Being Sad.

Taking a bit of a break from my normal mental randomness to address a topic slightly more serious.... I'll return to "normal" blogging pretty soon.

I got some really bad news yesterday. It has nothing to do with Nathan/cancer, and while I'm very close and affected by it, it's not my story to share the details of, so I will just leave it at that. I had a long time of prayer last night, just me and God and I'm feeling better about it, today, but I'm still heart sore. There are some things that are so hard to deal with, because there is no socially acceptable way to talk about them. I'm sure people felt this way about Nathan when he got cancer. People want to talk about it, but they also want to be sensitive to our feelings. You want to be there but you don't want us to think you are ignoring the situation, but you don't want to talk about it if we don't want to and so none of the conversation is about what is most important and all of the silences are awkward. And you just wish there was someway you could help bear the weight, but you don't know how.

Most of my life I have been a dreader. If I knew that something was going to happen that would change the status quo for the worse I would dread it. I distinctly remember getting really upset in college because I had had a great year and I knew next year things were going to change. I knew that I wasn't going to be as good of friends with some people and that our lives were going to lead us in different directions... and I knew that when that actually happened I would be ok, but in the moment I was really sad about how I wouldn't really care in the future.*Notably, that next year is the year I would meet my future husband.

Now when something bad happens it makes me start thinking about everything else bad that could happen.... and there is a lot, since I no longer believe that I (and my loved ones) are invincible. I started to let some of that go last night, I think. Because if the worst does happen... do I want to have spent the time that I do have mixed up with dread? There are enough horrible emotions when you are going through the awful. Why would you want to pull those emotions out beforehand and taint the good times? The Wed. before Nathan went into the hospital he was waiting for me when I got off work with a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks, and then we went out to dinner and to a movie and had a wonderful time. That night he developed a rash and by Saturday morning he was being admitted to the hospital. But all the time he was in the hospital we kept looking back on that night as a really wonderful night together and we were so happy that we had done it. If we had known what was in store, we couldn't have had that night. We would never have been able to enjoy it.

Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Doesn't mean the hurt doesn't hurt when it comes... just means there is nothing you can do to prepare for the pain, so you should enjoy your life while you can.