AN HONEST CONFESSION

 

 

 

 

From a friend in Montana, Janet Austin, come these wise words: "Take chances, lots of them. Because honestly, no matter where you end up it always ends up just the way it was suppose to be. Your mistakes make you who you are and you learn and grow with each choice you make. Everything is worth it, say how you feel, be yourself and most importantly be okay with it!"

And as another friend told me recently, "Just be! It is okay, just be." So with his wise words, I offer to you the following in my attempt to be myself and more importantly to be okay with it. I trust you will understand.

 

Honesty time: I am sitting in my office surrounded by two of my four dogs. They are on their sides, lying in perfect peace. I can hear their breath go in and out and it provides me great comfort. For it is in the intake and the release...of breath that there is a space...a space where I find a very special kind of love and sensitivity and comfort. My dog, Kelsie is now with me almost every where I go, for you see I too have been diagnosed with PTSD.  I did not welcome this nor want it.  But a lifetime of great pain has finally caught up with me. Unrelenting stress, abandonment, and now extreme exhaustion has consumed my life for several months. 

 

I try to look at this as a blessing and a gift that has been bestowed upon me so that I may better understand what the warriors that Kelsie and I work with endure. It is hell, it is not something you can understand unless it has happened to you. But move forward we will, and we will continue to fight the demons, the nightmares, the flashbacks and the horrible panic.

 

Perhaps I will become a better writer.  Perhaps that book that is still in me is taking shape and will become real.  So I am trying to be grateful for this all too frequent hell. I have been hurt, repeatedly. I have been battered. I have been deeply injured by people who I thought were my friends and family. I like to say "I have been bended, folded, stapled and mutilated." The details are not important  to anyone but me.  But suffice it to say what I have endured consistently and continually over my lifetime has not been deserved nor invited. But it is what it is.  It is not the life I wanted, imagined or deserved!  I deserved much better.

 

But I tell you with pride because I will handle this.  It will make me a better person.  I can't take away what has occurred in my life, but I can learn to handle the repercussions differently...and better.  I can be grateful for those who love me, stick by me, and know the real me ... warts and all.  For them I say a heartfelt thank you.  For them I am forever grateful.  For it is these people who have always, and will always, be there for me that I learn the magic in the word 'love'.  Just a phone call daily or a quick instant message to let me know they are thinking of me, means the world to me.

 

Most of you know that I had a foundation, Penny's from Heaven Foundation, Inc. Penny is now wearing beautiful angel wings in Heaven.  For her, her beauty, her suffering, her love, her sensitivity and intuitive nature I am forever grateful and truly blessed.  For she offered to me, as have all of my dogs, those qualities which people would do well to imitate.  We do not live to hurt other people whether within our families or in the hell of combat in a war zone.  We live to experience all the joy and love of humanity that we can.  We live to be good, giving, understanding, and decent people.  We live to be the kind of person our dogs think we are. 

 

I have two beautiful wooden boxes on my desk both containing pennies found on the ground.  Many found in the most unusual places and under the most amazing and breathtaking circumstances.  But found always with a reminder of my Penny in Heaven and the goodness she shared and spread, and always telling me she is there and to be strong.. And most of all to remind me that no matter the circumstances, I shall remain who I am, remain true to myself, and to know without a doubt that I am, underneath the pain and panic, a really good person.

 

Kelsie will remain by my side for as long as possible.  When I can't take it anymore I sob into her fur and feel her absorb my pain.  Even when she is sleeping there is always awareness of where I am and her making certain I am okay.  When she sighs in the dark of night I know she is there, and I can toss out the bad thoughts and nightmares.  With her by my side and with my 'forever friends' I am truly blessed.  For those who have chosen to abandon me and my life, I wish them well.  I fervently hope someday they will grow to understand what real love is, what it is like to feel that love, when you need it the most and are afraid to take another step.  For when it is absent from those you felt were there for you...in quite simple English....it is unbearably painful.

 

So in closing today I ask you to visit KELSIE WISDOM OF A DOG on facebook and perhaps understand what a truly amazing gift I have been given.  Thank you all for following this blog.  More to come!  And thank you for allowing me to unabashedly share.  I am not embarrassed, not shy about telling you...because don't we all have something...some monster in the closet...that needs to be released.  Perhaps in releasing this one....things will begin to improve just a bit. As the quote at the beginning says, "I am just where I am supposed to be."