The Gift

Quote of the Day: 

The greatest gift is a 

portion of thyself.

~Emerson~

Current Local Weather: 

Nothing outside but a feverish need for a better reality

that has reached levels high enough to 

turn the mind into a furnace.

Currently on my iTunes: 

Little of Your Time

Maroon 5

Currently Reading: 

"The Glass Castle"

Jeannette Walls

***This blog is dedicated to Karen, Tina, Josh, Mark, Sara, Jeff, Ted, Jaijai, Bibi and Heather. 
Thank you all for the gift of your time and love.***

Dear Friends, Family and My Family of Friends, 

I hope this finds you all well. I'm still recovering physically and mentally from all that's gone on over the last few months. But the recovery has reached well beyond the physical realm of being. I've realized that I need to recover emotionally, too. And just like any other type of recovery, this is going to take more time than "I" think it should and more time than any professional tells me it will. Technically, I should be just peachy keen right about now. However, I'm not. There are days in which my depression takes over and there are days where I feel high as a kite just because I woke up without pain. Is what it is. And I've said this before, I'm taking the advice of my best buddy in the whole world, the woman that's the sister I never had but always wanted, Karen Degroot-Carter...I'm treating myself like the mental patient I am and letting things go. 

So what do mental patients do? Honestly, I don't have a clue other than what I've seen in the movies. And if I had to be stuck in a movie with other mental patients, I'd pick being roomies with Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest." GREAT MOVIE. But I do know that they're not rushed to "get better." They don't push themselves too far by trying to do the Laundry and the dishes in one day. They also treat each day as if it matters by taking time out for things that are important like crafts, catching up with family and friends and writing down their feelings and thoughts. 

It's no wonder that we're all going crazy in this country. With how busy everyone is these days, it makes me wonder if any of anything really matters. People are busy, I think, just for the sake of being busy. Multitasking is the way of the future. If you can not multitask with some kind of professionalism or with gusto and accuracy, you're not a candidate for most jobs. What this convalescence period has afforded me is the gift of NOT having to multitask. The gift of slowing down and the gift of having time to ask questions of myself, therefore getting to know myself better. 

I ask these questions daily. Have been doing so for months...years...Does each word I write, matter? Does each person in my life, whether they're near or far, know how much they matter to me? Are my words chosen wisely enough so that I can convey my love to them? When you spend weeks and months of your life alone in a hospital room, you can't help but start to think. You wonder if the reason you're sitting alone is because of the words you said or didn't say...you wonder if the reason you're alone is because people are genuinely busy or that they're freaked out by blood and needle containers and the thought of a sterile environment.  

This brings me to my point. It IS that time of year. The one retailers tell us that we can only show people that we love, that we love them with a gift from their particular store. But in my state of affairs, money is short and time is of the essence. The question I have to answer now, is this: what IS a gift? Do Macy's and Kmart and similar multibillion dollar conglomerates have any and everything I need to show love? 

My guess, and this is just a hunch, is NO. They don't have ANYTHING I need. What I truly need isn't available anywhere, in retail outlets or online. And unlike the Kmart Ad, it's not available today only. Although I've heard the general public say it's unavailable to them, it really is, they just can't seem to find it where they thought they left it. What I need, and everyone else I know, needs, is TIME. Time with you. Time with the person next to you, too. Time to do everything I can to give of myself to you in ways that fulfill your needs and mine, too. 

But the other gift I need is YOU. All of you. I don't need a new watch or even a new car. I did need a new vacuum, but Natalie was kind enough to make sure her father bought me one before the holiday arrived. :) 

As Emerson said in today's quote, the best gift is giving a portion of yourself. Why live or pursue life instead of death if you're not going to have this, this gift of yourself, as your greatest work and asset? If you're going to treat yourself as important as your biggest errand of whatever day you're running errands, then why bother? Are you an errand runner or a human being? Life is a gift. Trite and cliche', I know...but these gifts of time and life and love have to be your swan song. And as someone who has faced the light more than not and more than most people my age, I've began to reevaluate my purpose and understand, rather try to understand, that the needs of others are often greater than what they say they are. 

And although I need things like money and a dose of health, both physical and mental, stability (don't we all) I only truly need you and a little of your time. I called someone the other day that I hadn't spoken to in a very very very long time. We're talking, the last time I heard her voice was some time right after my high school graduation. In 1995. But I happen to see on Facebook that she was attending a concert with some girlfriends, and I happen to know the musicians playing in that concert. So it gave me a great excuse to call her or have her call me and "catch" up and hear her voice. I adored her in high school and always regretted not having more time with her and her brother. Of course, we're all grown now and have kids and lives that are thousands of miles away from each other, but even that little smidgeon of time with her on the phone and via text made my day. And what I've tried to do since becoming deathly ill, is find someone, somewhere, that could use a little of my time and make it happen. And although this is almost always a long distance affair, it is never a regret or wasteful. Even though I don't have many working portions of my body in this moment, giving of myself has been the greatest gift I've ever given to myself. 

I hope that you'll see the importance from my perspective and adopt it as your own. When time is running out, when time is the ONLY thing you have sitting beside you on the couch and embracing you like a lover, then time is the only thing you should be paying attention to and making sure that you're understanding what it really is when you decide whether to use it wisely or throw it away. 

Yours in Time, Teaching Myself Lessons Forgotten and Telling You I Love You, 

Cicily