3
“Just Making it By”
10-3-07
Okay
listen up here – This is my plan.
I’m gonna go pick up some Taco Bell & then go see a movie! Ah!
Actually, problemo#1, I have exactly $4.00 in my wallet. #2, It’s 10:00 p.m. on a school night. I’m grounded & the movie I wanna see isn’t even out
yet. Lol. So I think my Plan is definitely ruined. Ha-ha. I’d go if could though.
Anyways
back2 life that is headed down the drain. (Hah jk) Today has been okay. But just ok. I felt like crying but I didn’t. I’m a tough chikaD.
It’s just – these voices & flashbacks won’t leave me alone. I was looking back @ my pictures from
Cincinnati & all these memories were playing all @ once. It’s like some kind of dream that never
really ends. Idk. I’m still praying 4 answers. I know God won’t leave me alone & I
put all my faith in His plan. Even
though it’s extremely difficult, no1 ever said it was gonna be easy. I’m hangin' in there. I haven’t broken the rules @ all 2day…
yay me. (1 down, just 50 more day’s 2 go lol) Not even 50 days, more like 4ever.
I’m
drinking chocolate milk right now.
(I’m about 2 xplode 2) Makes me feel like a lil' kid again. I love feeling like that. But ya – not much 2 say other than yes,
I’m still alive. I‘ve got school
2morrow, it’s fall break & Wahoo.
I hope I can still go 2 Shae’s house. She helps me & she gives good advice. She’s like a best friend/mom/sister 2
me. Now how often do you find one
of those? Alrighty night.
Shorty
Dear Shorty,
Good girl! I’m glad to know that you can tell the
difference between fantasy and reality. At least when the problem is as simple
as Taco Bell with no money and a movie that hasn’t come out yet! If only the rest of life was so
clear.
What do you keep
thinking about in that dream that won’t end? Are they happy memories? Is it a memory that you have created in your fantasies that
doesn’t feel quite right? Is it
the memory of helping your drunken father after he fell down the stairs when
you were 4-years-old? Or memories
of you as the hero as you protected what you perceived to be your helpless
father and grandmother. Is it
sitting at Wendy’s with your birth dad? Is it all the other places you lived
that let you go? Or maybe a little
of all of that? Think about what
flashes back? My guess is that
whatever keeps coming up over and over again is what you haven’t resolved yet. It’s what is haunting you.
When I was twenty
I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 11:00 am in the morning on my way to
work. I was on a six-lane highway
with no divider. I was driving in
the far inside lane. I never saw
him coming at me at 60 miles per hour.
I never had a chance to think, “Wow! I need to swerve to miss him.” At least I have absolutely no memory of
that. I think he must have been in
his lane until the very last second and then swerved into mine.
Anyway, he hit me
almost directly head on and my car rammed into a telephone pole that tipped
over onto my car. I remember
seeing my hand on the steering wheel immediately after the accident, but the
rest of my arm had bones poking out in places where they shouldn’t be. I was pinned inside my car and I could
see his car in front of me. He had
gone through the windshield and then went back into his car on the passenger
side. There was lots of blood. At first, I thought he was a passenger.
I immediately
assumed that because I didn’t know what happened, it must have been my
fault. I was terrified and
stranded in the car. But here’s
the weird part. I was in the
middle of a busy highway and not one car stopped to help me. No one. Cars just kept driving around me and the other car – slowly
to stare but not to stop – as if going wherever they were going was more
important that stopping to help two obviously injured people. I remember crying out for help and
there was no one. It was terrifying.
Finally, two men
from the gas station across the street ran across the busy highway to help
me. I was obviously conscious and
anxious to get out of the car. I
don’t know how, but one of the men pried open the door and I unbuckled my
seatbelt, using one hand to take the broken hand off the steering wheel. My knee was bleeding and had some metal
in it. But I felt no pain whatsoever.
I started walking
across the street without looking.
Cars going full speed were swerving to avoid me, but I didn’t seem to
notice them. One of the men
screamed at me to stop. I heard him, but I kept going. Determined to reach a phone to call for
help.
For the year after
the accident I had awful nightmares.
The dreams were all slightly different, yet all the same– something
horrible happening to me and bones and pieces of me all over the place – with
no one coming to help me. This was
before the idea of post traumatic stress disorder was a common diagnosis, but I
now know that is what I was suffering from.
Anyway, I wasn’t
talking to God very much at that point in my life, so I talked to my mom. Every day, I would call and tell her
the latest version of my dream and she would listen. She was always really good at that. One night, after a particularly graphic
dream my mom said, something to this effect, “You know what I have noticed? All of your dreams seem to have a theme. In all your dreams you have no control over
the outcome. Just like in the accident. Someone else decided to drink and to drive and to take
your life into his hands. Lots of
someone’s decided to drive by you and just watch your agony – offering no
help. It seems like the real issue
is lack of control. And that
really bothers you.”
Immediately, all
my dreams made sense. It was like
my sub-conscious needed me to understand why the accident had impacted me so
severely and my dreams were the way of making sure that I paid attention. Eventually, understanding my
dreams helped me cope. After that
conversation with my mom, I never had another dream like that again. I was finally able to deal with my grief
over the lack of control at a conscious level. That made a huge difference for me.
I was telling my
friend Ashley – another adoptive mom- this story and she said, your dreams are such a metaphor for
Heather’s life. Wow. What
insight. Maybe she’s right. Even though our causes were very
different, maybe our problem was the same.
Think about
it. You didn’t have any control
over the things that happened to you in your early life in much the same way I
couldn’t control the drunk driver or the passing drivers. It feels really bad and scary and sad
to have to suffer the consequences of someone else’s choices. And like me, maybe you felt like what
happened to you was your fault – making you feel guilty – even though there is
no way it could have been your fault.
You weren’t even six when you were taken away – so everything happened
when you were just a tiny little innocent girl – no matter how bad you were!
What do you think?
I love you.
Mom
P.S. Some of your
childhood must have been really good because you associate chocolate milk with
a childhood without worries. I’m
glad to know that at some level, you had that experience too!
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