Smart. Funny. True…

But I’ve had my ass kicked by change… four downsizings, marital problems, going broke, my son’s struggle with Crohn’s disease and asthma. So it’s hard for me to see change as a good thing.

Change isn’t always welcome, but I believe that change is sometimes necessary. Maybe even when it is the least welcome. We all find ourselves in ruts, stuck between a rock and another rock, wanting to live one way but never feeling like we can quite pull it off. Sometimes change is a good cure for that… but oftentimes, it just knocks the breath out of us.

The harder I try to control my life, or the lives of those around me, the less I accomplish.

Some people say “give it to God” and others just live angry. I ride the fence. I admit it. I relinquish some of my desire and will to chance and fate. I have lived long enough to know that plans, like rules, are made to be broken. But rarely do I go down without a fight. Protest is just in my nature. I rebel, scream and cry, get angry, throw things and just do that human thing we do when nothing goes our way. I melt down. Just not as often as I once did.

I have learned a bittersweet lesson in acceptance. The relief of just letting go. It certainly helps to quiet the soul, even if we aren’t completely through cussing through our teeth. There is something calming about saying to yourself, “Okay, this is how it is. I can deal with it. What do I do first?”

This is where most of us find ourselves calming down… because after we have accepted something, even something painful, part of being human is trying to “fix” it… taking charge, attempting to improve the situation, trying to make it better.

The toughest things in my life right now are the changes my body is going through, accepting that I’ll probably never have another baby, and my most recent job loss. I turn 44 next February. I am tired and broke.

Most of us cannot watch the seasons of life go by and feel nothing. We have to accept that the ONLY thing we can control is our reaction to what time brings.

Even though change is hard, it is also good. You want to go first?

I used to believe with all my naive and trusting heart that men and women could just be friends. Not only that, but great friends. Best friends. And EVERY man that I thought was my friend proved me wrong. And other males are quick to tell me why. It still took me 40-something years to believe it, but here’s what my research has told me: most men only stay around if they want to have sex with you. Not all of them, but most of them. Unless you are under the age of, say, ten or eleven. And even then, I wonder…

I’m not talking about saying “good morning” or being polite. I’m talking about friendship. Talking. Listening. The things people do when they get to know each other. Even if the idea or subject of sex comes up and you think it’s settled, that you are just friends, that no one is lusting after the other, SOMEONE is usually lying. And if it isn’t you, girlfriend, it’s him.

There is no other reason a man would a) listen to you bitch about another man b) laugh at your jokes (unless you are REALLY witty) and/or c) stay up all night talking. He MUST think there’s a chance that one day you’ll be so drunk/sad/desperate/willing/or just so tired of saying no that he will get to have sex with you. Or else he’d be with someone else. And therein lies the frustration. He likes you, obviously. So why does he have to bring up the penis/vagina thing? I don’t know. I just don’t. My wisdom ends there.

It is very easy for us to lose sight of the individuals in the vast numbers of the unemployed, and it’s easy to only see it as an economic issue. But it isn’t. If only it were that simple.

Losing your job can mean losing your whole identity. 

I can say honestly that I see how people slip into hopelessness. It is alwayas the hardest when it happens ater many years of sacrifice and loyalty to an employer. To be cast aside, even with a check and a few months health insurance, can be heart-stopping. It is too much like that episode of The Twilight Zone, where people are regularly and without thought declared “obsolete.”

So many of us become so wrapped up, dedicated, or just afraid to lose our jobs that they become bigger than a paycheck. But for me, that is all a job has become. I have been told to go home one time too many. Like a person burned by love, I don’t get my hopes up.

Most of us are guilty of thinking that one day we will leave our job, not that the job will leave us. Like realizing you built your house on shifting sand. Only most of us realize too late, after giving everything of ourselves just to make it work. We don’t think about the facts of it, until the end. The fact that we are only one of many… that we can be replaced… that we are not special, but instead, just a series of numbers in a computer. And when that number comes up, you stop getting paid. It is a wonderful system.

The way so many of us are let go makes us bitter. It hurts. We grieve our old life of employment and the comfort we once knew. But the cold corporate goodbye leaves much to be desired. It can be damaging in many ways.

