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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 ** |
| DAY 3402 March 3, 2022 History: What is your favorite time in history to read or write about? Why? If you could teleport there, would you? I have always heard it said, "write what you know". Now that I am about to enter my seventies, I read and write a lot about the post World War Two years. I suppose because I want to know how we ended up in the place where we are at today. My bookshelves are full of biographies of the US Presidents, analysis of the wars we have been in, the 1619 project, writings of MLK Jr and Malcolm X. I love reading about resistance movements, stories about strong women that shaped the way for women today, labor movements, the fight for civil rights and different types of religion. I also like reading about changes in the medical field over the years. Right now I am reading “Leadership” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It is excellent. The History Channel recently showed a special from her book on Lincoln that was wonderfully done. Looking back at my own experience, the 1960’s was such a defining time. The Kennedy Administration gave us such promise with the New Frontier, both the space race with Russia and the civil rights movement, women were beginning to change their thinking about what they wanted of their own dreams. I remember my parents telling me how lucky I was to be born in the 1950’s. The big War was over and there were jobs and opportunities, new “modern” homes with great appliances. Diseases could be cured or prevented that were considered fatal at one time. I had a great childhood where there weren’t school shootings, drugs were much milder and usually found at high school level. Of course we all tried booze and cigarettes like our parents and rebelled with our long hair and short skirts, flags sown on our bell bottoms. Then our world became very ugly with the murders of our leaders and 1968 was a heart breaking year. If I could teleport I would want to be somewhere in the middle of a protest, marching in Birmingham or on the Freedom rides, working with Cesar Chevez, helping with the ERA movement or working in a lab on cancer research. I always loved the line from “Grapes of Wrath”. Of course that wasn’t the 1960’s but just like what is happening in Ukraine today. I would have wanted to be involved on the right side of history. There are always the people that have and those that don’t. That book speaks to the mass migration of populations due to climate changes, infrastructure collapse and economics, the refusal of a system to help and indeed the full demonisation of those in transit. The language in the book is beautifully simple and yet says so much about strength, sadness, suffering, perseverance and dignity. So I end this with Tom Joad speaking to his Ma- "Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where — wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ — I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build — why, I’ll be there." |
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