Clearing the Slate

Inspired by Marcy, I've decided to start a new blog.  I've been enjoying reading hers as she's started putting her thoughts into writing and it made me go back and read my prior 3 blogs I've kept... well part of them anyway!  I've blogged for over 10 years.  Sometimes 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes months inbetween an entry.  High school, college, military, love, breakups, life and even death.  Rereading my own words made me laugh many times... and cry.  It was a trip down nostalgia lane which resulted in one very obvious realization.  I've always been a victim.  And do you want to know a secret?  I'm only my own victim and I am NOT going to live that way any longer. 

My blogging has always been a way to vent emotions, many of them pent up frustrations I was never brave enough to say out loud to the people who probably needed to hear it.  So here's this new blog... a hope of great things to come and a breaking of the binding chains I've let hold me down.

So where does that leave me? I've kept rather quiet about the entire past year of life drama.  I've opened up to very few people and protected myself from as much heartache (ironically) as possible.  A year from last October I experienced a miscarriage right after Byron returning from deployment.  Then his grandfather died suddenly on Christmas.  And then my Papa passed away from leukemia after fighting it three times.  Add in financial burdens, 4000 miles to the closest family and the strain two deployments had taken on mine and Byron's relationship.  Life was tough.  In a desperate attempt to gain back control I allowed my military doctor to put me on Cymbalta for a combination of my chronic shoulder pain and depression.  I am convinced to this day that drug is responsible for every action I took throughout the beginning of last year.  I went crazy.  Literally, physically, mentally, spiritually.  I wasn't myself.  But you couldn't tell me that.  No one could.  I "knew" every decision I made was the "right" one and would lead me to future happiness and success.  Fail plan, Trisha.

As most know I left Byron to escape the Alaskan "wilderness" and return home to my family.  We had very real problems and serious struggles that appeared for so long impossible to overcome.  I spent months after trying to weave through the mess the two of us had created.  I pleaded for people to give me the answers.  I convinced myself I was finding them (but in all the wrong places) Eventually, I felt so crazy and out of control I took myself off the Cymbalta cold turkey.  Fail plan, again.  It took weeks to handle the "aftershocks" with literal brain zaps and withdrawl symptoms (do some research on Cymbalta, it's no joke) I suffered through chronic illnesses, dog bites (multiple), drama drama drama, etc. all the while crying out "GOD WHERE ARE YOU??? WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME A VICTIM???" 

And then I had a moment.




I've made myself the victim.

Maybe I can't prevent dog bites and I might have an affinity for natural disasters and accidents in my life.  But I'm not a victim.  And in a few moments of humble silence I made the crucial commitment to myself, to God, to life... to turn the pity wagon back around.  And even though my marriage was in shambles, my health was turning into a medical mystery and life was in it's natural chaotic state there was still hope.  Marriage is too sacred to just let go.  Life is too precious to live as a victim.  So I reclaimed freedom.  Just like that.

I'm not claiming to have found perfection or utopia.  Quite the opposite.  I still have an affinity for disaster, medical problems to work through and puzzle pieces of life to fit back together.  But admidst all of that is the freedom in reclaiming my life.  In having a positive outlook, a capable attitude and faith that even though I might not see the end picture there most definitely is one.  And it's beautiful.