Your luck will finally pay off.
Finally! It’s about time!!
Wait….good luck, right?? Haha.
I really shouldn’t joke about this. I mean, today our furnace stopped working on a holiday weekend when it’s cold and snowy outside. Good thing we have a fireplace…
Still waiting for that luck to pay off..
Either you can or you can’t. Either way you are right.
I really like the mindset of this fortune cookie. But I think it’s more important to have realistic goals and expectations.
For example, Paul’s step-dad Darryl is having knee surgery in a couple weeks. He said the recovery time for the surgery is 6 weeks. But he said his recovery time will be 3 weeks. I’m concerned he is setting himself up for disappointment.
Sometimes I wish I could do what I wanted without having to be mindful of whether I could do it or not.
If only it was that easy.
If you want the rainbow, you have to tolerate the rain.
Wow, this is another good one. There is so much truth in this fortune as well. Oh, if we could only experience the rainbow without all that darn rain. I’m guilty of this as much as everyone else.
I want my life to be full of joy and uplifting experiences. Personally, I am getting really sick of the trauma and drama, my rain. Sometimes I get so caught up in it that I am under a perpetual rain cloud even when the sun is shining.
Yesterday I met with my therapist. I told her how triggered I’ve been lately. It doesn’t take much at this point after all the trauma I’ve been through. The other day I saw a commercial of a teen girl with her loving grandparents. I felt triggered because I don’t have the relationship I want with Arabella and my parents. My kids don’t have the grandparents I had. There is a lot of pain there.
I also heard my daughter Angel scream in the next room. She was goofing around with her fiance. For an instant I was triggered that she was in pain and I needed to help her. It reminded me of when I was young and I heard my brother attack someone and needed to help pull him off of someone. For a couple moments in time it took me back to the fear I lived in a couple decades ago.
I love the holiday season but I am afraid it’s going to be triggering for me. It always has been. Last year was one of the worst because it was the one year anniversary of my daughter Angel finding child porn on my dad’s computer. It tore the whole family apart. I’m anticipating this year will be difficult because Arabella left home on bad terms. The last several times she has reached out to me has been negative. I’m not sure if she is even going to be coming home for Thanksgiving and I’m not sure if I want her to.
I talked to my therapist about my concerns. I think it is unrealistic for me to hope that I won’t be triggered this year. My therapist said that being triggered is not necessarily bad. She said when she first started seeing me that I didn’t feel anything. I was numb. She said being triggered and feeling emotional about the triggers is better than being numb. She said I needed to make sure I didn’t get stuck in the triggers.
I think grief is a process I need to work through. But sometimes I get triggered and stay stuck in the feelings of despair and hopelessness too long. When I don’t want to live anymore that becomes a problem. I have to have realistic expectations otherwise I am setting myself up for more hurt. I cannot change people or circumstances. Sometimes the false hope that this time things will change, this will be the year I don’t get triggered, puts me in a bad place.
But where would I be if life was great all the time? We all have to go through sorrow and pain in order to feel joy. There has to be sunshine and rain in order for there to be a rainbow. If the sun shines all the time it wouldn’t feel special anymore. Life would get boring. Without inspiration my writing would become lackluster.
There is something amazing that happens when the clouds lift, the rain is ending, and the sun is starting to poke through to produce a rainbow.
It has to stop raining soon. I will keep watching for the rainbow.
Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.
Wow, just wow. There is something very satisfying about this fortune cookie. But perhaps it is a bit too harsh, too deep, for a fortune cookie. Maybe they should have cut it off at the feel good time is precious message. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard the expression that truth is precious before.
I’ve heard that the truth is painful. But precious? I really like the idea. But is the truth more precious than time itself? I really have to think about this one. Maybe the truth is more important if it goes beyond our lifetime. But what is truth anymore anyway?
You emerge victorious from the maze you’ve been travelling in.
Sometimes I feel like a lab rat in a maze. I solve one problem then I’m removed from the maze just to be placed into another maze. It’s hard to find the way out sometimes. Sometimes I search for clues from paths I’ve travelled down before to try to figure things out. But sometimes instead of answers I find myself triggered.
It seems like I find myself triggered by a lot of things lately. For example, last Sunday Paul and I went to church. The pastor was talking about bringing in Christmas season donations of new comforters for the homeless shelter. This is an admirable undertaking to give to an area of our community in need. The problem is that our daughter is currently staying at the same homeless shelter which has been very painful for us. Just mentioning the homeless shelter triggered pain in both of us. I realize it’s not the pastor’s fault for causing us pain. But sometimes that is how being triggered works.
I’ve been feeling triggered by other things lately too like my hair. I know this sounds totally crazy and it is. I mentioned this before but not recently that my autistic/schizophrenic brother Matt physically attacked me on a daily basis throughout my childhood. One of the things he did often was grab my mom and I by our long hair. A ponytail was a sure way to get abused by him. He would just grab on and yank. It was swift and painful. Sometimes he would pull my hair gently in a teasing way and laugh. He pulled my mom’s hair while she was driving which was terrifying. Hair=pain.
There was a point in my life when I was a teenager that I felt sickened by my hair. If I didn’t have long hair my brother couldn’t pull it. I felt this urge to cut off all my long hair. One day I grabbed a scissors and hacked off my hair. He couldn’t hurt me in that way anymore.
Lately I’ve been feeling triggered by my hair again. I couldn’t stand to look at it. I wanted to shave my head. I googled what it means for a woman to shave her head. From my research I gathered that a woman with a shaved head could mean she is confident, rebellious, ready for change, or having a mental break. Oh, it this what my nervous breakdown is going to look like??
