What Gets You Through The Hard Night?
The hard night is not the problem for me. I work so hard that by the time my head hits the pillow, I am asleep. No, I am not one of those that is haunted at night by thoughts of terrorism, memories of Katrina and worries about health insurance.
My hauntings visit me during the day.
It happens at the most inconvenient times. Maybe a friend will casually mention that she had to take her kids to the doctor. She doesn’t mention anything about how she was going to pay for it, so it’s obvious she has health insurance. She doesn’t even need to think about it. She just takes the kids to the doctor, pays the overpriced co-pay and maybe even complains about it. She doesn’t live in my world, where health insurance is a luxury and the COBRA plan that I have is soon running out. We’re scared to see the doctor for anything for fear that they’ll reject us for new coverage. It’s probably a hopeless case anyway…
“Are you listening?”
“Oh, babe! I’m sorry. My mind kind of wandered out there. What were you saying?”
She goes on talking and I push the haunting aside. When the world is crashing in, what gets me through the long hard day?
Work.
I can’t do anything more for the people who were devastated by Katrina. I can’t stop a group of people who really want to do the country harm. I can’t even control whether I will have health insurance after April, but I can do one thing: I can work. I can do my best to make the world a little better in my own way.
I can pass on a few exercise and diet tips so that others will live longer and stronger.
I can put some words together about how I survive my day.
That’s all I can do and I’ll keep doing it until I can’t do it anymore. After that, I have no idea how I’ll survive the long hard nights or days.
Ah yes, this sounds so much like many of our lives. Work helps me because, when I’m there, I give it my all and have little time to think about the past/current or future worries that I carry around with me. Sometimes I temporarily envy other people who “seem” to have it better off than I do in certain situations. Then I open my eyes and realize that I really wouldn’t exchange my life for anyone elses. I have too many things of my own which are special and which I would never part with. No ones life is perfect, but we can make the best of what we have!
Comment by Leslie — 9/8/2006 @ 8:34 pm