Shadow of Fear

I know it's been awhile. I have several posts that are half written and others that are complete and ready to post; yet they are my own personal thoughts that are so deep inside my mind that sometimes I think to myself, "I’m not quite ready to share."

With that said, I think I need to address something that happened a few months back and seems to be a common thread that wraps itself around some of my friends lately. Something that I feel anyone can relate to; not just people who might have lost a loved one. 

Everyone has (ugh I dislike this term so much) “baggage”. Some more than others; but we all have it and anyone who denies having it is lying to them selves. I personally loathe the term for the implications that the events of someone’s life that is out of their control is considered the metaphor for the choices that define who we are and how we react in certain situations in such a degrading term as “baggage”. 

You know, baggage, that thing you lug, shove and kick around when you travel. The thing that gets tossed and stuffed with the awkward facets of our lives and yet we continue to not acknowledge the fact that you can’t keep throwing stuff in there and expect to fit it all into the overhead compartment without sorting through what’s in there. Again; did I say how I loathe the term?

And yet we are defined often times in peoples' minds by this level of “baggage” that we carry around and let be shown to those around us when we least expect it. Now before we go any further, let me state for the record, I am not this person who looks at people and whispers, “oh wow – she’s a you know what – did you hear how she acted when so-and-so did this?” That’s not me. I’ve had too much happen in my life to look at people on such a first blush and make such brash comments. I completely understand that what makes, builds and defines us, can often be the events in our lives that are all to many of the times often out of our control. I watched a mother slowly die and saw in her eyes how the resignation that she would never see her son marry or get to meet her grandchildren become resolute. I watched as her passing brought a tremendous tear through a family.

I’ve seen the implications of a father’s indiscretions effect his son in a way that made him fight tooth and nail to prove to himself that he would be a better dad than his own. When in the end all that was ever needed was just a little more love from a Dad that gave up way too quickly. 

I have observed friends as they struggle to date because they allow their minds to become flooded with memories from their past and find it hard to carry a level of trust for someone that has done them no wrong; all because someone else carelessly battered and bruised their hearts to the point that running seems easier than being hurt again. 

I was blessed with being able to sit back and watch people; to love them for them. To love myself for who I am and what this life and situation of mine has defined me to become. Never judging. Just understanding that the people in this world are who they are based on their situations that have brought them to where they are and will be in their lives. 

And for the most part I have taken my level of understanding others to work on my self and my own level of grieving and (ugh that word again) “baggage.” It’s why I knew from the get go that I needed to go to therapy to work through the demons that presented themselves to my thoughts and work through the grief. I lost my best friend and I needed someone to tell someone I wasn’t crazy and I was doing the best I could, but would also be there to give me the tools to work myself back into the strong woman I once was before cancer entered our lives. And for the most part I have. It’s still something I work on every day. Grief isn't just something that magically goes away. 

No, I will never be the person I was before or even during Christopher’s cancer. Remember when we were kids and maybe you would swing as high as your little legs would take the swing on the swing set? And maybe you even dared to see how high you could fly and jump off said swing? Did you ever fall and cut your hands on the wood-chips? Scrape your knees? Break a bone? Where you the same person when your body abruptly stopped, hitting the ground? 

In that moment when you jumped the world was a spinning kaleidoscope of faces, sounds and colors that made no sense until you hit the ground and realized what had just happened. And even after hitting the ground and knowing you were on your feet, the feeling of knowing you weren’t the same when took flight starts to hit you. You start to see the strides and/or ramifications of what this little jump did and your mind kicks in to tell you that you will never jump off a swing or even get on one for a while. Or maybe it did just the opposite and the thrill of the rush that came over you pulls at you like an orbit to that swing. However so, your mindset from that point on has been altered. 

In that instant, your mind changed the way you thought about swings or how high you would ever allow yourself to swing. You changed and you didn’t even know it (at least not right away). You are still sorta you – just that little part of a daredevil has either buried itself or grown ten feet taller.

I have worked on myself for years to get to a place where I felt like I made it through the jump, the scrapes and cuts have healed and left little scars on where I landed. While I have told myself over and over “the swing doesn’t scare me”...well I was wrong.

