Hope

In 1996 my then-husband filed for divorce. He was very mad at me so he filed in such a way that I couldn't see my kids unsupervised for the week we were waiting for our emergency custody hearing. He also took the car we jointly owned away from me. 

The day after all of this happened I was walking down the 2 lane highway that separated me from my kids to have a visit with them at their grandmother's house. I was feeling very sorry for myself at the time. I was 26 years old; about to be a divorced, single mother of two small children. Although I had a degree, it was "just" an undergraduate degree in psychology and it was already 2 years old so I didn't think it was going to be able to get me a very good job. I was terrified that my soon-to-be-ex-husband was going to be able to somehow take my kids away from me. I had a VERY low-level job at an insurance company, but I didn't have a car to get me to the job I needed in order to survive. I also didn't have any money. 

I felt hopeless.

Walking along this highway with big 18 wheeler trucks whizzing past me as I bawled my eyes out, I had the thought...what if I just "accidentally" fell into the road right as a truck was coming? 

As if it were a bad movie, right at that moment a little dog came running toward me, barking his head off...he ran right in front of one of those big trucks! He was killed instantly. It slapped me back into reality, back into the hope for a future that I couldn't see at the moment. Hopelessness, while a horrible feeling, it is not dead. Dead is dead. 

Fast forward many years later. I was visiting a friend the week of Thanksgiving. My son was living with his dad and my daughter was visiting them. My daughter had her beloved dog, Sandy, with her. They were all in the front yard playing; all of the sudden Sandy saw something that made him dart out in the road...in front of a big truck. My daughter was almost hit trying to stop him from being hit. They rushed him to an emergency vet, but it was too late. The damage the truck had inflicted was too much.

Fast forward many years to last month.

I was on my way to teach my 5:30am Spin class at the Y. I "always" speed while driving to class. I mean, it's 5am and no one is on the wide open road, at least not usually. That morning I ended up having to slow down below the speed limit because the person in front of me was obviously NOT in a hurry. I started to pass on the right but at that exact moment another car crept up in the right lane...probably only going the actual speed limit (since I know I was going below the speed limit). As I started to change lanes to pass this slow-mover who was preventing me from diving my usual speed, God spoke to me.

No, I didn't hear an audible voice; but I heard in my head "you aren't in a hurry, just slow down"...so I did. I have to go over a big mountain and then make a left hand turn to get to the Y so staying in the left hand lane made sense, even if driving slower than the already slow speed limit didn't.

Just as we rounded a big curve in the road I saw the vehicle that had passed us a couple of minutes earlier. It was still in the right-hand lane, but stopped a little sideways. 

I immediately thought he must have hit a deer, but as I got closer I realized it didn't look like a deer. 

I quickly pulled over and called out to the man who was now outside of his vehicle..."hey, was that just a deer?" Hoping my eyes had played a terrible trick on me.

"No...it's a person"

...I am first aid certified. I have been certified in CPR and first aide continuously for 10 years. I first learned CPR and first aid in the military over 30 years ago. I've never actually had to USE my training, but I'm trained.

I ran to the man laying on the shoulder of the road as I heard the driver on the phone with 911 frantically trying to explain exactly where we were all located. As I ran I prepared myself that this person was probably either a runner or a cyclist. Those are the only people who would be out, not in a car, at that time of the morning.

As I reached the man I realized instantly he was not a runner or a cyclist (I could tell by how he was dressed). I also realized instantly that, although he was still breathing, there was absolutely nothing I could do for him. He was already on his side. He was breathing. He was bleeding very badly but I knew enough not to try to move his body. And the blood I could see was not the worst of his injuries. I knew emergency workers, who would be able to get him to the help he needed, would be there "quickly" so I shifted my attention to the man on the phone; trying to help him give information to the 911 dispatcher.

It felt like time stood still.

It felt like the world around us was moving in slow motion.

It felt like it took days for the fire trucks and ambulance to get there.

It felt like it took weeks for the medics to take this badly hurt man to the hospital.

It felt like it took forever for the police to finish up all that they needed to do.

All the while I talked to the driver. He said this man had run right in front of his car. He kept saying "WHY would he have done that??"; I kept lying saying "I don't know what would cause someone to do that."

I mean I guess it wasn't a full lie. I didn't know that man. I didn't know the reasons he would have run in front of a vehicle at 5am on a Monday morning.

