Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Big Ole Piss Poor Pity Party

I should apologize for dropping out of sight for a while.  Quite simply put, I have been having a pity party.  Yup, a big ole "Woe is me", thumb-sucking, "what did I ever do" pity party!  Guess what, it got me nowhere!

I do realize that this year has been a tough one for so many and I am no different.  I have spent much time thinking about it lately though.  Allowing it to fester and grow and eat at the very core of myself. Since March, my granddaughter was diagnosed with a blood disorder, my daughter lost her unborn baby, I was hospitalized with near kidney failure, my youngest son has had a facial cyst that fills with infection and turns him into the creature from the black lagoon at least twice.  It must be surgically removed from his jaw/face soon before it gets very serious.  I got walking pneumonia TWICE and have passed kidney stones multiple times.  We just had to put our beloved Shepherd down due to illness 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and  I had a car wreck a few days after that...I'm ok, they ran, my car needed $1000 bucks of work/tires and that sucks.  Then just a few days ago my dear sweet cousin who is 36 and a single army dad was just diagnosed with Lymphoma which has spread pretty much everywhere, wah, wah, wah!


I was feeling pretty sorry for myself!  How much worse could this get?  What had I done for all of this to poor out on me.  Why me....gloom...woe...adversity...a really big old PISS POOR PITY PARTY!  I was basically walking around the house singing the ole "Hee-Haw" ditty:

"Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me"

Then, this weekend, while talking to the cousin who has been diagnosed with cancer, he said to me, 'Well, cuz, it could be worse. My feet are healthy.  No cancer there!  " I kind of sat back and thought a second and since we had been talking for about 2 hours, I replied, "And, your tongue seems to work ok too. That is a good thing!"  Then we laughed.  Hard!  Really, really, hard.  It was wonderful. His words and humor made me realize that it was time to put on my big girl panties and get back to knowing that tomorrow would be better and the next day would be even more so!  None of this is funny per se, but there is still humor there if you look deeply enough. I also realized that it is not about me. It is about the lessons we learn and how we learn to apply them day to day.


I am telling you this not for pity, but to let you know that sometimes life gives us shit and it is up to us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and shovel our way out of it.  We may stink and be a bit tired when we get finished but we will know that we are stronger and that there is love and laughter under the pile. 

Moral of the story: Get the shit out of your way and get ready for 2011 folks...it's gonna be a doozy!