The Reluctant Survivor
One thing I think is not widely accepted, or talked about with these kinds of events we can endure, is how sometimes it’s not always a revelation or gratitude we all feel for having survived this. I am speaking for those of you who just were living your lives, maybe didn’t even have anything the way you wanted and then boom, you’re laid out, you don’t feel the same as you did, and life is forever changed for you and those close to you. I think there is certainly something to be said for the heroes we see who do take their battles in stride and sometimes come out better for them, but there are also regular people in our world, people who don’t know what to think or have the tools to come out instantly better for our experiences. Sometimes we were struggling in life to start and then get slapped with this nice rendition of “life always happens when you are making other plans” and are not left better for it.
I get it, because I have been there and honestly, I still of course sometimes do go there. But something struck me about my strife with it all just this morning, somehow. I am not even mad it happened to me, I question none of that. All of my strife boils down to money and its lack because of what I have had to endure in my life. The physical lamentations I have had, sure, they have a place and they will for some of you, for some time. You do learn to let go because there is some time to learn to embrace your new normal, we hope, though I am sure some have families to raise still. But even for the single–and I get it, it can be the most isolating thing in the world and you think nobody will ever love you or accept you and the list goes on but fuck it. There are terrible people who have wives and husbands, are you worse than them? Nope. You would probably never be called terrible at all.
But my lamentations have evolved over the decades to include monetary and credit barriers because I have so many medical incidents interfering with my plan, from medicines to loss of work over not even long periods of time, but periods of time nonetheless. I did stop bartending in Brooklyn after that last tear–losing your job is easy to do in serviceland NYC if you can’t go to work. But I was thinking this morning and last night even–imagine how much better my life prognosis would be if I didn’t always have to wonder worry or pay out for something I literally had no choice in having happen to me. Sure, there are some bills I have thrown away, admittedly, but all in all I pay what I can. If I did live in Europe and there was a cap on what I would be able to expect in a year, wouldn’t that be a positive movement towards something less stressful as a whole life?
Probably so. All I know is yes, you do stop questioning the why me corner of the universe because it’s also a why not you? Sometimes bad things happen, and often they do seem to happen to good people. I assume it’s because we are better set up to handle the obstacles and try to come out better for them. Don’t confuse this for a I am a superhero and never complain person–definitely yes, when you get handed a shit deck of course you complain. How could you not? Nobody wants to gleefully chew on a shit sandwich, and if you said you were happy about it, I would call you a liar.
This is not to say there are not some very enlightened people out there making their ways through their days with this without feeling that pressure to exhibit this superhero persona, because they are that person. I have met some inspiring people in my life, some people who seem to let experiences roll off them like water.
Good for them. They are not necessarily you. They don’t have your body of experiences to contend with, none of us do. One thing to do is take inspiration from everyone you can–these are people with and without aortic dissections, heart problems, ANY problem really–suckle your inspiration, pay attention to it, but don’t hold yourself up to a standard you see, set a standard for yourself and try to inspire by realizing there is no one size fits all answer to this shit. We all go through our own battles, set our own goals and if you don’t right away, don’t worry.
Sometimes surviving, in the beginning at least, is definitely enough.
