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I'm afraid I never did get very good at 'accepting the things I cannot change' in the sense of letting them go without thought; but one of the more long-standing insights I've had to that is this: it's okay to not like things that suck, whether you can change them or not.
It's okay to be sad, or grieving, or sick, or depressed-- but these emotions take energy. Dealing with the darker emotions can leave you with less time to do other things. When you pile on being angry at yourself, or ashamed, for your feelings and the decreased functioning you get from them, then that can suck up every bit of time and energy you have left over, leaving you paralyzed in the pit.
from March:
One of the recurring conversations my parents and I have are the thank-you calls. One day in college, my dad called to thank me for not deliberately getting pregnant twice and dropping out of school to raise my children as a single mother, like his friend's daughter my age.
A few weeks later, I called my mom to thank her for taking me to the doctor when I was sick or hurt, because my across-the-hall roommate broke her ankle and her mom wouldn't give her permission to go to the ER.
I'm not a doctor, or a lawyer, or a professor, like I think my parents would have liked me to be; I work at a job that doesn't even require a high school diploma, for not a lot of money (objectively; I mean, it pays the bills), with an unemployed boyfriend and a little girl who isn't my biological child. I live in a dinky apartment that isn't always terribly clean, and I'm not much of a cook. I'm not the greatest partner in the world either, since I'm solitary and bitchy and depressed much of the time. And I play a little too much on the computer instead of spending time with my boyfriend and daughter and house.
My parents still thank me, though. And I still thank them. None of us is perfect-- but that means we're neither perfectly good, nor perfectly useless. Which reminds me, I need to call them tomorrow and thank them for teaching me to always show up to work on time and ready to work...
And again, from the end of March-- and it's good to know that things have improved since then:
You've heard that every cell in the body is replaced within a 7 year period. It's sort of true, but only on the average. Some things don't change that radically. Take your immune system; it stores bits of the illnesses you've been exposed to forever, facts and information and instructions. "If you see measles, fight it in this way." Some are good, some are bad. "If you're exposed to peanuts, or poison ivy, it's dangerous and you need to fight it off."
Emotions, in the strictly physical sense, are nothing more than chemicals. Drugs make us happy, dizzy, sleepy, or hyperactive because they're artificial substitutes for the brain's own chemicals. Whenever you are feeling an emotion, the associated chemicals are floating through your brain, and your bloodstream.
At the same time that you live and wake and have feelings, your body is engaged in the other processes of living: metabolizing food, storing energy, using and resting its muscles and tendons, making memories. It's inevitable that the two combine: that in with the fat cells your body is feeding, goes the chemical equivalent of a little bit of the joy you felt at the bridesmaids' lunch, over pasta salad and French Silk pie. Break those fat cells down, years later, and a little bit of that joy may come back to you.
And within my own body, in the ache of unused muscles and unstretched tendons, is the despair that's been strangling me for the past few weeks. Like the fox that drags her broken leg to her den and waits for it to heal, in the race between bone-setting and starvation, I've waited. Afraid to move, to breathe, lest it bring itself to life, the pain of emptiness and loss that threatens to drag me into the pit with it.
It's time to come out, to walk on unsteady feet. For today, the pit is no threat to me. Store up joy, love, kind feelings, for the dark days ahead. My despair will return; it is part of me, like my height, like my eyes. It will remain with me for the rest of my life, latent in my body, waiting only for the right circumstances to come springing up again.
People talk about fighting despair. It's not an opponent you can cross swords with, or something you can run away from. Rather, it's something that grows, intertwined with the roots of joy and love and strength. You can't root it out without scorching the bed of your emotions, poisoning everything within yourself.
I will despair again, someday; I will retreat to the den of my sorrows, narrow my life to surviving and doing what I can until the new spring growth begins.
And if spring does not come, if this next winter continues for the rest of my life-- I will speak my Lord's praises by my actions when I can, and know that He loves me for who I am, not for what I'm able to do today or tomorrow. I refuse to feel guilt for my sadness, my despair; it may swallow my mind, it may cripple my body, but it will NOT take my soul.
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. " Psalms 90:10
And one brief one from July of that year:
Dear Parent,
"My baby is on fire" is not a terribly informative statement as to your child's medical condition.
Unless it is.
In that case, please slide a lid over the pan to smother the flames, turn the burner off, and remove the pan from the burner if possible.
Love,
Corrvin
