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What I think in Retrospect

January 1, 2013 by

Today is New Year’s Day 2013; we survived the Mayan Apocalypse as we have so many other predictions of the end of the world. I kept asking people to send me their valuables for safekeeping, just in case mind you. It was a no go, I got not a thing except a few giggles, my friends are all so smart.

Yesterday I thought about all the things this past year brought, good and bad, bright and dark. Yesterday I also slept a great amount of the day away; I have been doing that a great deal lately with the assistance of my broad-spectrum painkillers (thanks doc).

This is in no way an attempt to make New Year’s Resolutions; I don’t do those anymore they simply add to my feelings of inadequacy when I systematically ED TV Ads Viagra Ad fail to achieve them. Do not mistake me, I do not feel inadequate on a regular basis only sometimes, like any normal person even if we don’t admit it at least aloud and in public. I don’t think there is Viagra for the heart and mind, well
there is actually but you can’t take it based on ‘periodic feelings of inadequacy’ versus ‘all the time’.

Did I just compare my now and then feelings of not measuring up to Erectile Dysfunction? Gad

Well, back to the main thrust of my ruminations yesterday, what did I learn as I pondered the last 365 days?

I am still capable of passion. It is in fact a core of my being too long ignored, too long tapped down so others are more comfortable with me. Even here, in my writing I have worked hard to be balanced, fair, pragmatic and inoffensive knowing those who I have great respect and love for might turn away from me should I let my passions fly.

Though I have exposed much of my history on these pages, I remain very much a private person holding myself within the four walls of my soul. This dichotomy has caused me to withdraw from friends, from those who wanted to draw me in, even from self at times. The more I drew back the curtains of the past the more I retreated.

I lie, yes, I said it I lie. I lie to myself every now and then but I lie to others also. I say I don’t care what others think but that isn’t really true at all; of course I care, I am after all human. My investment in caring is long-standing; it is part of who I have always been. Caring what others thought kept me in miserable marriages long past the time I should have exited. Caring what others thought kept me standing and laughing with my bullies in school when I should have demanded justice. Caring what others think now keeps me from standing up sometimes and saying, “No, I will not be quite, accept your judgment or your bad behavior”, simply because I need the connection.fourwalls

I say yes when I should say no. This is true in every aspect of my life. I allow others to dictate my direction based on their need and desire without consideration of what I might need or want. My narrow shoulders carry a huge burden yet I don’t seem able to say NO. The only thing I seem able to do is crawl under the covers and allow ‘sad’ and ‘pain’ to dictate my response to ‘no more’. This reaction is new this year. As I have debrided the past it seems I have also found new ways to hide from others and myself. For a year, I have lived in chaos, emotional and environmental chaos. The ability to say either HELP ME or NO has escaped me and thus I have lived chaotically all year.

I am fooling myself, not really but yes, I am fooling myself. I have spent the last year in pain. I tell others I have a high pain threshold and thus living like this is simply ‘what it is’. That answer is frankly Bullshit. That answer is destroying my life, my marriage and my future. I do have a high pain threshold, which should not matter a whit. This year has seen me go from working with a trainer in 2011, walking fairly regularly and actually losing weight to being nearly sedentary in 2012. My body hurts, I have gained weight again, I look and feel like warmed over…..well you know. I cannot live this way. Not only is it unhealthy, I do not feel good about myself.

 There are still things I want to accomplish in this life! There are still things undone.

That is the greatest conclusion I have come to. There are still things undone. Still lessons to learn, people to meet, love to give, passions to explore, waves to ride.

I admit it, I spent yesterday beating myself up a little bit. I felt as if I had let some people down over the past year. I hadn’t always lived up to my end of the bargain in our relationships, whether marriage, friendship or business. I always knew when I failed, when I fell down; what I failed so often to do is say to them, “I am sorry, I couldn’t do what I promised”.

I have to get better at only promising what I am able to deliver. I have to get better at judging my own capabilities and capacity. That is one resolution I plan on actually working on, just trying to be a better friend, wife and business partner.

