I
realized something tonight while quick texting a friend. I am a
survivor. I have the tale to tell of someone who found a way out of hell
on earth. I have stood knee deep in rubble on the bombed out burnt up
battle field of my life and somehow found how found a the strength to
crawl out. When there was no color and no visible sign of life, I
stumbled forward.
And do you know what that experience has
provided me with? It's given my first hand experience to tell someone
when they are standing knee deep in rubble of a bombed out burnt up
battle field of THEIR life and tell them with absolute certainty that
"this too shall pass". This isn't the end of your story. I am a
survivor, SA-VIV-er. It's the thing you become when you get past the
thing you thought would take you out for good. I have more than a theory
from a book or some nebulous hypothesis. It will hurt a while, it will
suck a while and you may bleed for a minute. You may take to your sick
bed and curse the heavens above. Life is life and we are all dealt
terrible blows, some seemingly more than others.
I'm
surrounded by teenagers 40 hours a week and I feel so sorry for them
sometimes, because all they know is all they know. They haven't had the
benefit of existing long enough to see that most everything passes. I
tell them all the time the 3 months your here in the terrible place
won't even seem like a speed bump to you in the history of you life in a
year. In 3 years this will be nothing but a bad summer camp you had to
go to as a kid. Battle scars are badges of honor, scar tissue is the
single stronges piece of flesh you have and it says I was here, I took
that hit and I'm still standing.
I have a lot of faith in my
ability to withstand the glancing blows of life today. I have steps to
take to save my ass regardless of the mess that's on my face. All my
life I thought I wanted to be blond with blue eyes and the star of the
football team. HOnest to God truth, if I could excise all the painful
event's of growing up and the pain of being 20 and trying to convince
everyone I knew what I was doing, all the best qualities of me would be
erased. I got character through all the events and circumstanced I would
have deleted at one point if given a magic wish.
Antiques
have value because they have withstood the test of time. Repaint a 100
year old table or polish the patina off a 200 year old statue and you
have rendered it valueless. The shit storms of life and our first hand
eye witness report on how we got through it is so much more valuable to
man kind than an unproven idea from someone in a think tank or a book
author. You get colon cancer, you find a colon cancer survivor, if you
are a drug addict, you find someone who is an addict and recovered. Our
individual experiences here on the planet is what makes us valuable, not
where we got a degree from or what church we belong to. Our experience
makes us invaluable.
We attain wisdom through poor decision
making and living through hardships. So, I am a survivor. I may or may
not have claimed that moniker before but tonight, as my perspective
shifted suddenly I realized that I had done the unthinkable. I made it
through to tell my story of treachery, despair, redemption and survival.
Face the fear, the confusion, the anger and the depression. Your story
does not end here and it's a story that needs to be told and told. "I
found myself knew deep in rubble, in the bombed out burnt of field that
was my life". I made my way out of the darkness and you can too.
