Time has gone on but pain stays around--so much for time healing all wounds

It is difficult to come to grips with the reality that summer is already over. Well, it is not really over in terms of the calendar. (There are approximately three more weeks give or take a day until it is the first day of autumn.) Part of me is looking for my maturity and character in this time.

One of the difficulties in acting mature is that emotions still have a sense of childishness to them. You want to be able to put things behind you, but it can be just too difficult at times when you are thinking about your pain.

I spent most of the winter and spring waiting for summer. I was waiting for the days when all I had to wear was a t-shirt and shorts and no socks. (Yes, I like the beach bum look. I could wear it all year.

Why has the summer gone too fast? I have a number of thoughts amongst my feeling of pain. First, as you get older, you have had more experience of time and so it seems to go faster. Second, I have been been very busy with work. Third, my wife's medical condition has made my nights seem even more busy. Thus, I have been tired and I have had little time to do anything that I really wanted.

Regardless of the answer, I still lament the summer having gone so quickly. We did not go anywhere, nor could we go anywhere. I am still sad that the money went for hospital bills and not for a trip back to the Midwest or Disneyworld. I somewhat soothe myself that even if I had the extra money, my wife was not able to travel. However, for all my hard work as a social worker due to being understaffed, and do not feel any further ahead for a newly minted PhD. I honestly have had to deal with resentment in the mix. This is again difficult when trying to act mature.

I am still resentful of the University of Louisville administration short-changing my graduation in December 2008. They gave only 72 hours notice that we were not going to be recognized at commencement but would be graduated at the hooding ceremony. (well they gave advance knowledge for the spring commencement that it would be the same way for May 2009 Ph.D graduates, but at least they got to have a reception months in advance)

Furthermore, the hooding ceremony was not catered, not rehearsed, and undignified, with profanity used on stage by the faculty member in his opening comments. (Given the public circumstances at the time I felt that we were the expendable group and our achievement was cheapened to save the University any more P.R. expense for the Felner/Deasy catastrophe and its 'anonymous crap'). The president himself was not there, although it the story was that he had the flu.

There was no apology when I gave my feedback to the university's e-mail—they have not cared. I continue to feel short-changed for all of the work I put in and all the abuse I tolerated from a particular, dysfunctional faculty member who alone held my dissertation process up for two additional years—I deserved more recognition, like the 300 PhD graduates got in the when I graduated with my bachelors in May 1987 -- I sat through watching them walk across the stage over 90 minutes. (They got the privilege of public exhibition where we merely stood in our places).

Consensus of the Graduate School Senate that it should be this way? Yeah right.
Sometimes, at least writing or verbalizing it can at least help me get it out for now. Should someone of faith really have these resentments? I would say yes. People of faith have beliefs and practices, but they at least have a faith resource that can help them cope with the vicissitudes of life and give them more hope than they would either have. Also, they can eventually remember the perspective of their faith about depravity and the fall and how they themselves have hurt others and others hold resentments against them. Thus they can put it on the shelf.

I am still resentful of the vice president who I wrote about in the spring. Her management decisions lately have been quite bone-headed, which only remind me of her behavior that I have blogged about earlier this year. My cynicism has increased despite my other recent efforts to keep it in check.

So, part of me has times where I struggle with all three of these matters in my head. You would think that it should be easier to deal with these things. However, pain is pain and time does go by slowly when you are remembering the painful experiences.

Part of me says “Buck up soldier, this is life.” No one really cares about your pain except for you—and people will only think you are stupid for dwelling on it as they have their own lives to worry about. You are not going to get any kind of expected restitution from the University administration, nor from that poor excuse for a vice president. They are not going to believe they did anything wrong (especially the vice president).

Another part of me, says, “Yes, life is not fair and your expectations are not met, so cry, you're at least entitled to do that.

A third part of me says, find the balance. “Don't cry for long or nurse your resentments for long because you will only be dwelling on it to your own ruin.” Nursing grudges takes your energy. I am trying to forgive the University of Louisville administrators. I am trying to forgive the vice president. I am trying to pray and wait. Begin looking for another ship to come in that you can get on and move away.

Anyway, despite my emotions and attitude, the time has passed. My kids are back in school. The Halloween candy is already in the stores. I predict that in about six weeks from now, just before Halloween, the first Christmas candy will be out. On November 1, my local Walmart will have Halloween candy in carts up front and the Christmas stuff will be out in full-force.

By December 1, I will have been told by my kids 10 different things they want for Christmas because they have seen them on TV. The difficulty will be that 90 percent of those things will have been sold out due to black Friday and black Monday (that cyber-shopping day). The second difficulty will be evaluating what we can get because the hospital bills will still have balances.

There will be other things to occupy my mind. There will be other life business that must get done. People who dwell too much on their pain waste opportunities and the energy to look for those opportunities.

