I told my best friend today that I realized I am getting old when I looked in my grocery basket and realized I had probiotics and metamucil. Nice.
I’m really not so old, not quite forty yet. That is six months away, but somedays I feel 140.
I don’t feel good in general. I have had my share of health issues, and so today going to my doctor for chronic reflux and gastrointestinal problems is just one of the ways I’m attempting to beat fate and be healthier.
He gave me meds for GERD, recommended a ‘probiotic’ program and fiber… says it will help me lose the weight I want as well. Then referred me to an Intestinal Disease Center since I already have diverticulosis and have had years of GERD, he wants to cover all the bases so to speak.
On the ‘up’ side, he says I’ve only gained five pounds in a year. Hm. That’s an ‘up’? To me it’s not because in the mirror that five pounds looks like fifty.
I don’t feel good about myself. I remember a time when I felt VERY good about myself, very confident and very self assured and somewhere along this road I lost it, and I don’ t remember how or why and I don’t know what to do or how to get it back.
A question popped in my head tonight on the way home from picking up my kids. “Is it well with my soul?”
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I remember in days gone by reading a book called “All is Well With My Soul”. But thinking on it, I have to admit that no, all is not well with my soul.
If I died tonight I would not feel as if my life had much meaning or success. I would feel disappointed in it. I wouldn’t know for sure who loved me, or how much, and I wouldn’t be sure they knew that I loved them or how much.
So if I had no more tomorrows left my life would be a sad thing, unfinished. I felt my father’s life was ‘unfinished’. He left a lot of loose ends, and left a lot of things undone, and a lot of questions in the wake of his unexpected parting from this earth. I know if I were to die tonight it would be that way with me as well.
When I go, when it is my time, I want my life to have a finished feel, like I did all I could do, loved as much as I could love and that all those I loved KNEW and FELT it without a doubt– that I knew and felt how much I was loved as well.
I want life without doubt and without regret. I want to look back and know with confidence I made all the right decisions to lead me to the place I was meant to be.
I long to be confident me. I am tired of being a shadow of myself. I am tired of being quiet to appease and because I feel no courage in being me. I feel no accomplishment, and I want to.
I want to be remembered for being good, loved, loving, and more.
My father though his life was seemingly unfinished, he was remembered by all who knew him as a very hard working man who cared a lot about the people he worked to protect, and loved his family very much. That was the main thing that is remembered about him. Is it what he wanted? I don’t know. I’ll never know. I don’t know what my father’s dreams were and that to me is sad. I know at times he did many things, that meant perhaps he had some dreams that he attempted to pursue.
My father was a stuntman who did a western stunt show when I was a child. He worked on big ships. He raced cars. He rode in rodeos. He drove a big rig. He drove a motorcycle. He played in a rock band. He was involved in a lot of things throughout his life: Elks, CB club, Fire Department, City Council, AFSCME, and various committees and in politics. But did I know if any of those was his dream? I don’t and that hurts.
I have a few dreams, though one at least is unrealistic. Even so, I can’t seem to accept that I can’t or won’t have it. Some part of me clings to it and I think always will. I fear my dreams will not come to fruition and also will my children know what my dreams were? Will it be enough to inspire them to reach for theirs?
These are just a few of my fragmented thoughts circling through my mind, and all indicative of why all is not well with my soul…
I’m trying to get well, in my body, but I also realize I have some getting well to do in other areas also.
