Blue Butterflies...

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is not excusing or condoning the event which happened, and you have to quit telling yourself that whatever happened was all right, because it was not and is not. It's not letting those who were involved escape the accountability and responsibility for what they did. We all have consequences for our deeds. Eventually justice wins out and one day balance returns to our world. Forgiveness is releasing that hate and revenge you feel to something else, a higher power. Forgiveness does not overlook the action. It rises above it.

Just words, you might say. I know, I've thought it and verbalized it. Easy for someone to write about all the right things you need to do to achieve the happiness, it's another thing to actually experience it. After being shown my brain scan, I was told one of the most significant effects of PTSD is losing the ability to find joy in your life. It assaults the pleasure centers in front of our brains to turn down to a very low level of activity making those who suffer with PTSD to lose that internal direction or the sense of control we have over our thoughts and our actions. If we don't have positive reinforcement in one form or another, our brains don't know how to heal and find pleasure.

This is where I am failing, and I'm discouraged my life is not on an even keel. Some days I feel like I don't want to teeter on the wall and just fall like old Humpty Dumpty did. By the way, how did that egg-head happen to be sitting on a wall and fall? Did he miss the Spring Equinox and deliberately fall instead his obvious fate of being scrambled by the queen if he failed to stand up on end?

How can you get positive reinforcement when those you love treat you like you have an infectious disease or that their problems surmount yours? It's not about any competition, or who's life was worse than yours. I miss the one person who I believe would listen, my mom. My mom passed away thirty-two years ago, and today is her birthday, she would have been ninety-eight. I miss her, and I think I would be brave enough today, to talk about the yest-er-years. I believe she would finally understand my actions and the words I wrote in my diary so many years ago. I don't believe I'm too damaged to be helped now. I know where I want to be, I'm just having a hell of a time getting and staying there. I am learning new exercises that focus on hope, faith and tranquility. It gets quite discouraging to see the sun set at the end of a beautiful day and feel nothing...no one said things would be easy.

I haven't seen any bluebirds since I wrote my last post, but this afternoon as I sat in the shade enjoying the less humid afternoon in the backyard, a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly landed inches away from my hand. Was this another Divine sign? I think so. This blue beauty is more common in other places than my yard, and the admission I was granted to watch him dance was free. I smiled when I took note he was not carrying any rocks.