Transitions

Just like as in life itself, there are seasons on the road to recovery.  Not as predictable as the cycle of Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer, but still there are seasons.

Seasons that come and go, sometimes without warning.  Not in a predictable sequence.  Yet, they are there.

A friend who met me in a writers meet up she is heading likens this season in my life as seeing Suzanne start to bloom as is Spring is coming in Suzanne's life and in her journey towards recovery.

Here in southern Ontario, we're attempting to move from winter to spring but with some upheavals in the process.  Such as the ice storm here two weeks ago.

Today, my blog will be mostly in pictures.

Starting with the ice storm.

Footsteps

A new addition: my vinyl greenhouse

View from the window after the ice storm

View from inside the (cold) vinyl greenhouse during the storm.

Another view from inside.  I just happen to like this picture which is why I've included it.

 Fast forward in your minds.  Two weeks later.  After the clean up from the ice storm.  After the shovelling out.  After the storm has passed and the sun began to shine and melt the sleet, ice pellet, rain, freezing rain and snow mess. 

This is what I found under all the mess.  Still alive.  Not only alive but thriving.  The ice storm and accompanying freezing temperatures and snow, etc., didn't detour what was in the ground and coming up from the ground one bit.  It only strengthened them and made them all the more beautiful once the bitter cold departed.

The following pictures were mostly taken on Saturday.  The transition from winter to spring is still ongoing.  Changing daily.  One day I'm sure the worst of winter is behind us and Spring is ... well ... spring.  The next day, it's chilly again.  Cloudy.  The sun has gone AWOL or UA or whatever term you like.

Yet, Spring is coming in its own way, in it's own time and schedule.

Miniature Iris planted last fall

A Hellebore which had started to bud before the storm and picked up right where it left off when the storm hit.

Close up of the hellbore

Hyacinth

I've forgotten the name but again one of the earliest spring flowers

Closeup of the miniature iris

Daffodil (duh!) getting ready to bloom any day now.

This picture included just for fun: a black capped Chickadee which just happened to fly into my car the other day.

So what am I trying to convey to you, my reader, in this blog which is mostly pictures?

It is just this, recovery is happening.  Daily.  Slowly.  In it's own time.  I can't rush it.  I can't plan it.  

At times, I have to simply endure it.

At other times, I can enjoy it.

Above all, I can cherish the memories of the journey and be proud to call myself a survivor.

Until next time.

Today on the Journey

Today ....

I've written several posts recently about "today".  How each day has potential.  Each day is different.

In this post, we are really talking about "today" as in the day that is just beginning as I'm writing this post to publish as soon as it's done.

Today, I woke up weak and shaky.  It's not all that uncommon but at this point in the journey towards recovery both physical and emotional, it's not all that common either.

This is where I put my frownie, unhappy face.

Yet, this is also where I sit back a bit and analyze.  What am I capable of doing today?

I have a to-do list - in my mind.  What should I keep?  What should I dismiss or put on the back burner to see if I'm physically capable of doing it later?

This is often a big question with me.  If I schedule something like meeting up with a friend to knit and pet her dog, will I be physically able of doing it on that given day at that given time?

I hate to disappoint people.

So today, I don't have all that much on my agenda.  We're babysitting the grands tomorrow so I need to make something in the crockpot for easy meal preparation when we're there.  That can (for now) be put on the back burner.  Perhaps hubby can help me with it tonight when he's home.

I need to do the weekly grocery shopping one day earlier than normal.  Again, can I do that?

As I write this at the beginning of my day, that is the BIG question:  can I do this?  What will happen to me physically/emotionally if I try?  What will I do afterwards if the chronic symptoms either kick in or get worse than they are?

In the years that I've been on this journey, I've developed some coping mechanisms.  Hubby has taught me that I can always  make a 180 and leave.  If things just are not working out, if I'm getting anxious, if my mind is starting to go bonkers, I have the right to give myself permission to stop, go home, and try again another time - without feeling guilty.  Without castigating myself.  Without telling myself that I'm an awful, horrible excuse for a human bean.

I also have the option of being gentle on myself.  To just do the bare minimum and to not fault myself that I'm not able at that given time to do more.  To do myself not only that it's ok but that I'm ok.  To remind myself of how far I've come on the journey. 

