Grey

I feel like its been forever and there are just so many things to say. I wrote a post about worth and felt like my thoughts were all over the place, there are just so many different directions that my mind is running in. There are so many feelings and so many things swirling in my head.  I have a real job a real teaching job and its more than amazing!  I see my name on official paperwork and its more than surreal!!!  There are so many things to learn, to get my head around.  There are great things that are happening and there are also things that I am trying to fight.  In my life I see things as black or white there is little gray.  And I know life does not work in all or nothing but I do.  I am working on it but I do.  I fee like i am walking on this long fence right now.  On one side there are the good things my teaching career, my own house, finding good things with new people.  And on the other side are the things that I fight about my past.  And those things seem to get a little larger when those good things start to happen.   Because with each good  big thing I want the bad to go away. Like if somehow I reach another milestone the past is going to magically disappear and be OK!  I keep waiting but it IS NOT going to work like that. It just doesn't and I should know that by now but my brain keeps fighting, and wants more than anything just to feel normal, just to fit in. I get frustrated that the past is still there, the memories, flashbacks the pictures; the pieces of the past that are on repeat and much of it is the PTSD, but oh my goodness I have worked so very hard and tried so many things to be OK.  I have wanted to give up so many times and never have.  I have always kept going and with the work that i have done, I should be finished, I should be swimming in the joy.  Its more than frustrating that I do work so very hard and still there seems to be that annoying voice telling me I am worth nothing more than the past.  I still have a death grip on the things that I would do almost anything to forget.     I often believe that I am what has happened to me. That all those things are who I am.

There is an child advocate on line that posted something, and it made me cry! This is exactly where I am. 

Right in the middle.  Better than OK but not yet awesome.

     Say five years ago It ( My past) was Not OK and I was not OK.  I was drowning, I was literally falling apart at the seams.  I was a mess.  I think back to that time and it's amazing how far that I have come.  I have come so so far from that, so very far.    I worked on issues from my past, I was cared for and given such caring and kindness, such  patience and I began to be OK, and truly I felt like I came back to life again.  What I was doing before wasn't even really living.  I was breathing, but I was hanging on by a thread.

Today, I am better than i have ever been before good things are happening, dreams are coming true, things that I have wanted for so long, are truly happening and it feels so surreal.I keep wanting to pinch myself, like I ma going to wake up and things are going to be different. I am doing the same job that I love, and getting paid real money ! Real Teacher Salary!!  Woohoo.  That part of me is going amazing,  I am exhausted there is just so much to learn and there are certain rules that you have to follow, and time lines, and paperwork OH the paperwork. But its more than a job to me, I love every day.  I wake up and am more than ready for each new day.  But the kids, oh I love the kids.  They make it amazing. I can make a difference every single day, and I hope they remember how much that I care for them someday.   The kids and I  have a plan for moving out, we are saving , picking out furniture, looking at places that will be a perfect fit for us. We are dreaming there is lots of dreaming, and thinking about all the great things our future holds. That is all the good things that are on one side of the fence.

But then there is the other side of the fence and that leaves me stuck right in the middle of being truly OK but the past not being OK. The part that is grey. Where I sometimes get stuck.  I don't live there anymore, but I do sometimes get stuck. I mean there was a time when I was not OK at all, it was more than rough, and there were many moments that I wasn't sure that I was going to make it.  But I did.  And with all the work that I did, I came out and I was truly OK, but the past, Yea that still hurt like hell.  There are answers that I long for.  There are things I have yet to get my head around, So I finally got to place where I was truly OK but the past  just isn't!!! And that is where I get stuck. Because so many good things are happening, the past just shouldn't be an issue anymore.

I am finally going to be OK, I am happy, there are good things happening but when things get quiet, when the day is coming to an end, and my children are safe and sound and settled that is when again my past will rear its ugly head.  There is not much sleep, and when i do it isn't peaceful. My legs look like punching bags, my arms get scratched.  There are nightmares that don't go away even when my eyes are open.  There are flashbacks that bring me back to the worst moments.  I see pictures in my head as clear as when they happened.  AND those are things that I can not do anything about .  My brain goes there so automatically trying to protect me, making sure that i never forget the things that could happen, because for me they already have.  The things of nightmares are true and were my everyday. I have tried a little of everything trying to fight.  I have been absolutely pissed that I can't just get over it, and then I realize if it were that easy, I so would have done that already but it is not.  If it were as easy as flipping a switch it would have been flipped a long LONG time ago.  So as I walk this fence of mine, between all the good things that are happening and my brain that was once trying to save me is now holding me back. I often feel like I am living these two lives.  There is the teacher the mom, the one who goes and does everything that is needed and there is the other side, that feels like a victim.  That part of me that can't  get the awfulness to go away.  That is more than hard on myself,  That struggles to change the things that can never be changed.

So in order for me to get to the next step where I am awesome, I need to  realize that no matter how hard I work the past will never be OK.   I can never make it go away, never make it anything other than what it was.  But in that there will be a peace.  With this I will know that i have fought with everything I have.  I have been the voice, I have spoken up I not once gave up even in those darkest moments when it would have been the easiest thing to do.  No I can not make what happened to me any different, I can not change it, I can only be kind to myself as I fight through these next huge steps.  If I have come this far I can make it the rest of the way.  I am going to try other options things I haven't tried before. Its totally not for lack of effort, I have to remember that.  I often work too hard trying to make it different when what I really need to do is just enjoy life around me, take chances and step outside my comfort zone.  And I can tell you I have been doing that more than I ever imagined was possible.  My life is crazy amazing; just the hand that I got dealt well I will never understand. I am going to be OK, because I won't have it any other way.   So maybe right now I am stuck on gray street, and I teeter between all the amazing and the rough but its my life and I am making the best of it.  I look forward to all that is in store and I look forward to that place where I can finally say I am awesome,  and my past isn't OK, because it never can be, but me I made it and I am proud of where I have come and where I am going.

These next few months are going to be amazing, the trailer will be coming out for the documentary,  and I have to be proud of myself and not blow it off.  Yes it was the right thing but many would choose something different and I didn't. I chose to be the voice and use it to help others. I will be going to lots of training's learning all about my job and we will be preparing to move into the next stage of our lives.  It's all good things I have to give myself a break and know I don't have to have all the answers RIGHT now.  Just live and be happy. Enjoy.  I am sure that a year from now I am going to look back and think wow, look how much further that I have come, and today will feel so very far away.  I will never be done but I am on my way to awesome!

I heart your heart. 

Dave Mathews: Grey Street