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Accepting the Days With Lupus When I Feel Caught in Limbo

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I am caught in limbo… not sick, but not well. Sore but not in excruciating pain. Tired but able to do things. Not sad, but not always happy.

Am I supposed to be happy all the time? No, of course not. What is my baseline supposed to be like? Am I not supposed to wake, excited for the day, to be alive? Every day isn’t supposed to be a struggle, and it’s not.

I do not need to be singing in the morning every day.

What I wonder, though, is why… why am I just so happy to open my eyes and hear the sound of my children in the other room while other times… Other times my son can click a key on the keyboard and electricity shots through my body like I’m being electrocuted and the sound of “moooooooommmmmmmm” makes me want to lose my mind.

Some days are rough and chaotic and I get that. And some days are just nice and easy and I get that too. But some days that are rough and chaotic are also the evenings that we are singing and cooking and some days when it’s nice and easy is also when electricity pulsates through my body at the simplest sound of… anything… and my head feels like it’s about to explode.

And other times it’s reverse again.

And again.

And again.

And I don’t know how to tell and what causes what and what the hell am I supposed to do to make it better, to be a better mom, a better person. Or am I OK just the way I am?

PC answer…yes darling, you are perfect just the way you are.

Bullsh*t.

If we all, or all the positive minded folk, believed that, then we wouldn’t strive to eat better, meditate, live in the movement, help others…we would be happy with just being.

Being imperfectly human.

Is that the answer? Love the imperfections, love the journey, know it doesn’t make sense and accept the senselessness of it all. Everything, everywhere the only thing that counts is this very moment.

Right now.

Right here.

Not a second ago or a second from now…but this. That’s it. Enjoy it, because before you know it, it’s gone.

No, no… it can’t be gone, it’s right now. This moment in time.

See, bullsh*t.

Senseless.

If this very moment is all that mattered, then why try better, why let your child out of your sight for one second or loved one out of your arms or take that pill or eat that dreaded kale or save for that whatever (I don’t know what you save for, I suck at saving…)

Life is this paradox, as you have to live for the moment, prepare for the future and deal with the past. It’s all senseless, it’s all way too complicated. It contradicts itself and can make you mad if you think for one second you can get a handle on it. So just accept it. Life’s little secret to happiness…

Acceptance.

We are who we are, what happens, happens, we will strive for better and fail and succeed and fall in the middle and we will linger on bad thoughts and bad memories for too long and smile out of nowhere at the thought of your long lost childhood friend and life is all this and so much more. Some things you can control. Some things you can’t. Some things you will remember, some things you won’t. Some things you will plan and some things you won’t. Some days you will do your best and step up and be the person you’re proud to be and other days you will be the person you are embarrassed to know. At any given moment you are all this and none of this.

Accept it. You have no choice.

Life is a paradox.

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Getty image by splendens

Originally published: January 7, 2018
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