I also have the option of once I do get home back home, my base camp on the road to recovery, to just simply rest.  I've learned that rest is good, very good.  Sometimes I'm able to read while I rest.  Sometimes not.  To simply listen to my body and do what it's telling me is the best thing.  Perhaps to put on nice restful music.  Or to spray the air with lavender scent for calming purposes.

So today, I will poke my little nose outside my door.  I will go outside into the wide, not so scary world as previously, and I will see what happens.

Whatever happens with today, I will survive; tomorrow will come.  It will be different and good in its own way.

The cross at the Devil's Punch Bowl falls on the Niagara Escarpment

Recovery Is Always The Darkest ...

After a series such as I've just finished writing, it is always difficult for me to switch gears and start over.  Either with another series or with individual posts on various relevant topics related to either workplace abuse, it's aftermath or recovery.

There are so many different facets.  Partially because each situation is distinctly unique in its own way and because each individual has a different background, personality, etc. and, therefore, handles things differently.

Yet, there are also commonalities among us such as the chronic which slips in unannounced and largely at that time unnoticed after weeks or months.

*****

My last post left off after we returned home after a two week camping trip in what is called the "near North" of Ontario which is where I became aware of symptoms and their coming impact on my life.

I don't think I realized at that time just how far reaching and long lasting these impacts would be.

I thought that these symptoms would pass.  That I would get better, feel "normal" soon.  By "normal", i mean what for me was normal.  Regaining my sense of self, my energy, emerging from the fog of depression.

Unfortunately, these things did not happen.

In fact, recovery more than six years later is still on ongoing process.  An ongoing battle if you will.  The symptoms, at least most of them, may be not as severe as there were in those bleak days post returning from that vacation, but they're still there.  Still needing to be reckoned with.

I look at those months post that vacation as black.

I thought at that time that if I kept on with what was now a normal life/routine for me attending church, women's weekly Bible study at the church, etc. that I would come out of the fog of depression.

The problem is that my body was clamouring with unmet needs at that time as well.

I realized that I had to modify my behaviour/plan when I went to a weekly women's Bible study even though I really wasn't feeling up to it because I wanted to continue doing what I normally would do.  My face felt flushed.  I wanted to leave.  I saw a friend leaving early and wished I could too.  

At the end of the meeting, the leader asked for prayer requests and I asked for prayer as my husband had just been laid off suddenly from his job of 14 years.  My agreement with my former employer was about to expire so while I had been worrying about how we were going to downsize from two paycheques to one; I was now faced with the fact that we would be doing from two to zero.

It that doesn't depress you, nothing will.

One lady asked me what I had done.  I hesitated, unsure how to answer her question when another lady piped up and said "Not you, your husband."  I started to cry.

I felt so misunderstood.  So dismissed.

I left the building sobbing.  I got into my car and drove around to the back of the building.  I wanted so bad to die.  I felt so worthless.

I called my husband who dropped everything and came to where I was.  I called my adult daughter who stayed with me on the phone until my husband arrived.  (Thank God for cell phones.)

I realized during the aftermath of that incident that I could no longer go on as I had been.  But I was confused: when the problem is emotional the recommended path towards healing is to keep on with your regular routine whether you feel like it or not.  If you eat at a certain time usually, then continue doing that.  If you regularly participate in an activity, then continue on with that activity.  I had done it before and it had worked to keep some sense of normalcy in my life.

But now, my body was screaming at me to lie down, to sleep, that it could not go on any longer.  So what does one do when both the physical and the emotional are present at the same time?

I asked my therapist and she promptly said: "The physical always takes precedence."  If you have to lie down, then lie down.  If you are physically unable to do certain things, then listen to your body.

So I listened to my body which was telling me that it had absolutely no energy, that it was weak.  Sometimes I would feel so weak I would shake.

At times I was unable to stay out of bed for hours.  Day after day, I would be forced by  my body to lie down.  At times, I couldn't read or sleep.  I was able to pray though and that helped.

Talking to people was exhausting to me.  Sitting up was also exhausting.  I could only sit for about an hour or less.

I contacted my pastor to let him know that I was not angry at anyone (in fact I had taken steps to let the woman know who had caused me to cry that I was not angry with her or anyone else), but that I would not be attending church for a while simply because I was physically unable to get up, to get dressed, and to face a lot of people.  It took weeks before he responded.

I voluntarily stopped driving as my cognitive skills were so low that I felt I wasn't safe behind the wheel of a car.  Hubby drove me to out of town counselling appointments.  If he was unavailable, I was able to get others who were willing to drive 45 km each way so I could have my counselling appointments.

