I'm an Old Dog, but I've Got New Tricks!

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Despite my fears, which induce kicking and screaming while gnashing and gnawing, I am in the process of conquering lots of them. If I can do it, you can too. A fear can be as simple as feeling overwhelmed by technology or as complex as agoraphobia and panic attacks.

When I began this blog, I had a standard joke: I married a geek and birthed two so that I don't have to be one. If my husband so much as changed one icon on my desktop, I couldn't tell you which one. None the less as my computer booted up, I was unhinged to the point of tears because my 6^th sense told me he'd gone to meddling again!

The sum total of the many crises we have endured since 1999 resulted in my experiencing minor panic attacks. I had no clue they were slipping up on me and ramping up in intensity until my counselor identified the problem. By the time she did, I was on the verge of developing agoraphobia. I found I could only venture out of the house for basic, unavoidable necessities and then only if I could complete the chore within fifteen minutes start to finish.

2011

This last year has been one of self-discovery. I've combated that agoraphobia thing pretty well as demonstrated by plane trips to New Mexico and DC for writing/blogging coferences. The panic attacks are still minor. I recognize them now as the begin to besiege me. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a train. Well . . . if it is, do not send me the memo. Ignorance is bliss, and I'll keep it that way for now!

These last two months have been pivotal in my campaign against techno-phobia. I've even amazed my three geeks a time or two! My husband recently gasped, “You...you are doing HTML!” I think he resisted the urge to run look out the window to see if pigs had started to fly. When Son #1 realized I knew what a hashtag was and how to use it, let's just say you are rich now if you invested in smelling salts a few weeks ago.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I recently began an online Bible study re the Proverbs Woman hoping to address my weakness in life-planning. The truth is, I felt as if I might feel more of a failure by the time the study is over. I was a-skeert to try it. I overcame that fraidy cat and jumped on board. I'll let you know how it works out.

One of the harder things about the impact of living in limbo and crisis for over a decade has been the effect on my ability to plan and implement what I plan. Son #1 and I were discussing my frustration with me this morning. I have been praying about it a lot. In fact, my frustration in that area is one reason I signed on for the online Bible study!

Everywhere I look, there is a project waiting for my attention. It seems I will never catch up from the set back of falling and breaking my leg over two years ago now. I mean, goodness, I was only off my feet for 5 months. How could it take this long to catch up? I think the short answer is: every time we had a life setback, I began slipping farther and farther behind. So, between my fall, Jeff's near death from sepsis, and my mom's eight weeks of death and dying while in an ICU unit, I was done for.

2007

It didn't help that I came from a family in which goals involved only what it took to get from one day to the next. My dad was a bi-vocational pastor. In the 60's that meant you worked for free as a pastor and then worked a 40 hour a week job on top of that for pay. Life didn't leave a lot of time for grand projects, goals, or to-do lists. So, we lived from one day to the next without much thought of the distant future.

The sum total of my life has me feeling as though I spend most of my time wrestling an alligator. If I'm not so engaged, its as if I'm slogging through neck deep wet cement as it sets up while carrying a 50# load of rocks on my back. I am a party animal. What can I say?

Today, I decided to embrace technology in hopes of helping me manage life with more productivity. My blogging friends introduced me to a nifty little thing called Evernote. I ran in fear. Today, I quit running, turned around, and faced my fear.

Courtesy A. Huges

I opened the program, began to explore it, and created 2 'notebooks' using the applications. One is to track my ongoing kitchen renovation. The other is to track a 30 day challenge I am doing to refine and improve my capabilities as a blogger. I am feeling pretty smug here in the wee hours let me tell you.

Here's the thing about fear. It is a harsh task master. If we give an inch, it will take a mile. Myself? I'm tired of being bossed around by that greedy tyrant. How 'bout you? I'm so glad you have come along on this journey with me. I hope, in doing so, you are taking the 1^st steps to taking your territory back from the fears that haunt you. If I can learn a few new tricks, you can too. Even if you are an old do like me. I promise.

