Wednesday, February 17, 2010

My Sunshine

Life is Wonderful?

Sure it is, I'm just having a little trouble focusing on that fact right now.

This is the title to one of my favorite songs; a song I used to hum throughout the day and believe every word of. If you are reading this on the blog, you might be listening to this song right now.

On many levels, I know that life is still wonderful, because nothing has really changed. Yet I am beyond frustrated by the fact that I have completely lost sight of the wonders of life due to events over which I have no control.

And that makes me ANGRY. Because you know what? Life was wonderful. The very acts of getting up and going to bed, taking care of the kids, working, making dinner, balancing the checkbook, going grocery shopping; they were enough for me. I didn't need anything else. I delighted in the day to day routine because my life was wonderful. Simple, but wonderful and everything I could have ever asked for.

And then events happened. An old scar was reopened. I didn't go looking for it; I didn't ask for it, it found me. I was at peace with that scar. It was nearly faded completely away. I actually had to search for it when I wanted to give it a once over.

And now here I am. Scars are no longer scars, but open, bleeding, incredibly painful wounds because I allowed myself to take a risk, to believe, to step out in pure faith. And now life is not wonderful. Getting up and going to bed and taking care of the kids and making dinner and grocery shopping are nothing but things that need to be done. Now I am profoundly UNHAPPY with my day to day life while not a damn thing about that life has changed.

The absurdity of that makes me want to laugh. I KNOW that nothing has changed. I know that I SHOULD still be as content and happy as I was 2 months ago. I KNOW that. But something has changed. Something I did not ask for and could not control, but, as it turns out, something I wrapped my heart around and believed was going to happen despite all my bravado that I could remain detached in case of what has actually happened.

And this sucks.

Because I WANT to be happy again. I WANT life to be wonderful. I WANT to delight in the day to day routine. I am angry that my equilibrium was rocked; that my sense of well being was demolished and for NOTHING. I don't WANT to grieve this situation because my life should still be enough for me.

But it's not and that makes me ANGRY.

For anyone with the usual clichés going through your head, PLEASE refrain. Just so that everyone knows, saying things such as, "God never gives you more than you can handle" and "It just wasn't meant to be/God's will" will NOT help a person who is in pain. This merely trivializes the pain and implies that God is a terrible creature who lacks any compassion or understanding of our pain. That is not the nature of the God I believe in.

But just so we are clear, I don't believe that knowing God has a plan for my life means that He is my lucky rabbit foot and will ensure that I get my way each and every time I want it.

God's will is NOT done all over this earth on a fairly regular basis. You simply can't make the argument that anything that happens that we don't like just wasn't God's will. Just because I have turned my life over to His will does not mean that the billion or so other people out there have and last time I checked, they all have free wills too. They can do whatever they want, God's will or not, and unfortunately, those actions are bound to affect me from time to time.

Please also do not tell me that God has some grand lesson, a great epiphany, for me to learn. Again, the nature of the God *I* believe in does not indicate that He likes to bat us around like a cat playing with a mouse, just to see what we will do. He would not dangle my heart's desire in front of me, then use it to beat the crap out of me and take it away. It is not His will that I am in pain; pain is a result of the actions of humanity. All I can do is trust Him to help me get through it, believe that He can work every situation, however crappy, out for good in my life and decide whether I want to wallow in this agony forever or try to turn it into something positive in my life.

I know that as time goes by, I will make the choices I need to make to regain equilibrium and recapture joy. But right now I am in pain and I am angry that I am in pain because it is useless pain. It never needed to happen in the first place. I should not have to endure the process of waiting for wounds that were once completely healed to heal all over again.

What a waste.