Hubby became my caregiver during those months.  

Whatever needed to be done, meals, whatever, he did.

Eventually, I was able to go out again in small, carefully controlled doses.  We went to church but arrived after the service had started which minimized the anxiety of noise from chatter and dealing with people.  We stayed as long as I felt able to which at the beginning was I think about 15 minutes.  We did things carefully and mindfully.  Eventually I started going grocery shopping with hubby.  I could not walk in a straight line.  My balance was gone.  Hubby would put a grocery cart in front of me to hang on to and it became my version of a wheeled walker. 

Hubby was my protector and encourager.

Of course, there are always people who have issues with how someone is handling their problems.  Some people felt that if I just got up and started doing, pushed through, I would magically get better.

Problem is, my body objected strenuously to that advice.  I tried it.  It hadn't worked.

Eventually, those black weeks morphed into grey.  Dark grey but still lighter than black.

Recovery comes slowly.  It is so slow that it cannot be measured unless one looks back over time and sees where they came from and where they are now.

So it has been with me.

*****

I will stop here for now.  

Someone I met recently who is going through his own journey of recovery told me that while he likes my writing style, he has problems with my content as it triggers him.  It is too close to his experience.

Yet, if you or someone you are close to has come through workplace bullying, perhaps it will help you to look at your loved one with different eyes.  Eyes of compassion.  Eyes of acceptance.  Eyes, even, of love to encourage them and help them on their road.

The Last Stop on the Chronic Journey

KOA Kampin Kabin in Saulte Ste Marie, Ontario where we spent the night
before this part of the adventure

Entering Bear Country

We now begin the last segment of this narrative which involves a double narrative - actually a triple narrative if you include the photographs: the narrative of our travels along with the narrative of the increasing chronic affects/symptoms.

I find it fascinating that this last segment is in bear country as I've always identified myself as a bear such as calling myself mama bear when my children were young and inneundos about the "den" such as not being the youngest bear in the den, etc.

Killbear Provincial Park

However, here we're talking about real life, flesh and blood, growling bears.  Right in our campground.  But fortunately not in our campsite - that we know of.

We're well familiar with the practices involved in clean camping as we did canoe camping prior to this adventure.  Everything that has any smell to it, not just food but deodorant, soap, etc., goes in the locked car or up a tree if you're in the back country with no access to your car.  All coolers, stoves, etc. are also locked in the car.

We'd camped at Killbear Provincial Park years ago when our children were still young.  We saw a bear cub scampering around which was removed.  We never saw a bear that time.

However, this time was different.  Things had changed in the intervening years since that camping trip in the 90s and this one in 2011.

Bear Spray
We've never had to use it so don't
know if it works

As I mentioned, we never saw a bear ourselves this time but nightly we heard the air horns go off meant to scare the bear away.  We talked to people who had been involved in bear encounters in the park.  One man told us that the bear was at the back of his truck ignoring him completely and trying to pry the cover on the bed of the truck loose to get at the goodies underneath it.  Here we were camping in a small tent which a bear could easily rip apart.  There was nothing solid between us and the wildlife. 

Our Camp Site At
Killbear Provincial Park

Scary.

I did what I always do in such situations: i did everything I knew to do and then asked God to take care of the rest.  It's worked in the past; it worked in this instance as well.

We slept and awoke safely in the morning.  There was a camper on the site next to us so they had solid walls between them and any wildlife.  The woman told me in the morning that she'd wondered how we were doing in our little tent.  I told her about doing what I knew to do and then asking God to do the rest.  But she didn't understand what I was saying.

Waiting for the Sunset

You can probably sense a theme in my ramblings about this trip in that we were largely revisiting places we'd been before.  Places that provided at least a semblance of a comfort zone.  Being in our small canoe camping tent rather than our larger one as it created a sense of comfort and safety.  During that time, small became better than large.  Isolated better than crowded.  Nature better than cities.

Tandem Kyack

I could tolerate people in small doses and large distances.  For example, in the next campsite or further along the beach.  But close up and personal, such as in the washroom ... NOOOOOOO.  Hypervigilence, anxiety, fear.  They all came crowding in.  At that point, as these were still in their infancy in my chronic experience, I didn't have the coping skills I've developed since.

Kyacking Georgian Bay

As long as hubby was with me, I was more or less OK.  However, hubbies aren't allowed in the women's wash room.  That I had to figure out how to handle on my own.

