In the beginning, I was the baby of the family. With two older sisters who were reckless, mischievous, and demanding of attention, I was along for the ride, literally clinging to my mother for dear life as she scolded my sisters. As I grew older, I sat and listened and observed and was content, until my sisters decided to exclude me from all of their play because I was the annoying baby who was spoiled and pampered. Of course, my life seemed much different from my perspective. I was quiet as a mouse, and since I didn’t squeak, I didn’t get any oil. I would often wander off by myself, alone for hours, and no one ever came looking for me. I would hide just to see how long it would take for someone to notice I was gone. When I eventually sauntered home, usually for food, all were oblivious to my prior absence. I didn’t realize at the time that everyone else was so completely wrapped up in their own world of trauma that they didn’t have the capacity to notice mine, let alone care. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t loved. My family just didn’t know how to love me in the way that I needed to be loved. Therefore, loving me wasn’t modeled, which means that it’s my responsibility to learn how to love myself now. I can’t change how I was treated in the past, but I can change how I treat myself today.

For the love of the game. It’s easy to get caught up in what I’m doing and how much value I add to the world. I keep forgetting that life isn’t all about me. I want to say something meaningful. I want to be profound. I want authors to quote me in the opening to the chapters of their books. Thus says C. Marie Christie: “for death of life I won’t complain, but life in death is agony.” This quote comes to mind quite frequently for me these days. More than I want to help and to be of service to others, I want to enjoy my life. I want to spend my time doing the things that I love to do, and I enjoy writing. I enjoy singing and dancing and playing cards with my kids. I don’t understand why it’s so dang difficult to incorporate more of those things into my life. I can turn on some music, but I’m too tired. I can play games, but I don’t have the time. I can keep making excuses or I make my life into a life that I actually want to live instead of a life from which I keep trying to escape.

I’m still alive. Barely. It was touch and go there for a while, but I made it through. Hormones have got to be in the top ten contributors for premature death among women. I wonder if there have been studies linking hormone imbalances to certain cancers, heart attacks, or even car accidents. The statistics would probably be close to twenty percent, in my estimation, of these occurrences correlating to the cycles of female menstruation. Maybe more. Speaking for myself, I have severe panic attacks, compounded stress, and exaggerated mental illness symptoms such as over-reactivity, slower reaction times, and difficulty concentrating. I’m much less likely to be pro-active with my health and self-care when I’m bloated, cramping, and generally cursing life. It’s an honor to have the privilege of bringing new life into the world through the womb of our bodies; and yet, it’s a horror show of an existence to endure as well. Not for everyone. Some women don’t have such extreme difficulties. As with everything else, there is a continuum, a pain scale, a variability of personal experience. Human subjectivity is why we’re not to judge others based on our own perspective. Instead, we offer mercy and grace and understanding, even when we don’t really understand, because we all stand under the same sky, and the law of reciprocity ensures that we are all in need of grace and mercy throughout our difficult lives.

Why not me? I made a decision in the fall of ’05 that shifted my life forever. It was a small shift. All I did was take the car keys out of my pocket and drop them in my lap instead of sticking them into the ignition. The time I spent holding those keys, weighing my options, was the pivot between life and death for me. The car was parked in my mother’s closed-up garage. All I had to do was turn the key to spark the starter, and the battle would be over. I wouldn’t have to be on the receiving end of every joke. I wouldn’t have to be daily reminded of what a loser I was, what a horrible person I was, what a terrible mother I was. All I had to do was turn the key, and I could quit fighting. It was no use to keep fighting. I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t make anything good happen in my life. Every year was just another 365 days of hell that I couldn’t escape, that I was powerless to change, that I had no ability to improve. The only decision I made on that day was that I wasn’t going to give up. I didn’t care how much it cost me or how much more pain I had to endure, I would survive another torturous day until God finally had enough grace to put me out of my misery and take home. I committed to doing whatever I could to survive, to be there for my girls, and, hopefully, to eventually do something right to help someone else. So, it doesn’t matter whether I ever achieve my vision or reach my dream; I’ll keep fighting to take another baby step at a time. I’ll either accomplish the work I have to do, or I’ll die trying.

