I saw that vid last night and wanted to hang onto it. It doesn't quite fit the mood, but it fits what I need, I think.
One of those I want to admit defeat weeks. These are really rare. Getting up this morning was hard. It's been hard all week. When I say hard, I don't mean the usual daily grind wearing me down, I don't mean depression, I don't mean life sucks. I mean actually hard. This week has drained me, and the rescue inhaler is the only thing helping me barely hold it together.
As per my usual, I dragged awake, grabbed my phone, checked notifications, and this is my inspiration today. This is a real person, 26, grew up with and still living with a terminal illness. Burying Your Friends and How to Get Around Why it Wasn’t You If you don't have some kind of motivator for your hard mornings, you really need to get one. No platitudes, no moralistic principles, just cold hard truth.
I cried exactly like that one year, except it lasted 7 months. I was about 28, I think, somewhere in there. The year before, I had run into a giant speedbump (a long dusty road, a vision I had during alcohol withdrawal and liver toxicity), and this came hot on its heels a year later. It's not even titled. May 5, 2008 The video code broke during the server move, and if you're on mobile you may have to turn your phone sideways to read it. It's a vision I've never forgotten.
I'm still here. We often think about people who've gone ahead, what the world would be like if they were still here. Well, I'm still here. I haven't left yet. And today, depending on whether plans are still in place, I have two appointments, one with my psychologist and the other with my chiropractor, and then I may be picking up a Bunny, a light in my life I never dreamed possible.
I can do just about anything for my Bunny. I can blow off pain and endure hardship in a way I never could with my own kids. I can step outside of myself and step up far beyond what I could before she came to this earth. Because of a Bunny in my life, I have been able to work harder, be tougher, and smile sweeter. She is here partly because I helped talk her mama through a very hard day where a decision could have been made for her not to be here. I couldn't bear to see another person go through the kind of crying I'd gone through over losing someone who never really existed. The loss is still terribly, horribly real, compounded with the burden of being the one who didn't save that history from being erased. Is it any wonder some people become obsessed with time travel ideas. How do we go back and tell ourselves not to make the biggest mistake of our lives?
This is the first time I've ever connected those two visions together in a time order.
Because I am still here, I can still share. I'm still learning, still surviving, still connecting. I know my lurkers include bruised and very broken souls, and I know how it feels barely hanging on through the long, dark nights and the flat, empty days. Keep hanging on with me. I will keep telling stories and we will keep loving someone, whether in secret or out loud, and when we look back we will say, "I'm so glad I stuck around." Sometimes hanging on is the secret to changing someone else's history. Every day is a big day for Bunny. Time machine achieved.
We were all tiny once. In the big scheme of things, we're all still very tiny. Find your fit, stick around, and be the one who makes the day better for someone. Even if all you do is hold back your own bad day, you changed history. Find your raison d'etre and devote yourself, commit yourself to being that force that stands up to the wolves of time that ravage us.
