It’s no secret that I’ve been feeling rather sorry for myself recently. I thought I’d point it out, in case you couldn’t tell by the surplus tears that I have shed and shared on this space.
Now that the tears have dried and I have the box of pills in front of me, I have had a chance to reflect on it all and I’ve come up with this:
We all have that thing.
You know what I’m talking about.
From the outside you might look like you are living your best life – at least your social media presence may allude to that anyway. And it might even be the truth – you really do have everything that you have ever needed or wanted or longed for.
But then it happens. Your “thing” rears it’s ugly head.
There are days when you are overwhelmed by it, it engulfs you and it feels like you’ll never break free of it’s clutches.
Sometimes you don’t know when it’s coming, but when it strikes you can’t help but acknowledge it and the emotional roller-coaster that goes with it.
That thing for me, is my skin.
For you it could also be physical – the weight that you just can’t drop, the skin that just won’t clear, losing your sight/hearing/ability. It could be mental – dealing with depression or other debilitating illnesses, losing your memory. It could be the emotional hurt of dealing with a disabled child, or not being able to be pregnant, or the loss of a child or parent or loved one. It could be situational – being retrenched, being single when you really want someone to share your life with, living with your parents when you desperately want to start a life of your own. Really, the options are endless – I could go on forever.
We all have something that makes our lives a little harder to live sometimes. It’s SO easy to assume that you are the only one suffering, but I can guarantee you that you are not. Not even close.
So I guess the lesson I learnt from this is that, not only should we be easier on ourselves (especially when comparing our lives to those of our peers), we should try and be more understanding when dealing with others too.