Five Months/Less Bitching, Please

Last night I went to sleep and this morning I awoke with a clear and present thought on my mind: it has been five months.  Five months since I last fell asleep in the same room with the love of my life.  Five months since I audibly heard him tell me he loves me.  Five months since I held him in my arms, kissed his sweet face, smelled his soft hair, and whispered in his ear. 

It all remains so fresh in my mind that it seems like it was just yesterday and no time has passed.  Yet, it also feels so long ago.  How many memorial services/moments have I held for you, Ron, in a variety of ways/settings?  How many times have I talked about you, wrote about you, wrote to you, or shared your story?  How many things do I do daily in your memory and in your honor?  Multiplied over the past five months, how much have you been honored by me, by your friends, and by your family?  These cumulative moments and events, as well as all the changes that happen in the world and in our lives, make it also feel like it has been eons. 

This morning when I left for work before the sun came out, there was frost on the car and grass.  Five months ago when my brother, sister-in-law, and I took the dogs outside in the morning after Ron died, there was a warm breeze and beautiful birds singing in the sunshine.  Seasons forever changing.  His body died during his favorite season, a time of rebirth and growth.  Five months later, during my favorite season, everything that was springing to life when he died is now dying and going dormant.  This feels so flip-flopped in my heart.  Ron is not here to see it.  How many things happen to me in my life that I want to tell him about or experience with him?  His absence is always painful to me, even when life itself gets easier to live.

In the last five months, there have been three days during which I did not cry.  They were not magic or special days.  Just days when the tears didn’t come, for whatever reason.  The rest of the days, today being no exception, at some point or another, my heart is overcome with the longing and grief and sadness I feel.  It wells over.  The feeling is expansive.  My chest caves and my face gives way and the tears flow. 

One particular thing I am struck by today is the amount of complaining and whining most people, myself included, do about our daily lives.  For as much of a necessary social support Facebook has become in my now isolated life, I am sick of reading posts that are nothing more than grumbling about the day-to-day challenges we all face.  I also face the same litany of complaints when talking to certain people and, again, I am guilty of coming up with a list of gripes of my own.  I should clarify here that I am not talking about people who are up against big emotions or life-altering situations.  I know firsthand how important being able to talk about the big stuff was for me.  I am talking about those of us who choose to complain about everyday little things, like having to do dishes, pay bills, vacuum, do laundry, put gas in the car when it’s expensive, study, work, exercise, clean up after a messy child or pet, etc.  This is not an exhaustive list and I think you get the gist.  This is not to say that we should inherently find these activities fun or exciting – we may or may not.  They may truly feel like a huge bummer in one’s day.  But they are necessary parts of living.  They are things we all have to do in order to get by. 

To complain about it does not change the necessity of doing these things.  Does it even help us at all to “vent” about our woes?  Sometimes I think that is what I am doing, venting, which seems like it should be somehow therapeutic, but I am not sure it really helps me.  And how does it impact others, who hear or read us complaining?  If we find that it is not really helping us all that much and may, in fact, be creating a negative or irritating environment for others, should we continue to engage in this behavior?  It is, like all behaviors, a choice.  It may be a habit we have gotten ourselves into.  Maybe it is one that is even reinforced by others who can sympathize or commiserate with us.  But, in the long run, if this behavior is not helping anyone, perhaps it is time to stop and find a new way to approach or cope with these things.  Can you imagine a world with less negative, grumpy, bitchy posts on Facebook?  A world in which coworkers did not complain to one another about the routine facets of the job that earns them a paycheck?  A world in which we didn’t criticize each other?  A world in which we found things to do rather than protest about being bored?  A world in which we accepted all the little chores as a part of life and just moved forward with them rather than fighting against them?

The reason this hits home for me today is that Ron complained so very little.  Before he was sick, he sometimes made complaints that were funny, written or said to insight laughter from others (of course he still did this after he was diagnosed, too).  During his illness, even though he had far more to complain about than any of the rest of us, he did not complain . . . at least not very often, certainly not about the mundane, and only rarely about his sad situation.  The physical pain, emotional hurt and fear at facing death, and frustration with losing function and friends and having to depend on others . . . these are all things Ron could have rightfully complained daily about.  But, to those readers who knew him, I ask you, how often did you really hear him complain?  I lived with him.  I was witness to all of these issues.  I can tell you he did not complain about much, right down to the very end.  And the stuff he did complain about was completely understandable.

It also strikes me that Ron no longer gets to participate in these stupid, day-to-day activities.  I know he would have rather been still here - “stuck with” laundry, “burdened by” bills, “saddled with” cleaning - than deceased.  His life was cut far too short.  He got ripped out of this world too fast.  He was not allowed to continue to share in the human experience – in the good, bad, ugly, boring, or beautiful that it is.  It is over for him here on earth.  And he loved this life.  He loved living.  He did not want to die.  I cannot emphasize that enough from my talks with him over the long months that he knew he was terminally ill.  He did not want to be done . . . he just was given no choice.

So, I get to thinking: if Ron cannot participate in this life, who am I to complain about it?  Any humdrum chores I have can be accomplished, likely more efficiently, if I am not taking time out to object about having to do them.  It is time to move forward with less of this angry weight on my heart.  It is time to approach things with a more positive outlook.  It is time to stop acting like a victim of this life and start living it like I want to be in it.  Living it like Ron did - with enthusiasm and fullness and humor and love. 

I am making a conscious effort to shift my perspective and how I talk about things.  Maybe you can find it in your heart to do the same.  Until more people adopt this approach, though, I am seriously considering blocking the frequent complainers from my newsfeed.  The sad thing is, in doing this, I lose access to the joyful moments they may share.  I wish Mark Zuckerberg could devise a feature that would allow you to just turn off the Facebook bitching and not lose the rest, but since this does not exist, I instead ask you to do some soul searching the next time you feel compelled to complain about some small detail.  Will it help you to spread your negativity to others?  Would Ron have bitched about this?  (He was dying of cancer and barely bitched about that, so it is doubtful.)  Can this thing be accomplished with no complaints?  What will really make me feel better (dropping my laundry off, hiring a cleaning person, approaching the studying with gratitude that I am able to learn new things, taking joy and pride in my exercise efforts, dividing up big chores so they seem more manageable, rewarding myself in some way for completing a task I don’t like, taking a gamble and just not doing this thing that everyone else does to see what happens if I don’t, etc) and can I do that instead?  How will I feel about myself if I make and follow a choice to do things differently?  Most importantly, what if the alternative to doing this silly little thing was not to exist?  Would I want that?  If the answer is ever yes, than it is time to seriously consider whether this chore or activity has room to exist in your life.  But if the answer is no, then let’s just take the good and take the bad and take them both and then we’ll have (as the old tv theme song goes) the facts of life.

Five months later, Ron remains an inspiration to me.  I still feel him influencing me to live my life with more humility, gratitude, and compassion.  Today, one way in which I honor Ron’s memory is to move forward with less bitching.  We have this day.  Let us be glad in it and all that comes with it . . . for a day will come when we don't have any more days.