Courtesy B. Creasy 2010

Love you long and strong, fraidy cat. Don't you stay gone now, you hear? 
  

Isaiah 41:13 (The Message)

That's right. Because I, your God, have a firm grip on you and I'm not letting go. I'm telling you, 'Don't panic. I'm right here to help you.'

Out With the Old and....

Pecos, NM 2011

If I think about last January too hard, the sharp pain that follows takes my breath away. No one came to wave a magic wand. Pieces of life still threaten to reduce me to tears if I allow them. This week I realized that I wanted to cry but couldn't. I decided I've been sucker punched so many times that tears no longer come. Either that or I'm just plain too life-weary to work up the energy required. 

 

Thankfully, those moments come with much less frequency these days. If you had asked me on December 31^st of 2010 where I'd be today, I'd have told you in a fetal position like I was then. The darkness seemed too dark to ever outrun. The last decade had left me too exhausted to run. I am so thankful for the changes that have occurred in the last 12 months.

If you had told me I'd have a blog that had merited almost 20K unique visits in only 7 months, I'd have thought you were smoking something illegal. But here we are, and how amazing are the results. Some pivotal relationships have been healed as a result of this blog. The foundation for healing grew as the blog met with increasing 'success'. That success enabled others to see me through different eyes. Respect and excitement replaced derision and scorn.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I realize success is relative given the size of cyberspace and the fact that some viral YouTube offerings get millions of hits. I do not think more highly of myself than I ought. My modest 'success' was enough to set relationships on a road to healing and for that I am thankful.

With that foundation in place, events of the last few weeks have fostered continued healing. An individual whose scorn had driven me to the brink of myself walked through some difficult times. That experience enabled the individual to see me in a more positive and accurate light. 

As does not often happen in my life, the individual with whom I had experienced significant stress came to me and admitted the damage done as well as the source of our stress. I already understood the source and had given grace despite the pain that almost immobilized me. While the imprint of the experience still affects me, I am bathed in relief as the relationship that was broken continues to blossom with healing.

Pecos, NM 2011

So many times in my life, I've had to take difficult stands in difficult situations with difficult people about difficult things. Many times, I've done so all alone. Rather than feeling supported and appreciated, I have experienced criticism and ostracism. It has not been fun.

It seems as if I was saddled with blame deserved by the ones whose wrong doing I stood against. It is a heroic thing to take a stand that others will not take. Sadly, heroes are not always appreciated for their valor. The healing now taking place affords me a bit of comfort for all the times I stood alone and lonely. It gives me strength to keep on standing even tho' my legs have grown weak and wobbly from the effort.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

In years past, I have hated to see the new year come. Something about knowing I would be another year older and life another year shorter made me sad. This year, I am relieved. I am relieved to say goodbye to things that have held me down, pushed me back, and made me feel as if I was the odd man out. I am ready to embrace what is  ahead and reach for a future I never envisioned last year this time.

I grew up in a home where the only goals involved getting through today and doing the same thing again tomorrow. I had imagined I would escape that history as an adult. I grew up, married, and realized that life presented one challenge after another making the attainment of even simple goals unpredictable. Over time, my goal became the same as the family in which I grew up: survival for today and the strength to survive again tomorrow.

Tonight, I take a deep cleansing breath. For the 1^st time in my life, I feel as if I can combine my 'I did it list' with a list of goals I want to accomplish. I don't mind telling you....putting that thought into writing almost gives me a heart attack from the fear that grips me. What if I fail? What if I get so uppity as to set a goal only to find it taunts me by staying just out of reach? What if I don't try at all? 

Ready or Not, Here I Come.....

I tell myself that I do not have to let my 'take no prisoners', Type A personality defeat me. Rome was not built in a day. My new life will be built brick by brick and day by day. The challenge will be in learning to pace myself so that I do not burn out. I am ready. I am a fraidy cat. Hear me roar. Meow. 

 

Isaiah 43: 18-19 (New American Standard)

Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.

