Not Again!

Take a close look at the picture on the left....that is my life for the next few weeks....and it's not the first time I've had to wear this.  Two Novembers ago, I had surgery on my right foot to reattach my ligament to my ankle.  I wore the boot that time for nearly two months.  It was horrible.  It holds the heat in and overheats my body.  It's bulky, and hard to maneuver.  And let's not even mention the fact that I couldn't drive for months!

So, why the boot?  Why the issues with the ligament?  It is a long story that goes back to 1988.  The first day of my junior year in high school...I actually fell going up the bleachers for Junior Assembly.  Severe sprain that resulted in crutches for two weeks and an air cast for months.  June 1993, walking back to my car, on Whiting Naval Air Station, I twisted my ankle on the curb...yet another severe sprain and crutches for a bit...while we were moving no less.  January 2006...I actually went nearly 13 years without an injury....I was walking down the stairs in the dark in the middle of the night and stepped on the damn cat sleeping.  Severe sprain...crutches for a few weeks...and missed follow up with an orthopedic.  A few years later, I began exercising and my foot really starting hurting me.  Result...unattached ligament from all of the trauma.  Surgery and boot.

The great thing about that is I kept the crutches and the boot.  The Sunday before Labor Day we were at the Annual Corn Roast (a family/friend reunion that a friend's family puts together) and my friend asked me to help her get the watermelons out of the cellar.  Being a good friend, I say sure...why not.   Carrying the large, spiked watermelon in front of me, I cannot watch where my feet are going on each step.  So, I couldn't see that there was a much larger lip on the doorway to the outside than I anticipated.....and over I went.  I felt and heard my bone crack and just let myself fall because I knew if I fought, I would make it worse.  Thankfully...2/3 of the Minot Volunteer Fire Department were there to help me.  One in particular took care of my foot...secured it...took down my demographics...talked me through muscle spasms.  I also had some very awesome friends around me...old and new!  One allowed me to muckle onto her leg with my nails and squeeze to help keep my foot relaxed during muscle spasms.  One took pictures that I am still waiting to see on facebook.  And one called 911......Now THIS is the funny part of the story.

While she was on the phone with 911, she being the one I helped with the watermelons, her back was to me and I didn't realize she was on the phone...I said...really loudly and jokingly...That is the last time I help you with watermelon Bitch!  The dispatcher, instead of confirming that it was an actual threat, flagged the call as a domestic disturbance....thereby barring the paramedics from coming into the yard to get  me until state police could get on the scene and secure it.  Now my friend calling 911...her husband is also on the Minot FD and heard the domestic disturbance chatter on the radio and promptly fixed the issue.  So, a ride to the hospital, a few hours in the ER and xrays later...and here I sit...broken foot and walking cast on.

When I do something, dear reader, I do it big!

My Lunchtime Companion

For the last week, I've declined to go on my daily walk...the hot, humid weather is just not agreeing with me.  I'm a summer baby...and I LOVE the summer....but this year, it was just too much...too much 90+ days and too much damn humidity.  I found myself retreating to my air conditioned room shortly after coming home from work.  Or going to bed early as my excuse to be in there. I even stopped going swimming...the short walk to the water access was just too much between the heat, humidity and dust kick up from passing cars....it was safer and more pleasant to stay home.

So, for the last week, I've spent my time laying on my back staring up into the leaves of this tree.  Each day there's been a warm breeze and each day I either come close to dozing off...or dozing off until someone sends me a message on my blackberry.  It's been a comforting sound and a comforting experience.  I'm able to go back to my office refreshed and rejuvenated.  It's kind of been a centering experience for me...I'm finding my "ooo saaa" as I like to call it.  (From "Bad Boys") 

Sadly, the leaves are already starting to change on the tree...at the very top.  My days of sitting underneath it and listening to it's lullaby will soon be over...but not before it turns a brilliant yellow. 

The Moment

There's always a moment in your life when you know things will never be the same....and for some of us...we identify that moment just before it happens or as it's happening.  It could be that look from your lover when you know that they more than just like you.  Or it could be the goosebumps on your skin when you know something bad is about to happen and change your life forever.  It could be the long awaited moment when you know your child is about to take their first unassisted steps....you just know! 

It could be the moment when you know your life is about to come crashing down around you.  Shattered into a million pieces, making you wonder if you can recover, recoup, revive.  These moments help define us...it's not the moment itself, but how we deal with it.  What are the steps to recovery, recoup and revival?  How do you face it? 

Do you reflect and self-analyze and wonder what YOU could have done that would have resulted in a different outcome?  Do you deflect and lay the blame on one person alone, believing you are the only one wronged? hurting? made the right moves?  Do you listen with open ears, open mind and open heart and try to understand what's going on in the minds of those involved? Do you shut yourself down, close yourself off, suffering in your isolation and not realizing that people are human, people make mistakes, and people learn from them?

Me...I self-analyze.  In fact, as my friends will attest to, I over analyze.  I wonder what I did to perpetuate the situation.  What could I have done to make it different?  How did that other person(people) feel?  What were they thinking at the "moment"? 

The gut-wrenching, life ending hurt eventually dissipates and you move on...you have to. 

How do you want to be defined during "the moment"?

Moving Forwards by Moving Backwards?

Yesterday was "going backwards" day for me.  I spent the day with people who I haven't seen in twenty years or more.  The first part of the day was spent at the surprise 40th Birthday Party for someone who graduated two years before me...but left a huge impression on my life during my high school years.  To help her enter into this new decade of life were other high school friends.  I'd forgotten how much I really enjoyed these people.  The last part of the day was spent at my 20th Reunion. 

