Wednesday, September 7, 2011

System Reset: September 11th, 10 Years Later BSOD....Part 4

I'm not angry at any particular group of people.

I'm not holding a grudge...

I am still raw, still bleeding a little bit every time people hate for things that simple kindness and rational consideration, respect and love should over come.  Reasonable, kind people..Maybe we are all in hiding....kind of like me.  Trying to heal long enough to put ourselves back into public and do something good.  Or maybe it's just me...Whatever it is, it is...

I wrote this morning:  I'm so done with our elected politicians, government officials spewing hatred, dividing the people with rhetoric.  What ever happened to statesmanship, leadership and substance?  Who are these people?  I am certainly NOT proud to tell my kids that they represent us.  They are failing.  It seems as if we are sliding backwards into the dark ages again.  Feudal societies based on false promises, premises and lack of general good will toward humanity.  Do you think if you donate $ to the right cause that it absolves you of responsibility to humanity?  You can put lipstick on a pig...but it's still a pig at the end of the day.


I occasionally lose my tolerance for inane conversation, conventions and actions people take about things that don't really matter...

My personal rule of seven invades the conversation... In my silence, my mind goes through my decision tree....will it affect me or anyone around me seven years from now... Life, death, dismemberment, marriage, birth etc....sigh...

Listening to people get upset about things like their eyebrows not being waxed correctly, diet coke vs. pepsi, italian or mexican tonight, the right colored shoes or that I didn't put my pencils in the correct order or straight enough become gratingly irritating and push me farther away keeping me distant and from wanting to engage with people.  It is painful.

It makes me feel like I don't belong here...

Surface not substance....

I've always felt the need to help people...my entire life.

Maybe because I understand what it is to be hurt, to be alone, to feel pain, to not have a voice, to be hungry, to be happy to just breathe, wake from sleeping, not to bleed, to pull my self back up once again when all I want to do is sit quietly and not have people yelling at me or around me. 

I travel....I seek....I go, I go often...My social bank is empty...from people who want me to either be something I'm not or fit into what they envision me to be....Some say I run from reality, but in fact, I am just trying to see what reality fits me best. 

Why I like to be with people who just can look into my eyes and not want a thing but to see hope from the smile on my face, the sparkle in my eye...from one survivor to another...They are my gift of hope....I can give to them and them to me.... It is a mutually beneficial relationship.  One that needs no words not money no pomp and circumstance only a heart, hope, humanity and love.....

I am better at playing pick up cricket in 125F in the desert with field workers from 3rd world countries around the globe...than I am sitting at a baseball game with kids complaining about not having the right shoes Prada or Adidas....

Sometimes I feel like I am so disconnected from my own kids because what is important to them is far from what is important to me.  I feel like maybe if I just sit in silence from now on, they will ask my opinion when they want it.  Whenever, I offer it, I just get the usual tween lip service. I'm tired, and it hurts...  The little people who I love more than anything in this world have grown away from me...I don't understand video games, violent movies and have no desire to expose myself to it...I don't want to talk war, types of weapons, strategy, I can talk about puppies, animals but not about the importance of one type of shoe or nail polish for very long.   (But I feel bad because, I wish I had a place to have a puppy, horse, garden) I try to involve all the kids in the neighborhood and play but there has come a point all they want to do is push my buttons...See how far they can go...I want them to be socially responsible individuals.  It is a balancing act.  I think they are pretty angry with me right now. 

I'm not knocking wealth and all it brings...I have had the ability to do more than I had ever dreamed or hoped.  $ provides the ability to do so many more things, always trying to expand and stretch both my and my kids minds.

But when you have been broken, kicked and beaten so many times, gotten up and watched others and tried to help them get something that we so obviously take for granted so much of the time...freedom, food, simple respect it is hard to digest how something so unimportant to some is so important to others.

