I’m Used To My Life Now

I’m used to my life now.  When change is the only constant in your life and you think, once I get to a certain place, then I’ll be able to… fill in the blank________  (relax, take that vacation, retire, play with my kids, visit my mom, keep the house clean, live my dream), you are thinking wrong.

If you think this and then your husband dies, you realize that, “once I get to a certain place” doesn’t exist. You’ll never get there. That constant of change, changes everything in a way that it’s not just little changes anymore. It’s everything and nothing that you get used to. 

Well, that’s when you realize that everything you thought you believed, isn’t quite what you thought.  It takes time to realize that of course.  It doesn’t usually come right away in the wake of big change, but it does come. 

The thing I realized I was reaching for, was a kind of peace or calm; a homeostasis. As humans I think we reach for the things that are unattainable and that’s what keeps us motivated.  The constant change helps to keep us busy as we try so hard to stop all the changes and find that comfy place. 

Well, I’m here to tell you, if you’re in that comfy place, you’re doing something wrong. Your life is fake.  Where you’re at isn’t real. Maybe it’s just my judgement?  But, my experience tells me that there is no comfortable place. 

There is no homeostasis that doesn't include constant changes.  If you’re not seeing change in your life, you’re oblivious to what is real. I know that because I thought I could make things not changing real.  That is until life slapped me in the face.

Life said, “Wake UP!”  Your life isn’t what you think.  It never has been and never will be and now, you’ll see it, and you’ll never be able to unsee it.  What… I thought?  How could this be?  No.  I don’t want this. Too bad, this isn’t your choice. 

It’s happening, because that’s what life is and now it’s your turn to see.  I couldn't take it at first. All the change that ensued brought me more heartache than I could handle. Guess what? Part of me liked it.  It helped me run from the pain of things staying the same, because now I didn’t want the same.

I wanted things to change and keep changing and never stop changing because the pain of any change eases just a little the pain of things I thought would stay the same and didn’t.  Change became my place of comfort and now, I can do more than ever because I have become more than ever. 

Things that I couldn’t do before, are now easy, second nature, and a part of me.  I am far more capable in every way. Before, there were so many things that I didn’t know how to do or be or accomplish.  Now I’m a person I love, rather than a person in a body I exist in.

It’s a kind of uneasy constant that I know I can’t trust, but again, don’t know how to change other than I know it will change.  It was just a few days ago, I was sitting on the toilet.  Yup… that’s where I was when this came.

I live like a deer in the headlights.

Yet another demonstration of how things just don’t stay and if they did, it’d get really uncomfortable.  You’ve got to process things and let them go through you.  So it was fitting for me to realize there on the toilet, that I had gotten used to my life.

I am now used to the pain, I don’t run from it anymore.  I am used to being a single mom, managing 4 little boys in all of life on my own without the support of their dad.  I am used to how my kids show up in their pain and how to ease it or support them in it or let them alone to do it their way.

I am used to getting them all up and ready for school and out the door, fed, ready and usually happy every day.  I am used to working as much as I can while they are at school and trying to stop when they get home or at least put the leftover things to do into pockets of time when the kids are happy and engaged in something that gives me a few minutes

I am used to not having time for myself.  I am used to giving everything to everyone around me.  I used to be so selfish with my time and wanting things to look a certain way.  Now I just give what’s needed because that’s what my life is now and it’s all unselfish.  

You do what you must do, and do it well.  I am used to my week and how it unfolds, each day has a certain theme I follow.  I am used to my run and how it makes me feel and the breath that runs through my body as I suck it up so hard, just to stay alive. 

I used to hate running… It was hard.  Now I love it and it feels good, because it’s hard.  I love the way it makes me breathe so hard my lungs are on fire and my muscles burn as I run uphill in the new place I never expected or wanted to live and I’m used to living here. 

I am used to the way I feel in my new home and how it’s nothing like where I thought I’d ever be.  Sometimes I still look around at my house and think, how did I get here? Whose house am I staying in?  Is this really mine?  And then I’m used to that feeling of uncertainty.  

I am used to sleeping alone or in a bed piled with little bodies.  Before, I used to be so picky about my sleep and couldn’t sleep with kids because they’d wake me up. Now I am used to them needing to sleep with me almost every night, even though they have the coolest bunk beds. 

I am used to sharing my time, my body, my space, my emotions, my privacy, my dreams that aren’t what I thought they’d be.  I am used to knowing that my life won’t be what I thought I was making it into.

I am used to the feeling of sadness that never goes away and accompanies every joy that change brings and amplifies every hurt that change brings.  I am used to feeling the hardness of loss.  I am used to working like a man because there is no man around to do the things a man usually does.

I am used to feeling the ache of my body after a long day of up at 7 and done at 12 to 1 and never stopping in between. I am used to reaching out for help and not getting what I really need. And so I take up the slack, yet am so grateful for any help I do get.

The help I get is abundant and yet, it is never enough.  I am used to crying alone.  I am used to feeling alone. I am used to feeling surrounded by people I can’t see while being alone with people I can see.

I am used to giving everything I got. And so on the toilet when I had this revelation, it was beautiful, because I could feel how much I’ve grown.  I could feel how much stronger I’ve become.  I could feel how much better I’ve become.

I could feel how all these hard things have given me the opportunity to grow.  I know that if you would have showed me this life 3 years ago, I would not have any inkling how to do any of it.  I would be completely incapable of living the life I do now.  Yet here I am.  Doing it.  

 I have grown into the best person I’ve ever been, so far.  And now, I don’t know how I could even think about going back to that cozy comfy lie of a life I thought I had. The girl I was then, isn’t the person I want to be, and in this, I realize that I’m grateful for all the change.

I know that life wouldn't be beautiful without this constant change that I’m now used to and it brings me the peace I’ve always been looking for.  The change shows me that the life I live now is more real than anything I was ever trying to reach once things stopped changing.