I continue to try to focus on gratefulness. I continue to try to force myself to focus on the long-term game. Not this week. Not this month. Hell, not even this year. So that years from now when these years will be the ones I look back on I will be able to say to myself, “Man that was hard, but I made it.”

And I continue to fail.

Every day, as I try to focus on gratefulness, I find myself in tears because I want to be a better person than I am. I wanna be the kind of person who can find beauty in pain. Peace in chaos. Joy in misery. Every day I try to be the type of person who wants to continue to say, “Life is full of ups and downs. Everybody has their cross bear, and this is mine. I will survive this just like I’ve survived things in the past. No change, no seismic change like this one, is ever easy. Years, even decades, that’s kind of time it takes to get through something like this.”

But I don’t have decades in me.

Sometimes it feels like I might not have the next minute in me.  Does this sound dramatic to you? Because is sure sounds dramatic to me but it’s my truth right now. I allow people to see the sadness within the depths of my despair. For example, when the OT is manipulating my feet and ankles and I’m suddenly sobbing. Let it come, she says. I don’t even need that kind of encouragement because I have no choice. It’s coming there’s no stopping it.

The despair is so pervasive it’s right on the surface like a scrim of delicate lace that covers every inch of me, the tiniest scratch makes the whole thing fall apart in pieces that wind up in a pile on the floor. I let the pieces fall because I’ve been told that by allowing myself to be seen in all of my truth and rawness I may somehow have a blip of peace. I will somehow unburden myself and then some kind of “aha” moment will happen. I’ll see a glimmer of peace and true connection with another human. Catharsis. But it doesn’t work that way. What happens in real life is that the person that I’ve just unburdened myself with will walk out of my house feeling sorry for me. I mean, how could you not sit and watch a grown ass woman ugly cry while doing ankle rotations and not feel sorry that good people must endure such ugly things?

I ponder repeatably why the universe gives us these challenges. What’s the point? Are there easier ways to teach life lessons? Why is pain always the conduit to change? Why is suffering so noble? Why?

I’m feeling the urge right now to make a list of all the things I’m grateful for. But I’m not gonna do that. Because I’m not feeling very grateful right now. How’s that for honest? I’m feeling anger. I am feeling rage. I’m feeling disgust. I’m feeling ugly at the core of my being.

I grow weary of being the human who makes other humans grateful that their lives aren’t like mine. I’m jealous of you. So jealous. I want your life. I don’t want this life. I don’t care if your life involves digging ditches or working in a coal mine, I want your life. I want to sit in the middle of a room and scream my head off until I can’t scream anymore until my throat aches with the pain of overuse. But I’m afraid that if I would ever do something like that, I would never stop screaming. Once it starts it might not stop. Who wants to be around that person?  I can tell you this. Not me. I don’t want to be that person. I want to laugh until I cry. I want that the reason to be why I cry.

The financial pressure might be the worst of it. The irony of that doesn’t escape me. If I had done better when I was well at saving money, preparing for the worst while I was experiencing the best, I might not be in the situation, I’m in right now. That comes with a lot of shame.

I’m so ashamed to find myself here where my days are spent negotiating with banks, so I don’t lose my home or any of the things that I need to in this chronically disabled life. I have fantasies about suddenly finding checks in the mail from friends, colleagues, long, forgotten family, maybe some celebrity who also has aggressive MS. I think about how $10,000 would change my life right now. I think about how many people I’ve given $10,000 to in the past. I think about all the money I’ve given away, thinking At the time,”I have so much. I always have too much. I will always have too much! I’m never going to stop working! Why not spread the wealth?” I hate money. If I had it, I couldn’t get rid of if fast enough – so many luxuries for myself and others. So. Much. Stuff. All of it worthless now.

I think about how much money I’ve made for giant global corporations working like a fool, getting off on how smart I was to be one of the few who could do the complex things I could so easily. Where are those people now? Sure. They paid me off. Then poof. Screw you, Bethy, you’re on your own. Good luck with that. They gave me a year of support. I gave them more than 15 and amazing work for amazing clients. Rare empathetic management of people in a dog-eat-dog world got me…nothing. Where are all of those people now? The ones ever so grateful for what I did for them back when I could. Poof. Gone.

Once again, I feel the urge to prostrate myself and acknowledge that I am the only one who put me here. My financial problems are nobody’s problems but my own. It’s the damn truth. Once again, the truth is unsatisfying. Somebody save me for a change somebody come out of the blue and just say you know what Beth the way you lift your life all the things you’ve done for all the people that came your way for all the people who went out of your way to make them feel important to make them feel supported to make them feel better for all the things you did for all the way you lived your life. I wanna help you out, here’s a little something maybe it could help you out, you don’t even have to thank me. Just know that this week or month or even year will be a little easier because of this.

That has happened one time in this experience so far I basically had to throw myself at the feet of somebody that I really care about and asked for financial help, and I got it. I’ve never felt smaller or more grateful for another non-family member human in my life. But that money is gone. When you need help from other humans 16 hours of every day money doesn’t last very long. I need more than one. I need a benefactor. Somebody who wants to save me for a change.

My family has saved me in more ways than I can count. The shame of asking them for help! But they come through time and again. My last name isn’t Rockefeller though. I can’t keep expecting family to bail me out. So they can worry about me even more. It’s not OK.

I can’t believe I’m writing these things for the public to read. I’m immediately embarrassed. It’s so whiny. It’s so poor pitiful me but you know what? Fuck it. Is life supposed to be fair? I don’t think it is I think going through something like this and being so dire and every minute of every day you realize the life doesn’t work the way you think it does. Life doesn’t work the way you were brought up to think it would. Be a good person help other people. Try to make an impact on other people’s lives so that when they walk away from you, they walk away somehow better. This is how I’ve tried to live my life. But I still find myself here.

Because the truth is life isn’t fair. Doesn’t matter how good of a person you are. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve done for others. It doesn’t matter that here are many people out there who loved you or who you had some kind of positive impact on all pitched in $1 you’d be a millionaire. It doesn’t matter sometimes it’s just too much to ask for the things that you need. Sometimes you just need too much it’s too much to ask.

So here I am letting my ugly hang out in the air for everyone to see. I’m the princess and the castle locked in by the ugly witch, called chronic illness, waiting for somebody to come save me. Knowing in my heart that fairytales are exactly that. Nobody’s going to save me. It’ll just be me on the phone negotiating with another bank while feeling my body fall apart even as I’m talking on the phone. That’s just the way it’s gonna be. That has to be OK.

Wow. If this gets posted, I know I will live regret it but sometimes you just have to let it all out there all you’re all your sadness all your pathetic poor pitiful me feelings. Maybe once they’re out there they start to have less impact on my psyche, and I can start working on moving beyond them.

Maybe you have to hit the rock-bottom depths of self-pity before you can start coming back and finding joy tiny bit of flame in the dark. Maybe that’s how life works. I’m here to tell you. Plain and simple fairytales are bullshit.

And this kind of anger isn’t pretty. It’s probably as ugly as it gets. But that’s where I am. I hope I don’t stay here long.

(Several readers have suggested I add this information to my post. I admit…I find it ballsy to do so but venmo is @bethybrightanddark)