A few months ago the Music Man got into a car accident. Let me start off by saying, in the end, the wreck wasn’t really bad at all. No one was hurt and other than some body damage to both cars the only thing battered and bruised was possibly the ego of the other driver for causing the wreck.

However, as I got tiny snippets here and there of the events, my mind was divided. I knew at that moment what it was like to have the feeling of ying and yang going on simultaneously in your body. I understood the madness that Dr. Jeckyll had for Mr. Hyde. Bruce Banner had nothing on my version of emotional transformation. I found my mind and soul residing in two completely different places and yet trapped like a bee in the jar of my own body trying to find an out only to hit the invisible wall that held my emotions at bay.

I sat at my desk at work telling myself “he’s ok” over and over again. Then feeling those dark recesses of my mind start to form and take shape into images that made me feel a level of vulnerability that hadn’t been felt for over 4 years. The circle of thoughts in my head swirled erratically painting a picture that used the colors of my heart, the canvas of my compassionate soul and the composition of my past to hang a gruesome portrait in my mind that couldn't be taken down no matter how hard I tried. 

I tried to squash those monstrous thoughts with “it’s a fender bender, d, get the hell over yourself.” Which lead to more visuals that drew themselves out in my head in pictures and sounds that were clear as day. Days like this are days that I dread being a creatively thinking person; because, while my imagination was a powerful tool that got me where I was in my career – it was also being allowed to take my already mangled thoughts and throw them into a gory graphic novel that you can’t put down and yet scares the shit out you. And know you should drop it before your nightmares start. 

I spent most of the day fighting a David and Goliath-esqe war in my head. The giant of my over active imagination against the pebble of my meek positive thoughts that tried to take them down; unfortunately my David was losing this battle. Quickly. 

That night while taking to the Music Man he asked me if there was anything he could do to prove that he was ok. He repeated it over and over and with each blanket statement of “I’m ok” came the mental image of Christopher sitting in a hospital bed telling me that he was “ok” even though a doctor hadn’t left long enough for the smell of his after shave to leave the room and the words “cancer” echoing through my mind as if it was shouted into the Grand Canyon. 

I said to him, “Someone else told me the same thing and he’s not here anymore.” Then I stopped. My eyes froze and welled with an overwhelming sadness. All these years of working through grief I somehow, somewhere over looked this scar. It wasn’t hidden; it was always there. Almost as if it was in plain sight. Yet, I never saw it. Or maybe I chose to never look at. Never examined the ridges that sat so perfectly across the soul of my heart. 

I had allowed myself to care about someone else to the point that the news that they might or might not be hurt dug into that scar and left the weapon of choice lodged into it and it was bleeding at level of pain that I vowed to myself I would never feel again. No matter the bandage I tried to tell myself I couldn’t control the pain that I had opened myself up to. By caring about someone else I tore down all the walls that protected my heart from being hurt and here I was; in battle with my own thoughts and no fort to hind behind for protection.

I went to therapy. It helped. A little. But not in the level that I needed it to. I was still at war with my own thoughts that were now creeping into my dreams at night. I had all but almost given up hope that I wouldn’t be able to move through this part of my life and mind again. All my hard worked seemed flushed in one foul caring swoop.

Then a week later we had a nighttime 5k race (the second one of the year for us). We made plans of where we were going meet after the race and I even excused my self from our conversation so I could zone out on my music and try to pump myself up considering that part of me that had allowed my monstrous thoughts to take life were now telling me that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t make it through this run. It was pointless to be there.

As the race started I did my typical race pattern; weave in and out of people to try and get ahead of the walkers and strollers then find my pace. I listened to my music and tried the best I could to zone out – let the music work it’s magic and get me through the finish line. As I ran I tried to take my mind to places that were distracting and ignore the thoughts that wanted to sit and use my over active imagination as it’s play ground. 

I looked at the people ahead of me. That just bothered me – this race was at night and people were wearing glow in the dark paraphernalia that made my eyes water. I closed my eyes. That didn’t work; I was bound to trip. I looked to the side of the course; I almost ran into someone. Then I realized my shadow from the streets lights was in front of me. I focused on “chasing it”.