Fatigue was also getting increasingly worrisome.  I went to sleep early.  Very early.  And woke up as tired as if I hadn't slept at all.  I often had to lay down mid down unable to move.

Interesting Rock Formation

Yet, contrasting the physical affects was the incredibly rugged yet peaceful scenery we were surrounded by.

Hubby had been wanting to try a tandem kyack, so we did.  It was a beautifully calm day, the day we rented it.  But the weather changed drastically over night and the wind came up.  So the day we took it out at Snug Harbour, the weather and the water were anything but calm.

Sunset

But we went out anyway.  I loved it!  In a kyack, you're down low close to the water and your lower half is enclosed.  The kyack rolled with the waves.  I found it exhilarating.  Like being in a down low, roller coaster with no fear of running off the tracks.

Hubby found it too enclosing for his longer legs.

But what an experience!

Even though that was probably the last of my limited energy for a while to come, I have that memory and those pictures to look back on.  To enjoy.  To remember that even in the bad times, there is something good, something enjoyable.

We left and went to nearby Parry Sound, again another "comfort zone" for me and checked into a motel we'd been to several times before.  By that time, I was so fatigued that I had to rest for several hours lying prostrate and unmoving on the bed before I could even contemplate going out for a meal.

My best purchase ever: a rope hammock so that I could lie down outside rather than in the tent when I couldn't do anything else.

The rugged landscape of that area

Our tent site which while not frequented by a bear during our time there, was visited by deer.

Ready to capture the sunset.  Each day was different.  A final farewell to our adventure.

While this post is the ending of that particular trip, that short segment of my life where the chronic symptoms began, it is not an ending, but rather a beginning.

A beginning of the real journey post workplace abuse towards recovery both physical and psychological.

I hope you will continue with me on the journey.

Symptoms

I started this blog post a while back but then shelved it to move forward - or maybe it's sideways - on the journey.  

Before recovery can begin though ALL the damage has to be in evidence.  Which is also why I feel the legally binding agreement I signed at the company's instigation and the Union vice president's coercion was premature as I agreed that I would not come back on the company for any further damage which might be incurred in the future.

I had no idea that what I was experiencing was not the sum total of the injury/damage.  I had no idea that the body kicks in six months to a year after the acute.

I discovered what I was facing after I returned from the events narrated in the last few posts when I had an appointment with my counsellor.  Walking to her office, I had to reach out and touch the wall for balance.

My counsellor, walking beside me, observed that she'd never seen me like that - and by this time we'd been together through thick and thin for six years.

My counsellor not only is well versed in trauma, but she has been through his own traumatic incidences and times.  She has been through the chronic, physical affects which come after the initial trauma.

She knew from experience what she was looking at that day.

Looking back after almost seven years, it's hard to distinguish the initial symptoms from those which came later after the acute - or critical - phase morphed into the chronic, long term phase.

Initially came the overwhelming sense of depression, of not being good enough.  The high levels of stress I'd been subjected to in the workplace caused stuttering.  Getting words out correctly which has led in the chronic phase to long-term verbal problems and confusions.

In addition to the stuttering, my mind wasn't working well.

I loved to cook.  During my first leave of absence, I would cook.  Hubby would walk in the door, sniff the air and say "It smells like someone sure loves me."

During the second leave of absence, I found I could no longer focus long enough to read cookbooks - especially if they had more than three or so ingredients and a multitude of steps.

There was a cookbook I'd heard about and wanted so instead of buying it, I got it from the library.  When the long anticipated book came in, I opened it up only to discover that there was no way I could figure out how to make any of the dishes.  Too many ingredients.  Too many steps.  Eventually, I had to return it to the library untried.

During that time, I also got the bright idea to maybe take piano lessons again as I had enjoyed playing it before.  I went to a music store and looked at their piano books.  Although I'd been playing piano off and on. mostly off in the last couple of decades, I could not read the music.  The notes made no sense to me.  It was like trying to read Greek.  So I gave up that idea.

This was my condition at the end of the six weeks leave of absence.  I saw the psychiatrist again and he gave me an additional three months.  However, he put my GAF in the 70s even though in reality I was in much worse state than I'd been when he first saw me.  All leaves of absence had to be approved by a third party insurer of the employer's choose.  The third party insurer which the company used advertised as saving their employer, the company, money by cutting back on leaves of absence.  My leave of absence was denied.