Yesterday I went in and got my hair cut shorter than I have ever had it before. I’m still not certain it is short enough. I wondered why did I want to cut off all my hair. I had to go back and examine a time I wanted to do that before. I came to this conclusion. There was a time in my life when I was in a lot of emotional distress. During this time cutting off my hair made me feel like I had some control over what was happening to me. It stopped the abuse of the hair pulling. It was a successful coping mechanism.
Twenty-five years later I am feeling attacked by my daughter. I am under emotional distress. I am in a similar mental state that I was in back then. One of the successful coping mechanisms was cutting off my hair. Is it any wonder why I would want to cut off all my hair? It gives me a false sense of control and getting rid of it makes me feel like I am letting go of something. It makes sense for me to think cutting off my hair could decrease some of my pain because it worked before.
I also decided to update my profile picture on WP. It’s been over 3 years since I changed it last so it is time.
Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.
Wow! Is it just me or does this seem rather sinister?
I understand how enthusiasm can spread like a wildfire. When I first started running races I was on fire for running. I was the person that posted race pictures all over social media. I had all the annoying stickers on my car to announce to the world I was a runner. I had the Half Iron, 13.1, 26.2, and the 50k. People I didn’t even know knew I ran and would strike up conversations with me about running. They saw me on the neighborhood roads. In fact when we moved people said they missed seeing me run. I was well known at the gym as well.
My enthusiasm for running was more contagious than COVID. People I didn’t know well would come up to me for advice or tell me they started running because I made it seem like so much fun. It was adventurous. I went for runs in other states. I spent the night before a marathon in a tent when we got 2 inches of rain. I ran in some challenging courses. I did races on cool stormy days, in extreme heat, in freezing cold conditions, and when conditions were ideal. There was nothing I stepped down from. I got some really cool medals and shirts. It was one of the best times of my life.
My enthusiasm for running sparked enthusiasm in other people. I didn’t have to go up to people I didn’t know well and tell them they should run. I didn’t have to explain the health benefits. I didn’t have to tell them how important it was to exercise. They saw me have fun and they wanted to have fun too.
Now I am a week away from what I think will be my last race. I remember how much fun I had. I think there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from this fortune. What you are passionate about will draw in other people. There is nothing I hate more than having people try to pressure, manipulate, and convince me to do something I am not sure I want to do. I hate the hard sell. But if you are passionate about something I am curious and want to know more.
But I’m sorry I still think this fortune cookie sounds a bit horror movie scary. I’m not sure if I like the thought of people coming for miles to watch me burn.
There was nothing left after the explosion that left a crater sized hole in my heart. It destroyed everything I built.
I had dreams of what it was going to be like before it existed. I painstakingly wove together the blueprints within my very own walls. I laid out the best foundation I could build with the resources I had. Every day I devoted to it before it fully came into existence. I dreamed of what it would be like. I tried my best to make sure it was built right. It may not have been a magnificent palace like those who had rubies and gold but it wasn’t built out of straw like my own flimsy abode.
It’s all gone now. It’s hard to look back at what was. Were my dreams wasted? I just wanted what everyone else seemed to have, a happy home. All that is left are footprints in the cold concrete. There is a date next to it but it is weathered like an ancestral gravestone.
Every day I go back and sift through the ashes of what’s left. Baby teeth, thankfully not bones, left for the tooth fairy long ago hidden away in a drawer uncovered in the dirt. A teddy bear smeared with soot its fake eye hanging from a thread. A gift to you. I remember when it was brand new. But I can’t think of that now. A tarnished spoon.
Where within the gray ashes is the silver lining of hope? I search trying to find a sign. Maybe there is a flower about to root hidden underground safe from the blast. Maybe something good can come out of this. I dig and dig to find a joker from a playing card. What is the purpose? It’s useless scary and ugly discarded in rejection from a regular hand.
I keep searching for anything left. Maybe if I tried harder to fix the cracks before the explosion it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it just wasn’t built right. Maybe some of my straw got mixed in with the brick. How come I didn’t notice? I thought I built it strong enough to weather the storms on the outside. But I didn’t weather proof the inside. Why would I even think I might have to? Would padded rooms keep it secure and safe from the bomb blast?
Why did this have to happen anyway? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It didn’t happen with other houses. Was it my fault? Was the builder to blame? I screamed at the hollow shell, my own emptiness echoing back. I wanted to shatter something but it appears as if everything is already broken.
The rains came and I cried along with it. It was once a beautiful house. Did you see the brilliant colors of the walls like a prism refracted in the brightest sunlight? Did you see it? Don’t you remember how it was? I should’ve inspected every room closer to see if the angles were off. Maybe I could have done something, anything. Maybe I could’ve tried harder.
I search for clues of why it happened in old pictures. You see, the house looked fine there. It was the same house when the shadows cast on it as it was in the bright sunshine.
I would give anything just to be in the house one more time. I’m sorry I didn’t enjoy it more before it was gone. If only I’d known. I want to drive in the driveway and see my house waiting for me to come home. I want you to wave at me through the window like you used to. Even an empty window would be alright if I knew you were still there. I’m not asking for much.
They say I should move on. I shouldn’t keep searching. But I cannot. Even in my dreams I am stuck there looking for things I might have missed. There is nothing left. It can’t be rebuilt. But that doesn’t stop me from going back. I remember what it was like at its finest. I can’t believe it is gone. I can never go back to the carefree days I spent dancing through the halls.
Nothing is the same. Do I think if I keep going back that one day everything will magically be put back together again? Why do I keep searching? Why can’t I let it go?
How can I go on missing a part of my heart? I don’t want to die but I can’t seem to live.
“While you’re carrying a grudge, others are out dancing.”
Oh snap! True, so so true. No one else is getting hurt by my grudge but me…
I want to be the one out dancing, but how do I let go of that which I’ve been carrying for a long time?
Have a good week!!
Outrunning my demons 