Later that day I relayed the story to some good friends. One friend said this person must have just not been paying attention. As if running straight across 4 lanes, in the pitch blackness of early morning, directly in front of a vehicle going 40+ miles an hour, could have just been a terrible accident.

Maybe...maybe it was just an accident. Maybe it was like when Sandy, or that other little dog, was hit.

This man's car was on the opposite side of the road from where this happened. During the minutes that felt like years it took for emergency workers to get there I looked in the car for any clues I might be able to find...(one thought I had: what if there is a woman in labor and he was running across the street to get the attention of the passerby, and the driver just didn't see him). I saw the keys to the vehicle and this man's wallet (that I didn't touch) but no woman in labor.

Although (thankfully) I had not seen the actual impact, I not only felt like I had important witness information to give the police, I stayed at the scene to comfort the driver. I kept thinking "it could have been me...I would want someone to stay with me". I talked with him, asking him questions about his life and telling him little stories to try to get his mind off the terrible incident that no doubt will be blazed in his memory forever. The sun slowly came up as the police gathered all the information they needed in order to complete their investigation; eventually, the driver and I were released. One of the officers told us we should watch the news for reports on the man. He said that would get us the most up-to-date information on his condition. I ended up taking the man home since I felt like I knew him well by then.

I found two news reports of the accident but they never updated the initial news of the crash other than to say the pedestrian was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. I finally got a call from the driver's insurance adjuster last week. He informed me the man had passed away two weeks after the incident. He said the best he could tell it was a suicide.

Fast forward to today. I was on Facebook and saw a post on a travel page I'm on...a woman talked of a trip she was taking with her daughter because her 23-year-old son had committed suicide last month. When I clicked on her name I found out she lives in Tennessee. I was in shock over the thought I might have been a quasi-witness to her son's suicide. (After a little more digging, I found out her son, Matt, actually died three days before the accident.)

I haven't been able to stop thinking about my own thoughts of believing it might be better to jump in front of a truck than to live another day in pain. (I'd be lying if I said that was the only time in my life I've had thoughts like that...)

Pain hurts. Sometimes it hurts more than we can believe we can bear. Sometimes we can't see any way the pain will end...let alone end well. 

Hopeless hurts. But dead is dead. We don't think dead will hurt. 

But that is a lie.

Dead leaves behind it rivers of pain that flow into oceans of endless agony. (Sometimes felt by complete strangers.)

Being dead finalizes nothing except that person's ability to be anything other than dead. 

If you are in pain, regardless of whether it's physical or mental/emotional/spiritual, PLEASE choose to continue to BE before you choose to end being alive. Pain can feel like it is enveloping you, engulfing you in its blackness...there's a reason we said we are "in" pain. When you choose to end your life while you are in pain...you are never delivered from that pain. You might not continue feeling that pain, but people who knew you are left with it.

...and I truly believe disentangling from another person's pain is monumentally more grueling because NO ONE can understand your pain better than you. NO ONE can overcome your pain better than you. NO ONE can use your pain better than you can to make a better life. 

I know. I was there. 

The answer to pain is not "no pain"...the answer is hope. 

I can PROMISE you that ending your life doesn't end the pain you are in...it simply transfers it to someone else. But it's an increased level of pain. If you believe you know someone who might be engulfed deep in such torturous hopelessness that he/she is considering suicide as a way out here's where you can find help. If you believe you are in that kind of pain yourself, please reach out to me or call 800-273-8255. 

Stay. 

Choose life.

Hope, even if it hurts.

❤️

Stripped Down to Brass Tacs

I did a boudoir photo shoot. In fact, I did two. One was with hair and make-up and one was without.

I was molested as a child, for a very long time. As a young woman, I was inappropriately promiscuous. As an adult in marriage counseling, I was asked if I felt my "past" was a contributor to my negative feelings toward my (now ex) husband.

Uh...ya think? How could it not be?

But more than that, my "past" was a direct contributor to my negative feelings toward myself.

For most of my life I have hated myself. It hasn't been a mild dissatisfaction, it has been outright hatred. I have used various methods to fight that feeling. I attempted to allow my faith in God, and my belief in His unfailing love of me, override my personal feelings of myself. I attempted to find friends and men who would love me "enough" to prove my value to myself. I excelled in school. I excelled in work. I took on hard challenges in many areas of my life. I have been to gob-tons of therapy. I've talked about my childhood, my inner child, my inner critic, the particulars of what happened, and how everything made me and makes me feel. I've kept a journal. I've gone on retreats. For years I have been an athlete and a coach. I even got a degree in psychology in an attempt to fully understand and "love" myself.

