Come What May

"Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."   -Alfred Pennyworth The new year is in and with it comes fresh resolutions and crowded gym parking lots. Some of us will swear off sugar, some of us will vow to put more into savings, and some of us will make lists like “Five Easy Steps to a Whole New You” in the hopes that one day our self-improvement plan will finally kick in. Regardless, I consider this time of year a good opportunity to sit down and think about how to be different. We all could change something for the better. Personally, I love setting goals. I like exploring my options, creating a plan (or three or four), and setting the cogs into motion. It’s exhilarating; all that optimism flowing through one woman as she schedules every hour of every day for the next four months. Whoo! What a rush. Life, however, is not a color-coded playbook, and whether by chance or human frailty, plans and aspirations fall through. I hate that. Of course it...

“Welcome to your destination. We hope you enjoy your stay.” Here you are! Off you go! On to adventure, into the great wide world beyond! Whoops! As soon as you stop by baggage claim. You packed heavy for this trip, remember? I’m guessing the over-sized, 50lb suitcase you dragged with you to check-in seemed like a great idea at the time. Watching it fly by on the carousel with a pile of luggage still attached to your body, it is starting to feel less great. Did I overpack? Wait this isn’t even mine. No, come back! Argh. You wait. You find your bags, you pull them off, and you limp away like a wounded baby elephant until you reach the hotel. The elevator is out of service. “We apologize for the inconvenience.” But your room is still on the third floor, so up you go! When it happens to me I tell myself, Third floor? Up the stairs? No problem. I can do this. I’ve been working out. By step number five I think the walls have started closing in on me like a trash co...

"The child is in me still, and sometimes not so still." Mister Rogers On my birthday this year I woke up early. I jumped out of the shower and into some clothes. I brushed out my hair, slid into some practical shoes, and looked in the mirror. Then I realized, “AGH! I’m turning into my mother!” Of course, I knew it would happen someday, I just thought it would take longer. What are birthdays for, I suppose, if not to remind us that someday we will be exactly like our progenitors? Meanwhile I am enjoying the fiber supplements and elastic waistbands. I like growing up. I don’t like the jury summons, or paying bills, or getting the oil changed, but I like lots of the other stuff. Sometimes I look back and say, “Ah to be a child again.” Then I remember puberty and feel much better about adulthood. Growing up has given me a much better sense of who I am and who I want to be. Of course, I’m still working on that, but the drama of this year has given me plenty of fuel ...

"This is just a part of growing up."  -Flynn Rider, Tangled "Whistle. Pop! Pop! Crackle." Twitch. "Whistle. Pop! Pop! Crackle." Twitch. "Whistle. Pop! Pop! Crackle. Pop! Pop! Boom! Pop! Pop! Hiss." That's about when the convulsing started. The fireworks were rough for me this Fourth of July.  People here really like their fireworks.  I like them too — or at least I did until I found myself alone in the kitchen with some uncut strawberries and a maniac swinging a knife around the room.  It was me.  I was the maniac. "Pop! Pop! Hiss."  I don't understand,  "Pop! Pop! Crackle," w hy this is happening.   "Pop! Pop!"   Am I dying?    "Pop!"  Stop, please stop!   "Pop! Pop!"   Please... But I couldn't stop.  I couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't stop gasping, I couldn't stop hurting. The knife dropped to the table and I staggered off to my room like Frankenst...

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future” -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings This is it, today is the day!  I am finally going on a run again.  Yeah, you can do it.  I feel great!  This is so exciting.  Woohoo!  Shoes, camelback—no you don’t need the camelback today you won’t be going far enough.  Let’s see, we’ll just go 20 minutes down the road and through the park.  No, let’s drive up to the trail.  Yeah let’s do the trail.  Less people.  I hate people.  I bet you could go for 30 minutes if you tried.  That would be awesome.  Man, it is going to be a great day. 10 minutes later. Well, this is it.  This is where I am going to die.  We aren’t going to make it.  I don’t know how I ever got this far from home, but we're never going to see it again.  Oh look!  The mental hospital.  I wonder how long it will take for them to find me here, lying in the du...

“None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen or half its cussedness; but we can try.” –Mark Twain on Common Sense I hate driving in traffic.  I also hate driving into construction zones on my alternate routes to avoid traffic.  It is frustrating.  I can’t think of anything that makes me more irrational and angry than sitting in my car with a bunch of other irrational and angry drivers on the road.  Sometimes I shout at cars.  After a bit of a close call the other day I said very loudly, “Damn it!”  Realizing I had a child sitting in the car with me I edited that exclamation to, “I mean darn.  Darn you, Car!”  Whoops. On Sunday in church a speaker sweetly made a joke about how if we didn’t want to feel the Spirit we should get out our phones, get on Pinterest, and text our friends.  I think the point was that if we wanted to feel the Spirit we would listen and not play on our phones.  It is actually a very good point,...

I gasped for air.  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, and somehow I still heard myself scream.  I thought I was dying. One evening I started a blog post I couldn’t finish.  I wrote it, I stared at it, and I deleted it.  Then I cried.  Life has been really good for me the past month.  I finished a semester, I got good grades, I took a vacation, I got a pay raise, I leave the house regularly, and I have even better things to look forward to.  Sometimes I feel so happy and encouraged! That is not why I cry.  The National Institute of Mental Health says not every traumatized person develops post-traumatic stress disorder.  It actually surprised me to see how high I scored on the screening tests.  Then my roommate woke up to my screaming (again) and I stopped feeling so surprised.  PTSD is an anxiety disorder which can develop months or years after a traumatic event.  Since I was 17 I’ve always felt a little traum...