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Just my opinions and outlook on life |
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The end of 2020 The very first entry I made for The Writer’s Cramp was my best. It tied for the win and I was happy about that but it really made no difference to me. It was a poem written after Thanksgiving about my own recovery from addiction. That was 26 years ago and it totally changed my life. I checked myself into Drug Rehabilitation when I first realized that I might have a problem with substance abuse. I had no idea what changes that one incident would make in my life. When I was discharged, I had a lot of major decisions to make and the poem spoke to how conflicted I still was. The prompt was Closely Watched Trains. It was easy to take that one and run with it. After all, trains take you places and where you go can change your life forever. My journey had just begun. Closely Watched Trains I stand alone in blinding rain, waiting on an unknown train. My future life, a choice to make. Only one I can take. Two tickets lay in my hand, don’t know where to stand. One path leads to a familiar past. Comfort once lost; now peace might last. The other takes me far away. Unknown future, a bright new day? Strangers can become friends. A new life, old wounds can mend. Last time I waited on a train, a filthy walkway, urine stains. Crying frightened, shameful tears, burdened with pain, unknown fears. The smut on me wouldn’t wash away. In pores so deep, I had to stay. If I hung in, worked the steps. A cluttered mess might bring rest. Been running too long and fast, towards a certain fatal crash. Smoke the gin, drink the powder, Alice of Wonderland in troubled water. I did hard work, washed my stains. Princess in a castle, I glow, no shame. I found answers for all asked of me, climbed the Magic Beanstalk tree. Now, I wait on my wish filled train. I pray a light shines true in dark rain. God, I have come a long, long way. I need to love myself enough to stay. By Kathie Stehr 11/27/2020 Learning to love myself enough to make necessary decisions was the key to future happiness. If you don’t love yourself enough then you cannot love other important people in your life. I left a marriage that I knew was over after twenty years. We had two children together and were happy for many years so it was devastating to even think about starting over. Our lives had changed so much over those years. Now, instead of working together, we were destroying our lives and it was affecting the kids. I also ended up leaving my job as a registered nurse because the stress of all of it: the marriage, the job and no time for my children was taking a terrible toll. I had been diagnosed with a neurological disease that was painful and hard to deal with for me and my family. The final straw was taking medication for the symptoms and making the potentially harmful mistake of mixing it with alcohol. Thankfully I only did this when I wasn't working but if I had continued, I would have made mistakes at work and could have hurt or killed someone. Working with the hospital, I tried different areas to go back to work but could not physically do it. I applied for and got on the hospital's disability benefit. This step began a whole new way to live an even better life. I helped with the national organization for dystonia, became a support group leader, I also was a motivational speaker that traveled the country to talk at our national symposiums with physicians and scientists. It was a different way of being a nurse/caretaker by taking caring of me first then other people who needed information and guidance. I loved meeting the people and the symptoms, that I was trying to cover up at work, showed others I was just like them. I could give them hope. I remarried, in time, to a man who loves me and helped me with my volunteer work. He has been by my side for surgeries and many painful procedures. Of course, I have reciprocated for him but it is hard to deal with a partner with physical disabilities. We have been together for over twenty-five years and have a large combined family who love each other. I will be 68 in 2021 and we are enjoying a more laid back retired life. All of us should constantly take an inventory of our lives. How are we living them? Are we serving ourselves or others? I believe we are put on this Earth to help others and we must be willing and honest to do that. I follow the principles of AA and NA and it hasn't let me down. It is progress not perfection, like a marriage. If you make a mistake, you own it and begin again. I hope any future entries I make are as true to my convictions as this one was. Fiction is fine and I enjoy it. All writing comes from the inner well of wisdom that says so much about its’ author. I try to end all my writing on an optimistic note. I want to grow in my writing, sometimes I touch my inner feelings more than others and this was one that did. It was a great prompt. 2020 has been a very hard year for more people than I can ever remember. There are so many people out there that are ill, have lost someone they love, can't feed their families and are falling into the darkness of addiction. I pray for all of them and do what I can. I wish for the judges and all the people that belong to Writing.com that they are at peace within themselves and bring more joy to this planet than they take from it. I know I have to make that choice every day, to spread love and remain sober. I wish you all a happy new year, may it be a much better year for all. Thanks for letting me be a part of this family. Kathie Stehr December 31, 2020 ** Image ID #2267445 Unavailable ** |
| PROMPT November 19th We've all had one or several epiphany's in our lives. Tonight, write about a moment in your life that changed the way you view the world. I know that I am late with this but I really wanted to answer this because it did change my entire life. I was taking care of my Dad the last couple of months of his life. He and Mom had moved from Atlanta about a year and a half before to retire in a lovely retirement community. I left my husband and 2 boys at home and went down to be with them for the time Dad had left . I had to take a leave from the hospital but Dad had transitioned from treatment to Hospice and I wanted to care for him. He had spent most of the previous year in and out of the hospital with terrible side effects from the chemotherapy for Stage four Lymphoma. This was 1988. Dad and I spoke about many things those last couple of months. I had married at 18. I didn’t really know much about my dad except the things he wanted me to know, not as an adult. He wasn’t a man that spoke often just when he had to. We talked about his 3 years in WW2 in the infantry and how that affected his life. We spoke about how my Mom would be when he was gone and I promised to watch after her. I was surprised when he asked me if I was happy in my marriage of 17 years. He had noticed how far apart my husband and had become. He was traveling all the time for work and I was working night shift. At one time we were inseparable. Anyway, My Dad saw something that I knew but didn’t want to face, our marriage was basically over unless we both worked on it. Dad said to me, “Tootsie, life is much too short to be unhappy”. Dad had always opposed divorce and I always wanted to please him, I was surprised. He died a couple weeks after he asked me that. It was pretty peaceful at the end with all the Morphine I was having to give him. He was conscious though and died with a smile, Mom and I held his hands. I decided driving back to GA after the service that I was going to make some major changes. We did marriage and then divorce therapy and 2 years later, we separated when my oldest went off to college. It was sad but it was the right thing at that time. Life is too short to be unhappy. |
| 11 Days until December and the holiday season. Do you think all the grim media predictions will come true? Supply issues, mail issues? Or do you think it's just more over the doom and gloom mentality that's been looming since Covid began? Very simple answer here, whatever gets the ratings up to have more viewers seems to be the driver here. We have actually been in this place before and that was back in the 1970’s with huge gas lines, inflation and unemployment. See, I am that old! It didn’t affect my life so much but I know it did many people. Being an RN, I never had to worry about a job but factories were being closed. I think we, as Americans, are so used to instant gratification, we want to immediately return to normal (pre-Covid) if you could call that normal. For goodness sakes, we are still in a global pandemic so supplies are very behind and we lost over 700,000 people. It is going to take some time to stop feeling the pain. I don’t think enough people appreciate the fact that we have this great vaccine and medications or more people would have died. We are fortunate that there are these job openings for people and we are on our way to decrease CO2 emissions with electrical cars. The prices will have to come down on those due to supply and demand. Capitalism will still be around. The immigration laws will eventually work so people from other countries will take the jobs others don’t seem to want. Right now, it is nice to see the essential workers able to get more money for hard work. I have a lot of optimism in America if we could just work together for the betterment of our country. |
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