What Can’t Be Unseen
I’ve been fairly open here that I have PTSD. For those of you who don’t live with this particular beast, it is a fiery one. Most times it is just there, like scars from a bike ride gone wrong back in elementary school days. But then things trigger it and it sets off a maelstrom of emotions. For me, sometimes that looks like a leaf on the wind trying to float to the earth rather than plummet. And sometimes it looks very different.
On April 15th, we all know a terrible thing happened in Boston. And many of us know it because the images of the bombings were all over every media outlet. From the beginning, before I realized what was happening, I saw photos of the carnage.
And since blood is a major trigger for me, I immediately started a PTSD struggle.
When You Just Can’t
Today’s post is really a non-post. It can’t even be considered a place-saver because I know I won’t come back to fix it. Because somedays you just can’t. And today is one of those days. As a blogger, when you just can’t think of anything to write, it’s a ugly pickle to find yourself in.
Actually, I have lots of things I’m thinking about. I just don’t have any thoughts that want to hang together in some small semblance of cohesive thoughts. In other words, it even more drivel-ly drivel than usual. I guess my brain isn’t braining very well today.
My heart is sad and my to-do list has been making bullet-point babies. I’ve overwhelmed and stressed out. The hives are literally popping out on my hands and arms. So today, I’m crossing “write today’s blog post” off the list and hoping you’ll come back on Friday.
Because Friday will have to be better than this, right?
Please come check on me then. Bring some coffee or chocolate or bawdy jokes. Or even bad jokes (like this one which is a personal fav: What is brown and sticky? A stick.)
I’ll see you then.
Empty Streets
Another blogging day here filled with chaotic thoughts stemming from Boston. Social media is filled with pictures of an empty Boston. It is an eerie thing to behold. It’s as if Hollywood has carefully stopped regular life’s goings on to make another Armageddon film. Except that it is real.
It’s a scary thing, to see a town disturbed by violence, and yet most of the world knows this too well. It’s new here though.
Well, sort of new. After all, Oklahoma City knows violence. LA knows violence. Seattle knows violence. New York knows violence.
We all know violence, but many of us only know it via our televisions or newspapers. To have it in your actual life is a different thing indeed.
Pausing…
I had a post in mind for today. I planned on doing just one more thing before blogging. Instead I got distracted by cleaning my kiddo’s room, and by the time I got back, the news broke about the bombings at the finish line of today’s Boston marathon.
I’m wearing the running shoes I wore for my last race.
My runner’s heart is sad, very sad.
So I’m going to pause my previously scheduled blog post and do what makes sense at times like this: hold my loved ones close and hope for a better tomorrow for everyone. Especially those runners who laced up their shoes today.
We’re No Better
Some days you wake with the sun shining and nothing short of a tragedy can dampen your good mood. And then there’s the other days. Like the kind of day when you read the news and wish you hadn’t because it’s like a bit of your soul was sucked from your self and flew away, leaving you reaching for it like a toddler’s lost helium balloon. Today, even though the sun is currently shining, it is a day of lost balloons for me.
The news broke today that the religious police of Saudi Arabia have decreed that their Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice will cover any women’s eyes that are deemed “tempting.” “The men of the committee will interfere to force women to cover their eyes, especially the tempting ones” he said. “[We] have the right to do so.” (The Beast, “Saudi Arabia’s Religious Police Outlaw ‘Tempting Eyes’”.)
I am sure there are three reactions to reading that article: horror, agreement, and apathy or dismissiveness. Read more…
Trying To Read The Signs
It seems like these days my whole world is hard to decipher. Literally, I can’t hardly make out street signs anymore. I guess it’s time to see the eye doctor again. Of course, as often as my regular doctor dropped some variety of “at your age” I’m not too keen to go see my Doctor Payne. (I’m not making that up, btw.) Last time I was there he brought up “readers” — this aging thing isn’t for sissies, I tell ya.
I’m actually fairly chill about needing reading glasses because it’s just part of life. The other signs that are so hard to read, on the other hand, are making me far from chill.
Missives posted on Mondays and Fridays. Unless the coffee and chocolate run out...
Copyright © Kristina Martin and Ten Minute Missive, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kristina Martin and Ten Minute Missive with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
