My mind is in turmoil.

I have wondered for years if she was still alive. Her name is Mel too. We are opposites in every sense of the word. She is tall and I am short. She is blonde and I am brunette. She is hyper and I was always laid back. She was popular and I was not. She taught me how to dress, wear makeup, how to talk to boys, introduced me to heavy metal and taught me how to bang my head. We learned how to smoke cigarettes together. We babysat as a team. We once spent a whole weekend rewinding a tape and learning all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody. We double dated. She was my sister and we were inseparable. In fact, we married each others high school sweethearts in a surreal chain of events that no one saw coming.

We lost touch after I moved away but I was able to visit her twice when our vacations bought us back to Florida. The second time we visited her, her marriage was falling apart. Then I traveled to Central Florida just after my mother’s death, just to see her. Her mother called me out of the blue after 2 or 3 years of no contact. My immediate thought was that she was gone. The last I had talked to her she was babbling and incoherent. I remember sitting silently on the phone for what seemed like an hour and listened to her ramble without making discernable sentences, but not wanting to hang up because I was comforted at least that she was alive and as long as I had her on the phone with me she wasn’t going anywhere. Then I didn’t hear from her until her mother called.

I knew that she must have been high on something the night she called, so when her mother called me, with that sad tone in her voice and important news to tell me, my first thought was that she was dead. No, her mother said, not dead, merely overdosed and now living in a rehab. She warned me that the damage done by the drug was devastating to the brain and that she was now in a state of psychosis. Even living 9 hours away, I dropped my life and came running. I didn’t care the personal or financial hardship an emergency trip would cost me. We were talking about my sister, my best friend. I had to see her, hold her and know that she was still alive. When I arrived, she did not know me. Her mother had to introduce us, then after blaming her new “foggy” brain she was overjoyed to see me and spend time with me. I spent one hour with her after driving all night to get to her. She spent the whole hour telling me that she really wasn’t that sick and that really all she needed was for her mother and ex-husband to get off of her case. For that one hour, I was anything that she needed me to be…a person to vent to, an old friend who needed to have the “true” situation explained to her, and at one point, a stranger she was introducing herself to for the first time. In my heart I wept more and more. With every word she spoke, it was obvious that the friend I had spent countless hours laughing and sharing with was forever gone. She had been destroyed by the drug. Obliterated permanently by the damage left behind. We parted with promises to keep in touch. She told me that she planned to be home in the next month and restart her life…maybe even move to where I lived to start over. I held her close and smelled her hair, not knowing really if I would ever see her alive again.

I drove back to her mother’s house silently. I pretended a headache and went to lie down. What I really did was sit on the bed and cry while my husband held me and prayed. Her mother asked me later what was really wrong with me. She wanted to know what I wasn’t telling her. She needed me to talk to her like a nurse. Knowing that she needed to hear it, I explained that this person, this altered version, is permanent. This brain damage is unchangeable. This personality shift is probably the new her…forever. In reality she had died that night. The person that we knew was gone forever. I spoke with her twice more before she left the rehab. I didn’t even know she had gone. I called one evening to check on her and they said she had checked out. I didn’t find her again for almost a year. She called me at midnight on New Year’s. We spoke for 15 minutes. She told me she was in love with a man she met at AA and that she still wanted to move near me to start her life over again. I asked her how her children were…she changed the subject.

That was 5 years ago. I was able to find her cousin on Facebook and asked tenderly if she was still alive. I was told that the cousin didn’t have contact with her, but that yes she was alive. I miss her terribly. I think about her almost everyday and utter silent prayers that don’t even have a form other than “protect her”. Last night, after entering her name in the Facebook Search box (which I am in the habit of doing every so often but always finding nothing) suddenly there she was. Older, a little more rough around the edges, but alive and staring back at me from my computer screen. She is suddenly tangible and available….and I chickened out. I looked through her page, trying desperately to glean some insight into the person that she is now. It amounted to no less than stalking. I looked at posts, pictures, looked at the page of the man she is in a relationship with now, but I didn’t send her a message. I just…I don’t know…I’m scared. But then, that’s not exactly the right word. Worried may be a better word. By all appearances she is still that “other” person, the new person that I don’t know. I am faced with a dilemma that I never saw coming. Do I get to know this new person? It would seem that after searching methodically for her for years and even asking family members about her that I would be overjoyed to find her and would not be able to stop myself from contacting her immediately, but that is totally not what happened. My heart leapt when I saw her face, but then immediately in the place of joy came fear. Fear that I would hope for a relationship that cannot be. Fear that I would not love this new person and might even hate her for taking my best friend away from me.

