Every once in a while I'm brave, or stupid, enough to look into my future. Usually just imagining what tomorrow holds is scary enough, but at certain hours in the night as I drown in silence, or mom's snoring, I can't help but go there sometimes...and then there are these seemingly hand picked messages from God and/or the Devil, or both, that make me go there...I feel the anxiety boiling in my chest and stomach just thinking about it.
When I was young, naive, and foolishly and endlessly hopeful, like I thought the world or God owed me happiness, I loved looking into the future. It fueled me to keep going, keep fighting, keep striving for more of what I thought just might be the perfect life. But when you get an autoimmune disease and allow for time to finally accept what that may actually mean, well, let's just say you want to slow everything down--or end it now. And that's the nicest way I can say it.
The truth is, I am usually deathly afraid of what even an hour from now may hold for me, almost literally, but not quite, let alone tomorrow. And I've heard some horror stories about my disease and others like it. But none of them gutted me like the ones told by mothers. Moms who couldn't take care of their kids like they wanted to or should. Mothers whose husbands didn't or couldn't step it up. Moms who passed far too early and left their families all alone.
I remember in college, I was watching a movie maybe a little over a year after being diagnosed with Stills in which the mom was dying. Normally I mourned those movies because I love my mom more than anything else, and losing her would leave me heartless and hopeless and more alone than I can even imagine feeling. It's an emptiness there are no words for. But this time, at the age of 19, it suddenly was different, and at first I had no idea why.
I never really grew up wanting a family. I wanted a dream. A dream job. To play sports or be an athletic trainer. Both would require a lot of hours and would make finding a husband even harder considering he would have to be the stay at home parent. So, I was realistic, and really only put the job first, and husband on the backburner, and children on the back back back burner, if you know what I mean. So when I watched this movie and felt something different, some sort of nastalgic loss that wasn't for my mother, I honestly couldn't figure out what that sadness was until the very end of the movie. I was sitting there sobbing and clenching my fists near my heart to symbolically close the open wound in my chest, but I did not know why--what for exactly, until the near end of the film. And it surprised me, which somehow made it hurt more...
Without sports or Athetic Training and as family and friends abandoned me--more like I was pulling away and even pushing them away and they were too shocked to realize that what I needed them to do was tear down my walls and chase me down no matter how hard I fought it--I realized the depth of my loneliness. I began to want someone who would be there, and I mean be there. Who would always try to somehow be there even more. Not just because he loved me, but because that was who he was. Someone who somehow believed all that he was doing and all the love he was giving, was, well, never enough. (Says the girl whose first loves were Christ and Superman. I didn't set the bar high did I?) I wanted the man only God could miraculously orchestrate to find me, and yet, I didn't.
This movie made me realize a possible future of mine: an early death. Maybe mid fifties...and as I watched this mother and this family deal with her final days, I realized what that really meant. It meant leaving them all behind without her. Her husband. Her kids. Her grandchildren. Her friends. It would hurt them far more than it would hurt her, and that is what began to scare me the most. I both wanted what she had, an amazing and big and loving family--disfunction and all--and I also was afraid to do to this possible family what she did to hers. And it was as if in that moment I became afraid of love. Of hurting those I might love, might find, might have in my life. I was longing of true love, a real family, and afraid of it all at the same time--at 19. And I still am.
It never seems like life is anything like the movies, often not even the indie movies that are supposed to capture real life more accurately and honestly. They still have the same elements as the rest: a character who wants something and overcomes conflict TO GET IT. While in real life, spouses usually can't handle the other being sick, at all. They either create an unhappy marriage, or leave. I heard it a hundred times from others with stills disease: their spouse or significant other either couldn't deal, or they left, and the same with thier friends and family...
And yet, I've seen A Walk To Remember and other movies like it, where love, true unconditional love can truly conquer all, and somewhere deep inside, I feel the spark of that truth, flickering, trying to stay lit in my heart, alive...and I like that feeling. It feels like...it feels like God Himself...
I'm smiling now, as I see the flip side to all this dreary woe is me talk. I see hope. I really do. When I'm brave enough I see a future that God smiles upon. I see a man of God who somehow cares enough to tear down enough of my walls to get to know me, the real me, and by the grace of God loves me anyway...I see him doing all he can to show me he loves me, to each day vow to remake me believe I am lovable, no matter what. A man who does all that and more and still wonders if it is ever enough because that's how extraordinary he believes me to be...
And then the imp of the perverse creeps in and I think I'm crazy for believing in fairy tales...
I guess only time will tell, as long as I'm brave enough to keep searching.
Until then, if you want, check out what prompted this post and made me brave enough not just to look ahead, but to look ahead with hope:
EVER ENOUGH by A Rocket To The Moon (lyrics):
No I’m never gonna leave you darling
No I’m never gonna go regardless
Everything inside of me, is living in your heartbeat
Even when all the lights are fading
Even then, if your hope was shaking
I’m here holding on
Chorus:
I will always be yours forever and more
Through the push and the pull
I still drown in your love
And drink ’til I’m drunk
And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?
I’m hanging on a line here baby
I need more than ifs and maybes
We’ll come down from the highest heights
Still searching for the reason why
And now I know what it’s like
Reaching from the other side
After all that I’ve done
Chorus:
I will always be yours forever and more
Through the push and the pull
I still drown in your love
And drink ’til I’m drunk
And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?
For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?
Cause it’s more than my heart you're deserting
For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?
How do we know without searching?
I will write you this song to get back what’s ours
Would that be enough?
Chorus:
I will always be yours forever and more
Through the push and the pull
I still drown in your love
And drink ’til I’m drunk
And all that I’ve done, is it ever enough?
For all that it’s worth, is it worth it?
Is it ever enough?
How could we know without searching?
Is it ever enough?
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