Fight for the Beautiful

It’s almost midnight on New Year’s Eve.  The ball is beginning its descent in Times Square.  People are counting down, “10. . . 9. . . 8. . . “ and even as you feel the inevitable pull toward the future, your eyes tear up a little.  Another year is over.   “3. . . 2. . . 1!”  Amidst all the “Happy New Year’s!” and the nostalgic strains of “Auld Lang Syne,” you can almost feel yourself with one foot in 2017 and one in 2018.  Go ahead—take the step.  Just one question:  do you know what you’re stepping towards?

I didn’t use to care.  New year, new day, whatever.  It was all the same to me.  When you’re in a drug or alcohol induced haze, it’s hard to care about much.  Since getting sober, I care very much.  I wasted too much time on purposeless living.  I don’t want to waste any more.  So as I said in my last blog post, I’m learning to be purposeful about goal setting.  And I have spent some time on the banks of the Rubicon deciding what to leave behind in 2017.  Now what?

My experience in the last couple of years has taught me the importance of having a guiding goal to propel me forwards.   And that experience is all tied up with my old lifelong nemesis—migraines.  It truly has been a lifelong enemy—I had my first migraine when I was five.  I remember laying in bed thinking that I was dying.  And so it began.  Since that day, I’ve had maybe five pain free days in my entire life.  I don’t say this for sympathy, and I’m certainly not exaggerating when I say it.  It’s just a fact of my life.  I don’t have migraines every day, but I do have headaches.  All the time.  Pain is just a part of my daily life.

The search to end that pain took me to some very dark places.  I have spent so much time and energy looking for pain relief; I can’t even imagine what the financial toll has been.  I have been to acupuncturists.  Chiropractors.  Pain clinics.  Neurology centers.  I’ve tried Botox.  Steroid infusions.  Pain blocks.  Blood patches.  Every drug from Vicodin to Fentanyl.  I’ve had spinal taps.  Three procedures on my neck to burn nerve endings.  Bottom line?  If it exists, and there’s even marginal anecdotal evidence that it might lessen pain, I’ve tried it.  And towards the end of 2016, I finally said to Monty, “At what point do I quit?  At what point do I say I can’t do this anymore?  I can’t keep hoping and being disappointed.  I’m wasting my good moments focusing on finding a cure for the bad ones.”

Then, at my next recovery meeting, I heard something life-changing.  Not surprisingly, I’d heard it hundreds of times before; it just hadn’t sunk in.  But I heard it that night, as if God had tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Renee.  Listen.”  Then shouted it at me with a megaphone: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

As if for the first time, I heard that phrase: “accept the things I cannot change.”  After the meeting, I thought and prayed and then talked to Monty and told him that I’d decided to accept my migraines.  I was done searching for a cure.  As far as I can see, right now there isn’t one.  And so I have accepted that.  Let me be very clear: I’m not giving up hope.  I will always hope for a cure.  But I’m done wasting time and money and every pain-less moment thinking about future pain.  So last year, I crossed the Rubicon with my migraines and left my search for a cure in 2016.

And the most amazing thing happened.  I was forced to change my focus.  Instead of focusing on fighting pain—current pain, past pain, future pain—I began to focus on filling every pain-less moment with everything that was beautiful to me.  My boys.  My family.  Monty.  I’d wasted years and years because I was afraid to make plans because of the possibility of pain.  In 2017, I stopped fighting the pain and started fighting to make a life for myself in spite of the pain.  Looking back on this year, I’m so grateful for that acceptance.  Almost everything I’ve done this year—vacations, this blog, time with Monty—has been because I accepted that there would be pain and fought to live a beautiful life anyway.

And it is so beautiful.  I’ve found myself asking Monty the same question over and over again this past year:  Was it always this beautiful?  Did the full moon over the prairie always look so big and so close—like you could reach up and touch it?  Were the trees always so yellow and orange in fall?  Did the lilacs always smell like they were holding the hope of springtime just below their surface?  Did Seamus’s eyes always have so many different shades of green?  Was life always this beautiful?  I’m seeing it now—all the beauty in the world.  All because of one simple decision: to stop fighting against something and start fighting for something.

What will you fight for this year?  I haven’t decided yet.  I’m still on the banks of the Rubicon, choosing what to leave behind in 2017 and what to fight for in 2018.  I won’t let myself forget that the all-important serenity prayer has three parts to it:  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  It’s time for me to get to work on the next parts of the prayer—changing what I can and having the wisdom to know what that is.

I do know that I’ll keep moving forward as I fight every day for all the beauty that life has for me.  I have a feeling Monty’s going to be hearing that same question a lot this year:  Was it always this beautiful?  Was it?  I don’t know.  But I’ve had a glimpse of it now, and I’m determined to fight for it every single day for the rest of my life.  In pain or not.  I’m not wasting any more of this one precious life I’ve been given by waiting to live it only in pain-free, perfect moments.  I’m looking forward to 2018 with hope and with this one goal to guide each of its days: to fight for the beautiful.  I want to make it always this way.