Friday in photos--our last night in Yuma

Thanksgiving in photos

I have some friends

I've been part of a group of women for, gosh over six years now. There are eight of us, and I've met not quite half of them face to face. Nevertheless, we are friends.

One of them has given me such good advice and counsel as I've gone through the whole broken pelvis situation. She's the one who told me when I'm getting irritable, I should probably stop and take a Tylenol because I'm probably in pain and it's coming out as cranky. She was (is) right.

Another knew, somehow and I truly don't know how but she knew, that I was struggling in the aftermath of the entire Kavanaugh mess. Even before then, she knew (again, I don't know how, this isn't one of the ones I've met face to face) that something wasn't entirely right in my world. And postcards started showing up. Postcards of dogs, kitties, one particularly amusing postcard of various bad posture, all with an encouraging but never saccharine note. This is the same woman who told me after we flooded in 2009 that it was OK to be angry or upset, that I was allowed a Job moment. 

With friends like this, I am rich. Truly rich. 

Just a few of the postcards

September

I won’t lie, in many ways September was a very hard month for me.

On the positive side, I flew to Idaho to spend my mother’s birthday with her, and has a great time. Also on the positive side, I was cleared to start the slowest ramp up plan in the world for returning to running. And in more positive news, I had a mole removed in late August because my dermatologist had concerns, and the biopsy came back abnormal but not melanoma and it’s gone now anyway.

However, I’ve got three new moles on the watch list. One is near where the melanoma was removed, one is on my left shoulder and one is on my left hip. And I won’t lie, waiting to get the results of the biopsy back were not a lot of fun.

And then of course we had the entire unfolding of our newest Supreme Court Justice’s past splashed all over national news.

During that same time, I was completing 25 hours of training required of all potential volunteers for MOCSA, Kansas City’s only rape advocacy group in the metropolitan area.

In one of the required courses, I read that victims of child sexual abuse have higher rates of revictimization.

I immediately (and as I have always done) rejected that idea. Not me, nope, that’s not me in the least. Then I started remembering what happened when I was 14, 18, 19, 25—you get the idea. Yes, that was me. I don’t pretend to know why sexual abuse at a young age leads people like me to be re-abused, but I can’t deny that any more.

So I didn’t sleep well, I told friends I was either going to start crying and never stop or turn into nothing but pure rage. I was not exaggerating.

My mother asked me in early October if there was a reason I wasn’t blogging any more.

This is why. All my energy was focused elsewhere, on trying to keep my head above water, trying to get some sleep, any sleep, and to both remember what I needed to remember while not getting absolutely stuck in the past.