There are days when it’s hard to get out of bed. When you get laid off from a job, when you’re sick, when no one else is home, you’re all alone with nothing to do and with no one around to care whether you ever get your butt moving, just getting to the restroom can be a struggle. I’ve spent much of my life in this state. I call it “survival mode.” I’m getting through another day to hold me over until something changes, and something always inevitably changes. Change is the one constant in life we can regularly count on. Change is our friend, even though we typically fear it. It feels safer to hold steady, to remain constant and familiar, but we need change as much as we need the air we breathe. Change comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be as small as shifting our position on the couch or as large as moving to a new continent or anything in between. Right now, the greatest change I need is a shift in perspective. I’m waiting, and I’m tired of waiting. I have plans to travel in a few days, and I have plans to prepare for farther travel a few days after that. All of my plans are for some point in the future, but I only get to live for today. What I decide to do today will determine the quality of my life today. None of us is ever promised tomorrow, so I better find some way to get myself in gear.

I’m not the only one who cries in the shower wondering how the little bit I’m able to do each day can ever make a dent in the bigger picture. There’s still pervasive crime committed as a desperate response to oppression. There’s still hatred masking deep-seated fear. There are still hurting people hurting other people, and my sitting at a desk typing on my laptop isn’t going to change that. I can tip generously, hold doors open for the elderly, all the good scout’s-honor activities I can conjure, and the poor, broken-down, weary travelers of the world will still be with us. So, what’s the point of pouring so much time and energy into fixing the world when it just continues to fall apart around me at an ever-quickening pace? It’s not my job. I’m not in charge of making the world a better place. My responsibility is to have and enjoy my life. That’s it. When I keep my focus on living the life that I love, everything else will fall into place.

Life is cyclical. I’m utterly powerless over the natural forces directing my life. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I keep ending up in exactly the same place. However, as a writer, I am able to use various metaphors to describe my malaise in a vain attempt to feel as though I’ve somehow made progress. I’ve been stuck in an emotional prison, a ball tumbler, a hamster wheel, and a carrousel, caught in a whirlpool, a swirling vortex of death, a literal hell. Different day, different decade, same torture chamber. I’d like to think there’s some cosmic karma at play. I must have been a really bad girl in a past life, but I’ve been around this exact same block enough times to realize the severity of the gravitational pull of the familiar. I don’t want a different life. I keep trying to force myself to be happy but it goes against the grain of my brain; it leaves me raw and bleeding. Fortunately, there is an alternative. I can embrace the suck. I can quit fighting the current and simply enjoy the ride. So what if I’m spinning in circles? Who cares if the horses are all fake? I can be where I am in the moment. I’m nauseatingly acquainted with the song that is stuck on replay. I can plug my ears or sing along.

After a week-long immersion class, I’m full of all kinds of useful wisdom. For starters, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of Southern California during the summer. Those who live there often acclimate, but driving down from Seattle in July ought to be avoided at all costs. Second, if you’re still ashamed of your past and feel like the world’s biggest loser (not referring to weight loss) then hanging out with privileged white folks and oppressed ex-gang member people of color at the same time will make your head spin and wring every ounce of compassion from your chest until you can no longer breathe. And, if you’re not careful, you can easily forget that sanity is possible. When your personal powerlessness slaps you smack in the face, surrender is the only way to survive. I can’t change the past. I’m not able to put an end to homelessness or drug addiction. I would if I could, but even the almighty powerful genie doesn’t act on that type of global scale. What I can do is offer my few talents and a couple of encouraging words and watch in amazement as they are multiplied a hundred-fold as everyone I influence does the same. If we all contribute a few hours per month, a few dollars per paycheck, a few acts of kindness, then we can change the world.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots is smaller than I thought. The standard width of railroad tracks in the United States is four feet, eight and a half inches. So, when someone is from “the wrong side of the tracks,” the physical distance can be covered by a single leap. Therefore, it should be easy enough to leave the poor neighborhood, for a moment anyway. But does your neighborhood of origin ever leave you? Whether rich or poor, or from somewhere in between, our primary experiences set our level of expectation and our tolerances. In my tender years, eating fast food was a rare treat and special occasions called for a trip to the local buffet. We were poor, but somehow, we weren’t as poor as I thought we were at the time. We had a house, clothes, and food, which I naturally took for granted. Now that I’ve grown up and moved on, it’s loving for me to treat myself to a steak dinner once in a while just because I can. And yet, there’s still a part of me that thinks it’s too extravagant. I should on myself and feel unworthy of something so expensive. I think, therefore I am what I think I am, and the circumference of my brain is also a short distance. However, our thoughts are not contained within the confines of the skull. Attempting to traverse my own opinion of myself is a vast undertaking. Regardless of the physical distance between a mansion and a slum, the psychological distance is the struggle to overcome.

