I am dying. It isn't a terrible cancer scare or airplane crash as I fly through tumultuous skies. Instead it is the very act of living that is killing me. Each day I am growing older. Each day I am decaying. I fast forward that very process with the great killers of stress, poor nutrition choices and lack of exercise because I am too tired.
I often wonder why I choose a Milky Way over life? Why that 10 minutes of lounging on the couch is worth more to me than 10 minutes on the treadmill? Hasn't the time passed the same? Not moving faster or slower but still the same 10 minutes and yet how much better I could choose to spend my time.
I am indolent by nature and truly prefer the lounging but unfortunately like time and tide my indolence has caught up with me and I'm dying. Death by chocolate bar. Death by indolence. Death by time and stress and disease.
For some of this I have no control, as I cannot stop time for me except for my death. I have no desire to rush that event either. I cannot change some of the diseases I now find myself facing. They are what they are and I am not God with the ability to stop either time or disease. But for other deaths I do have choices. I could choose to watch my weight and exercise and somehow figure out a way to lower stress.
Certainly I know how to fix my diet and my exercise or lack thereof. I don't want my tombstone to read 'death by eating crap food.' But the death by stress confuses me greatly. Work is stress. Family is stress. Writing is stress. Driving is stress. Flying is stress. Marriage is stress. Parenting is stress. Living is stress. Even owning a pet is stress (as anyone who has had to put down an animal as I just did can attest to).
I am a bundle of nerves--some frayed, some severed, some twisted and bent. So I tried yoga and felt some relief until I leave the studio and my stress intensifies for now I find myself berating myself for carving out the time for the class from my busy schedule.
I listen to calming music and try to practice meditation. By my mind plays hopscotch from one subject to another as I try to slow it down. How to combat this killer stress?
I know that I am causing harm as stress intensifies the pain of my Fibromyalgia, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue. It increases my blood pressure and harms my heart which I'm sure does not help my Peripheral Arterial Disease.
I am dying from a lack of inner and outer calm. What is with me that I cannot contain my inner thoughts, cannot turn off the tape in my head that pushes me to do more, achieve more, work more and attain? This "more" mentality is killing me slowly but surely.
I try to gain some perspective as I look out the window of the airplane I am flying on and see all the tiny houses and cars below me filled with ant like beings scurrying from one place to another. So full of self importance and yet barely showing up from my vantage, and I wonder if this isn't a bit like God. I look down and see the insanity of it all and I shake my head lovingly with a mixture of wonder and confusion. Does it really matter? Why don't we pursue the important things like salvation, charity and hope with the same desperation as we pursue the bigger house, the job promotion or the latest car or electronic toy?
From my vantage point I see that our pursuits are nothing more than a speck in the scheme of things. I am nothing more than a speck and my hive of busyness and stress is nothing, at least, nothing more than I allow it to be. So here I am, looking down, listening to calming music and wondering what I really have to be stressed about that is quite literally taking my life day by day.
I know once I land in this plane I will pick up my stresses as surely as I will pick up my luggage from baggage claim. I will consider my to-do list and no doubt add to it. The tightness in my chest will return but for a minute now I can be still and know the Almighty is God and in control and though my stressors are just little specks to Him, He cares for me and the specks that make up my life.
I am trying very hard to slow down, to allow myself to heal. To break the chains that mind me named "more" and "ambition" and "attainment" and instead learn to live a healthier life.
I know I have an obligation to take care of myself not only for myself but to my family and friends. I am trying to be still and calm, trying to slow down my self destructive march to certain death. I am trying to embrace the fragility of life and nurture and protect that life. I am trying to leave stress behind me as much as possible. But I am struggling with this. Somehow I have to learn to live like I am dying without killing myself in the meantime.
By the way, has anyone seen my luggage? Stressed, party of one at the baggage claim.
(Written August 15, 2010 while flying to Dallas, TX)