The third party insurer said that it had to have objective evidence rather than subjective.  Since there are no concrete tests for GAFs, it's all subjective.

I could appeal - and did.  However, appealing a decision doesn't bump things up to another level, a different set of eyes.  It was handled by the same nurse practitioner who was not a psychiatric nurse.  She denied it a second time although she did offer me half days.  How could I go back to a workplace whixh I no longer worked at?

I believe I should never have been in the position of signing a legally binding document outside the workplace without HR and management present while still on leave.

When I signed away  my rights for further redress that day in the donut shop, I was alert enough to realize that according to the binding union agreement, I had the right to 52 weeks of leave and had had that written into the document I signed.

However, at the same time once I signed that document in reality I had no workplace to return to so when a week or so later, the leave was denied by the third party insurer, I was well and truly euchred.  As far as work-related income was concerned.

All that remained for me was to choose between the two "re"s: Recovery or Revenge.

I chose Recovery.

I still do.

*****

The above explains where I was at at the end of my employment - symptomatically and emotionally.  Also philosophically.

What had been thrown at me and how I had handled it and internalized it.

Where I was coming into the chronic phase.

It is my hope that these posts help both those who have endured workplace bullying, those are currently are enduring it and those who are walking with them to understand what they're friends, relatives and loved ones are going through.

Travels With Suzy

Long ago, in a far away time called high school, I had to read a book called Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck about his travels across America with his poodle Charley.

I thought about that book, or at least the title, as I started this blog posting this morning.

I'm not a published writer unless you count this blog and a few Sunday school papers back in the early '90s..

I didn't travel across America to chronicle the event.

Although I travelled in Canada, I definitely didn't travel across it.

I didn't have a dog of any description with me.  

What I did have was my ever lovin', long sufferin' and faithful hubby.

And my camera.  Always my camera.

This post isn't about discovering America.  It's about discovering me as I navigate my way through the beginnings of the chronic affects in my journey post workplsce bullying.

Especially in this very early, life altering part of the journey.

Near Pancake Bay, Ontario

After the events featured in the last post, we headed north to the tip of Lake Superior, then West to the turn off for Manitouwadge.  Once a mining town, houses are now cheap and many seniors buy their retirement homes there.  Two of these relative newcomers to Manitouwadge are Tom's cousin and his wife. So we decided to visit them and take a look see.

At that time, after the things that had taken place in the work place such as cyber stalking on Facebook, complaints to management after I was gone and a petition disguised as a formal complaint, I was very afraid of the people I had once worked with.  I never knew what they were capable of doing.  Even though I was now gone from the workplace, I walked in fear of them daily.  Especially in the mind of my life.  I was thinking about moving away - far away - from the area I live in.

It's not as drastic a move as you  might think.  In the weeks and months post abuse, post trip, post chronic "altered" abilities (or disabilities), I learned that at least one other person in the universe was so fearful of her antagonists that she changed her name.  I thought of that too.

After signing away my rights at a local donut shop with only the Union VP in attendance (I still wonder if that was legal) while still on sick leave, I wailed that I was afraid of what these people might still do to me.  His answer:  "Nothing is going to happen to you that you don't initiate first."  ????  I wailed "How did getting sick initiate anything?"  He didn't answer.

At that time, I had no idea why these people were persisting in their bullying and animosity outside the walls of the workplace.

I only knew I could not anticipate what these people were capable of doing.

It scared the hell out of me.

As the acute started to morph into the chronic, these fears were very much with me which made every act of going outside difficult.  Scary.

One thing though, I knew from observation that none of these people was likely to do and enjoy the same things that I did.  None of them was likely to be camping in the areas we were camping at the time we were on this trip.  They liked the party atmosphere while I liked the nature/photographic atmosphere.

Heading north along the shoreline of Lake Superior was initially fairly familiar to us as we had camped just past this service centre several times at a provincial park called Pancake Bay in years past.

We had even gone so far one year as to see the pictographs in Lake Superior Provincial Park one year.

After that though, we were in unfamiliar yet interesting in its unfamiliarity territory.

Wawa, Ontario

Although I'd heard of Wawa, I'd never been there.  It was quite the adventure for me as we turned off the highway and headed into the town where I got my first glimpse of the Wawa goose.  Although by this time, my hypervigilance with accompanying anxiety and fear of people was part and parcel of my existence, I remember venturing into the general crowded store and wanting desperately to avoid all the (scary) people and escape.

