This Terrible Week

This has been one of those terrible weeks that leaves you scarred and unsure whether you want to scream at someone or just fall down and give up.  If I’d had a fortune cookie warning it would have read:

Past drama will return opening old wounds to fresh pain.  Your daily life will be salt in your emotional cuts.  The good news is that you will survive… or is that the bad news?

Your lucky numbers are:  Don’t Bother

If I cracked open that cookie I would have laughed, little knowing I was going to be the next thing cracking up.  This was that kind of week, the kind that gives you a choice.  It either breaks you into little pieces that you never recover from or makes you into someone new.  Somehow I survived, and I was grateful for all the wonderful author interviews I had for posting because my own brain wasn’t operating on normal anymore.  When my fingers touched a keyboard all that came out was this:

My heart is beating like a wild bird in my chest and I don’t know why.  I keep telling myself I’m safe… there is no danger here.  My heart doesn’t listen and continues to throw itself against my ribs in a fruitless effort to escape.  I don’t blame it, I want to escape me too but I know we’re both stuck.  I can’t run from myself and my heart can’t beat its way to freedom.  For a minute I think I feel everything moving under my feet and think of earthquakes and then I realize; it isn’t the ground trembling.  It’s me.

That was my week.  I made it tho, but as much as I’d love to play off what a wonderful, strong woman I am… I can’t.  I spent most of the week crying and the rest of it being paranoid and snapping angrily.  Left to rely on my own powers alone I’m sure the past few days would have ended in disaster but one thing kept me going – prayers from friends and family.

When things were at their darkest and I’d think I was going to lose my mind someone would call out of the blue or pop up in my chatbox.  I’ve cried with a bunch of them, vented with most of them and even snapped at a few.  All of them have patiently held me up thru it and each of them has told me that I was being covered in their prayers.  It meant a lot to me and because of that I’ve made it thru.  Thank you.

So here I am on the other side of a vicious, dark valley that was so deep I could feel the light being sucked out of my eyes.  I stumbled thru blind, following the voices of people I love echoing up ahead.  Their prayers were lifelines that became tangible in the dark and I grabbed at them desperately.  Because of it I am still here.

So this is my message for tonight:  Thank you for your prayers.  I don’t think I could have made it alone.  Keep them coming.  I’m returning them whenever I can.  Because of you, I am still traveling forward.