Outside my window I can hear the ocean–soft echoes of water rolling onto sand. Quite a different sound from my previous home, the noises just a few feet beyond my bedroom window. Those last few months had me waking up to active construction around 6:30 a.m. every day except Sunday. Still, I can’t lie. I miss that damn place something fierce. Moving to this beautiful condo was smooth (yes, a hell of a lot of work, too) and right now I’m so grateful for my new financial second chance. I can truly start to build a future, which I am so excited about. And I leave behind all the difficult times I experienced in my old apartment. Yet the familiar is well-loved and I feel the absence. Mostly though I’m joyful.
And now at a decently young age (at least I feel youthful) I can chase some long-held dreams. Money helps that way. And I’m sleeping better than I ever have all safe, warm, and cozy inside. My curiosity as to where Jewel, the homeless woman I befriended in the park, continues to sleep still resides. When I finished teaching an evening seminar on Monday, I drove the few blocks back to the old apartment and found her. Safely inside the park with the gates locked, she was carefully organizing items in her carts. After a few more days of organizing my own things here in this house, I will have free time to consider how I can help her. Maybe I can. Maybe not. Trying counts I suppose.
Sleeping comfortably inside a privileged home is inspiring me to reflect more these days over my morning coffee. Exactly this time one year ago I was in full preparation mode for Noa and Kai’s arrival. I was so stressed out and yet believed I could handle twins, but truly had no idea what would happen. Never in a thousand years would I have predicted that on that random Tuesday afternoon, November 11, 2008, that my previous life experience would change forever. And I will continue to tell the tale of Elimisha Brown Fussell’s illegal behavior. A good crime story always deserves retelling. A case like that never grows cold.
A friend shared with me the other day that trauma is struggling to recognize a splash of evil in the reality surrounding you. Safe to say that I exemplified symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome; not quite sure what the clinical definition is, but in ordinary life my symptoms were difficulty to connect casually with others. Grief had me crying at unexpected times. Simply living my life day by day was the most grounding method to walk through the pain. That’s the funny flip of the coin–one side joy, the other grief. A real life brings both, of course.
Without self-pity, I would humbly say I’ve experienced more than my share of the coin’s one side, the challenging one. Perhaps the recent turn in life events signifies a flip of the coin. Either way, though, I’m sober and that surely means joy whatever concrete events happen in the future. Just the peaceful sound of the ocean outside my bedroom window is enough reward for this day. Good night.
(Random detail: I’m still learning how to operate this blog, so I couldn’t post for two weeks once my domain name expired; a techie friend helped me reboot and voila here I am again.)
Posted by karolinawrites 