What can I do to stress the importance of following biblical mandates in the vein of social justice and caring for the oppressed without sinking to the level of religious control or depriving people of their basic human rights in the name of enforcing human rights? I can understand how our federal courts defer particular laws to the state judicial systems. There are several controversial issues that are looked upon with different lenses depending upon the culture in which one is raised. Many people tend to see all situations in stark contrast: left or right, black or white, right or wrong, but our interactions with other people come in all shades of the rainbow. We judge each other from our own perspective when we have no idea what the other has gone through, what they have suffered, what they have endured. That’s why kindness, goodness, generosity, and love are the only perspectives worthy to pronounce judgment, and they already have. It’s called mercy. Spouting opinions and criticizing are easy, but taking the time to listen and attempting to see an issue from another’s point of view is hard. Justice is hard, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Why would I want another year or two to live? I’m finally expecting my first grandchild. Babies are a good thing. Spending time with my kids and their friends is fun. Working to help others overcome trauma and addiction is meaningful and necessary. Our world is full of hurting people who need to learn how to transform their pain instead of transmitting it to others. Name it to tame it. Feel it to heal it. Grieve it to leave it. All of these sayings help me face into my fears and pain instead of running away from them, instead of feeling hopeless and stuck. Now that I’m entering a new phase of life – “middle age” – I’m scared of getting cancer and not knowing about it until it’s too late. It probably doesn’t help that I’m hooked on watching medical dramas, but I also appreciate the reminder that life is temporary. I might only have another year or two to live; I might have fifty. I could also not wake up tomorrow or even make it through until the end of today. Our next breath is never guaranteed, so I guess the real question is whether I want to live my life now.

What am I, a stretchy toy? It sure feels like it sometimes. Life likes to grab me by both ends and pull me as far as I can possibly go, until I swear I’m about to rip in two. I eventually have to choose. I have to go one way or the other. One hand has to let go. I sheepishly realize that feeling torn is my own doing. Life isn’t trying to torture me. I’m the one who’s insistently grasping. I’m the one who wants to have it both ways. I want to be able to lose weight and eat another chocolate-chip cookie. I want to go crazy on the freeway and make it home safely. I want to relax, unwind, and enjoy my life, but I also want to frenetically control every aspect of my surroundings in order to make sure that nothing ever goes wrong. I want to learn without ever failing or making a mistake. I want to love without loss and without ever getting hurt. I want to accept life on life’s terms while throwing a temper tantrum whenever I don’t get my own way. No wonder I feel stretched beyond my capacity. I need to let go, to breathe, and to trust. Everything will be okay. Honest. It might hurt for a while, but growing pains are an unavoidable part of the process of growing up. And I would rather grow than get stretched out of joint.

What happened to me? I’m not the same person I was seven years ago or five years ago or three. I’m a writer now. I’m a real writer with a blog, four self-published poetry books, a master’s degree, and a doctorate on the way. I’m not rich or famous or even supporting myself yet, but I’ll get there. I’ve got plans. I have goals and dreams and ambitions, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone stand in my way. There is enough time during the day to get to my top two or three priorities. I need to put the big rocks in first. I need to break everything else down into manageable pieces. I can do my reading, do my singing, laugh, play, work hard, and enjoy my life. I have friends now. I can learn to prioritize my relationships more than I have in the past. Today is a new day. It’s a fresh start full of fresh possibilities. I’m a different person today than I was yesterday. I can wake up tomorrow excited to pursue my life with all of my heart and all of my energy. I can take charge of myself. I can take control of my life and build it into what I want it to be. My past might have been filled with nay-sayers, but my present is full of cheerleaders. People believe in me now. I’ve never had that before. I was never able to accomplish anything on my own because the main people in my life shot me down and were unsupportive. Today, I get to choose to surround myself with people who lift me up and don’t put me down. Today is the day that I get to claim who I am and who I am becoming.

How did I ever get this far? I’m a loser. I’m clumsy and awkward. I seem completely incapable of getting anything right. I am the anti-Midas; everything I touch turns to shit. I suck at sports. I have no career opportunities. My life has been a string of continuous rejections. And yet, all of my needs have been provided for. I might be unemployed, but I’m not homeless. I struggle with mental illness, but I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol. I’m lucky. I’m so stinking lucky that it’s not even fair. I didn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it. I’m not exceptionally talented or skilled at anything. And, in spite of my tendency to blow up my life with staggering frequency, I’m still here. I’m still struggling. I’m still gluing the shattered bits back together one teeny shred at a time. But I still believe that when my life is over, the sculpture that has been formed through my diligent persistence will be an artistic masterpiece beyond compare. I might not be good at anything I do, but I am magnificent at being who I am.

