What is reality? It always smacks you in the face, can take your breath away, leave you feeling helpless and lost, or completely amazed. Reality is having a baby, reality is being twenty three years old and walking into my father’s house one afternoon to find him dead in his living room chair, and reality is seeing a woman who is a foundation of life dieing in a hospital bed.

Reality. Reality can hurt and when it does you never want to believe it, you never want to see it, never want to feel it. The joy that I had been feeling from the reality of having a three month old son died when I found my father. My son was sleeping in his car seat on the living room floor beside me. My three month old son with me in this crazy, painful reality that had struck. My first instinct was to turn my back and say, “I don’t want to deal with this.” I had always dreamed of finding him dead, and it was a fear that I had woken up with many mornings while growing up. To have it actually happen… it was the scariest and worst type of reality that I have ever dealt with. One of my worst fears had actually come true, and within an instant my entire being had turned inside out. I have yet to recover, and I have never lived with the extent of fear that I now live with. I look in the mirror and I see someone scarred, someone afraid to face everyday- someone so afraid of loosing that she can’t find herself able to grasp onto anything. This is my reality. Everyday I live, by the day, with one foot in front of the other, and no place to go. I fear reality so much that it takes everything within me to face the realities that are most important to me- my son, my Randy, my brother’s family. Reality crushed my heart- and it is so hard to face it.

But, I do. I face it day by day, hour by hour, and when I sleep I dream of it. I tell myself that I am pathetic and weak and to just deal with it. What else is there to do but live your life? “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…” I tell myself that reality factors in with the fact that whatever happens happens for a reason, I tell myself that reality is what gives me life, no matter how harsh it might be. I have recently realized that in our own ways we create our own realities, and it is ours to choose how we live by them. I tell myself that I have let reality turn me inside out. And I push with all my might, everything- not to fear tomorrow. I tell myself that I can make it. That someday, all the pieces of the puzzle that is me will again fit. That there is no reason why I should not know happiness. I am well loved and have a good heart- and am doing my best to defeat my habitual demons. I try to use the love of others to crush the pain that I deal with.

I see the way that my son and my Randy look at me and know that I am doing something right. I fight just to hold onto what I’ve got. I make myself stay calm and try to enjoy. I make myself imagine a brighter future- a wedding, someday another baby- and I make myself imagine what it would be like to be able to enjoy my life and feel no fear. I fight, oh how I fight to make myself not worry and accomplish all of this by the day just to hope that I dream well and wake up with a bright outlook on the next. This is my reality. Everyday I live, one foot in front of the other with no place to go, but moving forward just the same. I keep moving forward. Even when reality crushes my heart, and it is so hard to face it.
The woman who is a foundation of life, the woman who’s reality it is that she is dieing- has taught me that life is reality is and reality sucks.

I see the reality that is forced on the granddaughter who has taken care of the woman for seven years, I see the reality of the family that seems that they would break if they were to truly look at it, and I see the reality in a little boys visit that brought a smile to a basically incoherent woman’s face. I see that when reality brings joy it brings sorrow, and with sorrow comes joy. That all realities are our source of life- that reality is that we must live- live through the fear and the pain and live to keep the feet moving forward step by step, no matter how tired they might get. Reality is life. Life is what we are made for, made to endure, to become strong and prosper from. Reality is the fact of life that everything happens for a reason. That life is the reason for reality to suck.

What is reality? Ask yourself what is yours. Ask yourself how you see it, how you feel it- if you can truly look at it and see it, and not be ashamed- and ask yourself, “What else is there to do but live?” Take your reality and change it, hate it, love it- but live it. Take your reality and make it something to live for. Live for the love, live for the fear, live for the pain- as long as you face and live the reality that is in front of you, you alone will be worth living for. Never forget that with the sorrow comes the joy and with the joy the sorrow. That life is the reason for the joy that you would feel at the birth of a child, along with the reason for the painful joy that you would feel from seeing a dieing woman who is a foundation of life smiling at a visit from a little boy. That life is about the fact that the pain of your whole being getting turned inside out is the very core of what will make you stronger, make you look for and feel the joy all the better.

I do my best to face my realities. I fight against the pain that always comes with them- I fight against the reality that my fight against that pain has caused, and I fight against the reality of that joyless, not blind to, but reality fearing person that I see when I look in the mirror. Yet, I fight for the reality of knowing that I will feel joy again. I fight for the reality of knowing that I am doing something right, and the reality of knowing that even though my whole being has been turned inside out, I can still live. I fight and I live for the reality of knowing that my sorrow will fuel the joy that will come from this fight for life.
What is reality? Reality is the fact that anything can happen at any moment in our joyous lives, causing sorrow. Sorrow that will become our reality, make us stronger, give us reasons to once again look for some joyous aspect in life. Sorrow is the reason for joy. Joy is the reason for life- life that is reality, and why I believe that reality sucks.