Again I'm not judging just observing my feelings.  I've been thinking long and hard about this for 10 years, toes traveling around the globe...trying to figure out what it is to be both me and free.

If I could just figure out how to make a living smiling and giving hope to our future in some way (children) I would be free....



Tuesday, September 6, 2011

System Reset: September 11th, 10 years later Part 3.

So what do you do?  After painfully watching each movement of the clock tick......breathe... tock...for the first time in your life you are helpless...not able to go in and pull him and your friends out....waiting to see if your 9 month old twins have a father....your friends are still alive?...Your world is shattered into a billion pieces...with no safe harbor in sight.

do you cave? do you cry? do you bury yourself in day to day life...fearful, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

I knew for years something was going to happen...it was in the back of my mind always.  But that is another story.

Well I did the opposite, drove on....I decided If I don't stand up and live (regardless of who is at fault) then would I would rot away and get hit by a cab never choosing to live again...how...pathetic....how just wrong...how boring...that was not who I was meant to be.

So I stood up, threw my shoulders back once again and flipped the terrorist world the proverbial middle finger:

Got on a plane with the kids on a planned vacation a few weeks after. Went to DC during the anthrax scare to visit friends.

Pushed my limits on what I believed: hired a Turkish, Muslim au pair (didn't work out, not because of her religion for other reasons) to show that it is only the loudest 1% of EVERY religion, political groups etc. that get's the major news media to cover them simply because sensationalism sells.


Sold the house, moved back into NYC across the street from the WTC center after clean up so my kids could see their dad while growing up...50k less jobs in lower Manhattan w/ 2 towers gone made his commute go from a little over 1 hour to over 2....when you work from 5 am to 9pm...not much time for anything else.

Got a beautiful apartment on the 6th floor knowing the NYFD ladder companies go up 8 floors in Manhattan. But just in case they were busy else where had the windows prepared to pop out with two twists of a screw driver..emergency back pack, exit strategy, 5 point harnesses to hook the kids to me and repel in my harness and out of my 6th floor window to safety.

Sent my husband to work with a chem-bio suit a few rolls of duct tape and thick mil plastic sheeting, MRE's....

Positively crazy to some....risk reduction in my mind. But what I hadn't realized was.....

I'm not super woman....The PTSD decided to rear it's ugly head to raw, too close, too real once again, too much previous trauma bubbling to the surface ...

So I pushed harder: took the kids on the subway, central park, museums, I wanted them to live, breath and see everything the world has to offer....Choosing LIFE...

The loud sounds made me cringe....throw myself over their stroller hit the ground...look for every exit, egress point of cover in a room...scanning, watching, sensing everything....I'd try to calm myself and tell myself that all was ok. The noise, the lights, the sirens, the overwhelming desire to protect was exhausting....wondering if the mounted police were ok.... Needed anything...surely if I was feeling it...they must really be screwed tight.

I started to spiral into exhaustion...If this was living (which is what I thought it was)..constantly in battle mode, hyper aware,vigilance completely trying to protect the most precious things I had to give to this world....I became a hermit in a sense...in my own head...Not knowing how to help, fight or not be crying after every siren sound...hoping that everyone was going to be alright.

Trying to keep my brain from exploding...when the kids safely went to sleep....trying to sleep period not sleeping for more than a few hours, waking with vivid recollections of the past, night terrors and dreams re living the present...all the permutations, combinations...What am I missing...I must be missing something....feverishly trying to solve the puzzle.... and then somewhere around then....

I must have popped...I don't remember many things during that time....I'm pretty sure my brain must have just put itself into waking sleep mode....I try to remember...sometimes when I'm reminded it's too painful and makes me feel worse.

Every Christmas I still think of all the kids who lost parents, spouses, parents who lost kids....I still worry and feel sad for them...

