War Horse

Christmas Day my husband and I settled in with big fluffy flakes falling outside and after a day full of Christmas themed movies, my husband found the latest release on Showtime and turned it on.  I immediately cuddled into my soft blanket and jammies, saw what it was and promptly begged him to turn it to Christmas movies again.  I really didn't want to watch this movie.  I really wanted to try to stay in a happy mood.  I begged him to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation for the twentieth time that day.  No, it wasn't an action movie or the latest sci-fi movie.  It was the movie "War Horse".  Strange?  No, I don't have anything against animals.  I love them.  I adore.  I actually prefer animals to people, minus my family and few close friends.  A very few.  So why was I so unwilling to watch the movie?  Because, because I knew of what I would have to go through.  And because I am already so tired.

I hate seeing animals or children in pain.  I abhor it.  Even though it's a movie.  Even though, as my husband argues, 'you know it will have a happy ending'.  I hate it because it's all too real.  I hate it because I feel enough pain to last me a lifetime.  I hate it because I'm already in enough pain, I don't need to see others in pain and not be able to help them either.  I'm in so much pain.  So much pain that I'm drowning in it.  Suffocating in it.  Dying from it little by little, day by day.  And I don't need to have something else where I can't help the pain, can't help change the course. Can't help make it better.  Only sit and watch.  Be passive.  Be along for the ride.

My husband sat with the remote and tried to cajole me into good spirits as we watched the movie move along and WWII loomed in front of us.  As I flinched and tears continued to fill my eyes, he reminded me that this film had accolades galore and that, again, it would have a happy outcome.  I nodded and tried to keep passive attention while chanting in my head "this will have a happy ending, this will have a happy ending" but it was having little help with the tears in my eyes and the pounding in my chest.

I finally reached the limit and grabbed the remote out my husbands hands when I could no longer separate myself from the horse.  The enemy forces were moving in and the troops were retreating quickly.  In effort to let the horse have a chance at freedom, to get out of the living hell, the soldier unharness the horse and tells him to run free, to get the hell out of there.  But then a giant hulking tank lumbers onto the scene and the horse starts to get boxed in.  There are the giant earth mounds that are making barriers from the horse running free.  He is finally able to vault up and over the tank but then as he bolts and run, he hits the saw horses and miles and miles and barbed wire and gets tangled in and he tries to run but finally gets so caught up that he gets thrown back onto his back and is trapped and entangled.

My chest constricted, hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I just knew that in my last life, I was that horse.  You know those questions that you get asked in magazine quizes and when you were a kid "if you could be any animal, what would it be", well, in my past life, I was a war horse.  I was on that hellish battlefield.  I was part of the pair of horses dragging that damn munitions around.  I just don't know if I'm the horse that makes it miraculously out of the war alive to live out their days in the tranquil pastures and find life again in peace.  Or if I'm the horse that just can't make it.  The horse with the ankle that just can't be fixed, that just isn't right, that finally is too far gone and finally dies on the field of battle.  Leaving behind their beloved.  Their partner.

So back to the happy holiday movie we went.  And that helped.  But not when it was the wee hours of the morning.  When I couldn't sleep.  When I was in pain.  When I alternated between being curled in a ball stretched out trying to hover above the mattress and not actual touch anything.  During that time, the only images that I could think about were the horror images of that poor and beautiful creature being hunted down, tortured, chased to the ends of the earth and entangled in barbed wire.  The pain and haunting in his eyes.  It tortured me.

I can't help but feel that I am that horse.  That I am wrapped in invisible barbed wire, cloaked in daggars of pain and trapped in the hell for eternity.  Each time I think that I understand things, I'm dealt a new curve and thrown down.  I don't understand how I am suppose to deal or get better when I am constantly pushed down, pulled under and run over.  Maybe some day, I can start to believe that I will be the horse that makes it out alive.  Maybe I can still believe in a happy story.

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I am still right here

What have I become

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

~Hurt 

Nine Inch Nails

Shake it Out

2013.  So far I have to say, this is not looking like my year.  Although, seeing that it is so early in the year, I'm hoping that there is just plenty of time for a turn around, a righting of the ship, the stars to re-align, the fates to smile upon me again - all of that happy stuff.  I like happy endings, happy stories, believing in happy things.  Silly me.  Silly, silly me.  I still would like to believe in that fairy tale stuff.  What's that again, oh yes.  Happy endings, people doing the honorable thing, the good guy winning, yes, yes, that stuff, the fairy tale stuff.  Ahh, sarcasm and depression, it appears that 2013 is going to be filled with it.  Weeeee.

I've been a girl who has played by the rules her entire life.  I've worked hard since I was a little girl at her sport and at school.  Worked and held down a job since I was 12.   I have wonderful relationships with my family.  I respect and love my grandparents and all elderly as a matter of fact (oh the youth, don't get me started on what we have done with our entitled "everyone wins a ribbon" culture), never broke curfew as a teen, never even went to a party in high school because I was too focused on school and my sport.  Really, I followed all of the rules.  And I was happy to do it.  So why, oh why am I being punished with this cruel disease?  Why am I being tortured and punished day in and day out like a baby bunny in a viscous ferral cats paws?  Being kept just alive enough to be bled out some more, but not alive enough to escape.

I'm dealing with crooked companies that are trying to dodge duties, denials to get procedures done, red tape galore and a million other problems.  My husband told me the other night "the hotter the fire the strong the steel" - well, I must be bulletproof.  I wish I was.  But I feel like I'm just getting more fragile by this treatment and this bullying rather than stronger as a result.  My blood pressure is spiking from pain and from stress now.   I can't see straight from the strain of it all.  I don't understand why this is happening.  I have some telling me to turn this over to God and that he will guide us through this.  I have others telling me that I have to fight harder.  I have others still that still just tell me that I "look good"....  Oh that damnable "you look good" curse.  Yes, yes.  If you don't look closely at me, you won't notice that I flinch if you get too near me, that my eyes are tinged with pain and half-dead looking, that I'm a shadow of who I was.  That I am decaying and not in a pretty way right before my eyes, but yes, yes, if you don't look close, if you don't really notice me, if you just look at a surface glance really quickly, then yes, I look good.

I need to keep my strength up.  I need to find it in myself to breathe deeply.  To calm my heartbeat before I have a stroke.  To try to keep my migraines down to under 3 a week.  To find a a sense of calm in knowing that if nothing else, I will get my story out - so that others can know that they are not alone. They are not the only ones going through this.  I need to stay strong.  It's the continued story of being the girl lit of fire from within, lava in place of blood, bones breaking and body falling apart.  I feel as though I'm  weighted down with anchors, strapped to me and I am 20 feet under the surface.  My lungs are burning - but I'm not going to give up yet.  I'm not going to just sink to the bottom and surrender yet.  I'm still going to try to swim and kick for the surface.  Even though it's torture, even though it hurts so badly, I'm going to try to find my way to the surface and breathe.

So, happy new year.  Bear with me.  Be kind and whatever you do, don't tell me "but, you look good"... because I'll crack you in the shins with my cane should you.

And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh 

But I like to keep some things to myself

I like to keep my issues strong

It's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it off , shake it off, shake it off

And it's hard to dance with the devil on your back

 So shake him off

Shake it Off

Florence and the Machine