35 things entry

my thanks to stephany at soulful sepulcher for this wonderful idea, that I am stealing! This is the idea from her blog:

i’ve been challenging myself to think of an extraordinary list of 49 things. each thing, represents something i am grateful for…each year of my life. i started thinking about it, because of turning 49 years old soon. i thought do i make a list of simple things? try to remember a story about each year i can from memory? dreams never achieved? dreams achieved? i think it will be a combination of all of it. this post will be added to as i think of the things, i guess my goal is to look at my 49 years positively, and in the end after all i’ve lived a pretty damn good life so far.

I have decided to copy her idea for many reasons:

a) I was recently given a workbook from a friend titled “Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance” by Dr. Tian Dayton. It’s a workbook with questions/journals/charts similar to those I have filled out at numerous psychiatrists and therapists offices, etc. I thought it would help me focus on pain from the past, forgive, learn to face it and eventually overcome it. I will still write in that workbook but I also love Stephany’s idea and think it will be very therapeutic and healthy.

b) The past few weeks I have been in a dark place and I need a little light.

c) I’m changing it up a bit simply by using my current age and there is a reason behind that, it’s been exactly twenty years since my rape and I need to focus primarily on recovering from that moment in my life. I will attempt to find the good in the most horrible life experiences. And, also, fondly remember the many beautiful moments free of darkness and pain.

A quick note, this will also be very difficult as many of my memories have been blocked, “erased” or they are blurry from the many years of psychiatric medications I have taken and from certain traumatic experiences. And because of this I might not list a moment/memory from a specific year but more begin with a year in my life and let it lead me to wherever it might lead me…

So, here goes:

1) It was Christmas and I was 8 years old or so, I received what every little girl I knew wanted, an easy bake oven. I can’t tell you how many cakes I baked in that oven. It was one of my favorite gifts for many years. About five years later I began telling my parents over and over, “I want to die” and 2 years after that, at 15, I was brutally raped. A quiet, shy, fair-skinned freckled girl suddenly turned into a frightened, emotionally dead girl who felt very uncomfortable in her own skin. My fairytale dreams, my realistic dreams and my future all died that fateful night. For the next 18 years I was lost and still emotionally dead inside. Christmas. 2006. Age 33. A large box wrapped under OUR tree. i open it. i see an easy bake oven. my swain, the man who opened my heart, had decided i deserved, if only for a night, to be that quiet, shy, fair-skinned, freckled girl again. cakes were baked that night. and several more since. innocence lost and innocence gained. i cannot think of a gift greater than that.

2) It was the summer of 1986 and it was my 13th birthday. This one is a little difficult to recall because it’s one of those “blocked” memories. Here’s what I do remember. a party. all of my friends at my favorite childhood home in the woods. I believe I was in the family room. my parents had wrapped 13 gifts for each year of my life. sweet, right? well, not to me. I wanted one thing that year-a diamond ring. My parents were not rich but not poor-they could afford that ring. as i opened each gift i grew angrier by the minute. no ring. no ring. no ring. the last (13th) present i opened. the diamond ring. but it was too late—i was gone. off in a depression. i wish i could remember the rest. i’m assuming my parents comforted my friends and the party was over while i cried in my room with purple carpet and rainbows. or maybe i cheered up, but doubtful. A year or two later that ring was stolen. I think it was a sign. Gifts are just gifts. Things are just things. we know that’s not what matters in life. I should have appreciated their sweet idea, buying and wrapping 13 gifts. instead, i was selfish. this is also the same year i began telling my parents constantly that, “I want to die!” and so I was dragged to a psychiatrist at 13. truly an unlucky number one might think. but i never think about that ring and haven’t for many, many years. and i thank my parents for “dragging” me to that doctor because I don’t know if I’d be here today had they not made that choice. 13 was not unlucky year-it was just part of this very long road I’ve been traveling.

3) it was the summer of ‘91. i was 18, one month out of high school, standing next to my grandfather’s hospital bed in his home watching him slowly die, and i was standing there in a white wedding dress. let me tell you how i got there. my family moved to Tennessee the summer before my senior year. I grew up in a very small town in Ohio, 70 kids in my class. needless to say, at the time, the move was very traumatic. as soon as I graduated in a class full of strangers, i accepted an engagement proposal from my then-boyfriend at my old school, and before i could click my heels three times, i was back in Ohio walking down the aisle. As my father walked me down that aisle he said, “it’s not too late to back out.” He being older and wiser must have seen the “real” man I was marrying. A man who would, two years later, threaten to hunt me down and cut off my finger to get his (cheap) engagement ring back, amongst other things. luckily my father was on the other end of the line and I assume his threat was even greater because I never heard from him again. but back to the hospital bed at 18. lung cancer. his body shrinking. staring at a man i hardly knew. my grandfather fought at Normandy, he and his sergeant were the only two who survived in his platoon. He witnessed much tragedy, had a nervous breakdown and never spoke of the war. He was a man of very few words. I remember sitting at their kitchen table throughout the years, eating my grandmother’s famous pancakes and my grandfather would break the silence and say, “What’d you say?” my sister and I would giggle and say, “nothing!” He would quickly return every single time with, “I didn’t hear you say nothing!” and that was it. more silence. as i stood over his bed, i fed him bing cherries and dreamed of having a beautiful, parting conversation. it never happened. and it troubles me to this day. but i understand. now, looking back, that move to Tennessee was one of the best things that ever happened to me. When I left my then-husband, I returned to live with my parents. I got a job waiting tables, drank a lot, escaped, slept with a knife under my bed and prayed for things to change. Soon enough, I sobered up and my father hired me at his company. and a few years later, i chased a dream of mine. i feel very fortunate today because without all of the above experiences, I would not be who I am today and where I am today. That summer, my grandfather passed away one month later, at home. He hated hospitals for reasons I now understand. and i still miss him so.

before Normandy, center.

4) it was March 2007 and i was 33. my beloved cat of 16 years was dying. this was during the famous pet food recalls but it turned out, she had a very large liver tumor. my veterinarian told me there was not much he could do. as i stared at her on the table, i asked, “is she in pain?” He quietly answered, “yes.” and so i made the decision to put her at peace. it was not an easy choice, obviously. she had been my constant for 16 years, she traveled with me, witnessed both the beauty and darkness in my life with me. and she loved me. and oh how i loved her. the veterinarian left the room to give us some time to say good bye. truly the most difficult event of my life. when he returned he gave her kitty valium and soon her eyes slowly stared off somewhere far away. i placed my hands on her, kissed her, cried and cried. he began injecting her to put her at peace. i was losing her. losing her. the injection wasn’t working, her body had so much fluid, he had a difficult time finding her veins. it was awkward and painful. after the second injection failed, i had to leave the building…i was a mess. my swain stayed in the room with her until she took her last breath. the ride home was quiet, she was in a box in my lap. i kept thinking she was going to wake up. i gathered her favorite toys and put them in the box with her. kissed her over and over again. my swain dug a grave while i sat with her, numb at this point. after she was buried, i was haunted. i dreamed of her waking up in that box wondering why i tried to kill her. i spent a good month in mourning. crying every single night. and then, 3 months after her death, the gods sent us a lonely little boy who had been at a shelter for 2 years. passed by every day, children leaving with the cute kittens instead. There was an instant connection with Buddy. I was told when he was brought to the shelter he was near death. his body is scarred and he lost most of his teeth, obviously from a fight. he’s the sweetest cat in the world and so i can only imagine, a not-so-friendly cat or dog attacked him. but he survived. just like i have survived. we both have emotional scars we are healing together. a love lost and regained. that’s what life is all about.

days before her death, love lost

and love gained