Is Life Supposed to Make Sense?

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Barbara Ellen McMahon, author of the novella, Mrs. Rochester. It’s a sequel to Jane Eyre. This time, it’s Jane who’s locked in the attic and there’s a new governess. It’s available on Kobo, where it’s been getting rave reviews. If you enjoy my writing here, chances are you’ll love Mrs. Rochester.

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I often think that my life makes no real narrative sense. I only expect it to because I’m a story-teller and stories make sense. We edit out the loose ends, the extra bits that go nowhere. And somehow, I’ve grown to expect the great editor in the sky to do the same with my life, forgetting that novels aren’t real life and I shouldn’t expect real life to behave like art. I keep wanting, expecting life to follow the rules of any half-decent novel. But it doesn’t. It can’t. It’s much too big to be constrained like that.

There are times when that overlay helps to calm my nerves. I think, things are tough right now, but we’re headed for something better and this is necessary to get us there. And there are times when I really need to just throw my hands up and admit that there is no pattern, this isn’t heading anywhere and my attempts to make it fit a narrative arc are actually hurting me. Not every path leads to wholeness. Not every story has a happy ending. There is entropy in the human condition as well as the physical world. We do ourselves a disservice pretending otherwise.

Chronic illness has taught me that. So often, it’s just a holding pattern. You hurt. And that’s all that happens. I’ve had eleven years of it. I haven’t gotten better. I haven’t triumphed over it. I’ve lived with it and despite it. There’s really no glory in eleven years of constant pain and limitation. It’s just there, blighting my life and Alan’s, too. No triumph, no redemption, no big lessons learned. It’s not a gift. It’s a disease to be managed. And often, too often, I get conflated with the disease and become something to be managed as well.

There isn’t a narrative arc to chronic illness, or any of the other misfortunes that befall us. It enters your life for no apparent reason and then just sort of stays there. Not earning its keep, not moving the story along. Whatever lessons I pull from the experience, I’m pulling from inside of me. The disease doesn’t give them to me. It bears no gifts of its own. It’s not a character in my story. It’s a disease. It’s just there, messing up the works.

That’s my real life. Maybe if I frame it well, my illness can have some meaning that can be part of the story I tell myself. It can be a helpful story, a comforting story, but out here in reality, it’s just a disease, amorphous, existing. With no real purpose in my life.

Carl Jung believed that all of us are in a constant state of becoming, incomplete and in need of unceasing care. I find that such a comforting thought! Every single one of us is undeveloped and in need of care, not just the chronically ill and depressed.

I think most of us go through phases where we think we are complete. We think we don’t need to grow or try new things, until life says, “Oh no you don’t!” We can go our merry way for years, complacently thinking we’ve got it licked. I know I did, before I got sick.

But if incomplete is the human condition, the way we’re meant to be, doesn’t it feel like a pretty big weight falling off your shoulders? We don’t have to have it all figured out even if we’re all grown up. I don’t need to view my chronic illness as some kind of enemy, or coherent plotline. It’s just another indicator that my inner self needs care and attention and always will.

I will always be in a state of becoming and my many and varied enthusiasms are a part of that, something to look at as evidence that I’m doing the work I need to do to grow, not something to be embarrassed about because I should be done growing by now, my story should be out of plot twists. According to Jung, the growing part never ends, if you’re doing life right. What a freeing, empowering thought!

I thought maybe I was living wrong, that my illness was evidence of the wrongness of me. Nope. It’s just a chronic illness. It doesn’t need to change my approach to life, except in the limitations it places on what I can do. But as a reminder of my need for ongoing care and nurturance, it’s pretty handy.

There’s nothing wrong with you if you need care, if you’re incomplete. It’s actually a healthy way to be, even if our society has lost sight of that.

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Don’t forget, my book, Mrs. Rochester, is available on Kobo. Your purchase helps to support an independent author.