I have to get better at taking care of myself. No, not working through the pain that is only for the fools who enjoy abuse and I am long past that. I am going to find a way to reduce the pain, go back to my trainer and do something to get off my azz this year. I simply cannot live this way.

I am going to find a dream or two to follow, chase like mad even. I have them, really. I have had them for a very long time. It is past time for me to put myself on the front burner, stop saying yes to every damn-body else and say yes to me.

I am going to continue to evolve the relationships I started this past year with long lost family members, including siblings and my first mother. They require nurturing; I am going to work on that garden.

momandI

So there you have it, my non-Resolutions based on my thoughts of this past year. How was your New Years?

Filed Under: Personal Notes, Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sandpaper on Silk

December 7, 2012 by

This has been a rough year, I mentioned that in a previous post and I mentioned some of the reasons why. This year I celebrated (I use this word tongue in cheek) my twenty year anniversary, February 7, 1992 was the day myrubyslippers life changed though at the time I wouldn’t know this single event would be life changing. All year I have been exploring my inner world and the events of my life that created that inner world. Some days I feel caught, as if I am Dorothy but the tornado didn’t drop my house in Oz and I do not have Ruby Slippers.

Nearly a year ago I told the story of February 7th, for those who have never read it feel free to jump over to Crime, Punishment and Victims. As part of that story, I provided this simple table, which I have changed to provide release dates:

Charge Sentence Date Release Date First Eligible Release Parole Date Birth Date Actual Release Date
Att Cap Murder w/ Deadly 8/12/92 3/13/12 3/31/97 12/14/75 3/12
2 counts Att Cap Murder w/Deadly 4/13/93 3/9/27 7/12/00 6/18/76 10/12
2 counts Att Cap Murder w/Deadly Agg Robbery w/Deadly 3/8/93 3/5/27 3/12/00 3/5/76 11/12

Yes, you read the above right, all of my personal offenders are now free. When I wrote On My Knees in October, only one had received his parole approval. Since that writing, something else happened, in November the final blow to my already shattered spirit, shortly before Thanksgiving the last of the three walked free with his parole. I simply could not write then, I couldn’t put fingers to keyboard, it has taken me weeks till now in truth to say they are all free.

Yesterday morning I was in my doctor’s office, we were discussing the weakness in my arm. Why during the course of the day my right arm will suddenly become weak, I suddenly can’t type, why the escalation in pain over the past several months. I adore my Neurologist, for several reasons but mostly because he is patient with me, patient with my complaints. We both know what is wrong, I suspect we both know I cannot continue to ignore the obvious, but he has not pushed me to surgery earlier than I was ready to accept the inevitable, I am not going to miraculously leap up healed. He is also not a pill pusher, which I appreciate even more than anyone could possibly imagine. We now have a plan, I don’t love the plan; I have been avoiding major surgery for a few years, it is likely I will not be able to avoid any longer.

When the first of the three walked out the prison gates, he had served his sentence. It was a mixed set of emotions I felt, but he had served his entire sentence he was done and free. When I received the first notice of parole in October, I was as the title of my post says on my knees. I couldn’t breathe for days; my fury was so hot I lashed out at everyone around me. Then November came, the third letter came. Honestly, I thought this one would be a notification of denial, surely they wouldn’t grant another parole, would they?

Parole

Really? Parole?

  • I can’t sleep through an entire night, because of pain.
  • I can’t sit for more than two hours without tears of pain.
  • I can’t walk for more than fifteen minutes without my right leg going entirely numb.
  • There are times during the day, I can’t feel my right arm, my hand goes numb, my entire right side goes numb. There are times I am in so much pain I want to scream.

Parole?

What have they done to deserve parole?

I have to have more surgery. I have to risk my life under anesthesia for the possibility of life with less pain.

They get parole seventeen years early.

