Overcoming

What She Wore: blue jean capris; grey t-shirt from my first teaching gig; black strappy sandals. I know it's time to do laundry if this is what I'm wearing on a Friday.

There's been this preview on Lifetime for about a million years. It's for this movie, Matters of Life and Dating starring Ricki Lake. Based on the preview, I'd say it's a story of how a woman figures out life after a mastectomy. Just watching it, you get the feeling she's triumphant in the end while still looking sexy and finding Mr. Right.

I keep watching and thinking that I have to figure out how to become triumphant after all that's happened to me.


But then I got to thinking. . . and that always leads to trouble.


I don't think that I'm supposed to triumph over all of this. I don't think I'm supposed to get over it. In my humble opinion, I think that I'm supposed to learn to deal with it. For me, what has happened to Charlie is like a death in the family. Not exactly like a death, but I have definitely experienced a loss. I am mourning the death of a dream--the dream of a healthy child who snuggled next to me the day he was born, who never left my side, never felt pain, and whose potential is unquestioned.

When someone close to you dies, you don't just get over it. You learn to deal with it. Slowly, the good days outnumber the bad. Slowly, you learn how to function with this new life. You may still miss the person. You may still weep. You may wish things were different. Mourning a loss is not the same as climbing a mountain, emerging victoriously at its peak. Rather, mourning is like driving through the hills in Mississippi: there are up parts and there are down parts.

I guess what I'm saying is this--figuring it out is a process, not a destination. I can be hopeful, but that doesn't mean that I'll never cry about what happened. Being sad doesn't mean that I'm not moving forward--it's just part of the process.


Seriously, blogging is the best therapy out there.