Thursday, August 26, 2010

It Is What It Is

How many days can I write about exhaustion
before you get exhausted reading about it?
C'est la vie.
I am going out of town for work this morning.
Which meant I could sleep in.
I managed a whole 11 minutes worth.
My body, once it gets on a schedule, really wants me to stick to it.

My heart rate has been elevated all week plus doing flip flops.
It does that every so often and I'm sure it adds to the tiredness.
After being thoroughly checked out regularly by cardiologists
over the years it is what it is.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to be actively compassionate towards a coworker. I took it. I can't come up with those ideas on my own. On my own it's all about me, me, me. So I am grateful for the grace to follow through, on the days when I actually hear a nudge. I'm sure I am given many more opportunities a day that don't even register on my consciousness.

My coworker is grieving a very difficult loss. Sometimes you just need to hash out the details again and again because they are really too horrifying to let roll around in your brain unspoken. I made a commitment to her yesterday to listen for as long as it takes. I managed to zip my lip and not say one pithy statement either.

I doubt there is a thing you can say to a grieving person that helps. There are lots of things that get said that are damaging. Someone once told me after I miscarried that I was never meant to have babies anyway. I never really grieved that loss (not because of what the person said, it wasn't their fault) until years later when my body was threatening to miscarry again and the ultrasound technician showed me the tiny heartbeat of my 7 week old son. Who is now youngest son.

Well, it is time to eat breakfast and pack.
I have a great group of people to travel with today even though I much prefer to drive by myself. That isn't an option so I am going to make the best of what is today.


Photo Credit

2 comments:

StrongNHim said...

Oh... tear again! Hope... you give me some!

Emily J. said...

Good for you for listening. A difficult thing to do sometimes. I'm still trying to figure out how to talk to people who are grieving. A lady I see at Mass told me today her son had died a few years ago at age 21. "Oh, how sad" was all I could say. What do you say?