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Healthy Horizons

Laurie Lupold

Something To Talk About

There come times in my life when I have to question what it is I have accomplished? What is my purpose? Quite often I feel like such an illiterate failure that I wonder if it is sensible to go on. I never have used my column as a means of venting, but I have to wonder if there are not others who find themselves in the same relative position as I.

I fail to see the humor at times in being a parent. Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that I parent six children primarily alone. Yes, I did say six. Three are his and three are mine. As if that isn't enough of an aggravation I have a teen who has decided that he is invincible to a system that would have no sorrow in locking him away. I'm sure as writers, you can create the attitude of this child without my saying more.

I have gone to the heights of the Mayor for this child but everything I have built for him he has torn down. Yet, I feel as though I am the guilty one. Maybe I tried too hard or not hard enough. Maybe I was just as influenced by his charm as anyone who supported him. I don't have the answers or perhaps it is simply that I don't want to acknowledge them. He is old enough to know right from wrong; he has been taught as much, therefore the choices he has made were his own, whether they were good or undesirable choices.

Yet, you can imagine the impact this has had on my life, given that I already have so much on my plate to deal with. As you, my readers know, I suffer with multiple mood disorders and functioning life in a normal sense is difficult enough. But with such a chatic setting it is mind-boggling.

Where do I turn when I feel drained and hopeless? Well, I believe it is foreseen that I turn to my writing and to those who take the time to read it. When I write a story, emotions and energies I have at that particular moment in time go into what I am writing. Of course, outside of my columns I primarily write fiction, but even then some amount of truth is borne into whatever I'm creating.

My characters might have the personalities of someone close to me or they might be pictures of people I'd like to know. They could express pieces of my life that may not have been the most comfortable for me, or they might be fantasies of the life I wish I'd had. My characters at times can be childlike and I find myself connecting somehow with those children or they might be cocky detectives who have a know-it-all attitude. I can flex my creative muscles in various directions and communicate a progressive tale.

One thing we get in writing that we unfortunately don't get in life is "control." We can decide where we want to go with our characters, how the stories will progress and what will be the endings, but in life we cannot control the choices of others. Should my son continue to break the rules and be sent away again, I will reflect on what I have written here and know, logically, that I had no "control."

Til next time keep reaching for those Healthy Horizons.

Thanks so much for allowing me to share my life with you. If there is ever anything you'd like to suggest as a column idea or you simply want to comment or get something off your shoulders, please feel free to write me.

Laurie