Baghdad

This morning was like every other Saturday morning, woke up, ready for my busy day.  I was driving home from picking up my fruits and vegies from the farmers market, I looked over my shoulder to back out of my parking space and tears filled my eyes as I glanced at the empty space that a car seat used to fill.  My strength unraveled quickly, and the reality of my life swept my good day away.  Snap, just like that it's Baghdad.

I think it is Joyce Meyer who quotes "The mind is a battlefield".  I have never personally experienced a battlefield first hand, but some days the explosions of memories, thoughts, what ifs, what could be, why, why, why, that day, those memories is more than my body feels like it can handle.  The emotions tied to those memories are so powerful and not all positive.  The negative ones are like a small drop of poison and sometimes that small drop seeps through and poisons my entire being.  Then comes the war zone.  Memories are like bombs exploding in my head one after the other.  Kelsie, Dylan, Jeff, Me, the hurt runs deep.  A year and a half of living in loss, thankfully makes these days few and farer and farer between, but it takes just one moment of weakness in complete vulnerability, one moment of basking in the emotions that I work tirelessly to hold at bay and "snap" it's Baghdad.  The hopelessness in these moments, I have learned is ok.  Sometimes the moment is just a moment, sometimes its days, sometimes its weeks, and sometimes it has been months, but it's a part of the brokenness that is who I am.  So I sit in silence, alone, I allow the war to go on.  If I try to stop it, the repercussions of it's revengeful fury are devastating.  No comfort is necessary, the pain is.  It sucks but it's true, the pain, the raw heartache of loss and the pain that I endure is necessary.  The tears that pour from my soul are healing, the cries that clash with the silence are cleansing.  

**Soap Box Warning**
I wish more health professionals prescribed monitored pain therapy instead of pills to mask it.  My best therapist gave me this gift.  He taught me how to endure the pain, how to allow my mind to give into the thoughts instead of fighting them.  He taught me that strength is relative and pain is real.   He was not a Christian but allowed me to bring my faith into the pain.  We sifted through scripture and through the history of the Bible to find ways for me to relate to the pain that others have endured.  He taught me how the human body was designed to respond to crisis, how the brain functions in the midst of tragedy.  My physician prescribed Zoloft.  I took Zoloft for a month and with my therapists recommendation I weaned myself off after thirty days.  I fully understand the necessity of prescribed anti anxiety but I wish it was a last resort method.  I wish our Doctors would talk about diet, exercise, the necessity to feel and endure pain, collaborate with other health professionals to ensure the success of their patients.  It takes an army to fight the war, one little pill is just one bullet in a small gun.  I guess I mostly wish that ensuring that the perception of  "being happy" wasn't so sought after in society (absolutely guilty of this).  It could possibly make those of us that have moments, days, weeks, months, years like this seem not so alone.   Some days you just can't "positive think" your reality away.