My Rants

The day starts out nice, you decide to leave your jacket at home. Its just such a nice day. You walk to work its only a couple miles. The walk is pleasant and it makes your morning. When you finish work you start to walk home and decide to stop at a local pub for a drink. The weather has been beautiful all day and your spirits are in high order. You finish a couple pints and are strolling home. Dusk is upon you and the night is starting to chill. You are about 2 miles from home when all of a sudden the temperature takes a sharp drop. It starts to rain. You have no umbrella and no jacket. You are standing in the middle of the sidewalk arms clasped tightly around you trying to keep some of your core body temperature.

Imagine how this would feel. Cold, wet, miserable, no where to turn for warmth or comfort. This is how my earlier years were. This is also how I feel somedays when some of my triggers are set off. Today was one of those days. There are a few people that I chat with and share some of my life experience with. They in turn share some of theirs. We are a kind of support group for each other.

Today one of my friends, a young lady, was having a difficult time with comments made by some kids. It was a lot of little things compounded on a big thing and she needed to vent. I popped online and said "Hi, how are you?". She told me she was upset and I proceeded to ask what the problem was. She started to vent. No issue there. Then she hit one of my triggers. I realized that she had hit a trigger and I was able to keep it together. I ended the conversation a little bit earlier than was probably good, however if it had kept up and we kept talking about this issue that triggered me I would have lost it myself.

I felt cold and wet and like I had no where to turn to for a bit of warmth or a towel. I told my wife that I was stressed and she tried talking with me. I did not see a towel or a nice warm hug. These are the things she was offering me. I saw more rain and more cold. Sometimes old perceptions are hard to break. I wish I could break all of them *snap* like that. It does not seem to work that way however.

Growing up for me was like living in pandora's box. There were all kinds of nasty things. Most of which I have already covered in previous entries to my blogs. It was not until the last few years that I actually found hope. Funny thing about hope. It spreads like a weed once it takes root. I started to realize how I have affected people in the last few years with my story. It has given people hope. Hope that things will turn out ok for them. It lets them see that they can live through hell and come out decent. I have hope thanks to my wife and daughter. I am so glad that there was hope in that box that pandora had. It has made all the difference in the world.

Cheers