I could tell from her Facebook posts that we have very little in common anymore. She appears to still be working out her demons while mine were faced long ago. We apparently lead completely different lives, with different directions or even morals. Do I let this person into my life, not knowing what pain will come of it? Do I welcome her knowing that I may have to walk away from her at some point? I cannot abide letting drama into my life for the sake of a friend I do not know anymore. Honestly, I am ashamed of myself. I searched for her. My heart pined for her. I have grieved the loss of her for years and now that she is right in front of me, I am frozen in fear. How can I ever have claimed to love her and not leap for joy at the sight of her? How can I say that I truly am a friend when I became a coward the moment I saw her? How can I be someone who is in school to be a professional counselor and feel judgmental towards my oldest and dearest friend for changing after a nearly deadly addiction?

I am ashamed and I should be. I lay in bed last night and prayed. I didn’t even tell Hubby that I found her or what I was going through. I just wanted time to process. As I lay there, I thought about my boys talking at the dinner table about the Mayan Apocalypse. We were discussing how no one really knows the hour and time that God will call us home. Then I thought about my oldest and dearest friend, who I almost lost and to some extent did lose to a drug. What if …. What if something does happen to her? What if I had the chance to hear her voice one more time and I chickened out? I have lived without my mother for 6 years now. What I wouldn’t do to have one more day with her. God is handing me another chance with Mel and I am letting the fear of the enemy keep me from her. It does not matter if she is different. I am different. I am different in so many ways than I was in high school. Different even, than I was the last time I saw her face. Being close to her might be painful, as I am reminded of the differences between then and now, but at least I have the chance to be close to her at all. I am going to take that chance. It might not end well, but I do not think I will regret trying.

Voicing my Frustrations

This post is not good, it does not have a funny story, it will not make you smile or leave you any happier than it found you. There is a good chance it will do the opposite. If you don't stop reading right now, there is a good chance you will leave this post more angry and hurt than you had planned on. For safety sake, you might want to leave this post right now.

I am awake at 1:30 in the morning because I cannot shut my brain up. I have been a nurse for a little while..well 7 years now. I have taken care of Kidney Transplant patients (my preferred area), Nursing Home patients, Critical Care patients, and patients with hideous wounds when I was a Wound Care Nurse. I have been a Manager and an employee. I have worked in a Family Practice office and I have given "Alternative Medicine" infusions. I have bathed, medicated, soothed, and loved alot of patients. I have been the only one there when some of them died. I have heard many last words. I am used to my job....or at least I thought I was.

Since I have started at the ER where I am currently working, I have twice experienced horrible incidents with children. Both of them left me angry, fearful and terrified. Both times I could not sleep. One of the children died in a house fire, the other had been run over by a car...twice. I have always known that I am not a Peds Nurse. I knew before I went into Nursing that I would never be blessed with that calling simply because I cannot stand to see children hurt. I was not prepared for the first child, the one from the house fire. It is something I wished I'd never seen and know that I will never be able to forget.

The second child was a toddler, still in diapers, that ran out behind a car and was backed over, then run over again when the adult pulled forward to find out what had been struck. This child died at another facility the next day, but I will not be able to rid my memory of that baby or the sound of his Mother's wails.

I try to tell myself that I will toughen up, but part of me doesn't want to toughen up. I do want to be able to do my job and still function in normal society, but there is a part of me that pushes back from being desensitized to that pain and suffering.

Today was a new experience altogether. I can't even bring myself to talk about it for fear that I will breach confidentiality, but suffice it to say that evidence had to be collected and that two small girls were the patients.

I am at a loss.

How do you experience something like this, something this raw, and come home and act like it's just another day at work??

How do you leave it at work and come home and talk to your spouse about vacation plans?

How do you close your eyes and not see these children and the heart-wrenching injuries?

How?

I know that there aren't any real answers. I know that all I can do is give these children to God and pray for peace, but so far that is not helping me get any sleep.

I don't have any answers. I just want some sleep.

Still Alive

It has been 9 days since I've blogged.

That kinda sounded like a confession or an AA greeting.


