So how do we get through it?

Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve done – and am doing – and who knows if it’s right or wrong or would work for anyone else other than me. Be sure to take it with a grain of salt.

I escaped my reality. I ran away, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. Any opportunity where I had no motherhood obligations, I drank myself happy. Drank until I didn’t care. Drank to forget.

I also worked out – obsessively at times. I still do. (I’ve got to counteract the drinking… *shrug*)

And I finally reached a point where I didn’t want to escape anymore. If you read my previous blog, I, at what feels like long last, got to the point where I was ready to face this beast. And I’m now doing so, in very small bits at a time.

Fight or flight. I was in denial for a good month, then flew directly to flight for the last two.

I’m ready to fight now.

Are you?

How are you going to fight your shituation? How are you going to face the utter depths of despair and begin to crawl back from them?

I’ll tell you a secret: there’s absolutely no way I could ever possibly do this alone.

I’ve learned something about myself during the last 3 months. Okay, I’ve learned A TON about myself, but here’s one thing. I don’t reach out. When life explodes in my face, I actively avoid. I thought, a few blog posts ago, that it was only those most familiar to me that I didn’t – couldn’t – be around. But it’s not. I avoid anyone and everyone.

The people I’ve opened up to are the ones who have reached out to me. They’re in my face and I literally can’t avoid them, no matter how hard I’ve tried. I’m honest – to a fault (live out loud, right?). So, if you’re someone who has reached out, and then reached out again and again, and happened to catch me in a moment that absolutely sucked, I’ve opened up to you – probably giving you more than you bargained for. I’ve done this with strangers. I’ve opened up to close friends. I’ve opened up to acquaintances. Anyone who happened to be there for me and just wouldn’t get out of my face.

The ones who have consistently checked in and would check in again and again until my silence and facade broke? Guys, find those people.

I know I haven’t been that person for so many going through their shituations. The energy necessary to consistently check in was more than I had in my tank. It troubles me greatly that I haven’t been able to be that person for all my friends going through their shit. Because I know how impactful those people have been to me. I hope my tank is starting to fill. I can’t keep running on “emotional empty.”

This shituation I’m in has been draining on so many levels. SO MANY, GUYS!!!

And I’m angry and frustrated that it has changed who I am as a friend.

It’s changed who I am as a person, guys. I am not who I was. I’ll never be her again.

I don’t know who I am. Honestly.

And that’s so hard to admit.

I’ve always had a good head on my shoulders. I’ve always been responsible and thought about how my actions would affect my future. I’ve always known exactly what I was going to do tomorrow and next week and next month and next year…and so on.

But for what? All of that for what exactly?!

There is no reality past this breath I am taking right now.

But there has to be a balance.

So how do I find it?

How do I care about how my actions today will affect my future when time and again I have been shown that my future can change in a second. A mere, tiny, oh, so very significant second!!!

Oof, I am angry.

I am on a plane right now. And I’m surrounded by couples, actively loving one another. And I just wonder, when will it end for them? What will be their demise?

Because relationships aren’t infinite.

*sigh*

So, there you go. Real time. Real emotions. This blog quickly shifted from uplifting to anger.

This anger is constantly simmering. I’m always at the edge. It doesn’t take much to trigger me anymore.

And this is just not who I am! I’m not an angry person. I never have been.

Maybe this is the new me.

Distrusting. Angry. Frustrated. Jaded. Bitter.

Do you realize how toxic those emotions are? And they’re all harboring inside of me. Silently waiting to show themselves at the first opportunity that presents itself. And I have no clue when that could strike.

Like in the middle of a crowded plane, as I furiously write this on my phone.

So here we are. Full circle.

You are reading it live…raw. The full gamut of what I live, moment by moment, every single damn day.

Future? What a joke. I can barely process an hour at a time.

But I can’t keep flying away. That’s not reality. And it surely isn’t healthy.

So, ladies and gentlemen, how do we fight?

This life is absolutely worth fighting for. I obviously have no doubt about that. This life, these moments in my life, they all serve a purpose. I believe that all the way to my soul.

From moments filled with hope to moments spiraling out of control and finding themselves settling in rage, they all teach me something.

And they are all valid.

This blog feels absolutely all over the place.

Real time.

Real emotions.

This is life.

It fluctuates for everyone. Though, perhaps, not as quickly as you’re seeing here.

I have been writing for a little over an hour, or so, now.

And this is why I’m pretty consistently emotionally drained right now. And a self-absorbed person. And probably – no, definitely – not the greatest friend.

So, I hope you can forgive me.

And I hope, whenever I reach “the other side” of this shituation, you are still there. Because I love you dearly.

I guess I’m asking for grace.

And perhaps, just maybe, I am ready to start living with it again.