Parole? I am trying to find my compassion button.

compassionbutton

I am trying to find the place in me that agrees this is fair and just. I am trying hard to say this is not about me but simply part of the system. Victims are truly not part of the equation, though we are notified and we are invited to say our piece to courts and parole boards, it isn’t truly about us. We are not part of the criminal justice system; it is not about us in any real sense. I know this, intellectually I know this; my heart doesn’t follow my mind.

When an offender is arrested and goes to trial it becomes THE STATE vs THE OFFENDER

That is the truth; it isn’t really about the true victim any longer. The victim is simply a witness to the crime. No matter how horrific the crime, no matter the terror, no matter the injury, no matter anything at all the victim is simply a witness for the State, the State is in fact the Victim. I always have to remind myself of that simple and ugly truth.

What I really felt that day was what I felt twenty years ago after they were arrested and I sat in the DA’s office talking about their sentencing, I knew someday this day would come. I didn’t know then I would evolve or change, I only knew I was furious and wanted revenge. I told him I didn’t want them in prison I wanted them on their knees in front of me, on a dark street, I wanted the gun they had used to shoot me and I wanted to shoot them in exactly the same way. If they survived as I had, under the very same circumstances they could remain free, if not Que Sera. I was primitive that day. I was primitive twenty years later, it was as if I hadn’t evolved at all and I was a little bit ashamed.

So, back to this has been a rough year. As I line up those dominoes so I can hopefully knock them down. The second letter of parole, yeah that was one, that one knocked me over. That one hurt. Honestly, I don’t often call myself a Victim, I don’t like the word and I certainly don’t like it applied to me. But that day, when I opened that letter Victim was aptly applied to how I felt.

I am struggling to breathe through all these different issues and find my footing. I refuse to allow this year a stranglehold, yes it has been rough, sandpaper would have been gentler. There is light though and it is not a train, my soul takes flight even through these difficult patches of pain, anger and frustration. One by one, I am going to let them go, the dominoes will fall and I am eternally grateful for the wonderful friends in my corner who keep shouting at me…….

JUST BREATH

From Megaphotos, as always dance is my idea of breathing

From Megaphotos, as always dance is my idea of breathing

Filed Under: Personal Notes, Series: Crime and Punishment, Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Get off the Funk Train

December 1, 2012 by

UntitledThere are times when it feels the world is working against you, this year has been like that for me and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Each time I tried the reason, the cause for my angst slipped away. It wasn’t that I was particularly sad, depressed or angry; no, that wasn’t it at all. It wasn’t that this has been a terrible year, not a terrible one for me personally anyway. Something though sat in the corner, like a shadow just beyond my vision, sapping my strength, my energy and my emotional reserves.

There have been many changes this year, many things I have brought on myself. Explorations of my own history some of which was difficult, soul scrubbing even, these were not the cause of my bother. Then there has been the very ugly political season, I found myself in battle royale’s with friends and family, more times than I might wish. While the campaign season was nasty and brought out the ugly in many of us, myself included at times, this wasn’t what sucked me down into this muddle either.

So, what is it that has me in a funk? I feel sometimes I am swimming in a morass of quicksand with nothing to grab on, nothing to pull myself out

Truly, this year has been troubling to me; the more I sought answers the more my head and heart seemed to slip out the back door and away from my inspection. The greater my introspection and the more I searched for cause, the more the shadow seemed to grow, surrounding my days and sucking my energy along with it. On the one hand, I was releasing my history and I was lighter for it, my soul and heart were expanding and I could feel those pieces of me flying off to the winds. Was this what was wrong? Did I need those pieces to be whole, to be completely me was I really only me when I held on to the pain of my history; surly this wasn’t the truth. I hadn’t told everything, I still had my secrets those parts that I hadn’t let out that I hadn’t shown, was this what was wrong? No, I didn’t think so, some stories can wait I think until we are ready to tell them, one I had told to two people without comment so it was in their keeping for now.

