It Is What It Is

Have you ever had a day where at the end of it you believe you may actually have discovered the meaning of life? You know, the kind of day where you are at the epicenter of it all and everything seems to be happening around you but you can’t quite grasp control of any of it. Sure, you can give advice and try to deal with it all in your own little unique way, but in the end, it’s all still out of your realm of being.
I had that kind of day today, and all I have to say is it involves my parents and a disagreement over a new piece of furniture, which I now refer to as “Divorce by Armchair.”
This is what happens when you have two people that have been married for almost 50 years, that are retired and see each other practically every single second of every single day. Especially when one of them is on a drug that he has been on for about 30 years and that makes you a little ‘feisty” and the problem with that drug is he’s taking double his dose because it makes him feel better. I’m not talking illegal drug, I’m talking prescribed cortisone because he no longer has a pituitary gland because of a brain tumor kind of drug. The issue here is that he doesn’t realize the fact that the extra cortisone puts him on an emotional rollercoaster that leaves him threatening the people at Coca Cola one minute (don’t ask), and laughing along with his new neighbors the next. It’s enough to make a person crazy, and unfortunately is out of my control. Which brings me to my new motto; “It Is What It Is.”
While driving today and talking on the phone to multiple members of my family to try and remedy “Divorce by Armchair” I realized that there are things in life that I am not able to control and no matter how I hate to admit that, I guess I just have to accept it and realize “It is what it is.” There was a point somewhere between the phone call to my sister and the phone call to my mother (who had camped out in the Perkins parking lot after removing herself from the situation) where I just wanted to break down and cry out of frustration. But before that first tear came running down my cheek a light popped in my head and I all of a sudden thought, you know what? “It is what it is.” Immediately my tear dried and it was suddenly like after 29 years of “crying over spilled milk” I have finally come to the conclusion that I was not meant to tackle every single problem and that not everything can be fixed by myself and myself alone, some things you just have to accept as they are. Sure, I’d love to have my dad back to “normal”, back to the way he used to be when I was growing up, but that’s just not going to happen and I can’t dwell on it because that day has passed and it just is what it is.
I have since decided to share the responsibility with my siblings to mend the problem at hand and make things better, not try to necessarily change them, or to hope for some sort of miracle, but to just make things better, because in the end, that’s what families and friends are for, support, love and to help each other through the “it’s” of the “is’s.”
So if I ever write a book about my life I plan on titling it “It is what it is.” Or maybe I could go retro-Popeye “I am what I am.” Or maybe just “I am” or “It is,” or “Holy Shit.” Either way I am sure I’ll have enough to make it interesting.