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Billie
Joined: 29 Apr 2000
Posts: 1206
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 Need to learn to sing a different tune
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I posted another I'm-so-tired-I'm-can't-do-it-anymore-my-life-sucks entry recently. I've been singing that tune for so long, the refrain is stuck in my head. It plays over and over and over, while I'm getting ready in the morning, while I'm dropping kids off, while I'm at work, while I'm picking them up, while I'm getting supper ready, while we're going through the bedtime routine. I don't think I know any other songs anymore.
I have forgotten the "Be grateful for what you have" song and the "It's the small things in life" song. It's been a long time since I've sung the "Cherish your children because they grow up so fast" song. And I have only the vaguest recollections of a song called, "He's not perfect but he's pretty darned good."
You know how it seems like some people are especially lucky and some people are especially unlucky and most people fall somewhere in between? I always considered myself one of the lucky ones. Things just went my way. I was lucky in my family and childhood (though I forgot that for awhile), I was lucky in my relationships, I was lucky in housing (I've always lived in great places), I was lucky in my jobs and with my bosses. I've been lucky with money (it always seems to come our way when we need it) and lucky with my kids (able to get pregnant when I wanted, beautiful healthy babies, and lucky that we could adopt, and lucky in the fabulous little girl we got).
I'm not sure when I stopped thinking this way. I think I got tired, legitimately tired, and I got angry at DH, legitimately angry, and I got overwhelmed, legitimately overwhelmed. But then those thoughts got stuck in my head, rather than moving on as they should have, and eventually they crowded out everything else and became not just what I was feeling, but who I am. Those thoughts became my reality, my life, me.
A couple of things have happened recently to make me see more clearly my own role in this. One, one of my very best life-long friends has gotten herself into a mess. Without going into too many details, it involved a husband who was laid off for a long time, unpaid bills (including medical), and a misappropriation of funds on her part from an organization. In a surprise move (which neither the organization that was the victim, nor the prosecuting attorney wanted), the judge gave her jail time. This woman is a good person who made some really bad decisions.
This situation has made me step outside of myself for two reasons. One, I know how desperate my friend must have felt in order to do this, so desperate that she saw no other options, and I imagine how awful that must feel. And I am ashamed of myself for getting so wrapped up in my own petty gripes that I can no longer see how lucky I am not only to be able to pay my bills, but to have options should income dry up (savings, ways of reducing expenses if we have to, the ability to scale back our lifestyle and still have a nice one).
The other lesson is in how she is handling it. It's been devastating to be separated from her children, obviously, but she has told me that being there has made her realize how good she has it. Her husband is being supportive, as is her entire family and her friends and her employer and the community. And she said in contrast to what most of her jailmates are dealing with (endless cycles of addiction, abuse, etc.), she is really blessed.
And I thought to myself, if my friend, who is dealing with this, can be grateful for all that she has, why can't I, when I have so much more? I can hug my children every night, neither my husband nor I have ever been laid off, we've never not been able to pay our bills, we've always had access to credit when we needed it, and we've always had good medical insurance. Surely I can find, under the tiredness and irritability and resentment, some gratitude for these things if I am just willing to look for it?
Second, I read an interview recently with some movie star or another, and he said his favorite part of the day was dropping his three little kids off at their schools. And I thought to myself, "Really? How is that possible?" Granted, he probably has a nanny getting them dressed and feeding them, and he's probably not doing it at 6:30 am so he can get to work, and he probably only does it when he's not working on some big project, but still, how can his favorite time of the day be the time I hate most? What's wrong with me? Is it possible to love this time of day? Is it possible to change my mindset to value that as precious time with my children at the beginning and end of our day? I'm not sure, but it's worth exploring.
I was also particularly struck by the suicide last week of a high-level executive at a financial firm. He was 41, the same age as my husband. He has a young daughter, about the same age as my kids. It's heartbreaking. I wish I could have told him, "It's not worth it. All this economic mess, any responsibility you may feel for it, whatever is weighing you down, it's not worth your life. It's not worth depriving your wife of a husband and your daughter of a father and you of a life." And while I'm not suicidal (I've got way too much fight in me for that), it did occur to me that I'm a victim of my own destructive thinking in much the same way he probably was--we're both too wrapped up in our own version of reality to see the big picture. And while I'm not in danger of taking my own life, I am in danger of ruining the one I have by focusing on life's minor irritants/stressors until they are all I can see.
The reality is: I have three children. I have pets. I have a husband. I have a home. I have a job. Those are the facts, the only facts. Beyond that, everything is open to interpretation.
I can tell myself that these three children are so much work and that I'm so tired from it all and I never get a break and no-one ever asks me how I'm doing. I can feed my resentment that my husband is gone all the time and tell myself that it's not fair and that he clearly doesn't care about me or the kids or he would be here for us. I can view this mortgage on my home as an albatross and rant about how unfair it is that the house has lost so much value that we have lost what we put into it and wouldn't even benefit from selling it. I can complain that my job has gotten more demanding and stressful even though I haven't gotten any raises and will earn less this year than ever before because bonuses have been cut.
Or, I can focus on how wonderful and creative and energetic and interesting my children are. I can try seeing the world through their eyes in order to understand what drives them and find compassion. I can tell myself that we are lucky DH has such a good job, one that he finds rewarding, and we're also lucky that I'm strong enough and competent enough to handle things when he's gone. I can tell myself how blessed we are to have such a lovely home, not just a house, but a real home, the kind I always dreamed of, and that we're lucky we can pay the mortgage and don't have to sell in this market. I can tell myself that I'm blessed to have a well-paying, flexible job that provides all kinds of benefits (health, dental, vision, life, disability) and that allows us to save for retirement and college, and where I have survived three rounds of layoffs. I can tell myself that I am lucky that they value me enough to keep giving me new opportunities to stay challenged and engaged.
I can learn to sing a different tune. I know I can. And by doing so, I hope it will help cut through the clutter so I will have a clearer picture of where to go next, of what to keep and what needs to change. Right now, I'm so busy hating everything, how am I to know what changes really need to be made? I'm not so naïve as to think that all that's wrong with my life is my attitude, because even with a good attitude, this life is too busy and too stressful. But it's not horrible, not by a long shot, despite the woe-is-me ballads I've been singing.
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 Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 11:11 am
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