The Back Story. Chapter 7

Emotionally, at the beginning of 2009, I was on auto pilot with nothing left to give anyone.  The real estate market collapsed.  We were moving to Charlotte.  Our house didn't sell.  And didn't sell.  And didn't sell.  We were going to have two children in college.  The money was running out, rapidly.  The fear was suffocating as I felt us swirling down the drain.

I was drinking half a bottle of wine a night - the big bottle - to get my jaw to unclench.  I wasn't sleeping.  I was eating everything that wasn't nailed down.  I wandered through my day like a zombie.  I have no idea how much I weighed because I quit weighing at 157 but I  know I was heavier because things that were only tourniquet tight at 157 became "gonna cause gangrene" tight.

Brian found a new job which was a blessing.  It was in Charlotte and he was commuting.  It was hard on him.  Hard on me.  I know now how worried my family was about me at the time.  It was more than a little obvious that I was hanging on by my fingernails.  Both of our kids have since told me they thought I was losing my mind because I couldn't remember anything and I was acting like a crazy person.  When does it stop being an act and start being the truth?  I was crazy.  Nutty.  Loony.  Bonkers.

That summer I found a big nasty tick on me and in a dead panic terrified I would get Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, went to the doctor to get the antibiotics.  My blood pressure was 175/120.  I didn't even let them check my blood sugar.  And stepping on the scale was also not going to happen.  It had been so long since I had been to the doctor that I had to fill out one of those "are you experiencing the following" forms.  I had checks by sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, misery and mayhem.  The doctor said to me that I had a bunch of serious things checked and wanted to know what was going on in my life.  When I told her, her exact words were, "Holy Shit".  Holy shit, indeed.

This doctor was great though.  She asked me if I was seeing someone (like mental health).  No.  Did I want to take something?  No.  I told her if I was still feeling all these things in six months that I'd be back, but I needed to feel it authentically so I knew I was making right decisions not decisions brought on by a happy pill.  She agreed.  I left, antibiotics in had.

August 2009.  The house finally sold.  Yes, we lost our shirts but we had shirts to lose and we were lucky.  We got out without going into foreclosure or bankruptcy.  It was a blessing.

September 2009.  I finally arrived in Charlotte.  Bruised.  Battered.  Completely on zero.  Its a cliche, but it really is true, when you are at zero you have no place to go but up.

When I took my youngest daughter to college that fall, I spent the entire day after dropping her off, driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  There was no traffic.  With the windows down, I drove so slowly I could hear the birds singing.  It was peaceful and tranquil in a way that helped start the heeling of the wounds on my heart and soul.  The mountains have always been restorative to me and I have never needed their quiet grace as I did at that moment in my life.

I was finally able to get to a place where I could begin to deal with the grief of my Dad's death - there had been too much going on.  Also, I had been so close to the edge that I was afraid if I let go the flood gates of my sadness, the ensuing tide would have swept me away.  I cried.  I prayed and in answer to my prayers, I know I was asked, "Are you sick enough of it yet?"  The answer was a resounding yes.

I told someone a long time ago that the God I believe in will let you run far and long but when he wants your attention, he'll break your knees, if he must, to get you to bow down before him and listen.  I was on my knees.  I knew I had to change.  I knew I had to stop hiding and running away from the truths in my life.  I was finally stripped, naked and in front of the mirror.  I was ready to listen.

And a funny thing happened.  I began to feel better. From nowhere, these almost electric bursts of energy would charge my whole body, pushing me up.  Pushing me forward.  It was a new day.  A new era and the soul-searching began in earnest.  I really felt like the cupboard of my soul was opened up and fresh clean air blew threw it.  It was wonderful.

Now, as an aside, I'm not a particularly religious person, although I'm deeply faithful.  I have an abiding belief in God and the power of prayer but I'm not a Praise-Be-Radar-For-God-Type.  I have no problems with people who do wear their faith that obviously.  Its just not me.  My faith is mine.  Yours is yours and that's the way it should be.  Nor am I about to start saying that God cast the donut out of me.  I'm not testifying and that's not what this story is about.  I just finally had no choice but to accept the fact that the sum total of my life for the better part of ten years had been a slow case of knee-breaking that I had ignored.  2008 got my attention.

I also got mad.  Really mad.  Not at God at myself. 

My Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1978.  For thirty years, he and my Mom waged a relentless battle to live and have some quality of life in the face of a disease against which, they stood no chance.  His struggle was a gruesome wearing away of the man and finally culminated in complete disability and Alzheimer's.  And STILL, Daddy persisted.  He never gave up.  I, on the other hand, threw in the towel without so much as firing a shot.

I thought about all my missing friends.  How they would never have another day to get it right or wrong.  To love.  To hate.  To fight and make up. To try.  To fail.  To succeed.  I thought about all the days I had wasted and squandered and it made me feel ashamed.

I knew that I had to reorient myself.  To rise up out of the ashes.  To honor my Father and value the lives of every one I had lost.  To reclaim my husband, my kids, my life as a fully engaged human being.  The only question, was where to start.