Inner Strength

It's that power that comes from within you. It's that ability to pick up your head and hold it high, even in the face of the most difficult adversity. It's the strength to say, "This is who I am. This is what I believe in. And it is not up to you to approve." The last 24 hours have been an amazing personal journey for me and I woke up this morning with a kind of inner strength I didn't know existed. In my greatest defeat, I have found the ability to declare victory. You see, I have never been a quitter. I have never been one to be passive when I feel like things are not just. I have never been able to keep my mouth shut when someone is picking on the underdog. And I have always been one to believe in hope with every fiber of my being to the very bitter end. After 7 years of fighting with members of my family, I decided yesterday to just be done with it. I felt defeated. I felt like I had lost. It was a kind of mourning that I am all too familiar with after the loss of my brother in October. But this morning when I woke up after a restless night, I was reminded of something my former sister said to me once. There is a certain irony to the fact that she is the one who said it, but it has been something I have always carried with me. In the late 1990s I was struggling with my decision to leave EMS, a career that I absolutely loved. Thairn left a message on my answering machine in which she said, "Today is a new day. The sun is shining and everything is going to be just fine." It was simple, but to the point and it has remained my mantra all of these years. So, today I greet the day with a renewed inner strength, given to me not only by the words of my former sister so long ago, but also by the support and encouragement of some of the most outstanding people on the planet...my friends. Rodney told me last night (in between trying to lecture me) that I don't have a choice when it comes to family. He said I am a member of the Shields family and I can't change that. To that I say, HA! WATCH ME! I choose my friends to become my family. In my loss, I have gained more brothers and sisters than I ever had before. And those members of the Shields family who feel they can see through the lies and not sit in judgement of me, have reached out to me and I have accepted that they will remain family. But they understand that they are my family without the involvement of the others who have chosen to force this separation. Letting go is difficult for me because I am a fighter. I am a Leo, the king of the jungle, the toughest of the tough. Walking away is not in my nature and the realization that, in this case, walking away is victory has been very difficult. It is a thought process that is foreign to me on every level. But, ironically, it was again my former sister Thairn who brought me to this realization. You see, when Christmas was appraoching, she sent me a text message stating that she was having a family dinner on the 25th and that I was invited. When I didn't respond, she followed with a message that said, "Let's clear this up...inviting u the 25th - is not an apology - its an invitation to be civil." When I respectfully declined and said that I preferred to spend Christmas with people who love me I was told that she would rather spend Christmas with people who don't use others. So I planned my own dinner on the 26th and, not surprisingly, did not invite Thairn. I was told yesterday that Thairn was quite upset, even crying, that I did not invite her. Initially I was confused as to why she ever thought I would invite her after he less-than-welcoming invitation to me. Then I realized that this is all part of the game. For whatever reason, certain members of my former family feel the need to treat me like crap and then expect me to respond lovingly. That makes sense because they know that my love for them has always been and will always be unconditional. So why wouldn't I do the right thing and invite her even though she was a total bitch to me? Well, sorry, but not this time. There is a new sheriff in town and this sheriff doesn't want to ride this emotional rollercoaster anymore. I am off and I am not buying any more tickets. I have come to the realization that all hope of a relationship with them is lost and I am learning to be ok with it. Every day, my inner strength will grow and eventually, they will not be able to ever hurt me again. Someday they will find themselves wondering whatever happened to me, as we have lost contact over the years. I won't be available to answer that question for them.
So, today is, in fact, a new day. The sun is, in fact, shining and everything will, in fact, be just fine. God bless.

Time Stamps

Today is the first day of the new year and I find myself thinking about the events of my last 39. It is interesting to me how everything in life seems to be related to time stamps, those moments in time when the world stopped turning and lives changed, whether it was for the better or the worse and whether it was personal or not. We all remember where we were on September 11, 2001. Those of you who are my age remember where you were when President Reagan was shot or when either of the space shuttles blew up. We remember the assassination of John Lennon and the election of each president. And then there are personal time stamps. We remember the exact moments that our children are born and where we were when we heard of the passing of a loved one. I think that is what has me thinking about this. It is now 2011, the first year we will experience without Roy. It is a moment in time that will forever burn in my memory and I will forever refer to life events as "before Roy died" or "after Roy died." It is now a reference point in memory. When I try to recall an event in the years to come, I will know how old I was when it occurred based on whether or not my brother was still alive. "I must have been in my thirties when that happened, because Roy was still alive." It is so strange to me that we use these reference points when we have the year itself as a reference point. "That happened in 2009" will become "That happened the year before Roy died."

I'm not sure I have a point to this blog, other than the fact that I am thinking about the past as much as the future as we enter the new year. Maybe I am a little freaked out about turning 40 this year. I mentioned it the other day and my former sister-in-law said, "You can't be 40. You are still 13." which is how she remembers me because that was the age I was when she and my brother divorced. It just proves my point about time stamps. Maybe the answer here is that we need fewer negative time stamps in our lives and more positive ones. As I look back at my life, the time stamps are largely negative. I need to refocus. I need to change those timestamps. Maybe Ray and Kim divorced in 1984, but their daughter was born in 1981 and their son in 1982. Those should be my time stamps. So, in 2011, I resolve to change my time stamps in my mind to positive ones. 2010 will always be "the year we lost Roy" but 2011 doesn't have to be "the year I turned 40." Instead it can be "the year I lost all that weight and regained my health." How is THAT for a New Years resolution?