"A New Year - A New Me"

 

It is 6:46 am, on the last Friday of 2012 and I sit here pondering what the New Year has in store. We survived the end of the Mayan Calendar. We survived another crazy election year with the outcome a bit disappointing, well at least that is of my own personal opinion that you do not have to agree with. We've seen countless acts of hate and violence over this year and now are for warned of a looming uncertainty of a fiscal cliff hanging over our heads. I think that with all this year has brought forth in our lives both in the world and personally, I can almost say I am feeling numb. As many of you know, I was on a quest to organize myself by the year 2013. I think I would be secure in saying that I accomplished only 70% of that goal, but something happened to me as I held myself publicly accountable for my disorganized ways and has me moving forward in a positive way.

Swallowing my pride, I found myself a therapist and having been going since July of this year - It was the best damn thing I have ever done for myself.  I found out that I have been a survivor of a sexual assault that happened in Adak, Alaska when I was active duty military, that I chose to hold captive in my mind for 21 years and holds the keys to acceptable reasons why I am a sporadic cluttered mess, among other things. I wish I had all the answers, but I am told that the process comes in three phases and I am just beginning phase two, which I am told is not a picnic. I've learned what triggers are, how they can greatly affect a person, and how to deal with whatever emotions stem from things that trigger me.  It can be a sound, smell, a place, a person, any number of things can be a trigger that generates the painful memory of what took place and that can alter a person and cause extreme behaviors. I am still on the denial train that I had been such a difficult person to deal with on occasion, but looking back on the last twenty years, I will take responsibility and say - yes I was over reactive, untrusting, controlling, fearful on so many levels that it even altered my work habits. I found myself on the verge of being a hoarder and scared to open up completely with anyone - including my family. (No more secrets…now you know why I did what I did, but I am not asking for your pity. It is what it is and I can’t change it, and I am at peace that people now have the information to offer some type of explanation.) There have been many friendships that have been destroyed because of my ways, and other friendships have fallen to the wayside because people didn't understand why I would react the way that I do with their negative comments that were “a joke” in their eyes. (Some joke. Never mess with a couple’s relationship nothing good can come from it.)

I guess I would say that I am taking a stand and confronting my stress disorder by making you all aware of what people could be going through and you may never know. I used to fake a smile and laugh, as I fear being judged if I showed you how much I was hurting. I hid my tears as I feared it would show my weakness and how venerable I really was. I loved so much that it pushed people away and I enjoy attention in a positive way, even if it appears that I don’t.  I like to consume myself with my art work as that is my therapy when I'm not sitting in a room spilling my problems to a person once a week (who I trust) who can remain neutral.

My New Year’s resolution is to resume on a positive path that I am building. I will continue to keep the weight off and steer clear of negative forces that try to shake me up. I am asking for your understanding and support as I journey deeper into the memories that have been safeguarded in my mind. That there could be days where happiness may not find me or that I may not want to smile, but if you wish to share one with me, I would be very grateful, even though you may not feel that I am.  I am just coming to the understanding that I have been kicking the can of denial and not only did it hurt me and alter me; it hurt many others along the way. So it's one day at a time, focusing on the three most important men in my life - My husband, who has stuck with me, when I would have left my ass years ago, and my two sons that are only just learning that mom really knows how to laugh and have fun. To my family and friends - thanks for hanging in there with me when times got crazy. I'm going to keep on with my writing and my quest to become 100% organized. I know I must be getting better as I was able to keep up with the orders on my web page for ornaments, which I haven't a clue how I did it. I painted over 1,000 ornaments and got them in the mail on time. I am stumped, but it did keep me from keeping up with my blog, which is something I also promise to be better attentive towards in the New Year. 

Many thanks to my continued readers even thought I have not kept up with my blog as I had hoped for the holiday seasons.  It is because of you the readers that I find the ability to bring my words and stories to the paper to share. I want to wish all of you and all the people of the world a very Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year. Let’s do our best to try to instill Peace on Earth and good will towards all. Until next time – Blog Ya Later Alligator!

