Have you ever had the overwhelming need to have a pity party? I have, and quite often thought of mailing out invitations to include my family and friends. That's sort of extreme thinking, but it's true. Do you ever wonder why we step away from our daily lives in order to have pity parties, while most of the time not even realizing that's what we're doing? For I don't think we really enjoy them all that much, because it implies a sense of self centeredness. That whatever we are going through is much more important than what someone else might be experiencing.
However, I have, fortunately, come to the realization that what I go through each day doesn't even come close to what some people go through. Yesterday was a day like that for me. Things felt awkward, out of sorts.....almost twisted and distorted like I picked up the wrong glasses or something. It continued that way throughout the day, until I finally had to put it to rest. It felt like I was picking at my life, like an open sore that I wouldn't allow to heal.
Thankfully I came across not one, but two different people in my building that quickly reminded me that I might be feeling out of sorts, confused, or even feeling physically bad, but there were other people who were truly suffering from things that seemed much worse than mine. One lady is suffering from a respiratory disease, that looked as if she was not going to make it down the hall to the outside door. The other had just found out that her brother had been put in the hospital with cancer. This was the last surviving brother she had, for all her other siblings had died. She was very sad, and rightly so. All I could see written all over those situtions was......it was wrong.
Granted, stuff happens like that all the time. People will get sick and they will die, we cannot run from that as much as we would like to think we can. These are real life situations that bring sadness, pain, heartache and loss....period. No way to get around it........but what it does for me is, it reminds me that the pity party I planned to have of my own, can be easily cancelled. For if I left the two ladies and continued plans to have my party, it would have served no purpose at all. In fact it would have made a mockery of what I had just seen. My pain that day was unclear, out of focus and needed to be rerouted, so that I could recognize how fortunate I was.
I don't have pity parties that often because I won't allow myself to. If I get close to having one, I just set up an hour during the day to sit in the middle of the floor and wail until I feel the pain and frustration leave my body, because sometimes it really serves no purpose to sit and complain or whine about something. And most often whatever we're complaining about has already been said a hundred times before, so no one really wants to hear it again.
So today I will remember my two friends in the hallway and what they were going through yesterday. My confusion weighed little as compared to what they were experiencing. I'll remember to tear up my pity party invitations, and quietly set up my own time to wail. There is a time and place to share your frustrations and pain with others, but before you do, see if there is someone living right next door to you that is truly suffering and could use a friend.