Life is meant to be enjoyed not merely endured. However, I keep slipping back into survival mode because I’m chained to negativity. Everyone has a negativity bias. It’s an evolutionary necessity. The automatic reactivity of the brain is meant to keep us safe from physical dangers, most of which no longer exist. Positive engagement requires making a choice: to slow down, to breathe, to respond thoughtfully instead of reactively. Once we become aware of the ways in which our brains have become conditioned to protect us, then we’re able to consciously override and reconfigure those neurological connections. My brain was wired to believe that it’s not safe for me to speak up for myself. My body still responds with panic whenever defending myself is required. I have to be very intentional to make myself speak up if someone has violated one of my boundaries or has breached my personal space. It’s difficult to do, but the more I practice, the easier it gets. Practicing this behavior is one way for me to show love for myself.

In the beginning, I was the baby of the family. With two older sisters who were reckless, mischievous, and demanding of attention, I was along for the ride, literally clinging to my mother for dear life as she scolded my sisters. As I grew older, I sat and listened and observed and was content, until my sisters decided to exclude me from all of their play because I was the annoying baby who was spoiled and pampered. Of course, my life seemed much different from my perspective. I was quiet as a mouse, and since I didn’t squeak, I didn’t get any oil. I would often wander off by myself, alone for hours, and no one ever came looking for me. I would hide just to see how long it would take for someone to notice I was gone. When I eventually sauntered home, usually for food, all were oblivious to my prior absence. I didn’t realize at the time that everyone else was so completely wrapped up in their own world of trauma that they didn’t have the capacity to notice mine, let alone care. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t loved. My family just didn’t know how to love me in the way that I needed to be loved. Therefore, loving me wasn’t modeled, which means that it’s my responsibility to learn how to love myself now. I can’t change how I was treated in the past, but I can change how I treat myself today.

For the love of the game. It’s easy to get caught up in what I’m doing and how much value I add to the world. I keep forgetting that life isn’t all about me. I want to say something meaningful. I want to be profound. I want authors to quote me in the opening to the chapters of their books. Thus says C. Marie Christie: “for death of life I won’t complain, but life in death is agony.” This quote comes to mind quite frequently for me these days. More than I want to help and to be of service to others, I want to enjoy my life. I want to spend my time doing the things that I love to do, and I enjoy writing. I enjoy singing and dancing and playing cards with my kids. I don’t understand why it’s so dang difficult to incorporate more of those things into my life. I can turn on some music, but I’m too tired. I can play games, but I don’t have the time. I can keep making excuses or I make my life into a life that I actually want to live instead of a life from which I keep trying to escape.

I’m still alive. Barely. It was touch and go there for a while, but I made it through. Hormones have got to be in the top ten contributors for premature death among women. I wonder if there have been studies linking hormone imbalances to certain cancers, heart attacks, or even car accidents. The statistics would probably be close to twenty percent, in my estimation, of these occurrences correlating to the cycles of female menstruation. Maybe more. Speaking for myself, I have severe panic attacks, compounded stress, and exaggerated mental illness symptoms such as over-reactivity, slower reaction times, and difficulty concentrating. I’m much less likely to be pro-active with my health and self-care when I’m bloated, cramping, and generally cursing life. It’s an honor to have the privilege of bringing new life into the world through the womb of our bodies; and yet, it’s a horror show of an existence to endure as well. Not for everyone. Some women don’t have such extreme difficulties. As with everything else, there is a continuum, a pain scale, a variability of personal experience. Human subjectivity is why we’re not to judge others based on our own perspective. Instead, we offer mercy and grace and understanding, even when we don’t really understand, because we all stand under the same sky, and the law of reciprocity ensures that we are all in need of grace and mercy throughout our difficult lives.

Why not me? I made a decision in the fall of ’05 that shifted my life forever. It was a small shift. All I did was take the car keys out of my pocket and drop them in my lap instead of sticking them into the ignition. The time I spent holding those keys, weighing my options, was the pivot between life and death for me. The car was parked in my mother’s closed-up garage. All I had to do was turn the key to spark the starter, and the battle would be over. I wouldn’t have to be on the receiving end of every joke. I wouldn’t have to be daily reminded of what a loser I was, what a horrible person I was, what a terrible mother I was. All I had to do was turn the key, and I could quit fighting. It was no use to keep fighting. I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t make anything good happen in my life. Every year was just another 365 days of hell that I couldn’t escape, that I was powerless to change, that I had no ability to improve. The only decision I made on that day was that I wasn’t going to give up. I didn’t care how much it cost me or how much more pain I had to endure, I would survive another torturous day until God finally had enough grace to put me out of my misery and take home. I committed to doing whatever I could to survive, to be there for my girls, and, hopefully, to eventually do something right to help someone else. So, it doesn’t matter whether I ever achieve my vision or reach my dream; I’ll keep fighting to take another baby step at a time. I’ll either accomplish the work I have to do, or I’ll die trying.