Beginning today I shall try to look ahead with a more positive attitude. I wish to embrace all the love and the beauty I have in my life instead of focusing on what I have lost. For I have so much to be grateful now – including the love of a wonderful man and my remaining Blyss borzoi, Paris, that they more than cancel them out. I am wrong when I dwell too long on perceived past pains and losses, many of which are delusional thoughts. Yet for me, they feel so recent and real, as if the present does not exist. It has been a strange mental illness that I have carried along with me on my life’s journey, a habit I learned from my mother and grand-mother, both of whom were grand masters of it.
I have been told – no, warned – that this is very dangerous territory for me and to stop it. I know I must because I am already ill enough and cannot afford to endure anymore. I can do it now, I know that. I have no excuse.
Yesterday became the beginning of several days of a February thaw. The piles of snow are beginning to melt, the driveway is visible again, and it is safe for me to venture outdoors without falling. I believe I even heard the chirping of birds not usually heard until the end of March and that brought me great joy.
Spring and the end of my treatments for my physical illness are only a month or two away. The need for positive thoughts in my mind has never been greater! I thank the handful of true friends and relatives who have stood by me wholeheartedly. You know who you are. And, most sadly, I mourn the even one more who evaluated me once again, found me lacking, and the need to throw me away.
I realize I am not alone with my demons and a past that is alive and well for others, too. And there are those whose demons are few and far between and others still who have a serenity they can harbor within themselves and impart to others! I realize today through my illness that we must all find our point on the “happiness” continuum: that point between strength and weakness of our demons, or absence or strength of serenity. If they are weak or lacking, then we must try to live our lives in a way that will bring it into a more positive balance. I suspect if we do not, we will always be ill in our own fashion.