Soft Heart, Cruel World

It's not the first time I've noticed a pattern.  New years are not good for me.  January is when I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I don't know why.  The excitement of new days and fresh beginnings that some people experience is lost to me.  Again, I do not know why.  The end of a year simply morphs into another day with a different filing tab.

I had an amazing Christmas.  I had been looking forward to it for months and months, and it was the culmination of a lot of planning.  Many things had to fall into perfect place, and indeed, it did.  There were some blips along the way, but nothing that any family doesn't experience during holiday gatherings.  All in all, it was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be with just a few small exceptions.  I would have loved it if my sister-in-law, Beth was still here with her family.  I would have called our Christmas in Anacortes absolutely perfect if my sister Loke and my brother-in-law Phil were with us.  But, as they say, you can't have everything.

It did suck that we got sick, and that sickness followed us home.  It made the last week of Charlie and Caris' vacation pretty bad.  And perhaps, that is where my melancholy began to set in.  No new year celebration, none of the excitement of gathering with friends to see out the old and see in the new.  Just home, all of us, nursing illness. 

I tried to bask in the afterglow, and be very, very grateful for what I had been lucky to experience.  My family and dear friends around me in a place that I truly love.  I tried to remind myself to put on a smile and move into the world as if nothing was amiss.  This is always my intention.  But things don't always go according to plan, and the road to hell, so they say, is paved with good intentions.  Sometimes, despite how hard you fight, depression wins. 

Lately, I have done the work, and I have moved through the days.  I did the things I was supposed to do.  I got my mammogram done, and yes, even that dreaded lung CT.  I've done my bloodwork, I've had my spinning head diagnosed.  I've packed boxes for mailing, I've done the chores, and run the errands.  I'm going through the motions. 

Unfortunately, things that penetrate my soft heart in this cruel world make resistance difficult.  A dog that I don't know passing away guts me.  I linger on the thought of my sister-in-law, I cannot get the senseless killing of animals for no reason out of my head, a friend deciding to leave a circle over a passionate stand clips my wings, an unkind word excused as "a joke" leaves a scratch slow to heal, and then a perception of dismissiveness literally lays me out.  That was the last of it for me. 

At some point, you can take what the world throws at you while you hold up your Wonder Woman bracelets to fend off the slings and arrows.  Then, you reach your limit and you just can't hold it anymore.  You can't bite your tongue.  You can't stay silent.  You can't just sit there and pretend that you agree with offhanded cavalier remarks.  At least, I know I can't.  I think what is possibly worse, is the disappointment.  You don't always have to agree with people.  But you certainly shouldn't dismiss their passion, however unworthy that passion may be to you.  I always thought that with friendship came a bit of loyalty.  Sometimes, I guess, there are levels of loyalty.  I can't seem to find the loyalty level that prevents me from getting hurt.  You'd think after 57 years, I'd get the memo.

Again, I find that the one constant in my life is the one I come home to.  The one who is always there, always faithful, always in my corner, always listening when the cruel world is just more than I can bear.  This soft heart he knows, and he doesn't make me feel bad because of it.  He doesn't dismiss me, or roll his eyes.  He simply opens his arms, holds me and says it is the very reason he loves me so much.  Now, if I could just lift myself out of the muck as skillfully as he does.