What do you do when your world is out of control?
Eat chocolate. Gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate.
What do you do when you can't button your jeans?
Go for a bike ride or two or twenty seven. Take the dog for a walk. Ask a friend to accompany you.
What do you do when your child is is suddenly not doing well?
Call a friend. Connect with your computer. Find a support group.
Know you're not alone.
But that's not enough.
Find a GREAT team of doctors.
But that's not enough. Results can take months. Years.
What do you do when you're running out of money because of all the health bills? When your family's in turmoil? When you can't do a damn thing about it? When today you cannot save your child from this sickness?
Go for a bike ride. Go for a run. Sweat it out.
What do you do when you can't even get out of the safe den of your bed?
Read.
Escape into fiction.
Stories that end happily. Mysteries that are solved.
Listen to music.
Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow.
If you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on....
Take a pill.
But the pill made me gain ten pounds. And crave chocolate.
Hug a sweetheart.
Hug a pet.
Watch a movie. One with a happy ending. One that makes you laugh. Watch Big Bang Theory. Or There's Something About Mary.
Bake brownies.
Give them all away.
Accept hugs.
Email a friend who is happy to hear from you just because you're you.
Clean out your closet.
Scrub your kitchen.
Bake.
Research. Google every PubMed article there is.
Cry. In the car, alone, on the way to buying tissues. Or chocolate.
Believe.
Somewhere out there, someone can help us find an answer, a solution, an end to the intensity of this upset.
Force yourself to believe
that one year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, all will be better, safe, secure, happy.
You're not alone. Where you are struggling, others have also struggled.
Where you are searching for solutions, others have found solutions.
If you're reading this, you're not living in a cardboard hut with dysentary and no running water.
And you have at least one friend.
Me.
For some of us, life is a gray, windswept land. Only the howl of the clouds surrounds us.
There is a huge stone mountain if we keep walking.
On the other side are surf and sundrops.
And although we weren't born mountain climbers, we need to get around or over that mountain and to the other side.
Holding hands, we can do it.
While eating chocolate.
A friend got in touch with me. You read my blog, looking for inspiration. I am afraid that perhaps my last few blog entries don't offer much inspiration. This one's for you. I needed to read this also. With love.