Life Keeps Demanding Living

The last three years have just been one thing after another. Divorce, kid in crisis, financial disaster looming, getting a new job, hustling to get a promotion in the new job, medical crisis, holiday crises, divorce court, hustling to get another promotion, adjusting to new position, then graduation, looming wedding, divorce court again, and on and on. It feels like I never have a chance to catch my breath before the “new thing” appears and demands attention. Often, there are multiple crises going on at the same time that I have to juggle, none of them getting what they deserve, only what I can manage. I’m resentful that my life now is like this.

And yet, when I read old journals and see “Memories” from Facebook, I’m aware that my life has always pretty much been like this. I have no idea if it’s like this for everyone or if some part of me is subconsciously creating this kind of life because maybe I feel bored otherwise? Or is it that I somehow create drama out of things that other people take as matter of course? Possibly I expect an easier life and need to adjust my expectations?

When I watch people around me, it seems like some people end up with more shit in their lives than others. Often, it’s the people who are traumatized as children who seem to keep getting traumatized. Do they attract trauma? Does some part of them think that trauma is normal and keep moving toward it? Or is it that trauma causes damage, financial and physical and mental and emotional, thus making it more difficult to make it through the rest of life? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’m watching to see if it ever makes sense.

Life isn’t “fair” by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose that’s why religion often tries to assure us that there is some fairness that comes after life, either heaven/hell or reincarnation. Sometimes entertainment offers us the catharsis that we want to be real, that sense that evil people get what they deserve, and that good people do, too. Sometimes entertainment satisfies us by doing the reverse, reflecting the reality of what we see in our own lives and in the lives of those close to us—that evil is often rewarded and that good people often get chewed up in the machinery of life.

I’m tired. So tired. I work hard and I make mistakes and I work to forgive myself for my mistakes (sometimes). And life just keeps coming. There are brief moments of real rest, meditation and medication. But life keeps coming and coming and coming. Until it doesn’t anymore.