Note from a Friend

Never does a friend usually offer advice to me, for some reason, I guess I am always 'looking' but usually they just 'listen'. The past two weeks, I went through a series of tests to find out why some things were happening, and got all of the results back, nothing serious, so I am fine! My daughter had to go on some medication that makes her so she cant totally control when and where she goes to the bathroom (she would 'hold' it and it was making her terribly sick all of the time) and my littlest dog, Lally, has lymes disease, just found out at her routine appointment this week. So, it has been stressful, and I was feeling responsible for my daughter's issues, my dogs, and thought I had waited too long to go to the doctors myself. So I was telling her how I was feeling guilty and responsible for everything. I know everyone has their problems, sometimes I just don't feel like I have a good support system. I have a few wonderful friends (Like M) that I talk with, but no one that lives real close to me that I can just throw my arms around when I am feeling like this. It is hard sometimes, so hard I just want to run back to NY and have my mom take care of me and scratch my back to soothe the pain. My husband has had to be Mr. tough guy for survival purposes in the past and does not dwell on the negative stuff, thinks if there is nothing you can do about things, forget about it, deal with it. This is what M wrote to me after our call:
Hope that you are feeling better today. I know that the news about the dog and kayla needing medicine really upset you. You always seem to make yourself feel guilty about things. That makes tough times hard. I usually do the very same thing. I thought of something that gave me a chance to not feel so guilty all of the time. Please don't take this as an insult because these were words that Rich once said to me about myself...... Although he was never really filled with wisdom this one stuck with me. We were arguing one time about whatever. He turned to me and said "why don't you get that chip off of your shoulder and stop thinking that the world revolves around you--everything doesn't happen because of you" He was obviously being mean at the time but it made me think. I am just one person and it is a bit vain of me to believe that I am the cause of everything and that I am the one who stops bad things from happening This actually helped me when he died. I keep in mind that I am just one person and it would be very presumptious of me to believe that his death was my fault. I don't or can't control the destiny of people. I hope that you can understand my point in all of this. It is hard to explain. It is just something that helps me when I start feeling guilty about everything in the world. Hope this doesn't just sound like the rambling of a crazy woman. Anyways we all do what we can do to make things go well in this world. When things go wrong the test is more about how we cope with problems. In your case you always rise up to meet the challenge and that is the sign of a truly strong woman. Hope this helps you.
This helped a lot, and then of course I starting looking at the book's introduction that I am participating in reading with Melba's group. I will write more later because I do have to be to work at 5am so all of you moms out there can make sure you have all of your back to school items! My hope is that this book helps me deal with some of the guilt of motherhood and help me to be more at peace with my life and decisions. Here is Melbas link to her reading group:http://www.bealivebelievebeyou.com/believe/2006/08/reading_true_ba.html