I am sitting, crammed on a United Airlines flight back home from Newark. I am tired; I just want to get home, but I have nothing to complain about in life. The balance has been restored in my life. I think back to the summer before last when I sat on my back porch recovering from my surgery. I was so grateful for my life. I wanted for nothing at that moment. I feel guilty for losing that perspective. I feel sorrow for what it has taken for me to regain that perspective.
Let’s start with what took me away. I fell in love. How many books, songs and movie scripts have been written about love making a person crazy? To want someone so badly that little else in the world matters is either crazy or beautiful or both. What went wrong for me wasn’t the falling in love part. The man that I fell in love with is an amazing guy. What went wrong for me was overlooking the fact that neither of us was happy together. I am not sure exactly why; honestly, I have no idea why. For some reason, we just were not right for one another. To be with him, I gave up things that I really enjoyed in life – running, spending time with my friends, trivia night at my favorite bar, watching the Dallas Cowboys play and plenty of other things. Much of these things sound insignificant, but they were all things that were very much a part of my happy life before the man that I loved came into the picture.
Oddly, when we finally called it quits, I woke up feeling better and better each morning, but somehow I became sadder and sadder and just a bit crazy that we were not together anymore. I did not want to get back together, but I didn’t want to break up either. I hated the idea of a failed relationship with such a great guy.
Then all at once things started to go wrong on lots of fronts. I went from having a pathetic heartache over a break up to having real issues to deal with. I found myself being admitted to the same hospital that I had my surgery in last summer. The place that I had woken up in last summer to learn that I was in fact going to be okay, which had me embracing the life that I had in front of me. This time as I sat in the hospital, and I felt completely alone. EVERYTHING was going wrong.
I didn’t have time to be hospitalized. My kids were both needing help adjusting to the new school year. I needed to get home to them. I had a huge presentation the next day at work. I was in the middle of a major personal battle that being hospitalized would probably only make worse, and I was at the start of a very important new project at work. I pulled the IV from my arm, and refused to let the admit me. This didn’t go over well, but I got to go home.
I called my “former love”; I needed help. I was falling apart. He chose not to be there for me, and that further devastated me. It has taken a couple of months, a lawyer, x-rays, a CT scan, steroids, a few teacher conferences, a flexible work arrangement at work and some long days at the office for me to get everything back on track. It has been a very long couple of months, and really the only support that I have had has been from my leadership at work. I have received a great deal of support from them.
I felt that I had weathered a very low point in life, and I regained a solid perspective on life. It was two Saturdays ago that I sat at Topgolf with Brainy Bird enjoying a perfect morning. We had a blast. At some point, I sat watching him with his laser focus trying to beat his own highest score, and I sipped an iced tea, and I thought about how wonderful my life is. I said a little prayer that I would hold tight to this perspective, and never again let a broken heart and a few trials in life take that perspective away.
The next Monday morning, I walked with a skip in my step into the office of my favorite executive director, and I was excited to discuss what we would be doing next on the business development front. He seemed way off his game. He said he had some serious news, which we would cover last in our discussion. It was serious news that would make me leave his office and cry.
One of our own, my peer, the man who got me hired into the best career of my life, was laying in the hospital, recovering from an initial emergency surgery on his spine to remove a cancerous tumor. His future could not be more uncertain. I went to see him a week after his surgery. He could not stop talking about how lucky he is. He said that no matter what happens, he has an amazing life. He was the one comforting me in the time of his greatest trial in life. He offered me comfort that I didn’t deserve. I haven’t always been good to him, and I have yet to acknowledge that I would not be where I am right now in life if it weren’t for him. I left from my visit with him inspired to embrace life and everyone around me.
Trials in life are all relative. I want to be someone that is forever grateful for what I have in my life. I want to keep perspective even in the most frustrating of times. I want to encourage others to have a positive outlook, and help them to not let the little things in life pull them down.
~Please pray for Kent Kaase. His courage and positive outlook in the most challenging of times are an inspiration.~