Have I learned to care about other people yet? Pain is a miserable blinder. Much of my life has been spent licking my wounds, wondering what was wrong with me, and grieving my losses. I was to distracted to notice what was going on with anyone else. I couldn’t see beyond my own pain. There is an old cliché that says, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but that simply isn’t true. What doesn’t kill us nearly kills us. In fact, it often leaves us lying alongside the road battered, bleeding, and begging to die. What makes us stronger is when someone else comes alongside of us, picks us up, dresses our wounds, and cares for us during our healing process. The goodness, kindness, and caring of other people is something we all need. No one gets through life without getting blindsided by trauma or tragedy at some point. And, since we all end up on the receiving end of pain, we should all be sufficiently motivated to be used as a balm that aids in the healing of someone else. We just have to be willing and able to see beyond our own pain to the pain and suffering of others.

Is there something right with me that can compensate for my weaknesses? I love my kids. I might not have always been the best mother, but I have always done everything in my power to do right by my kids. My mental illnesses and subsequent breakdown might have taken them away from me for a time, but I’m working really hard at keeping myself stable enough to be there for them now. I can look back upon my past with a lens focused upon my failures, or I can choose to direct my memories toward what I did right. I used to beat myself up continuously for my inability to control them, for my powerlessness, and from my weaknesses, which only increased my feelings of failure. Now, I choose to be deliberate about reminding myself of all the things I did right. I did make the effort to be with them, to care for them, to love them to the best of my capacity, and I still do, and I always will. I talk back to the voice in my head that tries to convince me that I’m not good enough. That voice is a liar, and I refuse to believe her anymore.

What is so wrong with me that I’m not able to accept myself just as I am? Well, I’m not a fun person to hang out with. I get it, and it’s okay, I guess. I don’t have to be the life of the party; I just want to get invited. My ex-husband is the fun parent. He takes the party with him wherever he goes. He’s nearly a decade older than me, and he still runs like the Energizer bunny. It’s so not fair. I’m super jealous. I’ve always been a low-energy person. I have chronic pain, chronic illness, and chronic fatigue. Sometimes, I have an all-out rage at God for making me this way. Sometimes, I sink into depression; and sometimes, I even get suicidal. But I’m still alive, and, to quote the distinguished philosopher Alanis Morissette, “And I’m here, to remind you of the mess you left when you went away. It’s not fair to deny me of the cross I bear that you gave to me.” I know my life is a mess. I also realize that it’s beyond time for me to come back into my life, clean it up a little, and to quit blaming the people who initially left me and started the whirlwind of messiness in my life in the first place. It might not always be fun but living my life and taking responsibility for what I do with my life today is always worth the price of admission.

*You Oughta Know from Jagged Little Pill (1995)

Okay, what’s next? There has to be another step after the last one. I probably shouldn’t stay on the same path when I don’t like what I see in the distance, but it’s so safe and smooth and familiar. I don’t want to walk out into the weeds. I’m not the type of person who runs off, blazing my own trail. I’m also not afraid of a challenge. I enjoy pushing myself. And I love the rush of accomplishment upon arriving at the viewpoint after a difficult climb. Safety has never been a high priority for me, partly because I tend not to value my own life, but mostly because I believe nothing can harm me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not reckless or anything. And I do get hurt all of the time because I’m uncoordinated and seriously accident prone. But still, we each have our time to go. When it’s our time, it’s our time, and there’s nothing we can do about it. And until it’s our time, it’s not our time, and so we have to keep living one day after the next, one step after another, until it is our time. And it’s not my time, not yet. I’m still here. I’m still breathing. I’m still yearning for a steep, jagged ascent, longing for a change from the mind-numbing level road. Be careful what you wish for, I know, but I need to stay alert. I don’t want to waste a single opportunity. I’m eager to take another step forward.

Is there hope for sanity? If I can come to terms with my past, if I can accept that everything that’s already happened was required to get me to where I am now, if I can accept that where I am now is an essential part of getting me to where I want to go in the future, then I might be able to manage to achieve serenity, and serenity is necessary for sanity. Some people seem to have a few screws loose. My brain is a whole box of loose screws. Actually, my neurological synapses are like a huge blob of tangled Christmas lights. I used to love to spend hours on end untangling Christmas lights. Untangling my brain, however, is a different story. It’s like an old telephone switchboard with all of the chords plugged into the wrong holes. Approaching the task is daunting, to say the least. Without serenity, it’s an impossible task. Serenity is what allows me to make sane decisions regarding what to do next instead of reacting haphazardly in a torrent of swirling emotions, which only makes matters worse. If I want my life to get better, if I want to live with serenity and with sanity, then I need to change a few of the variables in order to get different results.