Back to Life...

...back to reality.  Ah, where would we be without bad 80's lyrics?

I'm just two days home from a surprise whirlwind trip to Barcelona -- my Mother's Day gift this year, combined with a late 40th birthday and postponed 15th anniversary, plus a little "Thank God all the surgeries are over....  We hope!"  It was glorious.

Overlooking Barcelona from Parc Guell

 Blessed, yes I am.  With two fabulous university students who cared for Boo, Little Toot, & Bubba, for friends who helped out with random dog and childcare, for a DH who decided enough was enough and we needed some time away.  Who realizes that it is important to mark the Big Things; and when important birthday and anniversary celebrations (for instance) have to be postponed due to a seemingly unending string of illness and surgeries, understands that sometimes the Big Things are stuff like waking up in the morning, breathing, laughing, walking.

Today I'm realizing that all over again.  Because the "reality" part of life is sinking in again: weeds in the garden, childhood meltdowns, an ever-growing to do list, glue that will NEVER come out of the %$@! bottle properly especially when I really need to get these stupid wonderful birthday party invitations ready for the morning.

I miss the giant fish heads.  At least I knew where I stood with them.  (Away.  I definitely stood away from them.)

Fish heads, fish heads; roly-poly fish heads...

Pitiful, isn't it?  Such trivial, every day things.  But when other, harder things are piled on top of them, even these little things grow to monster proportions and threaten to become overwhelming.  Things like someone dear to me undergoing serious medical testing.  Things like depression, a sobbing child, memory loss, a niggling pain a little too close to the last surgical scar for comfort.  Right in the middle of what needed to be a pretty busy day, I shut down.  I sat down and just... sat.  I felt overwhelmed, I was anxious, I berated myself for being lazy, and then I realized the truth of the matter.  I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I won't be able to "handle it", to keep up without being sick.  I'm afraid things that I've lost (like chunks of memory) won't come back and that some things that I've gained (like adhesions) won't go away.  I'm worried I won't be able to keep up the new physio & exercise routine the doctors have set for me.  (Seriously, people, do I look like someone who enjoys lifting weights?)  I'm afraid I just won't be able to do "it".  Whatever "it" is.

And then Bubba sat on my feet, demanding a walk.  And I remembered a little card given to me by a nun many, many years ago when I was having a different kind of fear and worry attack.  The card read, "Courage is fear which has said its prayers."  So I said a little prayer, had a little lunch, took a little walk, ate a little chocolate, and looked at my toes.  My pretty Barcelona-pedicured toes.  They make me smile.

Pretty piggies

Life might indeed be pain, Princess, but life is also support and love and smiling.  Life is having a good cry and a good friend to hand you tissues.  Life is tough, but there are ways to soften it.  And I can either sit around on my ass and feel sorry for myself and let everything crowd in, or I can get up and fight back.  I choose to fight back.  Through prayers, through exercise (grumble though I might!), through helping someone else with their lousy day, through hugging my kids.

As long as it doesn't ruin my pedicure.  Because I quite like my pretty toes.

How do you fight back in the midst of a stinky day?