You Can Get To Livin' Or You Can Get To Dyin'...

...but you can't do both. I had a doctor say that to me once. Not one I was particularly fond of, I might add, but I saw the truth in his wisdom. Of course his version of living was to pump me full of Lyrica & Cymbalta and watch me balloon up to epic proportions, a walking pancreas attack waiting to happen, so I found a new doctor. But today as I realize I am straddling life and death simultaneously that phrase took on a whole new meaning. Part of me has died, I have just been refusing to acknowledge it. That type-A overachiever-perfectionist control-freak rise-to-any-occasion work-until-I-collapse girl is dead. She died in that hospital bed on July 30th when I was informed I was a stroke victim, it just took me going back to my old job to realize it. The last 2 days at work have been awful. Retail in this economy is tough, and I cannot even begin to do back-flips over what I am calling the "75 Point Service Objectives" I am required to perform on each customer in order to squeeze every last penny out of them. It just seems so irrelevant! I have forgotten basic product knowledge that in the past I could recite in my sleep. I am, by my normal standards, half-assing it! But my natural inclination is to achieve, and pulling in the reigns on myself darn near impossible. If there are 4 people standing there that need to be helped I will help them all, to the point that I am ready to collapse! Racing around at top speed, forgetting what I am doing from one minute to the next, my hair frizzing out so I look like my poodle, sweat carving rivulets through my makeup as it pours down my face, hands shaking and words tripping over my tongue in incoherent babble. Oh I was a sight! So about halfway through today it smacked me in the face. You are done. The cost is too high, the price too steep. I do not have to give what this job demands and cannot risk myself, be careless with myself, push myself anymore.

I have been attempting to get back in the box I lived in pre-strokes, and I just don't fit in it anymore. What happened is a really big deal. Huge, and I have not been giving it proper gravity in my life. Don't get me wrong, its been my obsession day in and day out, returning to Spanish class and work and resuming "normal", like I could just dust myself off and jump right back on the horse I was riding before my brain's blood vessels decided to have an electric show. I believe that is because normal is what I fought so hard to get back to when I was seriously disabled with CFS & Fibromyalgia. Going back to work, having a social life again, resuming and regaining some of what I had lost. But over the last two days, with each pang in my brain or ping in my body, I became acutely aware of how vulnerable I really am and close to death I actually came. I also know how lucky I am to have survived intact and cannot continue to rely on my own wisdom to see me through this momentous challenge. I have got to put my actions behind my words and live in faith not fear! I have to listen to my body for once in my life and recognize the ill-fated pattern. I pushed myself into Pancreatitis, past Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, right through Fibromyalgia and slid into home plate with 2 strokes, i'm out! NO MORE PUSHING MYSELF! Of course that goes against every value I was raised with but look where they have gotten me...not a pretty sight.

So I am going to get to livin'. Its just going to be in a different form than it was before. I am so paranoid and freaked out about all the details of life that I cannot control and until I relinquish that control it will be my control! I believe I was created with a purpose and a gift, I have been sharpened and honed in many different ways to develop that gift and now need to sit back and allow it to take form in my life. I can do it my way or God's way, and I am finally ready to choose God's way.

Thanks for joining,
Leah