Buckets of Shit
Today is the first anniversary of my mother’s death. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason. I call bullshit on this. If everything happens for a reason I’d like to speak to who ever is in charge because I’ve been short changed. Whoever is in charge either doesn’t like me or has singled me out for some pretty shitty events. I’m yet to find the reason for both my parents dying before my 35th birthday. I prefer to believe that we live in a world of chaos. Each of us are responsible for our own bucket of shit. Our buckets contain different amounts and type of shit but in the end it’s all the same.
In the age of social media, it’s easy to get distracted by what others were given in their buckets. When engaging with high light reels from other people’s lives, it’s difficult to remember that they also have shit that stinks. It can be inconsistent with the individual’s brand to reveal what real life looks like. They may work hard, have taken advantage of some fantastic opportunities and learnt a skill or lived a life that many of us dream of but at the end of the day once the make up is removed and the lights are off they’re humans just like we are.
I’m not playing the victim here. It would almost be justified if I did. I grew up in a household with domestic violence, spent my early twenties recovering and then in my thirties started to get my life together when within five years of each other both my parents were taken out by cancer. After my father died I struggled with a mountain of unresolved issues. I had the kind of daddy issues that made me crazy more then sexy. After dealing with that and feeling like my life was on the up we were informed of my mother’s diagnosis. After everything I’d already been through it didn’t feel fair. To top it all off I have a brain that is prone to depressive episodes. Life can feel like a hostile jungle, anytime I relax a predator appears. Now you know what some of the shit in my bucket looks like.
Life is still good despite all the stuff that’s been dumped on me. To quote Matt Smith’s Doctor Who- ‘the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant’. In other words, the bad doesn’t make the good any less good. The two can successfully coexist. I’ve had great coffee and conversations on days that I’m dying inside. Emotions aren’t absolute. One moment does not have to ruin a whole day. My point is don’t let the horrible shit override the good, useable shit. Examine what you have, acknowledge the bad and appreciate the good. Not everything happens for a reason. If it does it’s often because you or someone else made a decision that produced a consequence you may or may not want to deal with. It’s up to each of us all to decide what we do with our buckets of shit. As for me, I’m going to try to turn my bucket into a masterpiece, even if it doesn’t turn out the way I hoped at least I can say I tried.