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Happiness depends on how you handle the day
This past weekend, I was catching up with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while. One, like me, has been going through some medical things lately. Completely different issues, but very similar paths in The Hunt for a Diagnosis. It’s led both of us to some problems with anxiety, and in my conversation with her, I told her something that she found very comforting: You can’t control what happens, but you can control your reaction to it.
In my case, I can’t control what my body is doing. I can’t control the pain or the ridiculous journey I’ve been going through. I can’t change anything that’s happened. I can’t turn any of the negative tests into positives just for the sake of a diagnosis. I can’t go back and tell people that I know it could be worse, but that this battle I’m fighting is no less real just because it’s not cancer and I’m not dying. I can’t go back in time and tell myself to calm the eff down about life, because stress may be what brought this all on to begin with.
But what I can control is my reaction to it all, and what stressors I decide to allow in my life now.
It’s something I’ve really come to grips with in the past month (two? three? I’m losing track), but I haven’t really been able to articulate it particularly well. I should’ve known that my favorite band (Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers) would be able to put it into the words I couldn’t come up with:
“Happiness depends on how you handle the day.”
I don’t think anyone fully understands what I’ve been going through since mid-July. No matter how hard they try to get it, or how hard I try to explain it, no one can truly know how this has all affected me in ways other than the outward, physical manifestation of pain.
And it’s something I’ve been hesitant to talk about or write about in a public forum, because mental health in our society is a scary subject. It’s almost taboo. I’ve been terrified to talk about it for fear of being judged, for being seen as weak.
Last week, Nicole (who is a bit of a blog rock star in my world) wrote about mental health battles (read that, seriously), and after wiping the tears out of my eyes, I emailed Nicole and poured my heart out to this amazing woman, who simultaneously felt like a stranger and a best friend. I told her that I could relate to her situation in a myriad ways. That my life, in which everything was finally going so amazingly well that I could hardly believe it, had come to this grinding halt and that aside from the physical health concerns, I have been having real and debilitating mental health concerns. I thanked her for being so open and honest about mental health battles.
And lastly, I asked her to carry me with her across that finish line on race day, along with the many others she is carrying in the fight for mental health care in this country.
I felt infinitely better having emailed Nicole, and I was content with that step alone. But then she emailed me back, one of the kindest and most sincere emails I’ve ever received. We’ve exchanged a few more and the conversation with Nicole has been a huge inspiration for me.
This week, I’ll be taking a step forward in getting the help I need with the mental and emotional effects of what I’ve been going through physically. You all know my penchant for self-help, but sometimes, you can’t help yourself well enough and you need to bring in outside resources.
And that doesn’t make me weak. It makes me strong, because I’m trying to make it better. Weakness would be giving in to it and letting it consume me.
My beloved Stephen Kellogg is right: Happiness depends on how you handle the day – one day at a time. And I’m determined to get that happiness back in my life for as many days as I can.
To the friends and family who have been helping me handle these days the past two months, I cannot thank you enough. I haven’t always handled it gracefully, but I’m working on it. I’m no longer allowing myself to stress about who has or hasn’t called or texted me. Or about how I’m going to pay the medical bills. Or about all the social events I’ve missed out on. Or about whether they’re getting on OK at work without me. Or about how difficult my first run back is going to be. Or about how outsiders are viewing me and what I’m going through.
I’m focusing on my health – physical, emotional, mental. My complete health, my whole self. Because if I don’t get myself healthy, none of that other stuff matters.
And to Nicole – thank you for having the courage to speak out about mental health, and for encouraging me to do the same. I only hope our society as a whole can learn to see it for what it is and work to make mental health care a basic right. You truly are a rock star, lady.
Taking Chances on Missing People
I’ve had a lot of time to myself lately. Which means, a lot of time to think and feel. Dangerous, right? Right. It’s also meant a lot of time to write, albeit it very intermittent due to pain (I haven’t been able to peck out more than about 150 words in one sitting – torture for a writer). I have six posts sitting in my drafts folder in various stages of appropriateness for public consumption.
A little over two weeks ago, I wrote a post about missing people – three specific individuals in my life. It was a thinly veiled way of passive aggressively attempting to get their attention without actually putting myself out there and being vulnerable. If any of them read it, they would know without a doubt I was talking about them. I let it sit in my drafts rather than hit the “Publish” button.
And then I thought and felt, as I’ve been known to do. Which is when I realized that if I really missed these people as much as I had written that I did – if I truly craved them back in my life – then publishing a melodramatic blog post wasn’t the solution. If I missed them, I had to let them know directly. No more fear of whether they actually missed me too or had instead forgotten I ever existed in their lives. No more excuses of “Well, if they wanted to talk to me, they’d call.” After all, couldn’t they be thinking the same about me? Didn’t that make me a hypocrite?
When enough time passes, that initial contact can be awkward. Whether it’s been three weeks, nine months or more than a year. Maybe you’ve spent all your time thinking about them; or maybe for the most part, you forgot them too. But then something pops up in your mind or in your day-to-day activities that reminds you of them – a song, a scent, an inside joke that no one else will ever understand – and you physically ache because of the hole in your life that they used to fill.
Since that revelation, I took the chance on two of those three people. I rehearsed what I would say (because of all the thinking and the feeling) and then before I could turn back and put it off another day, I let my thumb hit that contact in my iPhone and held my breath and felt sick to my stomach waiting for the voice on the other end.
Obviously, what I rehearsed in my head (or, um, out loud alone in my house – shut up…) never made it out of my mouth. Because as soon as I heard their voices, I couldn’t stop smiling, much less get out a proper sentence. After the slightly awkward beginnings, the rest of the conversation flowed like we’d spent no time out of each others’ lives.
I took a chance on missing people. I took a blind leap that if they meant so much to me that I was aching to have them back, there had to be a pretty decent chance I meant that much to them too.
And I’m so glad I took those two jumps. It was terrifying to think of; I could have had my heart (not to mention ego) splattered on the jagged rocks of being ignored, of being forgotten. But instead, I was caught in the comforting arms of “I’ve missed you too,” and “I’ve been thinking about you, but wasn’t sure if it had been too long. Thank you for taking the initiative to call.”
Nothing good ever came out of everyone being afraid, of everyone hiding from possible rejection. Someone has to take the chance, to make the move. Why not let it be you? If it means enough to keep you up at night, it means enough to make the call. Worst case scenario: you don’t hear back or get the response you wanted. But maybe you’ll get some closure, or at least a good night’s sleep knowing you didn’t just let it slip by.
As for me and that third person… I still haven’t taken the chance on calling them. Maybe soon.
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