I went and had lunch with a dear friend today. It is sunny and warm and we sat outside at a great little Nashville cafe and talked about life and love and everything in between. The last time she saw me I was near dead, laying in a hospital bed, hooked up to too many machines that beeped. Its been a few weeks and I am doing much better, thankfully. (By all accounts, I should be dead now, and I know that I am insanely lucky that I pulled through it okay, and that I am still here.) My friend asked me if I have had any epiphanies stemming from my illness, and I thought it was a valid enough question that it even deserved a response on this old blog, which hasn't seen any action in longer that is fair.
I am a bad-ass bitch. I keep saying this because not only do I know it is true, but I think everyone else has a sense of that now as well. I said it to my mom on the phone the other day, and she laughed and said something about how I am so strong and so stubborn that God had to knock me on my ass TWICE and then paralyze my legs so that I would stop moving long enough to let someone get me the help I needed. Twice, yall. I had a pulmonary embolism that should have killed me. It was, on a size scale ranging 1-10, a 9. The doctor told my parents it was the largest that they had ever seen. And it took my going down TWICE and not being able to lift my legs up for me to concede and allow for help.
But that taught me that I need to slow down. I need to make time for myself and stop worrying so much about work or things or people that don't worry about me. So I need to slow down and I need to make sure that my energies are put into endeavors which are not just about someone else. So many people came to see me while I was laid up, or called, or texted, or checked in on facebook. Those people, the ones that made it a point to let me know that they were worried or thinking of me or just that they cared, those are the people that I am going to make time for in my life. I can no longer try to do everything for everyone. I was going to say that I am not a superhero, but I am kinda, so Ill just say that I am only a superhero for those that deserve my time. I dont think that is a horrible way to be, either. I used to think that it was; that I needed to be readily available for everyone that I knew all the time, and I just cannot be that girl anymore. It literally almost killed me.
I also know that where I am in my life is not where I want to be. I still love being in Nashville, but I feel like I am wasting my life right now, and so I am working on getting myself where I feel like I should be. This is proving difficult, however, as I have no idea what in the world I want to actually be doing with my life. This particular issue is one that I have been dealing with for quite a few years. If I could ask a magic 8 ball what I should be doing with my life, that would be the end of it, but that is not really an option, so I need to really search my heart and spend a lot of time in prayer asking for direction. I mean, if yall wanted to say a prayer or 17 that I find direction I would be okay with that.
The biggest thing I have noticed, but this is not just from being sick, but I think from living in the south in general, is how not worked up about stuff I get. Those of you who have known me since before the move know how high-strung and totally worked up I could get over the dumbest stuff. Like, fly-off-the-handle crazy over little things. The stuff we aren't supposed to sweat. Intense is a word that was thrown around more than once. Here is the difference though. Today, after a wonderful lunch in the warm sun with a good friend, I got to the parking lot to see that my car had been booted. I paid for my parking but didn't read the sign and didn't put my ticket in the dash. My own fault, as I was a dumb ass and didn't read instructions. I laughed a little, called myself a dumb ass, and called the number to have the guy come remove the boot, and then continued my conversation with Joni. Instead of freaking out over something that was going to be solved with no problem in just a few minutes (the old me) I looked at it as a chance to spend a few more minutes gabbing with a great lady who I don't get to spend enough time gabbing with. I am pretty proud of this growth.
Yes, almost croaking changes things; it changed me. I hate that it took something that extreme to wake me up, but my attention has been caught, and I am focusing a lot more on the positives and turning the negatives in my life into positives. Yes, I still get angry about shit. I am lost. I am going to be selfish or a doormat depending on the situations. I am not perfect, but I am trying to better myself, and that is what it's all about, right? I will leave this planet a little bit better than it was when I got here.
