Ten more things learned... wanna play?

Agathon at Scenes from a Broken Hand responds to Glaser's Essay referred to in my previous post with 10 Things He Has Learned.

How 'bout you?

All I have time to list now is this off-the-cuff list of ten things I've learned recently:

1. Sometimes loving someone(s) means you have to give them up, at least for a while.

2. Having children with a spouse enforces some of those marriage vows, even when the marriage has become a mirage, a cause for shuddering regret, and a constant reminder of one's bad judgment of character. It's never really over. Til death do us part, indeed.

3. The lousy, abusive, accusing words of an ex-husband require regular doses of love, support and contrasting words of encouragement and admiration from a couple dozen wise, respected and credible friends to ease their pain. Still. Why is that? My Advisory Board is made up of a group of talented, intelligent, wise, caring, strong and accomplished individuals who come to a consensus in their assessment of my worth as a friend and mother. Yet one idiot who has proven to have no integrity, who is a cheat and a liar and a narcissistic ignoramus can still say a few words in a certain tone of voice to devastate me.

4. The most stubborn willpower and fiercest of good intentions cannot overcome physical limitations. These fragile bodies we inhabit can bear much, and can enable us to accomplish much. But they sometimes fail us, even in the face of superhuman emotional strength.

5. "You haven't got anything if you haven't got your health."

6. I can endure more suffering than I can bear witness to. The very idea of some of the diagnostic and treatment procedures that have been performed on my body with the goal of improving my health would have made me faint if they had been described to me a year or two ago. Watching or hearing the news, watching an emotionally wrenching movie, or observing the quiet resignation(?)/calm(?) of a group of people in recliners, covered by blankets, receiving chemotherapy infusions is harder for me than to lie on my side with a large gauge needle sticking out of my own lower back.

7. Morphine, oxycodone and all of those pain medications suck. I'd NEVER take one for fun.

8. Humiliation is just one more bump in the road, one more shove to the ground. A person can just keep getting up again and again, and keep going.

9. Self-care is perhaps the hardest challenge of all, but so much depends upon it that NOTHING must get in the way of that daily practice. No matter how difficult it is to force down a meal, to count liters of liquids or grams of protein, to stick to the medication schedule, those things must be done. In each person's life, there is some THING that he or she MUST do to take good care. We must not neglect those things, or we'll pay a high price. So will those who depend on us.

10. I still have much to learn. Gratitude and curiosity are the antidotes to hopelessness, pain and humiliation. As long as I have those two qualities or characteristics, I'm still me.