It is fairly well documented that I am slightly neurotic (using slightly to mean over the top) and well, I am a little bit of a scaredy cat. I have always been afraid of huge weather phenomena and if I must admit it, end of the world prophecies.
Sufficeth it to say I have been a bit of a wreck this week. Coping okay on the outside (although my husband may not agree with this) but inside feeling frightened, scared and particularly bleak.
I heard a woman on the radio speaking about how these continuing disasters (the earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and cyclones for the reader that is living under a rock) affect the population and how important it is for those of us that are living out of the affected areas to try and return to “normal activities” rather than getting stuck in the disaster.
I realize how important that is – especially for my Little Pencil and to some extent all the people around me who are having to not only put up with my constant jumpiness but deal with the very maudlin air around me.
I spoke to my sister on the phone today and I heard something in the background that sounded distinctly like a siren. I panicked and yelled down the phone ‘what’s that noise, what’s happening, are you okay?’ . ‘Um yes, Lana’ she replied, ‘that “siren” is the national anthem playing in the background on TV’. Allright then I may not have returned to normal activities completely but I am giving it my best shot.
So to get me back on track I have decided I need to focus on all the good things in my life – all the things that I am incredibly grateful for
- My husband – he is supportive, compassionate and caring beyond what is reasonable expected of a human
- My son – he is just himself and in that he is perfect
- My sister who always gives me balance and unconditional support
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Okay now that I have finished sounding like an Oscar’s acceptance speech , I would also like to thank the rest of my family and my friends (oops can’t stop the Oscar’s speech now, I totally get why they carry on for so long)
But seriously I am grateful for the fact that
- I have the most awesome job and am surrounded by smart and amazing people both physically and online and I am way too busy to sink into despair about the fact that the world is falling apart
- I don’t live in Japan
- I don’t live in Libya (or in fact any place where I hear news of air strikes and heavy military bombardment in my neighbourhood)
- I can go to sleep at night in a safe, comfortable and peaceful home
- I have perspective (even if it’s only a tiny bit), I can see what is happening to others and instead of feeling terrible for myself I can rejoice in how lucky I am and donate as generously as I can to others that are not even one millionth as lucky as I am.
- I can hope for a better future for all of humanity
I really am truly grateful. And that is what I am going to focus on.
I am online doing some work and STUPIDLY just read a piece in The Age about the Melbourne man that threw his daughter off the Westgate Bridge after his marriage broke up. I am SO grateful that my own beautiful daughter is sound asleep in her own warm bed, loved and happy. I know she is. I just checked.
Great post, Lana. Perspective.
Awful just awful about that terrible thing the man did…taking his daughter to school…on her first day!!!!
I know people have sicknesses and so on…BUT that, that was a despicably cruel, life-robbing incident done in full view of the little girl’s brother.
Broke my heart too.
Gotta hug our precious ones more…XXXXX
I’m grateful for you Lana, who has taken the time to take what was on my mind and put it down here..except about your sister, husband, LP etc.
Since THE awfulness that is 2011 (and just before Christmas as well) it has been bombardment time.
Yes, and I want to know…what it is that’s happening…but I get too empathetic.
I can’t imagine. I feel I could do more…then I STOP.
I see my comfy home, my lovely hub, photos of my beautiful kids & their kids and go, WOAH.
So, in the interests of my physical and emotional health – which take a battering anyway – I remain TV news-free as much as possible.
I get my news fix via Twitter – when I chose & sometimes actually read the papers. I had become too hypervigilant even to do that…I need to slow down
So I play with my grandkids.
I write on my blog.
I go outside and take photos of nature.
I visit mamamia.com.au for a bit of an update most days.
And, since I’ve decided to be less concerned about STUFF I can’t do much about, I have ‘culled’ FB & Twitter where I was being ZAPPED of energy by the many crises (ha! attention seeking I mean) of others…& I was getting the empathy-overload again.
FYI. You are not cullable material AT ALL…XXXX
Thanks for writing this Lana. I agree totally with you and am almost at the point where I cannot watch the news. I still get nervy about flying in America thanks to September 11. Thanks for making me stop, rewind and focus. xx
I echo your list … so thankful for everything, but mostly having my family safe and close. Nothing is ever forever… as long as we don’t waste the time we have anticipating something worse, then we triumph over the ‘what if’s’.
🙂
BB
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, but never felt compelled to comment until this post. I just survived cancer, at the age of 34, and am grateful every minute of my life. When I was in my hospital bed, I kept thinking, “well this absolutely sucks and is hell scary, but at least there are no invading troops and there’s unlikely to be a tsunami that would wipe out the town beneath me, and at least I can assume there will be no power black out mid-way through chemo because I need electricity to power the chemo pole”.
There’s something in the Pollyanna glad game that we became too cynical to play.
I’m beginning to accept that life is really random and cruel and unjust.
I think living in the peaceful first world, we are lulled into the illusion that we have some control over our lives – which is great, because if everyone were on edge and living each day as if it were their last, there wouldn’t be a lot that would get done. Sure I love that I’m so painfully aware of the miracle that my husband, my son and I are alive in a certain moment that I might appreciate it more than someone who hasn’t been through a near death experience, but I know I have to get back to “normality” where I do take some things for granted.
Great perspective.
I’m actually in denial at the moment because I can’t believe that this is all happening.
I have little people to raise, and one to give birth to very very soon. I can not believe that the universe is this scary and unpredictable. I cannot even think about the Myan calendar sensation. I just can’t.
I won’t allow myself to because that very notion would numb me with terror.
I completely understand where you are coming from, and the trepidation you feel.
I feel it too.
I like you, jusy absorb myself in my own little world and pray that the outside one “fixes” itself very bloody soon.
Too much tragedy.
Just too much.
Thank goodness we have the luxury of closing ourselves in our own little worlds. x