Either Way I'm Celebrating

    I am pretty darn funny----at least that's what I've been told all of my life.    Some people---ok, MANY people describe me as being irreverent---maybe even blasphemous.  I swear I'm neither.  I just have a hard time not laughing out loud when all of the costumes and masks we all keep squeezing into---have "malfunctions"---and the disparities and incongruities and "real--ness" of our lives come roaring out.  As hard as all of us may try.....life is real.   There is not enough lip gloss or letters after our names or condos on Sea Island to smother what our souls long to LIVE out.
(That was a dog-gone long and winding topic sentence.)  I could have just said, "I say stuff that most people don't say---especially when a situation feels weird.  I sort of appoint myself as the "Truth Fairy".   It's not always a good thing.   I have never been good at denying  that the  emperor has  no clothes.   Which leads me to how I talk to my doctor.
So, last week I went to my family doctor  and  sat there and cried. 
Here is how the conversation went:
Me:  Dr. J., I just don't think it's fair that I'm fat......AND have a retarded son.
Dr:   What is it that you want out of life, Marianne?
Me:  I want to look great naked!!  I want to be thin like everybody else I know.
Dr:   Seriously, do you think being thin would make you have the life you want?
Me:  Absolutely.  I am 100% sure that this is all I need to make my life perfect.  Can't I just raise   
         Taylor AND look great naked??   Can't I have both?
Dr:    (Laughs....shifts his feet around....laughs.  Was that a "No" or was that an "Your eight minutes
          are up?")

     I wonder if you're reading this, what ONE thing it is that you might long for---or might have convinced yourself that if you had....that your life would be.....better/perfect/just right.   My guess is that we all have that one thing.   Mine just happens to be ......about weight.  And, I ask you, is it an illusion that there is something OUT THERE that will make life better?  (I already know the answer to this in my head.)   Why are we so lured into that belief that says:
"Life will be good when...or life would be good if.....".
 What a trap that catches us in---and I walk into that trap daily!

 Maybe that scene from the  movie  When Harry Met Sally  re-cemented this myth  when the older woman customer says to the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."  Somebody else appears to be having it better/easier/thinner/richer/smarter----so, yes, of course,  "I'll have what she's having. I assume that she must look great naked.  Her life, I bet, is perfect."  Myth.

Obvious segue:
Eckhart Tolle urges us to:
"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally."
So, as a student of life.....
Accepting Taylor for Taylor is an on-going journey.  I am doing my best.
And, I am working hard to change what I can so I can "Have What  I've assumed she's Having."
 But, if I can continue to laugh and live a  life in which " Wherever I am, I can be there totally"---
Even if I don't look great naked......
Either way, I'm celebrating.
I'll send pictures.

Moving Forward....Or At Least...Moving

          Truthfully, I don't even know where I might tell you I've been for the past four months.   I might say, "Inward.  Scared again. Worried.  Disappointed.  Overwhelmed.  Not trusting."  You see, the last time I wrote anything was after Taylor's last surgery---way back at the end of June.   Boy were we hopeful!  Pain-free was not to be.   And let me just share with the whole world that I do not handle disappointment beautifully.  I would not make a good Buddhist at all---I am way too attached to outcome. 
      After the last surgery (anterior cervical discectomy), I had so many expectations and plans and had re-routed my life; all was going to be back on track.  BUT....that didn't happen.  Or hasn't happened.....yet.  This big miracle surgery did not do the trick...whatever the heck the trick might include.   This go-around we have even tried Oxycontin----that drug that people buy and sell and get highly addicted to.  It didn't help.  (Wanna buy some?  kidding!)
   I wonder if I am wired weird (probably),  because even though it's not rational at all....I blame myself for Taylor not getting better----feeling better----being back up to "par" (again, whatever that is.....oh, isn't all of life so darn relative???)  I have a real wrestling match with the belief that I have not done enough---that there is something more I SHOULD be doing.  And, I'll just get you right to the last chapter of thoughts like these.......They don't lead one to one's "highest self".   (Where do I come up with all of this kind of talk?)
     Anyway, it's been a tough four months.  Real tough.  Lots of crying.  And stress.  And attachment to outcome.  It makes me want to stay inside...in my pajamas...under the covers.    I didn't do that on the outside....but my insides were definitely living a solitary life.  (Oh, this is so depressing.....sorry)
      About three weeks ago, my sisters decided to come visit and do an intervention with me/on me. I think they realized that I needed to get off of center, look at some options and get my life back on track.  When I asked them what an intervention entailed, one of my sisters replied, "I think we're just going to get you really drunk."   Wow!  Now, that's medical psychology for you at its best.   I don't even drink, but at least I had a better idea of how the whole intervention weekend was going to work.  Whew!  What I came to see clearly was that two of my loving sisters just hated to see me suffer (unnecessarily!) and were going to throw me down and talk turkey to me.  In the south we sometimes call these, "Come to Jesus" meetings.    So, I guess that's what we had.  An intervention that involved neither alcohol nor Jesus.     (Well, maybe a little wine....and .....some prayer.)  But mostly, it was just boundless, abundant, deeply profound love ---among sisters. 
      I am not sure what the next months will bring.  My prayer ......my fervent prayer...is that both Taylor and I will both become healed---he from his physical pain and me from my LONGING and worrying and heartache...... that he be ok. 
I have to let go some.
I have to let go.
I don't know how to do this so well/very well/at all.
Letting go.....what does that look like?