What can I do to stress the importance of following biblical mandates in the vein of social justice and caring for the oppressed without sinking to the level of religious control or depriving people of their basic human rights in the name of enforcing human rights? I can understand how our federal courts defer particular laws to the state judicial systems. There are several controversial issues that are looked upon with different lenses depending upon the culture in which one is raised. Many people tend to see all situations in stark contrast: left or right, black or white, right or wrong, but our interactions with other people come in all shades of the rainbow. We judge each other from our own perspective when we have no idea what the other has gone through, what they have suffered, what they have endured. That’s why kindness, goodness, generosity, and love are the only perspectives worthy to pronounce judgment, and they already have. It’s called mercy. Spouting opinions and criticizing are easy, but taking the time to listen and attempting to see an issue from another’s point of view is hard. Justice is hard, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Why would I want another year or two to live? I’m finally expecting my first grandchild. Babies are a good thing. Spending time with my kids and their friends is fun. Working to help others overcome trauma and addiction is meaningful and necessary. Our world is full of hurting people who need to learn how to transform their pain instead of transmitting it to others. Name it to tame it. Feel it to heal it. Grieve it to leave it. All of these sayings help me face into my fears and pain instead of running away from them, instead of feeling hopeless and stuck. Now that I’m entering a new phase of life – “middle age” – I’m scared of getting cancer and not knowing about it until it’s too late. It probably doesn’t help that I’m hooked on watching medical dramas, but I also appreciate the reminder that life is temporary. I might only have another year or two to live; I might have fifty. I could also not wake up tomorrow or even make it through until the end of today. Our next breath is never guaranteed, so I guess the real question is whether I want to live my life now.

What am I, a stretchy toy? It sure feels like it sometimes. Life likes to grab me by both ends and pull me as far as I can possibly go, until I swear I’m about to rip in two. I eventually have to choose. I have to go one way or the other. One hand has to let go. I sheepishly realize that feeling torn is my own doing. Life isn’t trying to torture me. I’m the one who’s insistently grasping. I’m the one who wants to have it both ways. I want to be able to lose weight and eat another chocolate-chip cookie. I want to go crazy on the freeway and make it home safely. I want to relax, unwind, and enjoy my life, but I also want to frenetically control every aspect of my surroundings in order to make sure that nothing ever goes wrong. I want to learn without ever failing or making a mistake. I want to love without loss and without ever getting hurt. I want to accept life on life’s terms while throwing a temper tantrum whenever I don’t get my own way. No wonder I feel stretched beyond my capacity. I need to let go, to breathe, and to trust. Everything will be okay. Honest. It might hurt for a while, but growing pains are an unavoidable part of the process of growing up. And I would rather grow than get stretched out of joint.

What happened to me? I’m not the same person I was seven years ago or five years ago or three. I’m a writer now. I’m a real writer with a blog, four self-published poetry books, a master’s degree, and a doctorate on the way. I’m not rich or famous or even supporting myself yet, but I’ll get there. I’ve got plans. I have goals and dreams and ambitions, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone stand in my way. There is enough time during the day to get to my top two or three priorities. I need to put the big rocks in first. I need to break everything else down into manageable pieces. I can do my reading, do my singing, laugh, play, work hard, and enjoy my life. I have friends now. I can learn to prioritize my relationships more than I have in the past. Today is a new day. It’s a fresh start full of fresh possibilities. I’m a different person today than I was yesterday. I can wake up tomorrow excited to pursue my life with all of my heart and all of my energy. I can take charge of myself. I can take control of my life and build it into what I want it to be. My past might have been filled with nay-sayers, but my present is full of cheerleaders. People believe in me now. I’ve never had that before. I was never able to accomplish anything on my own because the main people in my life shot me down and were unsupportive. Today, I get to choose to surround myself with people who lift me up and don’t put me down. Today is the day that I get to claim who I am and who I am becoming.

How did I ever get this far? I’m a loser. I’m clumsy and awkward. I seem completely incapable of getting anything right. I am the anti-Midas; everything I touch turns to shit. I suck at sports. I have no career opportunities. My life has been a string of continuous rejections. And yet, all of my needs have been provided for. I might be unemployed, but I’m not homeless. I struggle with mental illness, but I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol. I’m lucky. I’m so stinking lucky that it’s not even fair. I didn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it. I’m not exceptionally talented or skilled at anything. And, in spite of my tendency to blow up my life with staggering frequency, I’m still here. I’m still struggling. I’m still gluing the shattered bits back together one teeny shred at a time. But I still believe that when my life is over, the sculpture that has been formed through my diligent persistence will be an artistic masterpiece beyond compare. I might not be good at anything I do, but I am magnificent at being who I am.

Have I learned to care about other people yet? Pain is a miserable blinder. Much of my life has been spent licking my wounds, wondering what was wrong with me, and grieving my losses. I was to distracted to notice what was going on with anyone else. I couldn’t see beyond my own pain. There is an old cliché that says, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but that simply isn’t true. What doesn’t kill us nearly kills us. In fact, it often leaves us lying alongside the road battered, bleeding, and begging to die. What makes us stronger is when someone else comes alongside of us, picks us up, dresses our wounds, and cares for us during our healing process. The goodness, kindness, and caring of other people is something we all need. No one gets through life without getting blindsided by trauma or tragedy at some point. And, since we all end up on the receiving end of pain, we should all be sufficiently motivated to be used as a balm that aids in the healing of someone else. We just have to be willing and able to see beyond our own pain to the pain and suffering of others.