I have nooo idea where I've been for 9 days. I only remember work, sleep, eat, repeat. I have had days off, they just fly by in such a blur it's like they didn't actually happen. Hubby and I took the boys to see Toy Story 3. That was fun. At least I remember it.

I don't really remember anything else. I have been dealing with a twisted knee and a run-on neck muscle spasm, but these are random things. I have had some majorly intense relationship moments in the last couple weeks though. I think all the women I know have lost their cotton-pickin' minds frankly. Now I remember why all my high school friends were guys and contrary to popular belief it had nothing to with my bra size. I totally get why men are so mystified by women....ya'll there is a very thin line between sane and insane and we pretty much crisscross back and forth at will.

One prior friend, one current friend, one of my sisters and my boss have been taking turns freaking out on me. The prior friend discussion is closed. The tiff with my sister: resolved. My boss is probably not over...I did learn a little something about her during all this that will be helpful in the future. CYA. To non-medical folks thats a handy little abbreviation that we like to call Cover Your Ass...because no one else is going to cover it for you and no one will notice you under that big ass bus.

The situation with my current friend is really the only one that I genuinely care about and am praying comes to a good end. Sometimes technology sucks because even if you are perfectly literate you cannot discern tone of voice or body language through the written word and sometimes you need to know those things, ya know?

My very handsome son, The Sweet One , got his driver's permit today. Yay! You should all Thank God that you don't live in our town. Oh. My. Goodness. I took him for his first driver's lesson this evening. Let's just say there was screaming and sweaty palms and white knuckles plus he was nervous too.

Hubby and I are kinda trying to plan a 4-day trip for the middle of August for my birthday and our anniversary, which are one day apart. I'm still counting down to my Girl's Cruise in September.

By the time those things come around I am definitely going to need the vacation, cause ya'll may I just say, I am one tired lady.

Wishful Thinking

A long time ago I decided I was going to write something. I started and stopped. About a hundred times. I would have a character, or sometimes two, that would have a conversation in my head and I ‘d have to write it down. Then…nothing. This has happened several times. I guess it was a flash in the pan. Once I wrote down the specific thing that was rolling around in my head it was gone, poof, vanished. Try as I might I couldn’t get it back. Believe me, I’ve tried. I began to think that something was wrong with me.

So, I bought this book when my sister E was visiting, called ‘Writing Down the Bones’. It was a cute little book, pocket-sized almost, and looked interesting. After I opened it, I was amazed. Apparently, it’s a pretty well known book that has been used in college English classes for a couple of decades now. I had never heard of it, but almost everything this woman writes is profound for me. I find myself wanting to copy down things so that I will remember them, but truth be known I’d be copying so much, it really is pointless and in the end just becomes plagiarism.

She talks about making a rule that you will fill a notebook a month. It doesn’t matter what crap you write, as long as you write. Quantity not quality. If you get one good thing out of that notebook, bonus. You may go through several notebooks with nothing good, it doesn’t matter. Write anyway. I’m inspired.

It was after reading her chapter on writing exercises that I wrote Sad Trips Down Memory Lane… because she recommended an exercise called “I Remember” and I had my grandmother on my mind that morning. She also recommends the bribery system, as in “ write something today and I will reward you with 2 chocolate chip cookies from the bakery down the street”. I could definitely use a bribe like that on myself.

I have been tinkering with the idea of posting some of the things I have written, half stories that were never finished. I have learned about myself that no matter how unromantic it is to write on the computer, my thoughts flow more freely when I am typing. My fingers can keep up with my brain better this way. I haven’t posted anything thus far out of fear. Not the fear that you may think. It’s not fear that someone won’t like it that keeps me bound up. I could care less if no one likes it. I have a fear that people will like it and encourage me to finish it. I don’t know if they can be finished. Having an audience creates pressure. I haven’t been able to finish them on my own. The characters are gone from me. How would I even start to finish?

The point of posting them would be to sort of give them flesh, maybe spark my brain into something I hadn’t thought of, and maybe even force myself to acknowledge the end of them. Who knows? Maybe I will be able to finish them one day and when that day comes I’ll know where to find them. I won’t have to worry that I’ve lost the file because they will have a permanent home here on the blog.