There have been numerous times in my life when I thought I was making progress. Then something would happen to knock me back into the pit of self-loathing. I would make a mistake, I would have a bad outcome, I would get into an argument with my friend or spouse and I would be reminded, once again, that no matter what I did I seemed to end up back in that pit. I was in a never-ending cycle of try hard/succeed/feel good/"fail"/feel bad, only to start "trying hard" again. I was never satisfied with where I was in life and certainly never satisfied with who I was.

What happened to me took something from me. Well, it took a lot of things from me. Growing up with a stolen innocence molded me into a form I tried my whole life to change. It shaped me into a being I despised. When I was able to put on a mask I liked, I could fall in love with that mask and pretend it was me I loved. "Oh, look how well you do your job! You are a hard worker!" "Oh, see how much this person wants to be with you? You are desirable!" "Oh, look how well you are doing at (fill in the blank). You have value."

I was able to recognize the voice of the inner critic as unhealthy. I wasn't able to recognize the voice of the inner cheerleader as unhealthy. Until it was silenced.

Almost two years ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune brain disease. In a nutshell, my body's immune system was literally attacking my brain cells! Thankfully my husband forced me to go see a neurologist and thankfully that doctor knew what all my crazy symptoms meant and thankfully he knew how to get treatment started. I eventually went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to confirm the diagnosis and to have an expert in the field devise a treatment plan. That plan included high dose IV steroids. The disease and the treatment took a big toll on every part of me. I gained a lot of weight. I lost a lot (most of) my fitness. All the masks I had worn were stripped away.

As treatments began to work, I came to the realization that I didn't want to wear a mask any longer. I wanted to live the way I said I believed was best-from the inside out. Our actions are ALWAYS a product of our beliefs. We can work very hard to try to change behaviors in an attempt to change beliefs, but it never works long term. What is on the inside ALWAYS makes its way to the surface. For a long time I had tried to make what was on the outside align with what was on the inside but I was going about it in the wrong way. I was trying to live a life that matched what I wanted to believe hoping it would eventually sink in. What I truly believed was so ugly that I couldn't even fully admit it much less deal with it. Self-hatred feels insurmountable.

Years ago a friend of mine did a boudoir photo shoot with The Adore Girls in Nashville as a wedding gift to her husband. Her photos were AMAZING! She is pretty in everyday life, but those photos were INCREDIBLE. I told myself that I wanted to do that after I lost that last 10 pounds, after I got my butt more firm, after I got my hair looking better. And then I got sick. I gained 30 pounds. My butt spread out. I lost A LOT of hair, and cut it all off because what was left was in very bad shape. My masks had been stripped down like upholstery off a chair. My foundation was not only ugly, it was severely damaged.

And then something happened.

I changed my mind.

Well...I'm in the process of changing my mind. There's a verse in Romans that says we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. As I changed my mind about how I feel about myself, about who I am as a person, I wanted to commemorate that decision. I am beautiful. I am empowered. I am worthy. I am sexy. From the inside out. What was stolen from me at such a young age is being renewed.

When I reached out to The Adore Girls to book my boudoir photo shoot I had the option to add on a video. I had seen their videos before. They were polished and sexy. But I wanted something a little different. I wanted to have a way to remember the whole experience. I knew it was going to be a turning point for me and I wanted a way to capture the process not just have a finished product.

I was not disappointed. Sarah expertly applied my make up and coiffed my hair. Jamie took some incredible shots while Courtney captured it on video. Jamie worked some magic in the editing room and Courtney clipped and spliced several hours of material down to a few minutes. They all three seemed to exactly capture the essence of me. More than that, they made the outside match how I was feeling on the inside!

Brass tacks are used in upholstery not only for decoration but because they don't rust and won't stain the fabric. At one time it was considered very gauche to have the tacks showing, especially if they weren't fanciful. At that time the tacks were utilized as a foundation for the decoration of the material. Plain brass tacks have never been used for any other purpose. Decorative brass tacks have been added to the outer layer of the fabric to embellish the piece, but plain tacks are to be hidden.

When Jamie presented the idea of a photo shoot without the hair and makeup, I jumped at the opportunity. Plain brass tacks. Exposed. And beautiful. Me, as I am. Without a mask, without embellishment. And, I have to say, I am loving what's there.