I think one of the best things I did post 9-11 was to get rid of my television. At least I knew that was huge trigger in my head. I still can't look at a picture of the towers, walk through the subway station down there, feeling like the lost souls in the buildings I failed them some how....I feel their presence, pain and my anguish knocks me down to a blubbering woman who can barely breathe....the tears flow and I can't stop them...

I avoid looking at the site..Some say face your sorrow, fears etc...I am fabulous at looking fear straight in the face doing damage control, and getting it all on track, doing triage for chaos...but what I have learned about myself is that my heart aches forever....and I'm still not ready 10 years later....

K,C Intermission :D

Well, I've been absorbed in mediocrity
Been hollowed by uncertainty
I've taken all of my beliefs
And given 'em up
Cause there's no guarantee
Of a god or longevity
Admit you don't know anything
And give it up

Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know

Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know

Give it up, give it up, give it up

Well I don't know what to believe anymore
But every now and then I feel a moment of awakening
But then it's gone, then it's gone, then it's gone
I'm blanketed by the warmth of ignorance

Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know

Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know

If I'll go somewhere special when I die
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
So I'll just go on living my way

There's a strength in duality
Penetrate mentality
Give it up, give it up
Learn from casualty
Don't have faith in anything
Give it up, give it up

Singing, I don't know, no, I'll never know
I'm giving up

Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know

If I'll go somewhere special when I die
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
So I'll just go on living my way

System Reset: Sept 11 Ten Years Later Part 2

Going a bit Jack Kerouac on everyone this week (without the drugs, alcohol and external stimulants) so no spell checking, essay like writing (not like I ever do that except in business..) but if I don't say it...I'll never get it out...I'll remain silent thinking it all in my head.... So here we go...In no particular order...Just random ruminations, feelings, things I've been stretching my mental floss over for the past 10 years. Virtual Vomit on board!

My life put in a perspective by a friend last week:
(I had a puzzled look on my face while contemplating recent events and digesting comments)

I said:  Why me?  I'm really quite simple. What is there not to get? Rolling my eyes and shaking my head....

Friend:

"Susan, (insert substantial pause with that curvy eye brow wiggle looking up to the ceiling that people do when they are contemplating what to say AND how to say it politely)...People have NO idea what to think of you, let alone what to do with you?...
You simply defy the laws of....well....lots of things.  Really, everything.  YOU are just NOT NORMAL!"
Me:  Last time I checked....I figured out, I didn't have to be...Normal.  So I wish people would just deal with it.  (Not that I am smart) but when did normal people become ANYTHING but batteries? 

My life had been like watching and waiting for one car crash after another....If there is a god/higher power etc...s/he is just waiting to see if I pull up my boot straps, figure out I still am here, a couple more scars and wait for me go at it again....Damn energizer bunny (I don't look good in pink though so I'll take the faux fur but in a nice shade of periwinkle and maybe some dark blue lightning bolts down my spine...and an Om sign across my chest instead of "energizer").... is what they call me....

So at any rate.  I'm still here...I'm betting I'm not done with whatever I'm supposed to do...Maybe I'll never know...but h*ll if I'm not going to give it everything I have...skidding into home base and fighting for every last breath.

Time for Kleenex and coffee... This shit is really emotional for me...I've been keeping it in for an awful long time....

BRB (before I edit or delete LOL)  NO FILTER ON....Think whatever you want....It's my life, my story and you will perceive it however you wish....I'm just me....









System Reset: Sept 11 Ten Years Later Part 1

Part One

Trying to make sense and move forward after my life's BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death)..

Watching the walls breath, feeling my heart in my head, watching my life once again flash in front of my eyes.  This time the flash is permanently etched in the synapses.  No going back only moving forward.

Questioning everything, the reality and meaning of it all... Which road to take.

Moving forward with a purpose for the moments I have left.


I would rather be ashes than dust--

I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze

Thank it should be stifled in a dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor,

Every atom of me in a magnificent glow,

Than a sleepy and permanent planet.

Man's chief purpose is to live, NOT to exist:

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

                          Jack London