Episode 68: You Can
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You can do this…
I know you feel like you just want to run away…
You want to hide from the world….
You want to wake up and have it all be a bad dream.
But you realize you’re living it.
Like a bad ground hogs day loop where every morning you forget and after stepping out of bed you remember and it brings you to your knees.
All you want to do is
Cry
Yell
Lash out
Get a second opinion….
But you know down deep inside - this is it!
You can’t change it.
You can’t un-hear that diagnosis.
The - I’m sorries.
Maybe if you don’t tell anyone it won’t be real. Maybe if the words never leave your mouth your brain won’t have to hear it because saying it will only snap you out of the
FOG
You can’t adjust to the fact that yesterday you didn’t even notice how good your life was.
No one warned you that yesterday was the last day of who you were.
Yesterday you might have worries about soothing but now you can’t even remember what it was because it doesn’t mean shit!
Your mind hasn’t had the time to adjust and it keeps wanting to go to yesterday. Today hurts too much to think about and tomorrow is unthinkable.
You tell them that they can’t do this to you. They are supposed to be here for forever. Life isn’t fair why can’t it be you instead? You’re going to fight this. They have to be wrong…
But when you look into their eyes you know you’re wrong.
They know this is real.
So you shut down…
Maybe for an hour or for days. You shut down and you roll yourself into a little ball and hope that the longer you stay there…
The longer you don’t have to deal with your world…
The longer you don’t have to look into their eyes…
The more of a chance there is that you’ll wake up from this bad dream and find out it isn’t real and you can go back to worrying about the things that are insignificant.
While you’re there you tell yourself that you can’t do this…
It’s as if you are standing at the edge of a cliff and you’ve been told to jump. To have faith that somehow you will make it to the ground alive. Maybe a little bruised and scratched up - but alive.
But you don’t believe it.
You don’t believe that you can do this. There’s no way you can watch them suffer through treatments and surgeries.
There’s no way you can take care of them.
You just can’t!
You can’t be strong for them because you aren’t strong enough.
You aren’t the one in the relationship who holds it all together.
You can’t….
I’m here to tell you that you can.
You are stronger than you know.
No, this isn’t fair.
Yes… your life is now changed forever.
It doesn’t matter because you’ve dealt with changes before - maybe a lot smaller - but you’ve adapted.
You can because you love them.
You don’t have to like it. Accepting that they need you doesn’t mean you are saying this is ok…
You’re saying
I refuse to give up on life.
I refuse to give up on you
I refuse to give up on us.
Sure you may feel weak right now.
This may feel way too big for you.
You aren’t prepared for this.
Remember that the big things that happen in life are usually a surprise - good or bad - and we aren’t usually prepared for them.
So…
Take one last moment to
Cry… and Yell
And then tell yourself
I CAN DO THIS!
I WILL DO THIS!
Because I love them.
Because they need me.
Because... I would want the same for myself and I am able to be there.
You can do this…
I know you can.
I believe in you….
❤️
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