I didn't start blogging on OS because I love to write. I've been writing since I could pick up a pencil, and I can write anywhere, anytime - in privacy and at my convenience. 

I started blogging on OS because I was desperately lonely, and felt like a failure. 

The holidays can be hard  on Trauma Queens. A lot of us have to let go of our families in order to heal. So, Christmas had been pretty sparse. No grandma's, grandpa's, aunts, uncles, cousins - just me an' my girl. 

My daughter is an exuberant child, and she loved her Christmas. I, of course, plagued by images of how Christmas is "supposed" to look, was a bit despondent. I felt like a failure for not providing an extended family for my girl.

I had also lost two good friends - not to death, but to rejection. I tend to choose friends who are at least ten years older than I am, because I am always seeking to "catch up" on some level. I want friends who require me to stretch myself to meet them. I have always preferred advisors to peers.

Sadly, though, relationships that cannot shift and change are doomed to die. The same two women who helped me to grow, also helped me to outgrow them. I fought hard to save those friendships, but found I could no longer fit myself into the  spaces they required. I'd have had to chop off  fresh, unfolding aspects of myself, and I wouldn't do it.

Ouch. The loss hurt like a puncture wound in the tender space where my rib cage divides. The wound jabbed at me constantly. I was hurting bad, folks. 

As a Trauma Queen, I'd been here many times before. What this kind of pain normally precedes is a sort of rebirth.  I think of them as labor pains. Something is trying to be born, but its head is stuck - it can't get through the birth canal. You gotta push, babe (oh shut the fuck up!), you gotta push through the fear, push through the pain, PUSH (cuz the only way out is through). 

What I really want to do at times like these is eat a three pound bag of m&m's, curl up into a fetal position while gripping the phone, and beg someone from my OA fellowship to come over and rescue me. Or get dressed up all sexy and flirty and find some poor vulnerable man to "take care of" me. (One thing I've learned from myself is that if you scratch a Victim, a predator will bleed).

But I can't do those things anymore.  I've had a three pound bag of m&m's sitting around my house for months now. The candy calls me and I say, "Yeah, yeah. Maybe later."

I also seem to have lost the ability to treat men like foreign objects. They feel too much like human beings these days, with rights and feelings and delicate souls. Oddly - I seem to have lost the ability to treat myself like a foreign object as well. Damn. I was so much more "comfortably numb" when I felt like a thing rather than a person.

It was out of pure desperation that I started clacking on these keys in late January. I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be recognized. I wanted to be seen. But more than any of that - I wanted to be cared about.

I didn't admit this to myself at the time. No, I thought - I'll just polish up my writing "skills." I'll exercise my brain so it doesn't atrophy while I'm between careers. This is a smart practical thing to do. Keep busy. Keep your brain functioning.

I honestly don't give a damn about the functioning of my brain. If it allows me to walk and talk, I figure I'm way ahead of the game. 

What I care about most is the functioning of my heart. How's that for a spit in the face to Snark? 

I don't want to cultivate the brain of  da Vinci ; I want to cultivate the heart of a Big Dumb Dog. 

I heard a story once about an event in the Special Olympics. It was the hundred yard dash or something. About ten young people, with various forms of developmental delay, lined up all excited to win. When they were given the signal, they all took off running. One of the young men stumbled and fell. He sat in the dirt where he landed and began to cry. Hearing him, several of the other  people in the race stopped and turned around. One young woman with Down Syndrome walked back to where the young man had fallen, kissed him on the head, patted him on the shoulder, and encouraged him to get up. By this time, every one in the race had stopped running, and was walking back to encourage their fallen friend.  

They all hugged him and helped him get back on his feet, after which, they all linked arms and finished the race together. I was told the people in the stands went wild, standing and cheering for more than ten minutes.

This story reminds me that I didn't come into the world to win a race; I came into the world to link arms.

And that's why I came onto OS.

Thank You, all of you, who have so generously linked arms with me. The pain in my chest has dissolved, and my labor is progressing smoothly and rapidly.

 You have made a difference in my life.