This year was difficult, despite some of the great things and great people I found along the way. My energy was sapped, I couldn’t finish projects and I let people down. All too frequently, I ran away from interaction, from telling people there was something wrong. Even knowing there were communities of true friends I could turn to, I hid simply stopped communicating rather than say, “There is something wrong”.QuestionMark

What was wrong with me this year?

Part of what is wrong is simply physical, I am in pain and it is draining my energy. I have allowed this to continue without dealing with it head on. I am tired. That is the truth. It has been twenty long years; it is not ever going to get better. I am tired. I am tired of always hurting. I am tired of living in an alternate universe where pain is the norm and I live on a scale of 5-10 rather than 0-5. I am tired of having to explain.

I am tired of what pain does to my body. I am tired of being fat because moving hurts and keeps me away from doing anything healthy for myself. I am tired of being too embarrassed to go to the gym. I am tired of hurting too much to walk. I am tired of all the numb spots on my body that get worse if I stand too long or walk too far. I am tired of having to explain this to perfectly healthy, body perfect people my dearly beloved included who doesn’t understand what it means to not live in pain every single day of their lives.

I am angry, yes, I am angry because in October of last year someone rear-ended me while I sat at a stop light. That act caused me more harm; progress I had made with my physical therapy was entirely undone. I ended up losing a contract and thus losing income. The other person’s insurance company treated me terribly in large part because I had a pre-existing condition. This still hasn’t been resolved, an attorney who is a member at the club dearly beloved works offered to take the case on contingency. Yes, there is a contract and thirteen months later, we are still waiting for him to do anything. In fact, despite multiple times of him telling me he is preparing an offer for the insurance company he has done nothing. This week I have sent him two e-mails asking why, he hasn’t responded to either.

What is wrong with me this year?wellmoney

I lost a third of my normal income through that accident, because I couldn’t travel for months. I am the primary breadwinner in our marriage, always have been. No one seems to be at all concerned, but me perhaps because finances are my purview just as earnings are my responsibility. As I look at the year, though I realized I failed to live up to my end, but it feels like it is a domino effect. If I weren’t already hurt that accident would have been nothing, I would have walked away.

If it weren’t for fearing repercussions against dearly beloved I would take action against this attorney who is doing nothing. I do though; I fear greatly DB will be harmed if I take action so I am bound by ribbons of love and my own failure to act.

What is wrong with me this year? Why am I in such a funk? Why can’t I seem to move through the bad and focus on what is wonderful and what is great?

I don’t know the answer to the above. I just know I have been trying without much success to take on small projects for months now. It isn’t there haven’t been wins; they just don’t seem to be enough to push the blues out of my way to wash the fog from my brain entirely. I know I need something to compel me, something to spin my wheels.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not always sad or unhappy. I am just in a funk this year. There have been changes and some of them have worked my nerve. Some of them I have to deal with, I have to do something about so they don’t work my nerve next year too.

So, that is some of why I am in a funk, some of what is shadowing me. I don’t know what I will do to fix it, but somehow I must over the next four weeks get proactive. My funk is affecting my marriage, my work and my friendships. I refuse to allow it to follow me to next year.

That being said, I leave you with this wonderful group of children.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Our Body Our Self id

October 6, 2012 by

I have been thinking lately about how I see myself and it causes me some angst, this has been on my mind a weight on my heart even. I know, it shouldn’t I am a tough old broad, generally not given to inner flights of fancy or brooding about what cannot be changed. My fifty-fifth birthday has come and gone now, I am past middle age and heading towards, well something else entirely.

Why am I noodling this? What am I really talking about; I am talking about Me, Myself, I, Id, Ego; all the things that make me ME. More importantly, I am talking about what I see in the mirror of my mind versus how others judge me when they see me on the street or meet me for the first time. Perhaps even more hurtful it is how those close to me offer up their helpful suggestions and thoughts on my ‘health’ and appearance.

I wonder does it never cross their minds to ask, “How do you feel today?”

