I’ve always been that person who just plods through whatever and then breaks down when the crisis is over. I’m the one who can’t cry at a funeral but completely loses my shit twenty years later because my mind went wandering that way for no apparent reason.
This morning I had to take Bruce back to Columbus for another scan, another stop on his fight against cancer that began suddenly last November. That is another saga that is difficult and painful enough for me to observe even though I am not the one with the disease.
Take the Cologuard commercial seriously, folks, because the alternative isn’t pretty or fun.
I despise rush hour traffic even more perhaps than when it was a daily thing for me. I don’t miss living in the city or navigating in it, but I can do it if I need to.
We left early, so I took the back roads. It was refreshing to enjoy the view on one of those rare clear sunny days out in the sticks and to avoid most of the freeway traffic.
It was nice to step away from the dumpster fire for a moment.
I take comfort in the fact that this world, this life is not the end. The visual of Job digging at his sores with potsherds or of the dogs licking Lazarus’ wounds doesn’t sound as horrible when I realize trials aren’t permanent. God has lessons for us in them even when we don’t get it and can’t see beyond the pain.
Pain is real, but it is also temporary.
It is an unfortunate consequence of both my ethnic background and my own messed up wiring that no matter how messed up a situation is, the knee-jerk response is to just say, “I’m fine.”
Not by a long shot.
If this life were a charter cruise, I would have to decline to recommend it. But my enjoyment isn’t the point of the endeavor.
ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL: 