A Better Life

A Better Life

I guess when you call Santa a Republican, you can expect a lump of coal for Christmas, or perhaps the flu. When I wrote “If Santa is Real, He’s a Republican,” I thought my dry cough was perhaps just allergies because I forgot to take my allergy medicine the day before. I had also ignored my achiness that morning because I am achy every morning, some mornings more than others. Christmas morning would prove me wrong. For Christmas, I got the flu.

I have been relatively bed ridden and house bound for about three and a half days. In an effort to contain the disease as much as possible, and also because I hurt too much to move anyway, I spent the majority of this time in bed. Since this entry is not intended to be about how awful the flu is, I will just summarize by saying that I was absolutely miserable in every way, ran a fever ranging from 100 to 103 and was too delirious to do anything more than eat, drink, and binge watch television shows. I left the house only to go to the doctor and the pharmacy on Tuesday and again to the pharmacy yesterday.

While having the flu forced me to have to cancel a week’s worth of appointments and will cause me to have to wait until February to see my rheumatologist, in the end, it was worth it. I was honestly not going to get a break any other way. Yes, I would have preferred a much less miserable vacation, but a vacation is simply not possible for me. I have been going non-stop for two and a half years now. Every day I have something to do. When I try to take time for myself to get my hair or nails done, get a massage or simply even to eat, I am disturbed (see “Things Fall Apart” in my other blog When Parents Grow Old and Get Crazy). The flu was the universe’s way of giving me permission to rest.

I began to feel a little better yesterday. Today, I decided I could begin to do a little more and incorporate myself back into the world a little more. I began by watering just the back yard. While I was watering, I thought about my old dog, Wyatt. He was actually my brother’s dog (I was never allowed to have a dog, just my brother), but my brother didn’t take care of him, so he became my parent’s responsibility. He lived in the back yard his entire life. My brother got him drunk once and poor Wyatt puked everywhere. My dad used to sit on the patio and hit him with the fly swat. I would play with him, talk to him and feed him my leftovers (assuming that my leftovers were not pork or something that would make him sick). He likely associated my brother with abandonment, my father with fly swats and me with play and food. When he died, I felt bad that his life wasn’t better and that he hardly ever saw anything besides his yard and his dog house. I felt the same way after my mother died.

My mother was born and raised in Mississippi. Growing up, she was always poor. Alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking, mental health issues, marital problems and abusive husbands were common within her immediate and extended family. So, the fact that she smoked for half her life, had mental health issues and married two abusive husbands is not that surprising given her circumstances growing up. She was a beautiful woman when was young, though. She was intelligent until Alzheimer’s stole her mind. She could have done so much better. Her life should have been better.

I broke the cycle of being stuck with an abusive husband. I have a new cycle I wish to break. I don’t want to die wishing that I had lived my life better. For the rest of this year, I am going to rest. I am going to finish getting better. I am going to take a freaking break. In the new year, I am going to live my life better. I am going to take better care of myself. I am going to work harder to get what I want. I am going to learn to tell people no. I am going to start delegating minor responsibilities. I am going to learn to be more efficient in taking care of the responsibilities that I do have to tend to. I am going to manage my time better. I am also going to take breaks, even if it means turning my phone off and pissing off a few people. They get breaks. Why shouldn’t I?

Some people want to leave behind a legacy. They want to “build something that’s gonna’ outlive [them]”. While this would be nice too, I am willing to settle for at least living my life well. At this point, I have spent half my life living well and half my life in some modern adaptation of Tale of Two Cities (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”). I only have one more quarter left. I cannot afford to waste all of this time not living my best life possible.

References:

Dickens, Charles. Tale of Two Cities. 1859.

Miranda, Lin-Manuel. Hamilton. 2016.