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| Shypeachybottom |
I know I am not alone in having to deal with what I will call “trivial frustrations and hassles”, we all do. Things that might be icky or bothersome or mind-numbing or tiring or difficult or otherwise irritating, but which need to be done, like taking the garbage out, or doing tax returns, or taking daily medication, or getting up early to work out. Or people you have to deal with where you need to grind your teeth or take a deep breath or remind yourself to be nice, like the jerk driver who tries to cut you off on the motorway, or the prat colleague who takes credit for your ideas or shifts blame onto you, or the irritating person on IC whose posts or memos drive you nuts, or the guy who jumps out of his sports car which he parked illegitimately in a handicapped bay just because it is closer. Or situations you have to deal with where things aren't quite what you would ideally want, like you aren't as fit as you want, or as slender as you want, or as satisfied at work as you want (or you are looking for work), or as happy in a relationship, or as healthy, or as good a parent or friend as you think you ought to be, or whatever (fill in your own specific foibles and frustrations).
We all have these trivial hassles, these daily niggles and frustrations. We groan and moan or cry about them, we whinge about them to friends, we get support from family friends and colleagues, sometimes they feel overwhelming, and with luck we even laugh about them at least some of the time. In moments of lucidity, we know they aren't that important, but those moments pass and rapidly we are groaning about them again.
And every now and again, something happens. Like walking into a wall. Getting the stuffing knocked out of you. Stubbing your toe really hard (metaphorically speaking). And suddenly you really realise just how truly trivial and insignificant those daily niggles and frustrations and hassles are, and actually you feel a little ashamed for having devoted any or as much energy to them, for having let yourself be dragged down or irritated by them.
My best friend's mother is dying of stomach cancer. In five months, she has gone from having a pain in her stomach to being very ill and dying. She is on morphine to manage the pain, and it is now playing with her mind. Physically she has shrunk to a mere shadow of her former self, and looks so frail and vulnerable you want to cry. She still has moments of clear lucidity, when she knows just how bleak her prognosis is, when she clings dearly to life. Yesterday afternoon, I watched as her husband held her in his arms and kissed her as she asked him to never let her go, and he reassured her he wouldn't, while he discretely wipe away his tears so she wouldn't see him as another other than her strong reliable partner who can fix everything. Except of course, this time, no amount of fixing or praying or invoking deities or consultants or MacMillan Nurses can “fix” this. At most her quality of life can be improved, her pain managed, her mind and heart filled with loving memories, and perhaps time can be eked out into a few more days and weeks than expected.
Time is so fleeting. So precious. Yesterday I felt the fragility of time, the risk in pushing things off, in being distracted by or devoting time to things which aren't actually that important, which are actually pretty insignificant or trivial in the grand scheme of things. The risk inherent in not living every single moment fully, as if it might be the last.
None of us knows how long we have. What I do know is that I don't want to have regrets – regrets about not having prioritised the right things, about having pushed important things off to another day, another week, another month. This is making me take the time to think, to wonder what I need and want to change in my life so that I have the right priorities for me. Like becoming a bit more disciplined about improving my fitness and health for example.
It's like the story of the man with the glass jar – you have to fill it in the right order, with big stones and seashells first, then pebbles, and only at the end do you fill in the cracks with sand, because if you start with the sand, you will only have room for a few pebbles and you might never have room for all the big stones and seashells you want.
I'm going to think about what my “big stones” are, what the things are that matter to me, and dump some of that trivial sand that gets in the way of the more important things.
What has made you really think about what matters to you?
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p.s. to those of you battling infection or cancer or other serious problems.... big hugs and wishes for a speedy recovery.
| 6 Jun 11, 10:53 AM magpieuk UK(LA), 5 yrs      |
I think that anything that makes you confront the mortality of yourself or the people you love makes you examine yourself and what it is that you see as important. A few years ago I was deeply depressed - things like metaphorically stubbing my toe would of stayed with me forever. These days a metaphorical toe stubbing leads to a some mental swearing and that's it - my life moves on. The birth of my nephew recently has really made me examine my life and the legacy I'm leaving for him. He is the only scion of my side of the family. A part of me feels the need to record weird bits of trivia and day to day frustrations so that when he's older and my parents have died he'll know them just a bit. For instance he'll know that my Dad is a fantastic artist but never pursued it because he was raised to not see art as a career for someone like him. I want him to know about my Mum who has a weakness for orchids and whilst usually is a fabulous baker make rock scones so hard you can skip them across the waters of Morecambe Bay. Sometime it's the trivia that makes people who they are. Death seems to rob the vividness from everyday life but it's everyday life that makes a person who they are. There will be a hundred bits of trivia that man will know about his wife which will make him love her, it's her foibles and weaknesses as well as her strengths that he will remember her by and miss when they are gone. Besides sand can contains the memories of millions of pebbles & even cliffs sometimes. |
| 6 Jun 11, 12:52 PM Who_Knows UK(EN), 22 mths  |
My sister was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer a few months ago. She's in good health, the treatment is having an effect, her prognosis is uncertain - she may have a year of good health, or 5 years, or 10, nobody knows. So we're lucky, we've had warning and we've got time to enjoy because she's really well at the moment. It's made me stop taking stuff for granted though because I don't know when I might lose my big sister. It's stopped me prevaricating, and yeah ok perhaps it's stopped me being 'sensible' in other people's eyes, but it's stopped me from letting the days drift past. I'm embarking on something at the moment that I might have taken months to get round to doing, because it feels right, and because life's too short to say "no, wait for a better day". I do things I enjoy doing as far as possible without shirking responsibilities too much; on Friday evening there was a pile of ironing to do and some work waiting for me, but it seemed more important to sit in the garden with the wood burner blazing away, with my partner and son, barbecuing sausages and drinking wine (not my son!). The trivia *is* still important, it's there and needs dealing with, but I'm better at putting it aside for a while and not worrying quite so much - it'll be there when I'm ready to resume. So in a funny way, my sister's diagnosis has been a blessing in that it's focused all of us, taught us to seize moments, make definite plans for "this weekend we'll do such and such" rather than "we should go and do that at some point", and she and I have had some long discussions about things that we might never have said otherwise. I count myself lucky in many ways that we have this time. |
| 6 Jun 11, 7:15 PM Amaranth UK(N), 7 yrs |
2008 was my year of hell. I broke up with my fiancé, moved back to London, broke up with my boyfriend, got diagnosed with a chronic lung disease, found out my grandmother had alzheimer's and had a cervical cancer scare. It was... awful. Just one thing after another. But I kept on pushing through, as did my whole family, and even though some things didn't get better and won't, by the end of the year things were feeling better. For one thing I had a new job and for another my grandmother was moved into a home so she was not making my dad and aunt so utterly exhausted. And then there was 2009. My brother was in a near fatal car accident and we thought we were simply going to fall apart. Stuff 2008, it was the worst 2 months of our lives and we're still feeling the effects now, 2 years on. It's true, though, even at times like that you find the silver lining, and it's certainly put our lives into perspective and changed our way of thinking, if only subtly. Good things come in small packages... And poison comes in little bottles. |
| 6 Jun 11, 9:54 PM Caracal UK(SS), 5 yrs     |
Having very recently lost my Dad and seeing how his poor health had frustrated him in his last few years in doing what he had always wanted to do, I've determined to do the things and see the places that I want to see and do before my health leaves me too weak in an armchair to have a reasonable quality of life due to a heart problem, emphysema, cancer or any of the other illnesses that have blighted my forebears. It's my life and I try to make the most of every day - even when the black dog is howling just over the horizon or the stress levels are at richter scale 10+! The nice lady with the whip. |
