Perspective

Here I sit, on a Monday, not feeling like my job is going to kill me (a change of pace for sure) and thinking about all that has happened in the past week to give me perspective.

I've been going through what is, for me, some pretty painful family turmoil about addressing deep emotional abuse, anger, remorse, fear, and everything (for my family, anyway) that comes about when a person in your family is aging to the point of being very near death.

Most likely because I have never been affected by death, I am not afraid of it -- of myself dying or of others dying. Of course no one I have loved deeply has ever died. But it seems that when people get close to death, those who love them get very nervous and sad -- hence the turmoil.

In the midst of these family issue breaking out last week, my friend ice cream told me that a good friend of hers -- a young man in his late 30s who was in excellent health and was one of those people who is so fully engaged with the world that his curiousity and joie de vivre is contagious -- died suddenly during a Saturday afternoon nap. He left behind a wife and other family members, not to mention a huge community of friends and colleagues.

In my mind I compared the death of ice cream's friend to the impending death that my family is addressing and thought of what a luxury it is for my family to have the opportunity to accept and deal with the loss of my grandmother before it actually happens. I, being the recipient of the emotional abuse, have no love lost for my grandmother. I have been eagerly awaiting her departure for many years. But last week I understood why it might be important to not just let her go without achieving closure and maybe forgiveness.

Because what if I didn't have a choice? What if someone I love just died without warning? And what if I had unfinished business with that person?

And what about everything else that I mentally or sometimes (ok, maybe a lot) verbally complain about in my daily life?

My Job
a) At least I have one
b) What am I doing to improve/change the situation?
c) At least no one at my job is committing any crimes
d) At least the job I have is paying me, and paying me well enough to live a fairly priveleged life
e) At least my job doesn't require me to subjugate or degrade myself

My Life
a) I am reasonably healthy
b) I have a home to go to and a bed to sleep in
c) I have love and affection and excellent friends
d) I have parents that love and support me and do not make me feel unworthy of them
e) The city where I live does not have war or suicide bombers or genocide or famine

So, really, even though I feel terrible and wish that I didn't have to deal with all of this family b******t, it could be worse. It could be so much worse.