A song that I remembered when I was a young girl in 1977 - When times were simple. Still brings a smile to my face. Enjoy.  (It's just another New Year's Eve)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wSP59NjoIY

 

"A Soldier's Night Before Christmas"

 

 

Well hello my loyal readers, and to my newest readers. Hope my words find you with a smile on this fine Tuesday morning. Course for some of you, your time zone could be ahead of me or behind me, but welcome just the same. I wanted to share with you a quick story about an observation and why I feel that if we could all just hold within us, just an ounce of compassion, life could be ever so much easier. After what I saw yesterday, I realized that there are people in this world that need this true life lesson.

I had been sitting in a patient waiting area in the Walter Reed National Medical Center, waiting for my appointment in the Dental Clinic, watching people walking by as they make their way to and from the various clinics on the floor that I was on. I noticed that all of them wore the same look of frustration, stone cold, anger, and some even tried to wear a painted smile to conceal the sorrow that consumed the rest of their body. It was obvious that people were not happy, until I heard the sounds of little feet running. I saw a mother and her young son making their way to the same clinic check-in desk that I had just been standing at. I never noticed her husband that was with her until he rolled up to the counter in his motorized wheelchair. My thoughts paid no mind to his disability, but what did catch me was the dozens of people who walked by wearing a frown with the exception of his sweet son, who was probably no more than two, and his father’s face that wore a genuine smile. It was when he turned his chair around that I noticed that the jacket that he had to conceal his legs had slid off revealing the extreme redness of recent scares of his double amputation and the loss of two fingers on his right hand. My mind pondered what he may have had to endure that the end result was this extreme, until I heard him tell the staff member at the desk he had recently been in the ongoing war overseas. I felt a rush of tears making their way onto the surface of my face that was soon turned into a smile after what he did next. His wife worked with the staff to get appointments that did not go as smoothly as she had hoped, but hung in there as their son became restless and was working on a bit of a crying fit. Without hesitation, her husband lifted his son up and placed in him in his lap, and then took him for a quick spin around the hospital on our floor. Both dad and son smiled and laughed as their wheels made a unique rhythm on the tiled floor as they wooshed by.

Wow, here is a father, a dad, a Soldier who has fought for our freedom and has suffered the loss of his limbs, and yet without missing a beat, reaches out to his wife to help her by entertaining his son, with laughter and smiles, while other onlookers displayed their disgust that their wish for library silence, had been broken by their sounds of joy. For me, their laughter helped me realize that no matter what we all may have endured in our lives; we never know the stories of others and what life is like for them. I wish citizens out there that feel that being negative and mean is the way life would realize - IT'S NOT!  We can't let the sorrow take hold of us and bring us to such a low, that we can't bring ourselves up.  We must rise up and move forward with love and happiness in our hearts and be blessed that we are still alive no matter what the challenges we have faced or the ones that await us. Life is too short.

As these feelings rushed over within me, a song began to ring out in my mind and touched my heart as if it were cradled in the palm of my husband’s hand being held ever so gently. “A Soldier's Night before Christmas," This is my husband’s favorite Christmas Song and it was this year when I really learned why it means so much to him. After all that I have learned this year about my Seabee Veteran, I look up at the heavens and thank god that he and his unit came home after their time in the Gulf War from 90-91. Like the song, they too had been Soldiers that had missed Christmas, with friends and family because of their duties as a United States Soldier, yet even thought they are home, there is a part of their souls that has been taken from them and remains overseas. I have never come face to face with the destruction of war or have been on the front line, but with all of his unit members who have been willing to share their personal stories of war, I have a better understanding and a deep seeded respect and appreciation of what, my husband, the soldier in the military hospital yesterday, and our men and woman in our armed forces go through when they come from war. I am thankful that at this time, my husband may not be in a wheelchair, or needs walking aids, but he still deals with pain both physically and other times mentally of his time during the war. I will never know everything about this man I love, and what he went through, but what I do know - I love him with all that I am and here for him no matter what.

 

 

Merry Christmas Ron & Merry Christmas to our military members and the families that wait patiently for their loved ones safe return home and to those who have come home and are trying to put the pieces of their lives back together as their family lovingly waits. This song I dedicate to all of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdEFaOoSBsw