Dealing with the "P" Word Again? Spit!!

Well THAT was special!  You know me I clicked in a spot I wasn't sure what would happen and waaala!  A brand new blog layout.  I couldn't figure out how to delete it.  It was called dynamic views and although I did like most of it, it didn't show the blogs I follow or the pictures, etc.  I'm sure they'll "perfect" it and soon we'll be zipping along.

The "P" (perspective) word has haunted me for years. For a few years I didn't even know WHAT it was; then I found out and ----well spit!!--it just keeps coming back.  I've been dealing with it again when I was hit on the head by the realization that my "perspective" is not your "perspective".......hmmmmm!  So even though people go through the same experience what one brings to the table in the form of emotions, previous experience, etc.  colors how the event it perceived by them.
Years ago in our find a counselor for Lucky (that SHE couldn't outsmart the 2nd time she went) stage I drove weekly with her to Spearfish.    The trips were a bust for Lucky but a statement the woman said to me turned MY life around.  I had a tendency (ok obsession) to be the perfect mother.  After all 10 of 12 jury members, a state social worker and 23 professional people felt their mothers rights should be totally yanked and the girls should be given to Ken who was married to me and I must be --- the perfect mother??  So I went the perfect route for a few years - anything bad that happened was MY fault.  If they had to be disciplined by someone I was slacking on the job, blah, blah, blah.  So this afternoon the counselor looked at me and said, "YOU aren't at fault here.  You aren't God.  You didn't set out for her to be raped!   Bad things happen - it's up to you to deal with them; not take the blame". Yup! I had lost perspective there for thousands of days.  In retro-P.... that is probably when I began to map our boundaries for myself - so I wouldn't lose ME again.  I had been SO intent on being perfect I daily gave my power to the girls and others for what KIND of day I would have.  When I finally realized that just because someone SAYS something, the words will simply die in the wind of non-acceptance unless I reach out and grab them; hugging them to myself as officially MINE and how I should act.  OH, SPIT!! Get a grip!
All that to come to the point June 26, 2002 changed our lives!  By 10:30 pm we knew that K.C. would be a whole body donor; but we didn't know if Ken would survive and was in a coma.  A gargantuan migraine enveloped me and I simply checked out and remember only bits and pieces of that day like a movie that has been slashed then stuck back together again in the wrong order with about 90% of the frames gone.  NOW I realize that most of our family was probably in much the same shape.  Into this situation walked our oldest daughter.  She had been estranged from us for 12 years and there was a LOT of hostility aimed at her.  She comes looking for her Dad - he's in a coma and looks SO beat up; her brother - with not a visible mark on him yet was told his survival rate was 5%;  her "baby" half-sister not a 17 year old and finally a morbidly obese step-mother not this gray-faced extremely thin stranger with her "Mom's" voice coming out of her.  Perspective.  A few folks that may read this will say, Buuuutttt.......  and I say - who cares who said what; who did what......we all felt and it was AWFUL.  Living in the past................how is that working for me???  for you???? for her???
This time of year sucks as we go into the memories.....  BUT this year is GOOD in other ways.  Mona is living in Sheridan making a new life with Mike.  Whitney and Travis are doing good in the young go 800 mph way young folks do; Ken is back to about 85% of the man I married.  Woo-hoo!  And me??  I LOVE this life we have carved out for ourselves.  As Ken used to tell the kids, "When you work you work HARD and when you play you play HARD!"  Well hallelujah sista we're in playing mode.  Bring it on!

Perspective is a relative thing.  Friend Archie "aka Clay" had his own dose of the P word this fall.  His Bullocks Special Beer delivery was back ordered. a few days.  What to do, what to do............ well 32 oz is 32 ounces.  NO!  Says he - 32 ounces is too big, too bulky and gets warm too easy.  Archie, Archie, Archie.