As I get older, I have found that life simultaneously delivers the good times and the shit times.
Perhaps there is less sand in the hourglass so all the events are lined up to happen all at once. You can win an important award followed closely by the death of the loved one. Get a work promotion then find out a child is struggling with their mental health. Plan a trip of a lifetime to find out you have a life threatening lump.
Life is heightened when you get older. You see the unfairness of life and the randomness of luck. There are no reasons things happen the way they do, but you know they will happen. Everyone gets a turn with the shit stick.
Not that the dualistic nature of luck followed closely by loss always happens when you’re older.
I was so young, newly married and filled with dreams of a baby girl when she and I nearly died during her birth. With a significant and devastating birth injury that she will have for the rest of her life, I struggled with knowing if I should celebrate the dark hair babe with one blue eye and one green eye, when we were facing so many obstacles and worries.
In the end, I just loved her because I didn’t know how to do anything else. The doctors could help her and I could love her, plain and simple. And I did. Everything I have worked for has been for her and her brother. The education. The physiotherapy. The medical specialists. The therapists. The operations. The opportunities. It was all for them.
This weekend I helped her get settled into her final year of university and settling into her new home. I took my husband as last time I did this trip interstate, I had to put flat pack furniture together and it lasted about 25 minutes after leaving her apartment, before it fell apart.
I cried when I left this time, because I was so tired and because this will be the last time I do this for her and because I was so bloody proud of her. Finishing with a double degree and with a fabulous bar cart in her apartment for cocktails (Dirty Martini’s are her specialty), as she lives her life like Mrs. Flax from Mermaids, who only serves hors d’oeuvres for meals. She is pure glam from top to toe.
We all think we deserve a long purple patch of success but sometimes it is split into small bite sized serves. A success here, a win there, a moment of respite in between. If we counted up all the good things versus the bad things, I reckon we would be close to even.
So take the joy when it comes and do what you can when the shit storm arrives. Know the sun will shine on your side of the street again and pour yourself a drink and toast to this thing called life.