Courtesy B. Creasy

2 Corinthians 5:17 (New American Standard)

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Me... A High Plains Drifter.....

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I survived the plane rides and the subsequent 90 minute journey to my final destination. I felt as if I was caught in some surreal suspended animation. As the miles evaporated below me, it seemed I was watching it happen through someone else's eyes.

I would have pinched myself to make sure it was real. Even if I'd tried, I think I was too numb for the experiment to have succeeded. My mom adored flying even tho' she only flew twice in her 8 decades. What a pity that I didn't get that gene.

Pecos, NM

It is quiet now. I am far from the hustle and bustle of the airports and my normal life. I don't think I've heard this kind of quiet since my childhood days on the Outer Banks of NC. Then, as now, the loudest night noise was the wind, and the brightest night light was the moon. I am waiting for the howl of coyotes or the strains of the theme song to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. So far, the quiet echoes into infinity.

I am both peaceful and on edge simultaneously. It has been 2 decades since I was this 'alone'. I have never been this alone in this kind of quiet. In an ironic twist, my early arrival provided for yet another singular experience. I am the ONLY resident of this entire inn. I think there are some folks in the next lodge over on the conference center grounds. But, for tonight, I have the place to myself. Ain't that special?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Have I been signed up for fraidy cat boot camp and didn't know it? Maybe it is a good thing I don't hear coyotes howling in the wind. If Jack Nicholson shows up, I'm OUT of here! If Clint Eastwood shows up, I could be persuaded to stay. Would you believe it? On cue, the coyotes just started singing at the moon. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!

I wonder what tomorrow will hold. What have I really come here to do? Ultimately, the trip was about pushing back the boundaries of my fraidy cat existence. Practically speaking, I am here to work on my 'craft'. Realistically, I am here to continue to prove to myself that I can keep walking toward the me I've always wanted to be and that in the process, I will walk, and write, my way back to God.

Last May, I arrived at the writer's conference on the east coast so rattled I locked my keys in my car before I got to my room. I guess I've grown up a bit since then. I'm all tucked into the lodge I own for the night and have all my faculties and belongings intact, even the car keys. Ok...I guess we could debate about my grip on my faculties, but humor me here. It has been a long day.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

If you had asked me the odds on my being in New Mexico while Son #1 was in Australia, you know what my reaction would have been. I'd have surreptitiously snipped a bit of your hair in an effort to identify the medicinal herbs in which you had been partaking. Because the odds were zero.

What a difference a season of the year makes. He enjoyed his 1^st hot air balloon ride the same day as my 1^st post-9/11 plane flight. Wonder of wonders, I survived it all without pharmacological sustenance. Unless you count a Tylenol for a headache.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Son #1 is in Australia because of a single bit of information I picked up in one class during last May's conference. This blog grew out of a single thought during that conference. I wonder what gift this week holds and when and how I will unwrap it.

Tonight in the quiet chill of this high plains desert, I wonder, what is God doing...really? For the long dark season of loss, I thought I knew. I came to a point of concluding that, in the end, he was really up to nothing in particular when it came to me. And yet, in the worst of times when my soul was bruised and emptied, there was a fierceness in me that just would not give up.

I could hear myself in a voice from long ago. A friend and I were having much the same conversation that Richard Branson and his friend had the night his Necker Island home burned down a few months ago. I was giddy in love with the God I had grown up knowing. She was an indifferent skeptic. We were both waxing philosophical.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

My voice echoed back to me in faint whispers: “There is a God. He is real. He does care about the minutia of your life. He has a plan for you, and it is a good, good plan. He put it into motion when he threw the stars up into space. He knows your name.”

Dear God, My name is Carol Anne. I'm a fraidy cat. Can we talk about that good, good plan?

Psalm 139:16 (Bible in Basic English)

Courtesy B. Creasy

...in your book all my days were recorded, even those which were purposed before they had come into being.

Phillipians 1:6 (NLT)

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.