Sometimes I think it is easier not to know. Easier to live in what I call “my little bubble.”
Lately, maybe for the past month or so, people and situations keep coming along and forcing me out of the cocoon of ignorance. Of not knowing. And into the bright sunlight. Into that bright glare of knowledge–and once you have it, you can’t unhave it. You can’t go back to not knowing.
I guess I have to admit (surprise, surprise) that I am absolutely squarely in adulthood. Hell, I am middle aged. People are expected to have a crisis at my age. If I dye my hair blond, leave my husband for a construction worker (huh, where did that reference come from?) and sell the minivan for a convertible, well, then you can chalk it up to a mid-life crisis. Because that’s how old I am. Wow, that kind of stings.
And besides all the fun stuff like cocktails and paychecks, adulthood brings with it the realization that life is not fair, bad things happen to good people, and life is sometimes a struggle. I almost said “often” and maybe it is often a struggle, but I like to think that it is only “sometimes” a struggle; while I am an adult and likely not what you could call a full-blown optimist, I do like to think the best.
So, lately, I’ve been forced to think about environmental concerns, health issues and property values.
I have faced heated confrontation and people saying just plain old mean things.
I have read the news of wars waged, battles lost, disasters not averted.
Today, I sat at my desk and cried while reading a blog post from a women, a mom of little boys the same ages as mine, battling cancer for the fourth time. The fourth frickin’ time.
What do we do when we have this information? How do we compartmentalize it all?
Ever wonder how we keep on keeping on?
I wonder about that sometimes. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
No one ever promised me a rose garden and if they did, they also warned me that every rose has its thorn. See, middle aged: child of the ’70s, high school in the ’80s…
But sometimes I just want to crawl back into my bubble-wrapped world and just un-know.
Since I can’t do that, all I can do is try to make each day count, to be grateful for what I have and to “just keep livin'” (credit to Matthew McConaughey)
This blog post was written as part of Just Write with Heather of the EO and The Extraordinary Ordinary, a Tuesday exercise in free writing.
