I’ve been in a somber mood as of late. Many things have brought this on. I think it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to breathe since the events of July and though I feel more normal, I’ve emerged on the other side rather shaken and feel different to my core somehow, both in mind, spirit and even physically I just do not feel the same any more. Maybe it’s just the uncomfortableness of transitioning, but I’ve experienced that virtually all my life, having moved more times and to more places than the average bear, that’s for sure. Always I found myself through to the other side relatively unscathed and ready for a new life.
Not this time.
I can’t quite get there. I am so very tired. I can only hope in time that things will change, but I just don’t know. Truthfully it scares me. Trial and tribulation at 50 is a whole different ball game than even just a few years ago. I cannot express how different it is and how different I feel.
Sometimes I simply cannot shake unhappiness. Oh, I can smile and enjoy myself at times, genuinely. I try to be hopeful and appreciative and I thank God for my many blessings, but as I’ve gotten older it has become harder to be generally happy. I don’t like that as when I was younger I was always basically a fairly happy and grounded person. Now it seems, more often then not, I simply want to crawl into a hole. Somebody take me away to the cabin in the woods I’ve longed for my entire adult life and leave me there with my animals in peace.
Last week I nearly skipped my mammogram appointment because of finances and no health insurance, but I remembered my cousin a few years back skipped it one year simply because she was too busy and put it off. In that year she got an aggressive form of breast cancer she barely survived and remains on chemotherapy to this day. So off I went last Friday. Monday, on my lunch hour when I was home, I received a voice mail from the clinic radiation department to call back. The shock of what that might mean flooded through me as I picked up the phone to call back. Yes, there have been some changes since last year and we need for you to come back in. Okay. Next month I go back for more tests. After the initial shock my next reaction was “I will NOT cancel our Georgia Mountain Cabin vacation again!” and hopefully we will not have to. More women than not, that I know, have had a call back as the new digital machines pick up everything, cancerous or not. Crazily, me the worrier is not too worried yet. I am more worried we have to pay for these next tests and hopefully that will be the only thing I need to worry about, please God (but, yes, I am praying).
The dentist practice manager said the dentist wants to hire me on with a raise in December. That is good news. They are not ready to hire me on for more hours, but at least they want me and that will be good and Lord knows I should at least be making more at age 50 than the teenager at Taco Bell after that. I’m pretty sure I won’t get health care through him either as the one girl said she used to have to pay $75 a month (and the doctor paying the rest) and in January her part will be going up to $300 a month which she (nor I) could afford.
We are the only civilized country in the world who can’t take care of their people with regard to health insurance. I know good friends in Canada and in Belgium and though their health care systems aren’t perfect, and I”m not saying we should replicate it, they have the peace of mind of not only getting reimbursed for time off with illness, but also only having to pay a slight portion of the medical costs. Yes they pay big taxes but I would be willing to pay more for the peace of mind not only for myself but also taking care of the millions in need God would want us to care for. If I have breast cancer it is over for us financially and I will bear the burden of knowing my illness tore a family apart that way. I went through this before with my mother who died of cancer in December 20 years ago. Had she lived to January of the next year her (good) health insurance had maxed out and we had NO IDEA what was going to happen next as her chemo treatments ran $10,000.00 a month and we had no money. C’mon politicians, get it together and compromise on something! People are dying in the meantime.
Well, anyway, I just can’t seem to come to grips with myself. When I worked at home I was able to do a lot of things at church; lead Bible studies, be active in “circles” that helped with charities, organized and put together a church cookbook for charity and fellowshipped with many often. Now working and learning a new job outside the home and then coming home to the duties of being a wife, mother and housekeeper take all my time and energy. I find myself drawing away from church activities and friends and I suppose that is not good. My devotions at home remain strong, but sometimes our church and it’s people who are far too religiously and politically linked for Ben’s and my taste. Can’t I just be a follower of Jesus?
I don’t know. I just don’t want to fight life any more. I don’t want to fight my body any more. I don’t want to be tired all the time. I want peace and no worries and I fear because I don’t have that my body is breaking down. I’m trying to fight resignation — I always faulted it in other people, mostly the older ones, and now I understand why so many give up. Life can be hard. Being a Christian can be hard. Being a parent is unbearably hard and sad sometimes. I am disappointed with myself a whole lot of the time now that just makes things hard.
I won’t resign. Somehow the best is yet to come if I don’t throw in the towel. But I just wonder. I just wonder. I am nothing but dust these days.
Give me a break, Lord, I am nothing but dust.
