Back at the cabin, when the sun was sinking below the western horizon and the weather was calm between snow squalls, I ventured outside to explore my surroundings and get some much-needed alone time with nature. Plus, I had a lot of problems to settle with God, and I figured I ought to tackle at least one of them before returning to my place at the dining table to play more Euchre.
As I wandered through a grove of Aspens on the property behind the cabin, I gazed at the purple-pink clouds above me and began to wrestle with my faith. I reflected back on my journey with God thus far. And, damn, what a journey it's been!
But, it wasn't (and still isn't) over. I shifted my eyes to the nearest western mountain. To me, that mountain looked to be the size of the pile of bones I had to pick with God; impossible to tear down within a single lifetime. Especially since that pile seemed to be growing with time.
The past twenty-one years of my life have aged me significantly. I've turned bitter, resentful, and downright hostile towards God due to all the shit I've been dragged through. Sure, it could always be worse. But, one of many reasons why I was (and still am) very pissed off at God, is because of how many times people have used me to exemplify a much worse-off person. That has both terrified and depressed me, and has especially made me question the point of my existence. Assuming there was one.
Among the aspens, I found a granite boulder to sit down on so I could continue to wrestle with my Creator while resting my weary body. My thoughts began to shift away from processing the lives and deaths of my paternal grandparents, and more towards processing my own life. Specifically, the fact that I wouldn't be dead in ten or twenty years from Cystic Fibrosis. I was, in many respects, cured of my condition. It had been almost three years since Trikafta was approved for people like me, but its effects and reality haven't really sunk in for me. And, I was just as terrified of living another sixty years or so, as I was of losing loved ones.
It was a fear I wasn't willing to really touch, but one that my grandma Shirley's passing would eventually force me to struggle with. Why? Well, not only was I, once again, experiencing the excruciating loss of a close loved one. But, that sting of death forced me to reflect upon my own mortality. Forced me to reckon with the fact that, unlike what my doctors were predicting till the day I got my paws on my first box of Trikafta, I wasn't going to die an early death.
As I've written numerous times before, and will shamelessly write a thousand times more, I spent my childhood preparing for an early death instead of a long life. And, that really fucked up a lot of things for me, especially now as a twenty-one-year-old college student.
Therein lies many of the roots of my resentment and hostility towards God. My childhood had been completely wrecked by Cystic Fibrosis (among many other things most of my peers never had to deal with). I'd been forced to grow up extremely fast. By the time I was seven years old, I was more or less self-sufficient when it came to taking care of myself at home. I never was a typical little girl, or a typical teenager. I'm not a typical young adult either. All because, pretty much my entire life, I was destined to die young, no matter how hard I fought. The goal never was to make it to retirement age prior to Trikafta. It was simply to stay as healthy and able for as long as possible, before my genetics stole that away from me, and I drowned in my own mucus in a hospital room.
That only changed when Trikafta hit me like a speeding semi-truck. I was not expecting it, and I sure as hell wasn't ready for it. Now, three years later, I am still frozen in place like a fainting goat. Legs stiff towards the sky and everything. Grateful to be healthy and alive, but still petrified by the implications of living well into my eighties, nineties, or perhaps even into my hundreds. The pandemic, as well as my grandma's passing, only added fuel to the fire that's become my greatest existential crisis yet.
No wonder I was (and still am), so damn pissed at God. And so damn scared of what's to come.
The wind, once again, began to pick up ahead of yet another snow-squall. Not wanting to freeze to death, I jogged back to the shelter of the cabin, where the air was warm and smelled of delicious foods. While I sat down at the dining table with a plate full of pasta, I was reminded that, as scary as the prospect of living as long as my peers was, I wouldn't have to go through it alone.
Around me at the table was my paternal family, though not everyone part of my family (as some couldn't make that trip). Already, my family had made it clear to me that I'll always be cherished by them, that I always had a place on the farm, that I would always and forever belong. Back in December, my cousins Kellen and Andy (who didn't make it to the cabin) assured me of that, and the night before at the cabin, my family there also assured me that I was loved and supported.
Thanks to my paternal and maternal family, as well as my close friends, I didn't have to be terrified of the future. There was no real reason for me to be terrified of living for decades to come. I would never have to face the future alone, or without tons of support and love from people whom cherished me, and who I cherished, loved, and supported too.
Perhaps, God allowed me to live as I have, knowing that I would have more than enough of the support I would ever need. Not everyone has family and friends like I do, after all.
I may never know what motivated God to keep me alive. I'll forever oscillate between believing that God healed my body when doctors couldn't, and believing that I'm just some sort of immortal freak-of-nature. I'll forever struggle to find purpose and meaning within mine and others' lives. I may even forever be pissed off at God, at least, until we can bury the hatchets together, face-to-face. I have faith in a Creator who is okay with all of that. I even dare to believe that since God is described as the literal embodiment of Love, Mercy, Justice, Understanding, Peace, Healing, etc, He even welcomes my challenges and doubts and fears and flaws.
After all, with God, nothing is impossible.
And, with a supportive family and friends like I have, I am confident we can weather any storm that comes our way, no matter how nasty the hard times get.
