The Way Out is Through

I’m still reeling and weeping from the news of Ted’s passing, but deep down I am happy for him.  But can you truly be happy for someone when you’re jealous of them as well?  Maybe not.  Okay.  I must work on being happy for him without getting my stuff in the way (when will it be my turn, etc.).  Wanting what we want when we want it is never a good thing, whether our desire is for a car, a partner or death.  There is waaaaaay to much to learn here.  I’ll never get out!!!  Help!  I’m stuck here on Earth!!!  Someone come get me!!!  Whew.

Pam got some bad news about her liver.  As I wrote earlier, they put her through a bunch of tests looking for cancer somewhere in her body because it often ends up in the liver (but doesn’t necessarily start there….I guess).  Anyway, they are going to be doing a biopsy of the mass and have prepared her for the very real possibility it is cancer.  They even started going over treatment options and putting her on a list for a transplant.  

I am lucky that I have my family and friends and a support system in place.  She doesn’t have that.  If she can’t work, she said she’ll be on the street.  I am practicing letting go of that which I cannot control, but this double whammy with Ted and Pam is a tough one.  All I can do is pray for her, and I do that on and off all day.  Please pray for her as well.

Before Pam called this morning, I was working on another post:

What if, before I was born, my soul chose the life I have.  My father, mother, sister and brother.  My friends.  Every single choice I made before and after my birth.  Including my NF.   What was my soul hoping to achieve?  To learn?  To experience?  And why is pain such a big part of it?  Pain and all the other physical challenges.  People often call them gifts disguised as problems.  Sometimes, I understand that down to my soul and if that’s where these pre-life decisions came from, it’s no surprise that that’s where I’m feeling it.  Maybe the gift is having all this time to ponder those big questions.  Still, if there is a council of angels that helps souls choose a life, they must have been on a coffee break when my soul thought, “Gosh, I wonder what it would be like to have an incurable, painful genetic disorder?”  Or not.

Even when I am scared, worried and in pain, which is most of the time, I still ponder, and I just got a big “Ah ha!” this morning while wondering when this life of mine may be coming to an end.  I know that being jealous of a friend’s death is kind of twisted.   And yet I am.  But that wasn’t my realization.

The realization was if I DID choose this life I must have chosen it for some reason, obviously.  To learn something I may have gotten wrong before, if there is a before.  And if everything I think about is true, isn’t up to me to stay here and learn it, regardless of how I feel about that decision now?   I mean, it wasn’t the ego that chose the life, it was the spirit.  And courting death can’t be good for the spirit/soul.  When I think about ending things myself, the thought right behind that one is “That would be cheating”.   I hate that when that happens.  My mind telling me that this life is all an accident, there was no before, there will be no after, so why not end it now, end the pain?   The battle between body and soul rages on inside of me.  And I get more truculent about it if people start telling me I shouldn’t be thinking that way.  Most of my friends and family don’t say that, however.  But the endless gnawing pain is getting more and more difficult to overcome with meditation, reading, music, movies and sleep.

I read about the world and get even more depressed, more worried, less sure.  I want to make a difference, but I don’t know how.  I want to be a bigger person with a bigger heart.  And when I do pass, I wish never to return.  I hope that’s an option.  I’ve been told by two very spiritual people that it is.  But no one can say for sure, let’s face it.  I’d have to have my spiritual head examined if I said I wanted to come back.  

The pain seems to be moving past the point of tolerance.  My bowels aren’t behaving again (they were for a month or so….with enough Miralax to choke a horse).  I’m wondering if my tolerance for that stuff has past the point of no return.  I hope not.  I’ve lost weight again, though I don’t really care.  I have no appetite and usually have to force myself to eat.  Tolerance for the pain drugs, tolerance for the laxatives.  Are we having fun yet?  And the tingling and numbness are constant now.   My hearing is so bad I don’t know what I’ll do once they tell me what I already know.   And my blood work just came back.  Some things to watch but not treat.  Not that I would.  But knowledge is power, as they say.  

Why do I bother?

I haven’t a clue.

Except that the only way out, is through.

Damn.