I surrender

I surrender

Sometimes I feel like the biggest hypocrite when I write my blogs. I preach on here all the time how important it is to live a life of gratitude and to count your blessings and how it’s all about the little things in life. But sometimes, in the darkest moments when I am one with myself, my reality becomes unbearable and I just have to surrender to the pain of my reality.

I consider myself to be a far better person than I was in my ‘former’ life. I try to be kinder to people. I try and extend my hand whenever I can and be a good neighbor. I try and reach out to other people with CF and see how I can be of support to them in their own battles with this horrid disease. I try and be the best partner I can be to Perry, giving him all the love I can and never allowing him to feel alone in this relationship. I try so hard to be a good brother, though at times it is hard to connect with my two sisters who live miles away from me. I try and be a good son, though right now that is not going so well. I try and be a good human being, always trying to do the right thing and do onto others as I would like done on to me. And even though at times I admit, I am a hero to myself in my own little way, there are parts of me that I cannot stand. Parts of me that I wish were tiny fragile hairs on my arm that I can just pluck away in an instant.

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with how things are ‘suppose’ to be. How I’m not supposed to have CF and be facing death at the young age of 25. How I don’t have the dream career any other young man would have, filled with courage and piss and vinegar. How I’ll probably never have the white picket fence that everyone dreams of as a child watching blockbuster movies that portray ‘the good life’. How I am not supposed to be a burden on the man of my dreams, both emotionally and mentally and how we are supposed to grow old together and watch each other get saggy skin. 

We as human beings have this built-in hard drive of how things are supposed to go in our lives, and if things don’t turn out the way we planned, we feel that life is being unfair, or that we must have done something wrong to deserve this ‘bad karma’. But in actual reality, are our paths here on earth predestined? I think not. And if so, why would God have given us the beautiful gift of free will? And I just don’t like to think of God as a spirit creature who would enjoy or cause someone to have Cystic Fibrosis and have to face things no man my age should ever face. But see, there it is again….who’s to say I’m not supposed to face this? Maybe this is my purpose here. Maybe I am meant to have this disease and have had the hardships I have endured to be a guiding light to people. Maybe my purpose is to be writing this blog right now so that someone somewhere may benefit from it in ways I would never imagine.

You know what, it freakin sucks to think that maybe I will never be able to be a home owner with Perry, but is that really what’s important here on this journey? Am I reaching another low in my life where I am forgetting the purpose of all this? I think maybe I am. And as the tears run down my face tonight and I prep myself for another sleepless night, I can’t help but feel ashamed of myself for feeling this way. I have been given the gift of today……a gift someone else didn’t get the privilege to enjoy. And I am going to spend it on throwing a little pity party and feel sorry for myself for my lot in life!!?? Wake the hell up Jamie Chafe. You are better than this! But at times the reality is so strong and so powerful that I just have to surrender to it, for after all I am only human. And who doesn’t want to have the opportunity to live a full and rich life. But who said a full and rich life had to consist of 70 or 80 something years. I know a lot of people who lived to be that age and did nothing with their lives. What did they do? They sat around and threw pity parties all the time for their lot in life. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be known as a light to people. Like a lighthouse on a coast, on a dark and stormy night that helps guide the seamen home.

All I’m trying to say is, that sometimes, it all becomes too much. And you just have to break. I’m happy to say that I have returned to counseling. And I have no shame in that. I am someone with a lot of shit going on in my life, and sometimes it helps having someone else there to give a fresh perspective. Or someone to just say, “I hear you, and I give a shit!” Because often times, I feel alone in this world. Like no one really ‘gets me’. I’ve learned that it’s important as human beings to feel whatever it is you need to feel. And to embrace the emotions that enter your heart for they enlighten your soul. How else can we grow as human beings, as spiritual creatures unless we learn how to rise from the ashes of our circumstances and welcome pain and suffering in our lives with open arms. For when we do so, we really have nothing to be afraid of. And when we do so, that’s when we can say we really grow as human beings.

I’m not saying I’m giving up on my hopes and dreams. That’s not it at all. It’s just sometimes it gets a little exhausting being trapped in a reality you often times can’t see your way out of. And you question sometimes what’s the meaning of it all. But this blog is called Jamie’s Journey after all, and tomorrow is another day. Another day that is going to be filled with a new set of problems. But today made me stronger to face my tomorrow. And perhaps tomorrow I’ll be a hero to myself once again.

“To the lamp of love, may it burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial” – Author Unknown

Peace and Love.
Jamie Leigh Francis
xo