I feel as though I'm finally coming out of a long dark tunnel that I entered when I left Missouri last year on October 8th. I can't believe it has been a year.
Last year when I left, I felt I was leaving a good place to come to a good place... it just took me a lot longer to find my good place than I thought. But sometimes those journeys make you appreciate the before and afters a bit more... make that a whole lot more.
Callaway was a wonderful place with the best of people... and I so miss them all. I wish I could tell them how much they have truly been a wind beneath my wings.
I had to journey to a very dark place before I could get back to a good place... I have travelled some interesting by-ways, and met some great folks as well... the nurses at the Highline School District were wonderful. So despite the depths and the negative people I encountered in one place, it has been almost universally refuted by every other person that I have met... and by all the other experiences that I have had. Sadly, sometimes it takes reaching the end of the dark journey to realize the gifts that have been given along the way.
However, being on uneven ground in terms of employment and everything else made for an unstable year. I think all I had was my anger and desire for revenge against those who wronged me.
I have now been in my new job for three weeks, I cannot even believe it's gone so fast. I am loving what I'm doing, I'm loving the people, I'm loving feeling like I'm doing a good job. My confidence is growing with my knowledge.
My feet feel like they are on solid ground and now I can move forward and leave all the bitterness and anger behind... and really embrace forgiveness for them and solace for myself.
I wrote this poem at possibly my darkest, lowest time emotionally:
They start out so kind
You let them in
But then you disappoint
And they are in your mind
By opening that door
You allow them to destroy your peace
Your confidence
Your hope... that anything will work again
You run over & over -
Details that are done
Things you cannot change
(Though you wish you could)
You defend yourself to the destroyers
The cold, stone cold, mouths
Who you could never have had hope of pleasing
And the fear seeps in
-ice in the veins
-sickness in the stomach
And all visions of the future dim
The door is shut tight behind you
You are in a pit, feeling for handholds
Fumbling, blind, with no plan
There is only pain, darkness
fear illuminated by angry flashes
Fumbling for a handhold to open a door forward - anything to get out of the pit.
Time ticks by
You drown in the accumulating minutes - the only sound is your breathing and the rush of your blood in your ears.
You look back and the wound that had barely begun to heal is ripped open afresh by circumstance
The dry leaves of what was swirl up in a bone dry dance if pain,, darkness, and fear... repeating the cycle you worked so hard to rest.
Go forward, guarded - ready to play the expected role - it's your only protection.
And this is where I am now:
