I would like to tell you that I am naturally a bubbly fun person who never stays gloomy. That it is normal for me to shrug off the day’s disappointments and disasters, and giggle my way to a bubble bath before falling into a deep sleep, dreaming of rainbows and handsome men.
I would like to tell you these things, but they’re not true.
I enjoy bellyaching and moaning as much as the next person. Maybe more so. I can tell you in excruciating detail what Libby Montgomery said to me in 7th grade that hurt my feelings. I always think of great responses to rude supermarket clerks around 2 a.m. No, I am not naturally or normally an upbeat type all the time.
My husband is those things, which can be deeply annoying. He will look on the bright side, no matter the cost, will see and talk about the silver lining, will persist in giving the benefit of the doubt. While I’m carrying on about how idiotic it is that our neighbor stockpiles junk in her front yard, he quietly points out that she works long hours nursing the terminally ill.
I tolerated his maddening behavior for years. Then two major life changes came.
I was diagnosed with a painful condition that apparently is not going to go away. While a total knee replacement took care of a lot of pain, the burning stabbing in my lower back is a constant companion. I refused to accept this for several years, which as common sense tried to tell me, made the pain worse. In the course of denying it, I did some things I had no business doing (read: tried to move a bookcase) and made the damage worse. Now I have spinal cord pressure that could paralyze me if the wrong thing happens, just in case I was running out of stuff to worry about. What wrong thing? To summarize the medical advice, "You’ll know it if it happens. Just don’t do anything." Which means no bowling, no playing pool, no long movies, and so on.
Around the time I was accepting this, our family was gifted with a carrier of narcissistic personality disorder. This delightful trait brings constant pain of another kind. Besides their overwhelming arrogance and superiority, there is no reasoning with these specimens. Society runs on the principle that if I tell you respectfully and honestly what I need, you’ll do your best to provide it. Narcissists are not wired that way; it makes no sense to them. They hear nothing but the voices in their heads, know nothing but what their own brains tell them. So in addition to physical pain and discomfort, I had a new family member to continually remind me of my essential worthlessness.
As a woman whose motto has always been, "I can fix that", facing two unmovable mountains brings new meaning to the word "frustration." If it hadn’t almost killed me to quit smoking, I swear I would start again. Daily pain is frustrating, and let me tell you, being treated like a drooling moron by a 22-year-old is frustrating. Like a lot of people, I get seriously bitchy when I’m frustrated. Between the pain and The Pain, I was turning into a real treat to be around.
If you’re looking for stuff to complain about you have landed on the right planet, my friend. It is hard to be upbeat, to look for the good, easy to whine and blame. I enjoy being sarcastic. Self- pity can be so satisfying, and justifies a lot of bad behavior. One of my first lessons working for the government was this: in times of trouble, find someone and blame them!
Then I heard myself one day taking the skin off my husband for some trivial reason. I tried to apologize, to tell him how ashamed I was and that I really don’t want to be that person. And he said, "It’s all right, I know you’re hurting."
And I really really do not want to be that person.
I realized I can only do so much about my pain. It’s managed, but not gone. Never gone. And it makes me crabby. So does remembering some of the things I’ve been through, the bad people I’ve survived. I can’t control the pain completely, I can’t change the past, I can’t undo yesterday’s misjudgements. I also cannot fix personality disorders. (Darn!) But I realized, from watching my husband, I can control how I behave. I don’t have to be bitchy and sarcastic and nasty.
I am not going to be another whiny complainer, I’m not taking the easy way. I’m going to appreciate, and thank, and be grateful and laugh and do as much as I can to defy the legacies of the bad people I’ve tumbled across and the pain sentence I’ve been given. Because it’s not been written in stone, and I do have a choice. And I choose to be happy.
No matter how crabby it makes me.
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