Ahead of Hurricane Dorian and after my recent birthday and in light of my struggles financially with my project, I thought it fitting to write about the back story of how I began my mantra of “Nobody’s Bleeding” back in 1995 or so.
PREFACE: NONE of my writing is to make light of horrors, trauma, injustices and/or struggles. I feel compelled in these hyper-sensitive times to be just a tad politically correct and clarify that I am in no way shape or form trying to discount anyone else’s life experiences – good or bad – I am merely telling MY STORY of survival and how I took some really bad things and turned them in to great lessons…for me. Without this internal process, I would’ve stayed a victim and continued to allow others to victimize me. And in my opinion, I would have never been able to blossom and become (becoming) the woman that the Universe intended for me to be. I don’t think I would have developed the understanding, empathy and compassion for others without the tough love, hard work, struggles and despair. I HAD to come from those places in order to go where I was headed. I had to feel the loss of all hope in order to ignite, over and over again, the sliver of a desire to try one more time, over and over again. I needed every moment of desperation to make THAT decision in THAT moment to go on as I was, or to rise above and “Kick the shit out of Plan B” (Sheryl Sandberg).
I had been raised in defeat and knew I didn’t want any part of that shit. I had already lived too many mistakes and had chosen another path. Don’t get me wrong, some days I really, really REALLY enjoyed rolling around in “the shit”. Even better, I liked you to smell my shit, ask why I smelt like shit and then for me to commence to bloviate, again, about all of my injustices and stay in the problem and remain a victim of (whatever real or imagined injustice it was) the problem. It’s not that these bad things didn’t happen. It’s just that I stayed in those problems way to long most of the time in years past. Today, I still hold my rule…If nobody’s bleeding, just soldier on (thanks Aunt Jean). I’ve also added, for my own discipline, I will talk about the problem one time, maybe two. But then, I MUST move into the solution, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. I have to try to Live In Solution Always (that’s another story). If I remain in the problem, I will never move forward. NEVER. If nothing changes, nothing changes 😉
I think it was in 1995 or so. My son and I were living in what everyone told me was “the hood”. It was a little 2 bedroom, one bath (no tub) mobile home set back in a dark corner of a grungy trailer park in Central Florida. It was our safe haven. Albeit not EVERYONE’S version of a safe haven, it was a place where I could somewhat relax, a little. A place where I could start over. The place that the Universe brought us to so we could live our lives again (but that’s another story).
When I walked into the little tin can for the first time, the stench was horrible. Filth everywhere. I walked into the only bathroom…feces spread all over the walls. Urine and mold still in the toilet. The kitchen had all that you would expect. Old food in cabinets. Curdled milk in the frig and apparently the last year or so of menu items baked into the pans under the electric coils of the stove. The only source of heat and air was the rusted A/C unit hanging precariously from the only kitchen window. It reminded me of the character in one of my son’s favorite cartoons … the cantankerous old A/C unit that clanked and growled throughout the whole movie.
It was perfect. In the rough, but all that my son and I needed at the exact price that we could afford. I’ll take it! I little bleach and elbow grease (ok, a lot) and we’d be cooking with gas…when I could afford to get the gas anyway…
After leaving my home and family late at night with the truck packed tight, we left for our new home…new life. I had secured one part time job a month earlier as a respiratory therapist and had another one on deck. I had registered for school at the local community college. I decided that if I had to leave my home, I was gonna do something positive with it. My son’s ed docs were privately transferred to his new school by two detectives. I sought out my spiritual tribe soon after we landed and had begun the process of creating a new life for us both with a goal of becoming a physician assistant. I knew this town would expose my son to a phenomenal amount of new educational adventures. Museums, parks, multi cultural events, new languages, an abundance of sports activities. Every color of the rainbow lived there! I was grateful for both of us and the things we could learn there. Several months prior, I had planned the move and began scrimping and saving. Buying TP, bar soap, detergent, shampoo and other minor essentials that I thought would last for several months…come to find out, not the case…but that’s another story. To the penny, I thought we’d be ok (relative term) for about three months or so.
Things were never perfect, but I made sure that all my son’s basic needs were met…especially the love I had for him…he was my inspiration to keep going more times than I could have every calculated. We had each other. They were MOST CERTAINLY the best AND worst of times. “Never, ever give up.”…right son?
I lived in a relatively low grade anxious state most of the time. Looking over my shoulder. Lying awake at night with every bump I heard. Nailing windows shut. Always looking outside before stepping out. Starting the car without my son in it. Scanning the parking lot as I exited the grocery store. Looking under the car as I approached before looking in the back seat as I unlocked the car door. Maintaining a constant vigil over my son and myself. It never stopped…ever…
You never know how stressed you are until your shoelace breaks. I mean, you’re trucking along at a high RPM… steady…so you don’t really notice til something (relatively) small happens. You hit a pothole or something. I came home on one of our typical evenings from picking my son up from the Boys and Girls club, after a long day at school and my two (later to be three) part time jobs to make dinner. I turned the cranky A/C unit on in the kitchen which always barked at me a bit as I woke it up each evening. It screamed and growled back at me with a feverish pitch that threw me back against the counter. It began to rattle in the window. Literally, shake and rattle while it screamed in it’s perch. I leaned toward it with fear to try and turn it off… With one last high pitched scream…it lurched inward and fell to the floor…silent. At the same moment, my son had come from the bathroom to see what the racket was about just as it was falling out of the window. I thought it was going to hit him. I screamed at him to jump back simultaneously as I dove toward him to push him out of the way. I scooped him up and set him down in the hall quickly looking for the wounds and blood I thought I would surely see. No blood. No bruises, scratches or scrapes. He was ok. I dropped my head in prayer and gratitude.
“What are we gonna do momma?” If I had a dollar for every time I heard my son say that every time the shit hit the fan, we would’ve been set.
It all came crashing in on me. The stress had been overwhelming. Keeping it together for all this time with a game face for my son and myself… My shoelace snapped. I sat on the floor in silence. My son sat next to me…in silence. Again…the question…”what are we gonna do momma?” I remember him justing looking at me…waiting…
It was then that I realized it could’ve been so much worse. Everything could ALWAYS be worse. I had to stay focused on the positive. Always get up and brush myself off and soldier on. That little guy watched me all the time…everyday as a manometer of life. His gauge. Every time shit hit the fan, he was watching me to see how I handled it. How were we gonna make it through that event. He’s was eight years old and I realized I was on his mini radar all the time. These were life lessons. This shit would shape him for -freekin – ever…dammit! HOLY SHIT! I was responsible (for the most part I know today) for how this little guy would deal with life down the road. And hence, my focus shifted again.
No one had gotten hurt and that meant everything else was gonna be ok. I looked at my son and said “I don’t know son, but nobody’s bleeding, so everything’s gonna be ok. Let’s eat and we’ll figure it out later.” And so we did, over, and over, and over again…
Nobody’s Bleeding 