This is the difficulty of life in tough times when opportunity is sparse. The emotion is still tough in light of solutions that are simply stated or maybe just too simplistic. Life goes on even when your emotions continue to exist.

The intensity of your feelings makes you want to discount any kind of glib soothing comments from well-intended but (well okay stupid) individuals. The person who tells you to count your blessings (well, it is an achievement that you have your PhD) takes their life their hands.

Well, as I have bared my soul this labor day, my pain will have to be my responsibility. Just as your pain will be your responsibility. Time does not heal all wounds if the person holds onto the pain.

Yes, the pain will come back from time to time, and it will be each our our own jobs to deal with it and put it away when restitution never comes. Sometimes my resources will be better than others for dealing with pain. Sometimes I can tolerate the exhortations to count blessings than other times.

Coping is sometimes of varying quality. Getting by is till coping when the pain stays around.

Even bad times pass . . . while you're still going through them.

It has been over one month since I have written. I have been busy and have chosen to blog about political issues in my neighborhood. It has gotten some attention and I have been taking my own advice and doing that which I have enjoyed. If you have been following and looking to me for thoughts, I am sorry (but at this point, I have not noticed anyone commenting, so I have no idea if anyone is reading these posts).

Otherwise, the month of July 2009 has come and gone and we are now in August. While this is trite, the month has been good and it has been bad. But the good news is 1) we made it through the month, 2) the good times were enjoyed for the most part, and 3) we got through the bad moments.

I still feel somewhat cheated that I really did not get to enjoy the summer. I have only grilled out twice, whereas I usually grill out every weekend. We did not get to go on the summer trip I wanted to go on to show my family where I was raised. The kids go back to school next week.

My wife's illness has been the major issue we did not go on vacation. She is getting better, but at the beginning of July, things seemed like they were not improving at that time. Now she is back to more of her old self. I am hoping that this VP Shunt works this time. Our major problem is her energy level and she can barely get through the grocery store.

If we get to go anywhere, such as my grandmother's funeral (she turned 99 last week and seems in good health, but she at that age could still go), it will be me going alone as my wife is not going to be able to tolerate the road trip. Overall, we were stuck at home but we did get to use the new "Sprayground" at our neighborhood park.

I have also been extremely busy with work as I am short one person (whose position the organization will not fill due to "economic conditions"), and our patient load has picked back up. I had brought work home much of the month. There was no room to take any more time off for me and my family. Yeah, I have the vacation time, but there is no room for me to take it given being short on staffing. Furthermore, if I do take the time off, my wife is not physically capable of going anywhere for any long period of time. I am trying to use my self-talk that this is life and that I need to accept it.

One of our cars had the "service engine soon" light come on again this week and it is running rough. I need to get that serviced, and it will mean the credit card. More credit card debt for something that is not foolish or extravagant really stinks.

Of course thinking about the summer vacations I was supposed to have taken my family on by this time in life is also depressing me. My salary (while decent for most standards) pays the bills and there is little discretionary income left over. It got worse when my organization declared without telling me that my son's antihemophilia medication is now a "Class 4" medication subject to a $200 co-pay. My wife's hospital bills will mean me paying them into Christmas because the neurosurgeon, and the two hospitals all have a $500 co-pay. Yeah, I have my Ph.D., but when do I get to take my kids to Disneyworld and Yellowstone Park?

Okay, so I try to look outward beyond myself. I do have a job. I am keeping the bills paid and I make a little more than the minimums. I know a guy from church who is an accountant and he has been unemployed since January--I tell myself that it could be worse.

My parents came for 11 days. They brought their new dog, a seven-year-old Brittany Spaniel named Coco. He turned out to be like a third child to me whom I greatly enjoyed. It was kind of cool too as I walked through the neighborhood with him, people would ask me what kind of dog he is? Brittany Spaniels are not common in Louisville. Otherwise, I had some good conversations with my mother and they helped out around the house while my wife continued to recover.

Taking everything into account, we did get some meaningful help and not those casseroles that only I would be eating. The people from my office and from church gave us some gift cards and some other simple foods that my kids would eat. While there were many evenings in late June and early July where I felt pretty drained from working like a fiend all day in the frying pain and then jumping into the fire with my wife and kids, people did help us and that was good. It was not all bad.

I go back to thinking that the summer is almost over. It was not always comfortable, and I am clearly not where I want to be, but we made it through. We were not entirely alone. I have made decisions day by day and week by week. I kept my priorities in mind, prayed frequently in both need and in praise, and made reasonable decisions. We had our daily bread every day.

We kept it together. We are keeping it together now.

I have worked hard to avoid the "What if" catastrophic thinking that keeps many people up at night. Being prepared does not require one to constantly dwell on the worst case scenario. We will most likely keep it together in the future. I am keeping hope that the bad times pass even when you're still going through them--it happens one day at a time.