The Manitouwadge sign at turnoff to Manitouwadge on the Trans Canada
Manitouwaded is another 30 or so minutes North

This is your first glimpse of Manitouwadge.  The welcome sigh.  Which is placed on the main highway at the turnoff to Manitouwadge - a good 30 minutes north of this intersection.  I love it.

We enjoyed a hearty welcome from Tom's relatives.  What I loved most was that we had our own room away from others; a safe place for me in my constant state of hypervigilence and fear of people.  We had heat!  Yay!

The town had at that time two grocery stores, one of which was soon to close, a closed motel, a park with a lake near the town centre, several churches, several stores, a community centre, a library, a school, a medical centre, an OPP detachment and a ski slope.  I was told that it also had a lot of bears some of which would walk down the centre of the town streets.  Ironically, I was less afraid of a possible bear encounter than I was a people encounter.

Returning to the Saulte, we spent the evening strolling around the St Marys River enjoying the sights and, as always, taking pictures.

By this time, more residual, chronic affects had set in along with the ever present fatigue, lack of energy, and hypervigilence.  I was now experiencing balance problems.  Yet, I look back on these pictures with fondness and nostalgia. 

Despite the physical problems, life with hubby and travels with Suzy were still good.

I leave you now with selected pictures from that evening walk in the Saulte along the St. Marys.

Enjoy

The MS Norgoma, Saulte Ste Marie

I hope I'm not boring you with these narratives about this time in my life and journey post workplace abuse; however, it was a significant time on the journey towards recovery.

The part where recovery took a definite downward turn as the physical became involved.

Most of these affects I still deal with in one way or another 7 years on.

However, it's not about the disabilities or what I like to call "altered abilities" so much as how the individual can carve a workable life despite them.

Next Stop on the Chronic Railroad

More than 30 years ago, we took a camping vacation with our two young children; the youngest of which was in the midst of being potty trained.

I think we needed to have our heads read on that one.

When driving a washroom may well be non existent when you need one - like in a traffic jam on the Tappen Zee bridge in Upstate New York.  In a campground, the washrooms may well be a long walk away from the camp site.

Our salvation was that we had a potty in the shape of a VW Beetle complete with top/lid which fit into the narrow floor space of the back seat of the car.

Looking back from a few years perspective, taking a camping vacation during this time when the acute was morphing into the chronic was probably not the best of ideas either.  It brought out the best of our relationship and the worst of my condition as camping by it's very nature is physically challenging at it's best.  To compound matters, the weather during this trip was cold - which taxed me even more and made the symptoms loom large.

Yet we persevered.  Sandwiching good times with "other" times.

For example, our next stop after Tobermory was Saulte Ste Marie and a KOA where we had camped several times when the children were ... well ... children.  We had no idea if it was still there.

It was.

It had a new owner.  A few changes had been made but otherwise the layout was the same as it had been 25 or so years earlier.

The Algoma Railroad sill ran it's Agawa Canyon trip which we'd done several times in the past again with young children. 

We were planning on heading up to a small town called Manitouwadge to drop in on some relatives and had contemplated doing the Agawa Canyon ride on our return to take advantage of the Fall Foliage tour - which by the way is the same ride just more expensive.

However, we decided to do it before we headed on.

We started out in fog.

With me snapping away through the window of the train completely mesmerized and energized by the scenery passing by.

Lakes, trees, small villages and even a very long trestle and a dam and more (not shown here) were captured by my camera.  It evoked memories of other trips years ago.  The same scenery, the same rails, the same terrain with different perspectives as we aged and had more life experiences.

I'm thinking here is where we needed our heads read again as we both decided to ascend this loooonnngggg staircase upwards so we could have a good view - and take pictures - of the canyon.

We made it to the top.  Huffing and puffing.  Desperately needing rest. 

But. We. Made. It. To. The. Very. Top.

Despite everything. We challenged ourselves that morning.  I challenged the fatigue, the daunting sight of this long staircase.  I challenged all the residual fears and all the emotional injury and stuff which was still hanging on from my recent experience with bullying.

I was able to have small communications with people - especially with hubby present.

I was able to be the self that draws people to me. 

To shine.

To sparkle.

For one last time before the battleship grey of the chronic engulfed me totally.

And I took some awesome pictures and made good memories.

That may have been the last really good day I had for a very long time.