I will probably tell my grandchildren about the days when people got a job and stayed with it for life… not out of necessity always, but sometimes out of passion for the work. A time when skill was valued. When there was a thing called a work ethic that many abandoned over time.

I’ll tell them about a day when people actually thought that if they worked hard and long enough, they would retire on a beach or wherever they wanted until they died. I’m sure they’ll laugh and accuse me of exaggeration. I mean, it was only the American dream. Dream being the operative word.

When I was a little girl I dreamed that one day I would be a mother… what never entered my mind was that life is not fair, and that children get sick. Out of all the talk-show worthy incidents I have lived through, having a doctor say a few sentences and change my life forever was the absolute worst.

I have ONE reason for wanting health care reform… it isn’t for myself, but it is a selfish reason all the same. My son has a chronic illness and I just want him to have more options than he does. His first option is being on disability, which is essentially living off American tax dollars and which also limits his income. Of course, he would get Medicaid, which seems to run fairly well, and is better than NOTHING, despite the fact that it is A GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAM. The second option is finding an employer that will insure him and accomodate his disability, which is an unrealistic expectation for an employer.

My son is certainly smart enough to work for himself, when he is able, but in our current health care state, where the “pre-existing condition” loophole exists, he CANNOT get decent coverage as a private citizen. I just want that to change. There will be a day I cannot insure him through employment and that makes me feel helpless. I never claim to know enough about economics or government to suggest HOW we stop the insurance companies from holding us all hostage to premiums and deductables. How to help people like my husband who keep jobs for the insurance, even though they are underpaid and taken advantage of…  something that has become such a common occurance that there is a term for it: Job Lock.

But I do know nothing happens without some serious discussion — by people who do know what they are talking about. But I am afraid that so many people are putting their own interest before the interest of the country as a whole, that the politicians will compromise the whole idea of health care refrom into something that benefits very few.

Whatever your opinion on health care, you have a right to it. But I hear a lot of people accusing fellow taxpayers like myself for wanting some kind of “free ride” and that is not fair.

I would prefer that no one ever have to worry about their child’s health care and their future, and if that means using MY tax money, fine. I will pay for your kids. I already pay for programs I DON’T agree with. Does that make me wrong? We all have reasons, not all of them financial, for our opinions on health care. And that is why intelligent discussion is needed.

Yelling in a town hall and getting personal is shallow and quite immature. It will only leave us in the same pathetic situation where we began. Not everything is black and white. If we want to solve anything, maybe we all should stop talking so much and start listening.

I know what you’re thinking, “Four years? How could she not notice?” But I didn’t see any traces of blood, and so I didn’t know what questions to ask. Most of his symptoms are internal, painful, and suffered behind the bathroom door.

This is Crohn’s disease. And it hits hard between the ages 11 to 16, mostly boys. He was so young, he told me later, he just thought it was normal. If we had only talked about it… just once! God only knows the pain we may could have avoided. Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten so bad that he became dehydrated and anemic from the disease.

It comes on gradually, bringing blood loss and pain. Remove it and it can come back somewhere else. Some pills help, some pills make it worse. Temporary relief is the best you can hope for. It will never go away. I hate it with the same passion that I love my son, and for the rest of my life, I will probably be working so he can have medical care. Although he has had surgery, and watches his diet, he barely weighs over 100 pounds. His body doesn’t absorb any of the nutrients he puts into it.

He wanted to be a chef before all this happened. But he can barely eat.

Social Security Disability is not a dream I had for his future. So I worry … how his sick body will limit his brilliant mind from doing all the things he is capable of, how it will steal time by slowly suffering while the world goes on outside. I am disgusted at how our supposedly great country is not capable, or willing, to help someone in his position. And if we have to drive to Canada or swim to Amsterdam for free health care, we will do it.

Most of all, before anything else, I just want his pain to stop. If there were deals with the devil, my soul would be gone, just to see him healed. If prayers were answered… well, they apparently aren’t. I look at other teenagers, in their first cars, having a good time, eating ice cream at Sonic, and I hate Crohn’s disease. I look at other parents and think, “I hope you appreciate the fact that your child is healthy.”

All the things my son is missing cannot be replaced… I can only be his worried and dedicated advocate, his caretaker, his nurse, and most of all, his mother. But I cannot be his cure. It might not kill him. But it is killing me.