Tuesday, March 18, 2014

I Want Time to Stand Still...Except That I Want Winter To Be Over

Tuesday, March 18, 2014



(Yes, I am harping about winter because it is still hanging around.  Yes, it's not unreasonable (from the point of climatology) to expect snow in March here in Minneapolis.  But that doesn't mean we all can't pine for warmer days.  This winter has been a real beast.  Okay, end of whining.)


Like Superman in the movie of the same name, I want to alter the flow of time for my own purposes.  I admit it.  In the first of the Superman movie franchise, Superman is devastated when his beloved Lois Lane dies in an earthquake he was unable to prevent because he was busy saving New Jersey.  Yes, truth truly is stranger than fiction.  Despite his immense power Superman arrives on the scene too late to prevent Lois from being buried alive in a landslide of rock that engulfs her car and ultimately suffocates her.  So what does he do?  Why the most irrational and most improbable and yet most believable thing you can imagine!  He saves her by turning back time by making the planet spin backwards.

More than once I have wished I had the power to alter my past.  And then other moments I have thought that altering even one small detail might throw a huge wrench into my development.  There are plenty of movies that toy with that ancient question of 'What if I had...' or 'If only...'  One of my favorites is the movie Frequency.  Check it out if you have not seen it.  Of all the movies I have seen Frequency perhaps does the best job of exploring the unintended consequences that can arise if somehow we could alter the past.  Indeed, changing the past might seem like a great idea...until we realize just how complex the world is and how the smallest of changes at one moment can ripple out and unleash much larger changes we had not even imagined were possible.

As for me I am wishing I could get a lot of time back.  Yes, I'd like to have the quality of perception I have now throughout the last thirty or so years.  Waking up at the age of forty is a strange experience.  Some might consider such an age too late to make any fundamental, long lasting changes to your life.  And I suspect many of those such people are younger than forty!  Then there are those more advanced in years than I who only wish they could be forty again.  Forty is not too late.  That is what I tell myself.  And I will ignore all naysayers who would argue against my determination.  I want my life back...and I am working like a fiend to realize my full potential in the time that I still have to live.

It's been a lonely journey thus far, but I am grateful that I have assembled a skillful team of people to help me through this time of renewal and transformation.  I don't meet too many people very much like me.  Honestly, how many people do you personally know who are in treatment for PTSD which likely developed over three decades ago?  I don't know that I know many people with such a similar background.

My visit with my primary care physician went well.  Despite the fact that I feel as if my recovery has slowed down significantly in the last month I do feel as if I am still moving forward...somewhat.  The reward of patience is more patience.  The reward of my ongoing discipline is my gratitude for all the gifts that have come to me in these past nine months...and all that will come in the near and longer term future.

I still believe it is possible to meet zero criteria for PTSD by the end of 2014.






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I invite you to accompany me as I document my own journey of healing. My blog is designed to offer inspiration and solace to others. If you find it of value I welcome you to share it with others. Aloha!