Recently, I have been encouraged by reading an interview done with Ken Follett about his book ‘Pillars of the Earth’, which is one of my most favorite books. He said it was one of the first novels he ever tried to write, but it was too massive for his brain at the time. He put it away, wrote dozens of other novels that ended up being published, and years later pulled it back out and finished it. It became his masterpiece and now sort of defines him as a writer. He said that the story in his head was ahead of his time and his brain had to catch up to it. I really like that story. Maybe one day, one of the characters in my head will leap out onto paper, come to life and define me as a writer. Just maybe.

For now, I think that I will start compiling stuff and posting it. Stay tuned.

Tales from the Terrified

Ok, so I am about to leave my house. I am due at the realtor's office in 4 hrs 17 minutes to close on our new house and have errands to run before I get there. I am sitting on my bed, hair wet from the shower and I am losing my mind! Needless to say, NO school work has gotten done today. My children who dare not complain about it are pretending its a Saturday - cartoons and all. I cannot think about such mundane things as doing laundry and paying water bills right now, even though Hubby would prefer the laundry part as he is out of socks, because the fact that we are about sign a contract for over $100,000 is taking up too much space in my grey matter. Who would give us a house?? Do they know that this scares the pants off me? Do they know that we are babies (well early thirties)? Do they care? Does anybody? I need a serious dose of chill right now. God knows what he is doing-I'm sure of it. In fact it's the only thing I AM sure of. I'm not sure I'll survive today or get my laundry done or keep my lunch down...but I am sure that God knows what he is doing. I think the relevant question now is: What is he doing? Is he blessing us, testing us, sitting back to see how far we can carry it on our own, guiding the whole process with his hand? I want to believe that this is a blessing. I do. My flesh wants to know how we are going to carry this mortgage. My faith knows that God is putting us in a situation where we have only Him to rely on. How do I marry those two schools of thought long enough to not upchuck at the closing table? I don't have these answers. All I know is that I'm going to live through today. No one ever died from anxiety...did they? I hope not because if I die right now my husband will never have any clean socks ever again. By the way-I only have 3hrs & 56 min to go.

A Blog About Nothing

Normally writing comes so easily. I know what I'm going to write about ahead of time. At some point in my day a thought occurs to me or something funny or bizarre or inspirational happens to me and I think to myself "This is going in the blog". Tonight this isn't the case. I have no plan, I have no topic. I am a writer without a story. My day was bizarre enough alright but do I write about my house closing tomorrow or the drama that happened at work...or maybe the job opportunity that came my way today that would make me choose between two things that are precious to me? When you have a whirlwind of a day how do you choose? How do you single that one thing out and declare it as the most important or vexing thing in your life right now that it should grace the pages of your blog?? Being new to blogging, I don't know the answers to these questions. I know that my mind is racing 100 miles an hour. I know that any decision I make tonight could be the best decision ever or be one more time that I look back and feel like an impatient fool.I know that no matter what the topic, I have to write about it. So, unfortunately that leaves me right here. Writing about nothing...rambling on without even designating a subject. I suppose being overwhelmed is my topic. Being overwhelmed to the point of being paralyzed. How do I handle this feeling? How do I catagorize feeling excited but scared about the closing, frustrated to the point of tears over drama at work, anxious/confused/scared/fearful of the job opportunity, and just generally so worn and tired of the hoopla that I want to go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle and have my life pass me by without my intervention? There is no catagory for that...no place that I belong. I trust God. I believe that he will guide me and protect me. I know that if I trust him and seek his guidance that I am covered by him. So, why? Why is this feeling strangling me? Why do I feel the helplessness and futility even now? Because I doubt his omnipotence or wisdom? No. I have never doubted God. I think that I struggle with these things because in my pitiful human state I want control. I want control of these situations so badly that I would give myself an ulcer over it. I need to feel control over something. I ache for the feeling of control. But that's just it isn't it? A feeling. Its an illusion. There is no real control for us. God is in control. Why is that so hard for us? Is there something ingrained in us that needs us to repel God's control and guidance? Oh, silly me...yes there is - its called sin. The sin inside me wants to control my own life, like a toddler insisting "I can do it myself!". Well guess what? This toddler cannot "do it myself". I don't even want to imagine how many ways I would foul up things if someone left me in control. There have been a few times that I have elbowed my wants and needs to the front of the line - ahead of what God desires - and trust me...I don't want it again. That never worked out for me anyway. What I need right now is a good healthy dose of humility and patience. If I take my problems to Him and stop trying so pitifully to solve them myself maybe I can sleep tonight. Sleep sounds good. And, so does a hot bath. At least the water temperature is something that I can control.