Posts Tagged ‘life’

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A “Course Correction” on the “Autopsy” Metaphor

April 8, 2026

Emerging from the cornfield

Yesterday’s post compared this part of the work to performing an autopsy and writing the final report. But while it “can work,” it didn’t feel quite right. While it is a logical metaphor given my science background, it is too “left-brained, cerebral. What is really needed is a much more emotional and soulful one.

Instead, I keep coming back to this part of the book being the Midrash. The “extra part” that adds the soulful pieces that the story couldn’t tell.

It’s funny, but as I was sensing these things, my husband came to me and questioned the autopsy metaphor, too. He correctly pointed out that I am not dead, not by a long shot, nor is my story done. “You are a survivor,” he said, like a person who was in a symbolic “plane crash.” “And out of the rubble, smoke, debris, and bodies, somehow you walked out of that carnage toward the helpers and are still embracing life.”

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2008 – The Break, Part I: The Present and Past Collide, With a Vengeance

March 12, 2026

Painting by author

Unglued

In 1984, I was walking every night, trying not to kill myself. I had to start life all over again.
In 2008, I was afraid to get off the couch, and having an emotional breakdown. And again, I was having to start life over.

Both times, I was at the end of my rope, hanging by a thread, not wanting to be dead, but wondering what else there was in life, and if I had any value.

I was consumed by a level of anxiety I’d never experienced before. It was so bad, I was afraid to get out of bed in the morning — dreaded starting another day of pain. But I was too afraid to stay in bed. Yet I couldn’t wait for the day to be over so I could get back in bed, and when I did, I only felt safe on my stomach, propped up on elbows, watching the same video over and over again on a small portable player while Ed watched TV.

Almost every night for months, it was the Pixar movie, “A Bug’s Life.” It was safe, all the ants worked together, and there was nothing scary or provocative. And the best part, the part I wanted to be in, was the big sleeping chamber where all the ants rested, sleeping safely and comfortably in their little hammocks. It was snuggly, all of them there together, safe from any threats. Just the security of being there together with all of their friends. I so wished I could live with them.

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The Warrior Years – Battling Dad – Part I

February 21, 2026

“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

Flannery O’Connor, story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

He woulda been a good man if…

It was that same book I was given by one of my elementary school nuns from her college English course. The one that opened my mind to the wide new world of literature. The one I drank up like it was water, and I was dying of thirst.

There was that one story in the book, though, by Flannery O’Connor, called “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I was both repelled by it because of its violence and unwillingly, but powerfully drawn to it. I could never let it go. All my life, it gnawed at me, but I never knew why.

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The Warrior Years – What About Women?

February 14, 2026

Rebirth

As impossible as it may have seemed, we made it. Despite managing marriage, parenthood, jobs, caring for his parents, and fighting mine… despite all the odds, Ed and I stuck with therapy, and it started working.

In looking back at my journal entries and talking with Ed about all the things I’ve written here, we both just shook our heads. Both of us agree that we don’t know how we did it, and that it is flat-out amazing that we made it through those years. But we did. And we are both deeply grateful now.

As our love and marriage grew stronger, it would show up in small ways. It was especially telling on one occasion when we bought a new tree for the front yard of our home. Our son said that because the tree was part of our family, it needed a name. So he promptly called it “Ralph.” I have no idea why.

But then Ed spoke up and added to its name the words, “the passion tree.” Ralph, The Passion Tree. I looked at him, and he just said, “Ralph is a symbol of our growth…a testament to the changes that are happening in both of us, and in our marriage.”

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The Warrior Years – The “Onion” That is Therapy

February 12, 2026

These current entries are taking more time and thought to write. There were so many things going on simultaneously during those years, complicated and all knotted together. In order to share something meaningful and coherent, I have needed to reflect deeply and not rush the process.

In the last two pieces I wrote, I spoke of my husband and me managing many priorities, and just finishing the marriage-skills classes, as well as my finally ending a friendship that was not working.

To continue with the story thread, I will begin with the onion that is “therapy.”

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The Warrior Years – Stretched Too Thin – The End of a Friendship

February 9, 2026

The mid-90s were hell on wheels in terms of intensity.

Ed and I were doing the marital classes and working to build a new relationship between us. Our son was having trouble at school. There were stresses with bills and jobs. Ed’s parents were getting sicker, which required periodic trips home, and we were also doing regular therapy to focus on our specific issues and my healing from abuse. Oh, and yes, we were waging battles again with my dad about his interactions with the kids in the family. Then, my friend called.

That phone call

I was about to step into the shower.

My husband stood in the bathroom doorway. “She’s on the phone.”

Every fiber in my body cringed. She’d been my friend. She helped nurture me when I was suicidal. She helped me over the hurdle of sex. But things had not been right for a long time.

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The Warrior Years – Marriage – 1 – “The Breaking”

February 2, 2026

Is it possible to go from an abusive household with no role modeling for healthy relationship skills and have a successful marriage?

I can’t answer for anyone else. I can only say, for us, it was not a given, no matter how much we loved each other.

Is it even relevant?

What do you say about the issues in your early years of marriage, when you are writing about them from 40+ years out? From having navigated struggles and joys, successes, near-death episodes, and all that life can throw at you? When I think of who we were back then compared to now, we were almost more like strangers.

So does it even feel relevant to look back?

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The Warrior Years – “Team Rules”

January 31, 2026
Photos by author

Priorities, “triage,” and setting up the “base camp”

For any successful team to operate, there must be an agreed-upon set of rules and priorities. And Ed and I were a team. So, during this “adult” phase, we had five priorities:

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The Biggest Risk of Our Lives…

January 28, 2026

THAT phone call…

Sitting at the dining room table, I stared across the room and studied my husband’s face. He was seated at the desk in the living room, speaking on the phone. I watched every expression for a hint as to the “bottom line” of this call. The conversation seemed pleasant. The call was brief.

Hanging up the phone (Yes, this is before cell phones), Ed turned to me and said,

“Well, the job in North Carolina is ours if we want it….Do we want it?”

Never has there been more of a pregnant pause between us…not even the time I called him when I was actually pregnant….

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It Might Be You

January 15, 2026

Please, no more computer people!

It was the summer of 1985. I had resumed the dating service and met several generally nice men. I say “generally” because a few were just “non-starters,” but certainly not harmful.

There was the divorced man who spent all of our supper date talking about his ex-wife. No, thank you.

And the one who kept calling me to arrange to meet, but could never quite figure out if he wanted to because he also wanted to go play paintball with his friends. After several rounds of this, I told him to go play paintball and stop calling.

But the absolute “best” of the non-starters was the computer engineer who worked in the same company my father had. We met for lunch at a burger place. I’d been running around all morning and skipped breakfast, so when we met up, I was ready for my burger and fries.

As we talked, or rather, I TRIED to start a conversation, I made short work of my lunch. He was rather …aloof? No matter what I asked, it was one or two-word answers. I mentioned that my father worked at the same company that he did.

No response. Oh, he did note that I had finished my lunch quickly and said, “Gee, you eat a lot.”

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