I usually dread going to these things...even though I "helped" with setting it up.  I didn't always feel like I fit into any group/clique at school...perhaps I did that to myself more than anything...but everyone seemed so set and I always felt like I had to try so hard to be part of the conversations, planning, just plain being liked.  I always felt like I was on the outside looking in (see an older post.)  But at the same time, I also felt like I had this huge secret to hide.  My  mother was suicidal and often in the psych wards across the state.  I was helping my father raise my brother's....who were so far from angels.  And I didn't want anyone to know what was going on.  A few people really close to me did, but for the most part...I think everyone might have just thought I was the standoffish girl who couldn't afford to go to Tabers, Roys, the Mall....so why bother asking.  And from my point of view....I perhaps just tried too damn hard to fit in.  I should have just stayed true to myself instead of trying to encompass the personalities and likes of those around me.  I should have not been ashamed of my life....after all, it made me who I am today....and I'm kinda liking me, for the most part.

One of the things I found most interesting last night was the comments on my facebook posts and my blogs.  At first I wasn't sure how to take them....some of my facebook posts are done at really bad times and someone should really take my phone away...some of them I honestly post to make people scratch their heads and see if they are paying attention.  As for my blog...this space is for me...this is my therapy.  I share it because, selfishly, I'm hoping that some thing in here helps someone....maybe gives that teenage gir,l in a seemingly impossible situation, some insight and respite.  But one of the things I realized in the last 36 hours is that sometimes to move forward, you have to move backwards.  You have to revisit the past, find those people that made you feel good and relive it...get a good firm grasp of who you were in order to become who you will be.

Paths

Everyday at work, I've been trying to go for a walk on Oak Hill Trail.  The trail is beginner level, has a few hills and a winding path.  Within the first ten minutes of the trail, I always come across this wood shed.  The first time I walked it, I was with a friend and it prompted a conversation about mass murderers and people in scary movies who ALWAYS go to the shed...I mean really...not a smart idea.  Don't they know what happens when you do that?  It never ends well...Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers might be in there....just biding their time until some poor, unsuspecting schmuck comes along. 

My friend tells me, every time I walk, to go to the shed  and look in.  He's tried telling me that there are unicorns and butterflies in there. And each time I say "Um, no."  But yesterday as I walked I got to thinking....what an awesome metaphor this is for me! 

I've always followed "the path."  Not sure who decided the path that I'm on...but I've always followed it.  I'm not sure if it's fear or a sense of "right" that keeps me on this path.  It's not a path that I'm completely happy with.  I stifle a lot of stuff until it comes bubbling to the surface and causes shock waves all around me.  I get frustrated at holding myself back from being....me.  So, maybe it's time to take that leap of faith and look in the shed?  Perhaps, I will find "me" locked up in there waiting to be released.......

Swimming

Anyone who really knows me knows that the one thing I love most about summer is the water. Lake water, ocean water...it doesn't matter as long as it can be used to immerse my body in, I love it. I've been swimming for as long as I can remember. In fact, I don't ever remember NOT swimming over my head. I love the way the water feels on my skin. I love how I feel refreshed after taking a dip. I love to lounge on a float in the water for hours at a time.

I think part of the reason water is so important to me is that it was the one activity that my family did that seemed normal to me. There was no yelling, no hitting, no control issues, no struggles...we were a family at the beach or pond or in their pool. Most of the time we got along. My brothers and I buried each other in sand, made forts, played catch. It was, much like music was, a respite for me. I could leave the suicidal mom, the angry dad, the delinquent brothers, and the feelings of inadequacies and leave them behind for that short moment in time.

Water is a part of me. It's a part of who I am. It's one of the activities that I love the most...being in the water. To understand and to accept me, you really have to understand that it's something I really love. Take it away from me...and it's like taking music out of my life. I need it. I want it. I couldn't exist in a world where being in the water wasn't allowed.

I guess the point is that we all have some hard limits in our lives. I like my summer activities to surround water. It's why we live in the house we live in. I spend too many months staring longingly at the lake yearning for swimming season. I have a few short months to enjoy it. So, if you're trying to reach me....and I'm not around....look in the lake.

Philosophy through Media

Does life imitate art or does art help define life?

Every so often I find a work of art (usually a movie) that, to me, has a hidden meaning to it. For instance in "Elizabethtown" the Kirsten Dunst character, Claire, is what I envision what I might have become had my life experiences been a little different. If I wasn't forced to be a "responsible adult" at the ripe old age of 12, perhaps I would have been that quirky character looking to the bright side of everything. I would help the people in my life move through their experiences in a positive way. In "Stranger than Fiction", Harold Crick does the same thing every day until he begins to hear a narrator telling his story about his ultimate demise. Life can become very repetitive...we get up, we work, we go home, we go to sleep...and we do it all again the next day. Never taking chances, never breaking our comfort zone...until one day, something happens to "wake us up."

Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and "I Will Remember You" never fail to reduce me to tears as it reminds me of my grandmother's passing. "Wind Beneath My Wings" and the movie "Beaches" will forever be associated with my best friend Stacy. "What the Bleep Do We Know" will be the starting point of my journey into self-awareness and my affect on who/what I am and where I go.

Is there underlying deep meaning in each and every work of art or is it purely subjective and it depends on what you are looking for....I'd like to think all of the answers are out there....you just have to open yourself up to finding them.