Can it be that even those closest to me have decided I made a personal choice and it was to be fat? Do the people who claim they love me honestly think (this is a stretch, the thinking part) this is the look I chose? That I enjoy being laughed at on the street, dismissed as lazy and worse stupid. Do those who profess their care for me truly believe I don’t see myself, know my ass enters the room approximately thirty-two seconds after my boobs? Do they think this doesn’t bother me?

Of course it does you bunch of insensitive social incompetents!

There was a time in my life I wanted to be a Ballerina, I wanted to float across the floor in beautiful flowing costumes en pointe’ making art with my body. Then my body betrayed me, my ballet teacher smacked my breasts emerging like angry beehives from my chest and explained in her thick Russian accent, “No prima ballerina has breasts like a peasant!”

Ten years of grinding practice only to be told my peasant breasts were not the stuff of ballerinas. Nevertheless, I continued to dance, because I loved it. I also took gymnastics, rode horses, skied, ran, played soccer and did many other things all because I loved them. After all, with prima ballerina off the table everything else was on! There were times I brutalized my body, it didn’t matter I just kept going. I tore my knees up; I would walk again long before they healed properly.

I learned many forms of dance from ballet to belly; dance was my favorite form of expression and art. Dance was my heart.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

100 pounds.

That is how much I gained in the first two years after I was shot. Sometimes I lose some of it. Then I have another setback, another surgery or another round of partial paralysis. The reality is I don’t think I will ever lose it, not ever. Before I was shot I had already gained weight, I was in a miserable marriage and I was unhappy, I wasn’t fat but I was no longer thin and perfect either.

I wonder I look at those words and I wonder no longer thin and perfect. What does that mean, perfect in what respect and perfect according to what measurement. Who or what am I measuring myself against?

Now at fifty-five I use wonderful words to describe myself, words like Zaftig, which is one of my favorites. I laugh along with others at the shallowness of a society that would dare to judge me on my dress size without taking the time to value my intellect, my capabilities or my accomplishments. The reality is their judgment hurts. My own judgment hurts truthfully I am diminished by both.

Don’t you want to lose weight?

I am asked this question quite frequently. The answer is always the same, of course I do you nitwits. I also want to live without pain, wake up every morning leap out of bed without any numb spots anywhere on my body. Given a choice, I will take pain free over thin any day of the week. I won’t achieve that one in my lifetime either.

Would I like to lose weight?

Certainly, I would love to lose weight. I would love to shop in stores that didn’t specialize for ‘fat girls’. I would love to go to the gym and not feel ashamed; in fact, I would love to not be afraid to go to the gym.

I would like to go to the gym and take a yoga class where not everyone looked like they just stepped off the pages of Cosmopolitan. Why isn’t there ever a beginner’s class for fat people?

I would like to go to the gym and not feel like an alien, not be stared at as if I belonged somewhere else, anywhere else but there.

I would like for people to see me and not judge me. I would like to look in the mirror and not judge myself.

Why in the hell do gyms have so many damned mirrors anyway?

Kirstie Alley before and after at least she still looks like a woman

I would like to not be asked by those who profess to love me why I don’t lose weight. I would love, just once for someone, anyone who loves me to ask me how I feel today.

I have read so many great blogs recently on the subject of our bodies and social judgment; one stands out in part because as a woman it hit home I hope you will go read Sweet Mother http://sweetmotherlover.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/dear-fat-dudes/

I previously wrote this, a lighter look at the subject. https://valentinelogar.com/category/personal-notes/

The truth  is, this might just be my reality. I can eat the best I can. I can walk on the days I am not hurting so badly it is all I can do to crawl out of bed. I can try to overcome my fear of the gym, but I suspect that one is harder than anyone can imagine. My truth is, I live within the body I have and it doesn’t love me. I don’t fit the world and I don’t have the fight left to force the issue. We are so shallow we are willing to diminish anyone that doesn’t fit our narrow vision of beauty forgetting there is a whole person inside the body we judge not good enough. So today I will cheer for those women like Jennifer Livingston who was brave enough to address the man who berated her for her ‘choice’ to be obese. I wish more of us were willing to stand up to those who are so socially inept, cruel and frankly stupid.

Filed Under: Personal Notes, Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Train Wrecks

April 15, 2012 by

Train Wreaks

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Image courtesy of Wikepdia

We say we don’t love them, but honestly, we really do. When we hear about one if we are nearby we rush out to see the destruction, if not we tune in to watch on our television, our social media is filled with the sad news of body counts and fault. We can’t detach ourselves from the constant stream of tragedy.

We hate traffic, until we roll-up on the five-car accident on the side of the road. We cannot help ourselves, just like the three hundred drivers before us we crane our necks, slowing down to see what we can see. Is there a body? Are they using the Jaws of Life to crack open that $50,000 car?

When I was eight years old I went to school on a Military base in Munich Germany, to get there I took a bus from Pullach, which was about a 40-minute ride. One snowy, slushy morning with some 40 children in the bus, we slowed down and were directed around a police cordon. Suddenly the bus matron told all the children on the right side of the bus to look the other direction (not out of the window). Of course, we all ignored her and pressed our faces onto that frosty window, climbing over each other to get a better view at whatever we were not supposed to see. There it was, gory and terrible. A car had hit a man riding a bicycle, decapitating him. Apparently, in Germany in 1964, they didn’t believe in covering things up until necessary; I have never forgotten that sight.

Image courtesy of 1000AwesomeThings.com

The light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the train. Have you heard this before? I certainly have, I have thought it and even said it about more than one thing in my life, from my job to my marriage. There simply are times when things seem out of control, we feel as if we are in free fall and the emergency ripcord is just out of reach. I have been feeling this way often lately, more often than I care to admit frankly.

Image courtesy of Nasa.gov

What is it that drives our feelings of inadequacy and fear of loss, fear of failure? Do we watch everything around us, the ‘picture perfect’ people, the stars of reality, movies and television fail, their lives spinning out of control and fear our own cannot help but follow suit. Surely, without their resources, without their access how could our own lives not slide into that black hole sucking our energy,draining our emotional fortune? Is this really it? Is this why so many of us feel so inadequate when we look in the mirror, when we shop or just on those days when the sky is grey and the rain falls.

Perhaps the reason we are so quick to laugh and point out the failure of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s marriage is the years they were successful and loving didn’t validate our personal views. Nothing during their marriage was met with public acceptance, nothing considered ‘normal’. Always there was a joke to be had their age difference, their public affection, their life in Tweets. With the meltdown of their marriage in a very public way, just like driving by that 5-car pileup we made jokes, pointed our fingers in their direction and laughed, never once thinking how much pain they might be in, only that for once it wasn’t us; not our marriage.

Image courtesy of flickr.com

These past six-weeks I have been a bit blue, no real reason for my internal color scheme just the shading of the season I guess. The world seems to be taking such a turn for the worse, the gears of my mind work overtime to make sense of what doesn’t make any sense at all. The only way I am able to make any sense of what I am feeling lately is to try to take on the bigger picture, to depersonalize and put my pragmatism in front. Try to find the ripcord and get myself out of free fall.

Filed Under: Personal Notes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Staying in Bed

January 19, 2012 by

There are simply days when you don’t want to get out of bed, feed the dog, pet the cat or say hello to the world.

There are days when it feels as if you have been kicked in the shins one to many times and frankly, your knees hurt!

I am having one of those days today, my knees hurt. So does my back, my neck, hell even my fingers hurt. Now I don’t usually complain, certainly I don’t complain about all the things on my body that hurt me. I don’t complain about all the things that don’t work any longer. I don’t complain about all the things that don’t move the way they are supposed to move or in the direction they are supposed to go. Well, perhaps that isn’t entirely true, there are some people that hear what hurts, I hope not too often though.

There are some days when it just seems I shouldn’t have to get out of bed. In fact the only reason I do is I need coffee, a smoke and if I don’t move I am afraid I might never do so again.

I have had a particularly bad month. It happens this way sometimes when you work for yourself, but this month has simply been particularly bad. I know I am good at what I do, I am not inflexible or hard to get along with – this month I have been accused of both, by a customer no less! I do not use my hidden disability for special treatment; in fact I keep it to myself (the reason for the second accusation) unless asked and pay the price. I tell people what they need to know and only what they need to know so they understand why I do certain things and can’t do others.

While there is a three-month history leading up to the loss of two customers, two projects, actually nearly a twenty-year history now, for some reason this is hitting me hard. I am questioning myself, my abilities, my capabilities and even whether I have the wherewithal to continue on the road I have set for myself.

There are some days when I just want to stay in bed; today is one of those days. I think this week has been one of those weeks.

There are some days when I feel more than justified that I haven’t forgiven those that did so much harm to me, to my body. Days like today when I know every single day for the rest of my life I will hurt and I will have to demand of myself that I get out of bed and convince myself it is worth it, because it is better to live with pain than not to live at all.

Then I think, but I don’t have an income because I lost two projects, not because I am bad at my work but because my body gave out, again. Because I couldn’t work within the travel constraints a client placed; of course had they told me up front I wouldn’t have taken the project in the first place and I wouldn’t be in this position, but that is a different issue all together. I lost one project because someone rear-ended me and what someone else would have likely walked away from I received significant injury and had weeks of treatment for.

There are days, sometimes weeks when I wonder if survival is all it is cracked up to be.

There are some days that simply suck.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

When Lightening Strikes

December 14, 2011 by

If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you. T.S Eliot

Flickriver Image

I found that quote years ago while sitting in yet another doctor’s waiting room. It stuck with me. It had been eighteen months since the shooting and I was waiting to find out if I could stop wearing the hard brace. This was my third and hopefully last time with this piece of ugly that wrapped itself around my neck digging into my collarbone and leaving permanent bruises on my shoulders. There were days I felt like  one of the Giraffe Women of Burma.

Still Mad at the World

Up to this point, I had seen more doctors than I could remember. I had already had eight surgeries including the removal of the bullet in my

Not Mine But Close_Google Image

forearm which was a very public event attended by two police officers who took the intact bullet as evidence, that was a treat. I had seen the useless psychologist who specialized in victims of violent crime, his contribution to my recovery was an hours’ worth of, repeat after me, “you have a right to feel that way.” Well hell, I knew that when I got here fool, which unfortunately slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, my bad. He suggested he might not be the best person to help me, really you think.

Now here I was, sitting in my Neurosurgeons office thumbing through a magazine and there it was my epiphany.

Wow, just Wow

What was I going to do with my new circumstances? I couldn’t change them; there wasn’t a single thing I could do that was going to undo what happened. The real questions I had to ask were these  –

Are you going to be a Victim?

Are you going to be a Survivor?

Or are you going to be something more, are you going to be Victorious?

The answer was clear, getting there not so clear. The path wasn’t at all obvious or straight,

My Road Image My.Opera

not then and truthfully not ever. In fact, even now, nearly twenty years later, I find myself on roads filled with potholes, switchbacks and what feel like insurmountable steep climbs.There are days I want to pull over to the side of the road of my life, curl up and give up. It isn’t fair I think in the back of my mind, that small voice whispers to me, ‘just lay down, someone will come along shortly’.  The truth is, though I have many wonderful people in my life, always have had, the only one that will come along is me. The only person that can force that next step is me, even when it hurts like hell it is still me.

From Victim to Survivor to Victorious

There is no life without bumps in the road, I accept that my life is no different from others. My bumps might be different they are still just bumps. I have been fortunate in my journey of discovery and recovery to meet some amazing people with similar bumps as mine, they taught me about getting up in the morning, breathing through pain, letting go of survivor guilt and most importantly getting too happy.

The Original Story

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment, Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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