Getting by with less.

This isn't a post about budgeting, or how to play your chiropractor into lessening your care plan, or how to not notice 1000 calories missing from your diet.

This is a post about filling emotional needs when people you depend on are no longer around. This post is about chronic, insufferable, unending loss, and how after time it doesn't really get better*, but you learn to get by with less.

My Grandmother was an excellent listener. She listened when she most likely shouldn't have, but it was one of the most comforting things in the world to call my nana and tell her all of the insane things I'd done and wait for her to smack her lips, laugh, or cry (I'd like to think that crying didn't happen too often). Her form of encouragement was unique. When I wanted to give up and felt like I'd never make it, she would say, "Why don't you come home?" That made me so angry! I'd say, "Why do you want to tempt me with mediocrity?" Then she'd go on to say, "Why don't you just come home, live with me, and get your old job back at the grocery store?" This would dig at my heart and make me feel like a complete failure. How could she say that? How could she say that after working so hard and getting so far, that I should come home and work as a cashier in the local grocery store? And then I would push harder than I ever thought imaginable, and she would beam at me with a pride that bordered evil.

I always suspected that she'd said those things to push me, but I also know that she genuinely missed me being home, so it was always a toss up as to whether she believed her own words or not. I imagine that was a battle she also faced.

So fast forward to now. I am 4 months into private practice. Like most ventures, my weeks are full of ups and downs. Lately I've just wanted someone to talk to. I don't really want to talk about what I do with them:I don't really want to talk very much at all. I just want someone to listen to me, and someone I can listen to that has absolutely nothing to do with my daily efforts. (This is the plight of anyone who's spouse is in the same profession as them.) And more importantly, I want my grandmother to listen to me. So how can I find that same feeling of content, and peace without her physical presence?

You find it where you can.

You'll find that after time, you don't need much. And sometimes you'll mistakenly put that need into someone who isn't really going to help fulfill it. But most of the time, just a pinch of that feeling will return and you'll be ok again for awhile.

Yesterday was a rough day. I cried 4 times. You should probably know that I've cried 4 times in the past 12 months, so 4 times in a day was odd. I cried in my car, cried over a pot of rice, cried in my office, and cried while watching a video of a man who couldn't walk kiss his wife on unsteady feet. It was amidst the car cry that I realized I was upset because I didn't feel as though I had that outlet; that person to argue with quietly until one of us had had enough and we'd sit in silence until we were ready again. That person who egged me to "come home" and settle for what was handed to me at birth. So last night I got up and went to a meeting that I'd kind of been dreading. I showed up and spent way too much time on my phone instead of interacting with people around me. Then one of the most brilliant minds I've ever encountered walked up to me and said, "How's it going?" I said, "I'm ok. I'm doing great, just not where I thought I'd be. I'm impatient." And she replied simply, "Me too." And that was it. That was all I needed. I needed to see that outside of my bubble, the difficulty in visualizing the future while living in the real present was universal.

And that's really the heart of this. The ups and the downs and the ins and outs are not special or unique to Chiropractic, or NFP, or me at all. These feelings and experiences are universal. If you are a SAHM, or a auditor working 85 hours a week, the waves of satisfaction and defeat are just as real for you as they are me. Some times we just need a little shoulder bump as a reminder that all of this is ok. This is all part of some nasty goopy process that will ultimately and unavoidably end in our excellence. We are all in the same life raft and no one ever gets their fair share of steering.



*https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Warwick_Middleton/publication/232480143_Pathological_grief_reactions/links/57637bf008ae9964a16baa32.pdf