You know you’ve seen this scenario millions of times.  You’ve seen it in movies, advertisements, TV shows, magazine interviews, books.  It tends to inspire a nebulous, un-nameable hope in us for whatever reason. Sometimes you even see it in the news…. It’s the ever popular scenario of a person who hits rock-bottom or is in some crisis of one sort or another and whatever travail that it is changes that characters life, changes them forever more, and now they are on a completely new and exciting and positive path, never to go back.  I believe Oprah even had a column devoted to the term she coined for this phenomena, for this awakening of positive possibilities.  What was it?

Oh, yeah.
The “AH-HA!” moment.

I see a plethora of “life-changing opportunities” floating about on the web lately.  They all sound lovely. They all sound so simple.

Some “AH-HA” turning points can be positive.  For instance, especially in works of fiction, be they on screen or on page, the saving grace for some is when they find the love of their life.  And I’m not here to crap on that notion.  It’s always a miraculous thing, a joyous thing, to find someone willing to put up with you for the rest of your lives and love you despite your weirdness, whatever that may be.  Someone who supports you being you.  When that person commits to you in a ceremony, in front of everyone you hold near and dear, it’s fabulous.  We all get (a bit too ) caught up in planning that particular event.  Especially these days, I think.  Everything has to be planned and thought out down to the most minute detail.  The adrenaline runs very, very high during all that time.  Now you can gallop off into the sunset of Happy-Ever-After, right? The possibilities for the two of you are just infinite.  Anyone else had this feeling the day after your marriage, that things should be all sparkly and gleaming and exciting and new? You almost had that feeling that now your life was going to be TRANSFORMED.

Or when you had your first child.  Or when you had your second child… or more.  Yes, the day was incredibly happy.  A new adventure beginning.  The love the two of you were feeling couldn’t be described.  Oh, wanna talk about future possibilities!!! Your life would, indeed, be TRANSFORMED!
(AND, GIRL, WAS IT!).

But mostly, in movies and TV shows, the character has some looming bit of doom on the horizon that seems like it will be the end of the world for them (usually some important, future-determining deadline or some god-awful mess that they’ve gotten themselves into) but at the last minute they manage to find the solution after staying up for five days straight and running around or working or cleaning or studying or painting or practicing their asses off.  And success!!!  Lessons learned! Mistakes never to be made again! Their lives have been TRANSFORMED!   (I tried this sort of tactic with writing papers in my high school and college years. I don’t recommend it. And, no, I was not transformed).

Or characters will be faced with losing everything, or with divorce, or with infidelity, or with disease or injury.  Then they find their meaning in life through their struggles and go on to have their lives TRANSFORMED!

What inevitably happens after these sorts of things in real life is the “And now?” moment.

I think the term for this, for what actually happens…or, rather, at least, what happened for me, for what I’ve always felt is….”anti-climatic”.  (Surely, I can’t be the only one who experiences this?)
It’s that somewhat deflated feeling that makes you look around and think, “Well, back to the usual. Hi-ho, hi-ho”.

(Don’t get me wrong, though.  I am thoroughly happy to be married to whom I’m married, and to have brought two wonderful people into being).

And life indeed goes on, for the better or the worse, or back and forth between the two. Your house still gets trashy and you still get into arguments and you are no wiser or wealthier or particularly healthier or fitter than before despite actually striving and working towards the positive things.  A magical flying unicorn does not show up in your backyard.

I blame some of that rather numb, underwhelmed, anti-climatic feeling on the way we get programmed by these stories and by advertising and movies and TV and so many other ways of communication.  So many ideas that we cling to in our little foolish human ways; so many messages that we are sold:  that dreams can come true and that life will be what you – and ONLY you – make of it.  That somehow, if something happens to you, shakes you up and makes you realize it – you are in control of your life! And you need to seize it and run with it and make the absolute MOST of it! And cherish it EVERY DAY and be grateful for it EVERY DAY and never, ever, ever, EVER give up and be the BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE! EVERY DAY!! If you have that “AH-HA!” moment, you and your life will be TRANSFORMED!!

Um. Okay.

I’ve managed to survive one suicide attempt in my life at a fairly young age.  I got help. Life didn’t change much.  I almost attempted two more times, but recognized that I needed help again.  Life went on. Up and down and up and down.  College was a disaster for me.  I had jobs.  Jobs I hated.  I fell in love, got married, had kids.  That was good. That was nice. Life went on. Up and down and up and down.  And then down and down.

