Today is my birthday. I’ve lived five-plus decades on this planet. At times, it feels like ten times that. At other times, it feels as if I’m just getting started and don’t know much at all. I have learned a lot of life lessons — some good, some bad, some I seem to have to repeat over and over again, and I still haven’t gotten them right!
One notab
le mention I’m addressing here has to do with what some call a trigger. For many of us, when someone says something about us that we perceive as negative, we may spend a lot of our limited time on earth fighting it, negating it, worrying if it’s true, fearful of it and its implications. I’m not immune to placing importance on what outsiders say, even if the source isn’t one I value. (That’s one of the things I’m still working on learning to navigate in this life…)
The phrase that’s recently become a trigger for me is that of being called a “lone wolf”; it’s right up there with being told to “tone it down” and being asked “who do you think you are?” (not in a positive sort of way).
I was raised by a mom diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Back then, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, not even the so-called Ph.D’d professionals knew what was going on or how to deal with “crazy.” And if they didn’t know, we – my immigrant English second language family – couldn’t possibly have known. It’s part of why mamma went without any kind of treatment, hearing voices and seeing things that really weren’t there, for far too long, making her a danger to herself and to us.
What I’ve come to realize is that this potty training analogy holds true for pretty much everything in life. Don’t believe me? Let’s test this out:
What I didn’t realize until recently, however, is that while I may have cussed and fought and rebelled and even run from the imperfect and unpleasant and unhinged in my life, I also found a work around. Or maybe “work around” isn’t wholly accurate. What I found, it turns out, is magic within the madness. I, without necessarily planning it (at least consciously), somewhere deep in my soul, believed enough in me — the POWER in me — and everything greater than me to integrate and work with the “it” of insanity (no matter what that insanity might be).
Martha had told me during a conference call prior to departing for this trip that she was so excited to meet me because I was “the exact archetype” she wrote about in her book, “
