Looking Backward and then Ahead

As my life has more and more narrowed to the limits of this house, and in particular, this room and this recliner...I find that I am starting to live very much in my memories...Even my blogging (especially on the newest blog see:www.cvogelmusing.blogspot.com...) has had this focus. And I find, mercifully, that it is NOT the years of sickness and hell that I've experienced that are occupying my mind...It's the GOOD things that I think about and relish. I'm like an old woman who loves to tell stories of her life to her grandchildren. Sometimes it' s hard to remember that I'm "only" 47 going on 48 in two months...and not 95...It's also hard to realize I'm 47 and not 20. And maybe that latter fact is because my daughter is around that stage in life of budding independence and the uncertainty and and fears that accompany that. She is also enjoying a new relationship with a young man and doing things like I used to: like going to a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show...all dolled up in outrageous getup... And as I'm re-experiencing these things through her life, the memories come flooding back...and once, more I'm twenty.

Of course for me, my twenties were NOT good times. Psychiatric hospitals one after another...totally irrational behaviour...worrying all those who loved me...and frustrating doctor after doctor who tried desperately to help me. They were dark and really horrible days. But still, my mind manages to cling to moments here and there. Moments of my first real relationship...a beautiful place I may have walked in, times of socializing with, yes, I confess, my share of drinking and drugs...none of which really appealed to me...I just did them because I had no better reason not to.

I think now of the people who loved and cared for me through those years. Of therapists to whom I KNOW I was more than just another patient. Some of them honestly did care...And they never knew, when I was gone...what ever happened to me. (That must be a hard thing to deal with in that profession.) But anyway...It is THESE things where my mind lingers...not on some of the nights of horrible violence toward myself...or the restraints in which I spent endless days. The state and county hospitals where I went when I was without insurance.... those things are shut off from my considerations. They are there, lurking like a mound of dirty laundry under the bedcovers that you know you just DON'T want to look at...so you leave it there and pay attention to anything else but that.

I think of the health and physical stamina which I used to have. In the former days of my life with my husband and daughter, I took care of our home as well as cleaned one or two large homes on the side...earning money to support us while my husband was in school and couldn't work. It ws nothing to me to clean two monstrous homes in a single day! And then come home and cook a big dinner....

I think of the happy days after I got out of my wheelchair after a round with steroid myopathy and asthma...when I worked as an artist...Well, if you want to read some of these recollections take a look at the other blog. That blog is a bit more lighthearted in its look at things than this one is turning out to be. And I'm hoping that that is an indication of a change in my personality. I've always been a person who tended to focus on the darker side of things...shutting my eyes to the light around me...And recently, largely due to my involvement in the Spark People online community, I've begun to have a distaste for all the negativity ...and to make real efforts to eradicate that from my heart. I was so happy yesterday when a woman on one of the forums noted the change in my tone and attitude and complimented my new, more positive view of things.

Even on Spark...I don't tend to focus on the fifty pounds I have lost...I look at the thirty I have yet to lose. And that is something I also want to change about myself: to take credit for and enjoy victories like that. I've done some amazing things in my life. Things that required great strength of will and character...like working my way out of three bouts of being completely wheelchair bound...the second time, having been told by doctors and therapists that I would never walk again. I guess there must be SOMETHING positive in my beliefs about life and myself, that I would reject those dire words and never once let them plant themselves into my beliefs. I KNEW I would be able to walk again if I worked hard enough...and I did...for two years in daily PT, until, I was up and walking.

Learning numerous occupations and jobs ...from artistic to secretarial to customer service to medical ...the fields were varied--and I always excelled at what I did...until my illnesses began to interfere to such a degree that I was forced to resign from these jobs after some years of being there. Sometimes it was a physical disability that halted me; and others, a mental...but until that happened, I was careful always to do my best...and that best was always above the standard of expectation held for me.

I am not telling you these things to make you impressed with me, but telling myself them, so that I will begin to believe them and to own them. The only thing about that that is so difficult is that once I own the good things in my past...it does tend to make my present more sad and my future look more bleak. I am attempting, rather resolutely, not to look at where my illnesses are taking me and at what may well occur - even soon. I'm trying not to view my present circumstances to be as pathetic as they probably, in reality are. If I think of the future at ALL (and I mean this very literally) I only think of where I'll be once I cross the final exit to this life and entrance to my real LIFE. I've been reading a lot of Randy Alcorn's books, both nonfiction and fiction, on the topic of Heaven...and I thank God for him, because he has turned upside down my misconceptions and with the imaginative and Scriptural way he has presented what awaits us there, I can only look forward to it with intense eagerness and joy.

I know that the reason that the numerous brushes with death that I've experienced in past years have not taken me out that door, sooner, was because God still had a lot of work to do in my character - refining me and teaching me to love and trust him more. I'm in a hurry to learn all these lessons so that I can experience what lies ahead sooner. I think of that place often. I think of finally seeing Y'shua and embracing him...or just falling down and worshiping him...and the anticipation is unbearable. But I am at the same time content to wait, because I know that I still have things to do here. My daughter in particular, needs me now. And there are still people, possibly who might be encouraged by my emails and the blogs and the forums I participate in. And most importantly, God has simplified my life (down to the really BORING level, haha) so that I can learn to spend more time with him and in prayer for the numerous missions workers whom I support with my prayers and encouragement. So, my life, although uneventful, is still meaningful...and it still will be even if I become completely incapacitated. But at the same time, I do not want there to be excessive attempts to keep me here...because I've got Places to go and People to see!