Selfish love of The Magic Fish

Jason and I have this story in our vast collection of childrens books, some of you may have heard it before called the Magic Fish.  I haven't looked at our copyright but the book is illustrated in three colors, black/white/blue and the pages are worn and many are no longer held by the binding.  I swear it has to be the first copyright of this story because in all of my searching for a new copy I only find a more updated version, with fancier illustrations and colors.  I've never bought it because quite frankly I love my own worn out, run down copy. 

Charlotte turned 3 last week, 3 years old, can you believe it?  The child who at 4 months of age I wasn't sure was going to survive the night has lived to be 3.  It sounds so good everytime I say it.  I think back to that first night and I could still cry at the drop of a hat.  The doctor who did the echo and found this horrible discovery wasn't able to give too many details.  She just said it was bad, Charlotte was in heart failure and that there were options.  When I said options?  She mentioned transplant, medications etc, none of which sounded like good options to me at the time.  They still don't sound like great options now that I think about it;)  Thankfully the wonderful doctors we had taking care of her knew what the hell they were doing and although it seemed even they couldn't give any guarantees whatever they did saved her little life and brought us to the ripe old age of 3. 

Once you find out about this cardiomyopathy and delve into more details the worry instantly creates a blanket of fear that you never really get rid of afterward.  Now I don't just worry about Charlotte but I worry that we'll miss something in the older two kids and I will lose one of them.  My two healthy kids, the ones who were my rose colored glasses about life, and most importantly children's lives before this happened to our family. 

It has been one hell of a ride so far, the fear and worry never go away,, that I have come to accept.  I'm still not convinced that even though I don't focus quite as much attention on the 'what if's', or the daily 'respiratory rates', 'weight gain', 'developmental success' and all of the other junk that goes along with this that it isn't eating away at my soul a little at a time.  Eating away at my personality or my beliefs, my feeling of safety, or responsibility.  I am afraid, again, that I've just come to accept that it is what it is and if you don't want it to eat you alive you pretend to live a different life in a way, you become a very good actor. 

Over these last few years I have gone through an entire thrill park of emotions, reflections, unwaivering selflessness when I'm needed.  I have come from depression, elation, loneliness, hope, faith, lack of faith, every thought or emotion whether it be good or bad I think I've felt it.  I started school to do something for myself, a positive step in coming to grips, and at times am barely home.  I feel like Jason seven years ago, between school, friends, work etc he was gone a lot.  Now I'm the one somewhat escaping to my own life outside of this house.  I love school (well on good exam days anyway;), I love meeting new people there and I can't wait to work and be able to contribute, and help kids and their parents deal with the same things I deal with on some level.  As I started to relay last blog I feel like I have gained an enormous amount of girl power and in some ways that self confidence has taken me from my family obligations, my wife obligations.  The taste of freedom sometimes sounds better than I know it would actually be, but I look forward to the day when I could, if I had too, take care of myself, Alaina, Jake and Charlotte too.  I didn't realize before how much I have to rely on Jason until now when I rely on him SO heavily, and I look forward to taking even a part time bite off the weight on his shoulders. 

In having this overwhelming girl power as I call it, I also realized recently that maybe it's caused me to be too selfish.  I say that with a grain of salt just for the shear fact that I am still a stay at home mom.  When someone needs me, I am still the first one to stop whatever I need to do and help them instead.  Jason can still call me from work and ask me to do something, whatever it need be and have it get done.  It's only nights when my selfish needs are met which is my favorite time of day anyhow.  I look around lately especially with Christmas coming.  I have undoubtedly been playing the "I want my cake and eat it too" game.  I want this, and that, this needs to get done, we need to buy that.  ON and on the cycle of stuff goes, it's been going on in our house for quite sometime as is evident by our pool table that is surrounded by bins of clothes, toys, and stacked to the brim with boxes of books etc..  This winter and spring we are about to go through some reorganization and free ourselves of this stuff.. 

I was thinking about my own greediness, my wants, the fact that I have this girl power thing going on where I feel like I should have it all, granted I myself would make it happen, but still I think I can do just about anything right now.  And the more people tell me to slow down or I'm taking on too much it just makes me want to pile on more and trudge through to prove them wrong.  In the story the Magic Fish the fisherman catches a fish who says in our story that he is a magic prince.  So the fisherman lets him go and when he returns to his wife without a catch, he tells her the story and she demands he go back and wish for a pretty new house instead of the hut they live in.  So the fisherman goes back to the sea and calls for the fish, he asks his wife's wish and the magic fish prince grants it.  He tells the fisherman to return to his wife, he goes home his wife is happy.  She is happy for one week, then demands he go back to the fish because she wants a castle, he does and on and on the wife continues to ask for bigger and better.  She asks to be queen of the moon, the stars and the sun which is where my own life comes in;)  lol.  I feel like I have been dreaming for everything to go perfectly the way I WANT IT!!  Charlotte and the kids stay healthy, I keep chugging away at school until one day I'm a doctor instead of just going for nursing, we move to downtown Chicago, and the list goes on.

At the end of the story the fish who is quite fed up with the pain in the butt wife's wishes, sends the fisherman home only to tell his wife that she has asked for too much, and now will have to go back to living in their old, worn out hut again.   Obviously the moral being she became too greedy, too selfish, she forgot about the important parts of life and therefore lost all of the good she had gained.  I think it's easy when you go through something like what our own family has, to think you deserve everything you want, you deserve to be selfishly happy, because well "life's been rough".  Even I have to take a step back, find my patience again, and allow life to happen, instead of trying to force it because well "I want it now".  I'm tired of being sad, I'm tired of leaning on things I shouldn't, I want to go back to the time when I didn't know any better and could just let time slip by unscathed.  However as this new normal life of our's has taught me so many things.  And sayings, or stories remind, I have to just relax and stop trying to control everything.  Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination in the end, and we don't always see the purpose until we get sent back to the hut so to speak.