Climbing out of Hell

I haven't been in the mood to blog lately.  I have had plenty to write about and tons to share.  But if I started I would stop.  I could give you all kinds of reasons and they are true.  The first is I am addicted to The Millennium series.  I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and plunged into The Girl Who Played with Fire and went ahead and bought the Hornet's Nest in hardback.  The second reason is that I love my summer time off with my children and the computer is work to me during the school year. So we are hitting the lakes and the playgrounds and spending quality time with friends and family until it is back to the regularly scheduled work from home mommy routine. But the main reason is that I have a dear friend in what I call "Hell" and when I sit down to blog, I think about her.  She has a beautiful blog and when I try to type about enjoying my boys being quiet only to find out they are sharing a jar of peanut butter with their bare hands on the living room couch, I can't do it.   But I will.   I have to.  I can't not.  I have to blog as much as she does.  Because I have been to hell too.

There are tons of trite cliches and sayings about bad things happening to good people, everything happens for a reason, God carries you, etc. etc. But I am blunt and please forgive me if I offend you. NOBODY wants to hear that when it is happening. This is what I say. At some time in our lives, we are going to go to hell. I think about everyone I know and I can't think of a single person that hasn't had an atrocity occur at some point in their life.  Some of us, unfortunately,  have more than others and we all know that one bad thing in your life does not prevent another from occurring.  I have been to hell now at least four times.  How do I get out of it? I climb. I keep climbing.  It gets better.  It takes a long time, but you live again.

Right when it happens?  I call this "Automatic Pilot" time.  You eat, you sleep, you take a shower.  Every now and then you will remember to brush your teeth.  Use deodorant, possibly some lip gloss.You might not do any of that regularly at first, but if you have friends worth anything they will make sure that you do.  Eat, sleep, take a shower.  You accept the hugs and the kisses and meaning well visitors. Please try not to blow up at anyone if they give you a cliche, but I forgive you if you do and so will they eventually.

Every day from that point on is the "Before and After" and you are living in the "After."   My "Befores" still pop up every now and then.  My four year old son just got his first lightsaber, which triggers a flood of Star Wars movie memories of a time when I had cousins alive and well.  I always had to be Leia.  I never got to be anyone else.  There was no Padme before 1985.  Fortunately we were all too young to care about gold bikinis. 

Because I'm blunt, I'll tell you that the "After" sucks.  It sucks for a while.  It sucks more without support, but it is going to suck no matter how much you have.  You are going to look at things differently than other people do.  Every time Harry Potter ever walked down a hallway at Hogwarts and had all eyes on his scar, I wanted to buy him a butter beer.  I also wanted to tell him it could be worse, but I didn't really know how it could be, and thank goodness he was a made up character.  Ditto for the Vanger family in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Imagine being related to a serial killer! That's embarrassing.  How do you do it? You climb away from it.  You keep going and slowly but surely you become you again.


The last thing I want to say is that you are "The One."  You know, "The one whose parents died in a plane crash." Or, "The one whose sister killed herself."  Or "The one who was raped."  Whatever the atrocity is, you are "The One."  And I don't mean you get to choose between two colored pills and chase Keanu into the matrix.  Sorry.  How you choose to deal with your oneness is going to make or break the way you live in your "After."  The good news is the more time goes by, the more people forget about your oneness.


So please excuse me for being still and grieving for my friend as she begins to climb out of hell.  Always be careful when you tell someone to go there.