And then, right as it was going back up, I got breast cancer.  My Triple Negative Breast Cancer is a long enough story in itself, but the gist of it is that I no longer wanted to commit suicide! Oh the irony!

I slogged my way through my treatment, my husband by my side the entire time, the two of us saying that if it looked like I wouldn’t make it, we were going to toss everything (except the kids, of course), say “fuck it” to money and possessions, and travel to all the places that we wanted to go.

Happily, luckily, I have survived.  I’ve even survived past the critical 5 year mark.  And for a while after treatment, I did feel like a slightly different person.  I no longer cared what others thought about me, I felt pretty strong, I felt more self-assured, I felt a little bad-ass actually.  I was more patient (for a wee bit) about some things, like traffic jams and people in stores and other minor daily irritations. I was far more impatient about other things though, like getting on with everything I’ve ever wanted to do; like not wanting to waste a single second on things that were not important to me.  I was more positive and optimistic than I’ve ever been in my life.  I actually developed an appreciation for cheerleaders! (If you knew me, this would be shocking).

When you’ve narrowly escaped dying, every single second seems to matter infinitely more.  To the point it almost becomes an unbearable pressure. You want to put your fears aside, you even feel like you’ve shed all your fears, and CARPE DIEM, BABY! GO FOR THE GUSTO! Get ON with it!  I was happy and grateful to be alive and be here with my family; unbelievably happy even to the extent that I was thrilled to be able to do utterly boring and mundane things by myself, like vacuum and wash dishes. HA! Yup. Go for the gusto! right?

And it’s been roughly 7 years that I’ve been cancer-free.  And I’m still grateful that I’m alive.  I’ve faced the possibility of dying, of not having any more time here in this world. I’d say that’s pretty dire.  I’d say that’s an “AH-HA!” experience if there ever was one.  But, I’m at a point now where it feels as if that energy that it gave me, that momentum, has slowly died its own natural death amongst the petty and mundane details of daily human existence.  It’s pretty fucking hard, for myself anyway, to pull up that optimistic, passion-for-living, grateful for EVERYTHING, lucky-to-be-alive, unchecked positivity, limitless energy, day after day and second after second, forever and ever, amen.

Haven’t read “Eat, Pray, Love”, but I’ve heard enough about it to get the idea.  Someone tell me that this does NOT come to your mind with the whole “AH-HA” thing.

It’s actually pretty fucking hard to seize your life and control it when you don’t have enough money.  Those things you’ve always dreamt of doing? In one way or another, they probably all involve a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time; and if you work and have debt and have dependents and need health insurance, or if you have anything else going on in your life that requires attention….Well, you aren’t going to be tossing your hair around in the wind on a sailboat cruise around some Greek islands anytime soon.  You’re not going to be freely and finally riding off with your loved ones on horseback into the Happy-Ever-After Sunset with a heart and mind full of wisdom and peace and contentment with simply being alive, joyously crying out “Fuck it all! I’m gonna live how I WANT!!!!”

Having your back up against the wall and facing death? Those “Moments of Truth”? Those “AH-HA!” opportunities you read about in articles and magazines? The “Life-Changing Events!” you watch in movies and on TV and read about almost everywhere?  They don’t come with a beautiful new change of scenery.  Things aren’t awash in glittery sparkles.  They certainly don’t turn your pumpkins into carriages. They don’t even spruce the place up a little. They don’t come with a new bank account or a new fulfilling career.  They don’t really come with even the chances or opportunities for those things. They have a very limited shelf life and a lot of teensy-tiny print, with several symbols denoting itty-bitty footnotes, and nobody is necessarily going to gain the life they’ve always wanted after a major upset or scare,  even by running around and working and cleaning and painting and practicing and studying and being grateful as all hell and not sleeping and paying attention to every fucking second of the day.  You can do all those things, but just because you’ve somehow faced dying, those things don’t guarantee you any reward of any extra special power or any special insight or any unadulterated contentment or any extra energy for attaining anything you’ve ever hoped for.  You get to be alive. That’s it.

And it’s back to the usual; not for want of actually striving and trying and working for something new…..just the up and down and up and down and down…..

Even the somewhat newly gained self-confidence and assertiveness and optimism is fading.

Nothing has really changed. Not even me.