The verdict was in.
I was handed the key to my cure for my epileptic seizures and all I had to do was conquer the stress in my life.
The doctors recommended a psychiatrist but because I was denied the surgery that could do the job quicker, I thought they were the ones that needed the psychiatrist.
There I stood with a choice to make towards a cure. Did I really enjoy allowing stress to rule my life that much that I would hang onto it and not give it up?
Just how much was I unwilling to give up my right to be mad at the girl who caused my head injury back in Junior High on the school bus window that triggered the events leading to my epilepsy?
The first couple of questions were easy to answer.
Of course I wanted to be cured. No I didn’t enjoy allowing stress to rule me to the point I had seizures. It was there that the easy questions ended and the hard question remained. How willing was I to deny myself a cure in order to hang on to the anger I had towards the girl on the bus.
After all, I had every right to be mad at her. It was because of her I was disabled, it was because of her I lost my driver’s license, it was because of her I was told not to have kids and the list went on.
Oddly enough my stress seizures didn’t care if I had a right or not, as they came anyway. They fed off the anger I felt inside towards my fellow Junior High student. It took a few years but finally I forgave her when I examined the true displays in my life.
Indeed the things that were happening I was creating and allowing, not her. I only wish I could have asked her forgiveness of me in person, for the anger and hatred I felt towards her part in my epileptic seizures.
Her part or not, now wasn’t the time to hold on to my new-found companion called anger.
It wasn’t easy but finally I gave it up and “Marna, if you’re out there. Forgive me for blaming you for something that was my fault this time. What I was doing to myself through the stress. I was allowing to rule in my life was causing more damage than the head injury ever did. Forgive me.”
On that final note as I dry off my tears and fast forward my life over 20 years to when I got cancer I found myself falling into the same “It’s my right” trap. Instantly from the day I was diagnosed I felt like giving up.
I had the right to feel that way, to fall deep into pity, to chain myself to the hopelessness I felt, to give up on a life that was going to be taken away from me anyway due to cancer.
What I saw as a death sentence to my life was quickly resulting in a death-to-self long before it was going to take my body.
We may have had the right to be upset or angry at life but what we don’t have is the privilege to let it win. It is time to flip the glass over and start seeing it as half full instead of half empty. Stepping forward to give up our right to the things we are allowing to slow us down instead of moving us forward in life. It is time.
Read more posts by Karen Gillett here. Karen blogs for JenningsWire.