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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 3399: February 28, 2022 Prompt: Environmental: “But Man is a part of Nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” — Rachel Carson: Use this quote to inspire you. Thanks for this prompt because I didn’t know very much about Rachel Carson so I looked up her writings. She is inspirational and cautionary and ahead of her time. A biologist who wrote and studied the negative effects of pesticides and DDT. Apparently post World War Two the US went all out with different chemicals to destroy pesky mosquitos and ants, whatever was eating our pretty flowering plants and of course, agriculture. I took almost all science courses in college in the 1970’s and don’t remember studying the negative effects of hardly any routine gardening chemicals. Since I was working on a nursing degree, perhaps I only was taught about how to treat chemical splash wounds or something poisonous that was ingested or inhaled. I remember “Call Poison Control ASAP” When man was so invested in working in the ground I think he thought more about the actual caring of the land. I come from farmers and even those that didn’t make a living at farming sometimes kept a cow, chickens, maybe a goat. Until the 1950’s there weren’t any fast food restaurants that had carry out containers. Milk was delivered in bottles, even grocery stores had my grandma bring a basket to put things in from bins. I believe it was when I was a child that we started seeing more and more plastics. It was better living through science and my Mom loved the new polyester clothes that she didn’t have to iron. Containers from stores were not just glass (which you could recycle) but light weight plastic and then styrofoam came about. All these synthetics were used for so many things. When I began my nursing career I remember physician’s offices still had the autoclave to disinfect syringes and instruments. Hospital were still using glass IV bottles that were recycled. Suddenly everything became prepackaged because you could charge so much more money for it. I worked with Quality Assurance for a few weeks and we made recommendations for cost cutting for the hospital. RNs and MDs didn’t use half of the things that were put in packages. A catheter kit had so much extra stuff that was waste but cost the patient. I think that information went right into the trash. Now a patient watches most everything used on them thrown away afterwards. Remember glass thermometers in alcohol? (I am a dinosaur.) There is a terrible cost to all this, of course. No one asked nature. Man is a greedy creature that looks to his own convenience and time. Things are changing for the better but have we waited too late? Jimmy Cater was the 1st President that I remember mentioning environmental concerns (a peanut farmer). Curiously, he gave Rachel Carson a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. She certainly deserved it. Our Weeping Planet I began, a trickle of clear water. Sneaking into crevices, sparkling tiny bubbles, sustenance for plants. Life affirming hope, nature's glorious dance. A luminous stream under the sun, grows longer, wider in girth. Molding life, giving birth, becoming part of an evolving earth. A swimming hole for children, laughing, searching for treasures. Moonlight lovers find enchantment. All vital parts of a wondrous planet. Wait! What is this change? Has nature become mans’ merciless game? My riverbed, now covered by discarded trash. Is my legacy to become history's sad past? By Kathie Stehr |
| What's missing for you when it comes to the blog prompts? Why do you think people aren't blogging? I believe most people are going through a lot of stress right now and maybe they don't feel like talking about the negative things in their lives. Maybe they don't want to make other people feel badly or say something that isn't politically correct. I have been told that people want to forget the real world when they come on here but I thought a blog was kind of like a journal, to share feelings. I am watching a world that seems to be coming apart over divisions in politics, what history teaches our kids, police brutality and not enough police, gun violence in all cities and an substance abuse epidemic plus questions over our voting system. Add that to the pandemic that has been affecting our lives for going on 3 years and now a war in Ukraine plus prices going up everywhere. I am not sure whether people are just weary, anxious and don't want to talk or they would like to know we all are feeling overwhelmed. Now I am one of those people that speak my mind about what I hear on the news and it bothers me that the news is different on all stations. I can't think about fantasy, romance, etc with all the craziness. I have really enjoyed doing Sound trackers though, music does soothe the beast. I really don't know but I did enjoy it when there were a couple choices for blogging. You can do one or the other or both. Something more light hearted and spiritual or about nature. Maybe a prompt about happy times now or memories with family or friends to share and give people hope. . Then something about what is going on in our own world and how it is affecting us. Maybe some people that are more optimistic (with a better sense of history) can reassure those who are worried. Some of us older people have been in this place before and know this too shall pass. It worries me to see so many younger people on anti-depressants and filled with anxiety. I just wonder what my grandparents, who went through 2 world wars and the Great Depression, would think of us. Some of the prompts have been great though and I haven't had the time. I also have a tough time with the ones where you have to use certain words. That is a challenge but I am sure other writers love it. Thanks for asking and for doing this for us. |
| “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Roosevelt? Have you ever been in a situation that you were so frightened but found the courage to overcome? I love FDR and he is a hero when it comes to overcoming fear and making decisions that are important. He was a young strong man with 5 children that he swam with and played all kinds of sports when he was struck with polio. That was 1921 and he went on to serve as Gov of New York, and of course, 4 terms as president of the US. It would take pages to list his accomplishments in life. His fireside chats during WW2 kept Americans optimistic. He is my personal favorite President. Probably the 1st time I was really frightened and had to summon up courage was when I was 19. I had just had my 1st baby by a Cesarean section a week before. We lived in an apartment that had concrete steps going up to where the car was parked. There was about 5 steps. I wasn’t supposed to pick up anything that weighed more than little Paul at 7 pounds. My husband had to get back to work. He was a manager for a large retail chain called Rich’s in Atlanta. He was over all the non selling areas of the store. So I had just come home from the hospital and the baby was in a bassinet next to our bed so I could breast feed him. We were already sleep deprived but Frank couldn’t move his legs that morning to get up. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. We should have called an ambulance. I don’t think 911 was set up yet. I helped him get to the car. I don’t remember how I did this. He obviously had some use of his legs and I had a lot of adrenaline pumping. I did go back to pick the baby up (didn’t forget him) and drove to the hospital, which was about 15 minutes away. I drove into the bay of the ER where the ambulances were and personnel put him on a stretcher. After a Xray where dye was injected into the epidural column showed a vertebra had shattered and was embedded in the several areas of the spinal cord, we knew it meant immediate surgery. This was many years before I went to college for my nursing degree so I just trusted the medical experts. All was well in the end and he could walk again although he was in the hospital for 4 weeks. He came home in an ambulance. We tried to go to my parents to stay because that was my home base to sleep and live while he was in the hospital. My Mom was a great help in taking care of Paul as I ran back and forth to the hospital with leaking breasts. When you are young, it is amazing what you can do. Of course since then, both in my job and public I have treated accident victims, done CPR, delivered babies, covered wounds with intestines coming out. That kind of thing is easier in the hospital where you have equipment than on the floor of a gift shop or in a park but thank goodness for EMTs and paramedics. The point of all of it is catching the emergency in time and figuring out the problem. Never had to deal with a person with a gun meaning to harm someone, thank goodness. You can do anything if you don’t let fear stop you but it helps immensely if you have knowledge. Everyone should take the advanced cardiac first aid course and get certified. You never know what will happen to a loved one and you can be the difference. I did the Heimlich maneuver on myself one time and dislodged a piece of a granola bar. I was alone and about to pass out. Glad that I could think of what to do! |
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