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1:30p

I am here in the city an hour early. It was a much easier ride up from the beach this time. I have the car instead of the old work van thanks to my buddy Kurt who found a seat for the children. I will always be in his debt.

I had a few phone calls while I drove. One was from my mother in Indiana. She calls me everyday wishing she could be here with me. I told her not to come until my surgery. We don’t know yet where she will stay. “Just get your ticket, we’ll figure that part out.” Forty-one years old and I still need my mommy here to hold my hand.

The next call was from my buddy at the park. I snuck out without saying goodbye this morning and she literally called me on it. I told myself at the time I didn’t have the time to stop and chat. I had to get the kids ready for daycare and all my things in the car, but here I sit early for my appointment. Truth be told, I didn’t want to cry my way out of town. So I snuck out without telling anyone I was off. Coward.

The third call (not counting the several to and from my husband) was the one that got me. This person I am happy to call my friend. I love her with all my heart. We have a few things in common, one of which is a hidden chronic pain disorder.

I say “hidden” because to look at her you wouldn’t know she was in pain. You wouldn’t even know if she was unhappy. She hides it well. But she can’t hide it from me. Been there, got the T-shirt on that one, I have.

You know, it’s easy to blame our unhappiness on others, but ultimately we are responsible for our own well-being. No one can make you unhappy unless you allow it. Unless you welcome it even, as a crutch supporting your own excuses for not being happy.

I am not trying to say that I am the happiest person in the world, because I am not. In fact there have been times in my life when I had had enough. Seven years of Fibromyalgia pain and fatigue can weigh heavily on a person’s mind. “Stop the ride! I want to get off!” There are times in everyone’s life where you come to a (misguided) decision that you and everyone around you would be better off if you ceased to exist in this realm. (The classic old film It’s A Wonderful Life comes to mind.) It might come as a surprise to those who know me, but I have been at that point in years past. I thought about it. If it weren’t for my belief that suicide is a sin that would keep me from heaven, and a deep-seated sense of guilt for what it would do to my family, I might not be here right now.

But I am here to tell you that when you are actually faced with your own mortality you will not go gentle into that good night. You will not run headlong into the dark. You will kick and scream and rant and beg for one more day, one more minute, one more chance to live. You will because I know it from experience. I even told my old self, “Ok, I can’t do it to myself, but if something else came along that could do it for me I’ll just lay down and take it without a fight.” NOT! This is my SOMETHING ELSE and I will NOT go gentle into the good night, by God. I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up, but I do want to grow up, dang-blast-it.

And you do too.

Excuse me for a little bit while I go have radiation treatment for the rare sarcoma growing in my backside.

3:30p
Ok, where was I? Oh yes, being happy. . .

Let my Monster be your wake up call. Life is short. How many times have you heard that? I want to tell you: LISTEN! Life is short. If you don’t like your life, then change it! If you don’t like something about yourself, then change it.

If you don’t like something about your spouse, CHANGE YOURSELF! That’s right, you can’t change them. Besides, chances are that you raised your spouse to be who they are anyway. I know women who complain about their husbands of twenty, thirty years, saying “They don’t understand me.” Have you ever told them who you are? Or have you just always been who they think you are? “I don’t like who they are!” Have you ever let them be anything else?

And men you are the same way. If you don’t want your wife to spend money, why do you park across the street from the mall and open your cell phone to talk to someone else? Why don’t you take her to a romantic dinner and Dance with her? If you think she is overweight, why are you bringing home Ding-Dongs and Ho-Ho’s? Why not take her on long walks in the park, holding her hand and telling her how much you enjoy her company?

Change yourself. It’s your own behavior that is causing the problem.

“How’d you get so smart?” my friend says.  I’m not smart! Dumb and tough, remember, my daddy always said. It’s just that my world has been pulled out from under me. That tends to change the way you think. I was hit over the head with a God sized plank. Someone up there is trying to tell me something.

“Hey Old Lady! You Need to Pay Attention!”

Pay attention to the good things in life. If you are always staring into the dark corners of your closet you will only see what you set out to see! Dark, sad, dust ball covered Monsters that scare the life out of you. Turn a light on, why don’t you? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Life is what you make of it. What YOU make of it. Not what others make of it for you! The Constitution of the United States of American guarantees the “Pursuit of Happiness” not that you will be entertained on a daily basis! It doesn’t say all men must be provided happiness by their spouse, their children, their parents, or their government. It says that you have the right to try to be happy.

For goodness sakes, try to be happy!

“I couldn’t do what you do. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t laugh and tell jokes.” Poppy cock.

One, you don’t know what you would do until you have to do it. Two, you can handle more than you think you can. And three, I tell jokes as much for myself as for the person looking at me like I have one foot in the grave already.

Poppy cock.

I am telling ya, I am mad! I am scared. I cry when I let myself stare into the dark.

But I am going to live. Because I say so. That’s why.

And so are you.

Take a class. Tell a joke. Make a paper flower and give it to someone who needs to smile.

Help someone else. Send a few bucks to a village in Africa. Walk in the next March for a Cure.

Cut your hair. Lose a few pounds. Quit smoking. Get a job you do like. Read a book.

Whatever.

Change yourself.

Don’t wait for tomorrow, it may be too late.

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8:30p

Wow, just read what I wrote there. . . I promise to return to the regular programing with tomorrow’s post.