Death and Relations Can be Painful

Staying Alive!

Staying Alive

How do you stay alive in the midst of death, sickness, disappointment, diseases, and a hot of other things that one by one take away you desire to live?  Staying alive, not living, but honestly staying alive and enjoying the minute can be difficult, but it can be done.

Over the past three years, I have chosen to stay alive.  I was already living and believe that I will live until God calls me home and/or my ticket given to me at birth has been cashed.  In the past, I had lived, taken risk, spoken out, enjoyed challenges, made waves, and jumped through a few hoops.  But for eighteen years, I got up, went to the bathroom, got dressed, went to work, came home, talked on the phone, went on a few trips, came back and started my routine all over again.  I played it safe.  I was "fine."  I didn't have a care in the world, and life was moving on.

One day, I wondered what had happened to me?  Where was that energetic and happy go lucky young woman that I had so admired?  She had ceased to exit, and now only her shell remained.  She had taken a wrong turn, and for those eighteen years, could not find her way back.  She had stopped living.

Living requires some effort.  You got to want to.  You have got to have a reason, and you have got to take the time to make it happen.

The first step is to recognize that you want to live not just exit.  Next you have to create situations that makes you reignite the process that made you so alive before or feel alive now.  In my case, I had to get back out there and take some risk.  For example a trip cross Country alone.  Meeting new people along the way, and stopping whenever the car required gas.  The second thing was to retake my independence.  Cut the children and the grandchildren a loose.  They would be alright even if I was not there.  Third, stop hoarding the money.  You can't spend it if you give it all away to other people causes, e.g., helping to pay the mortgage for this one, bailing this one out of foreclosure, helping this one through college, and that one get his car out of repossession.  None of these things were for you, and no one will ever pay them back.  In addition, hoping that they will remember and be there for you when you have need says that you are going to be waiting a very long time.  Change your focus from the world to you.

Changing your focus on the world to you sounds and feels very selfish.  It is!  That is not your natural nature, but to stay alive and to not just exist means changing some things.  The easiest change in the world is to focus on you because it is the one thing over which you have control.  Now, actually carrying this selfish act is much harder, but necessary.  It's hard to say no to the children and grandchildren, especially when you have always said yes.  But you must learn that no is an except able answer,  It is also an acceptable act to spend your hard earned money on you!

You went to work every day.  You went sick, tired, and in all kinds of weather.  you took care of your children.  You were there for them through elementary, middle, and high school.  You are probably still helping to pay off that college debt that you incurred to make sure that they could finish.  You were there for the down payment on the house, and many more of their life occurrences.  NOW, it is time for you, and guilt has no place.  No is an acceptable answer.  You do have a right to spend some of what you have earned on you!  Yes, a $10,000 diamond ring is worthy of you.  You earned it.  A trip to the Bahamas is a must, if you have never been.  A $75,000 RV is something you have always wanted and you should get it while you can still see to drive it.  That cross Country trip is still calling you.

Oh, and yes, that trip to Greece that you promised yourself as you chased children, changed diapers, and made sure that life was good for everyone else, is still up for purchase.  You can go it alone or you can go it with someone, but you must do it.  You are not getting any younger, and there is still a lot of life in you.  You just got to get out there, take the risk, and live it.  You can choose to stay alive or you can choose to just live, and one day accept dying without the memories of having really lived.

I choose to stay alive!