It helped for the most part. My mind started to evict those unwanted visuals and started to get lost in the music that was blaring through my ears. I focused intently on my shadow; trying my hardest to run it down with no avail. Then suddenly I watched that shadow quickly move from the front where my feet ran after it to being behind me. I was no longer chasing my shadow; it was now in a way pushing me forward.

I then found the words of the song pumping through my tiny little ear buds. 

“You know I dream in color, And do the things I want.” 

This song was somehow my internal thoughts monologuing to those fears that were allowed to manifest into the creatures of dark proportions and trying to put them in their place. 

“You think you got the best of me

Think you had the last laugh

Bet you think that everything good is gone.

Think you left me broken down” 

Those scars that cancer left on my heart and forced me to build a wall around to protect what was left were being confronted by that “d” that was tired of the games that played out in my head. 

“Think that I'd come running back

Baby you don't know me, cause you're dead wrong.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Stand a little taller” 

The shadow, which I focus so intently on, was beginning to represent everything that I was going through. My shape. Running. Trying to escape like only Peter Pan could from his own shadow. 

“Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone.

What doesn't kill you makes a fighter

Footsteps even lighter

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

My shadow was my fears. The fear of caring about someone to the point of leaving my self vulnerable to the pain of possibly being hurt again. 

“Just me myself and I” 

Understanding that this new vulnerability was a milestone that I honestly didn’t think I would ever ascertain or work through. I was so determined to never let people in because it was the only way that I knew I could protect my heart. Protect myself from fears that had no name. 

“You heard that I was starting over with someone new,

They told you I was moving on,

You didn't think that I'd come back; I’d come back swinging

You try to break me but you see

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

These no named fears lived inside of my head, hiding, waiting for me to falter just enough to rear their ugly head. But I wasn’t going to let them win. They couldn’t win. They are mere thoughts that only I control. I am the one who has power over them. No one else. 

I am the only one who can fight these fears and force them from the front where I seem to be chasing after them in the hopes that I might out run them to pushing them in their place.

“Thanks to you I'm finally thinking 'bout me

You know in the end, the day I left was just my beginning..... in the end...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Stand a little taller

What doesn't kill you makes a fighter” 

I know it will always be a struggle to keep those fears in check and keep them in my past. Letting them be the building blocks to who I am and not the stumbling blocks I allowed them to be. They will still be at my heels always trying to move in front of me as quickly as I pushed them back. I will always be trying to tame my mind from the scars that might be cut and allowed to bleed into my soul. But what helps me keep more focused on this path now is knowing that this sick cycle carousel of emotions will never stop. There will always be that swing set and the idea of flight from it in my head. It’s something that I will encounter over and over again and it won’t stop swinging until I step down from it to understand how to be in control of my own speed. 

“Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone.

Just me, Myself and I

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

Sometime life throws us in a direction that at the time makes no sense and we are left to figure it all out. Some of us fly through it. Some want you to think they can fly right through it, when in reality they never process the emotions that come to them. Instead they bury them inside that “bag” in the hopes they can forget about them (out of sight, out of mind). Then the very few who struggle and those events that life brings them leaves them tattered and bruised. The “baggage” of their lives left for people to mock, make fun of and yet those people who are left to mock are never the ones that would take the time to understand the feelings that brought up those feelings; to extend a caring hand. Sometimes people just need to stop and ask “why” to gain just a hint of understanding. This world is often too quick to judge. 

I discovered that I had "baggage". The loss of someone I cared so deeply for left an almost impenetrable wall around myself, until I let one person in. Then the wall that protected me for all these years failed me when I needed it the most and yet with it's failure I have realized where I need to work on myself so that I can continue to move forward in everything that I have work towards these last few years.

Grief is something that truly has no end. It’s something that will always reside in the waiting room of our thoughts. Waiting for the next time it can sneak in and try it’s hardest to damage what we have worked towards. In the end, I have come to peace that grief will never really leave me. It’s home sits in the quiet corner of my heart, but I am the only one that can feed my fears and control the life I have worked so hard to being how you say “baggage free.”