What makes a story believable?

Twenty-nine years ago I was taking classes at the local Community College. I typically tried to take as many classes in one day as possible, so my schedule could go from 8am to 9pm, depending on the day. This particular day I had a long break between classes, so I took advantage of the break, as I typically did, and drove to a spot near the ocean to study. I pulled into an open spot, turned off the car, pulled out my books and started to read. I don't remember how long I had been there before I looked up and around. A car had parked to the right of me. There were people strolling along the beach. The sun was shining but it wasn't too warm. I checked my surroundings, felt secure and went back to studying. Not long after I felt the weight of someone's stare. I looked up and to my right and made eye contact with the guy in the car next to me. He had a leering smile on his face that immediately made me uncomfortable. I quickly looked away but continued to feel his stare. Glancing over again, I confirmed he was still staring at me in the creepy leering way and his hands were very, very busy in his lap. I decided it was time to get the hell out of there.

I never told anyone what had happened. I felt too vulnerable, like I had put myself in the situation and I was to blame. I hadn't been physically assaulted and I never actually saw any body parts, so, I told myself, maybe I was just jumping to conclusions. Twenty-nine years later, I can still see the creepy, leering look on the man's face and remember being afraid that he would follow me as I drove away. I never parked at that particular beach again for study breaks. 

I know women who have been physically and sexually abused. They don't openly share their stories easily. The guilt, the shame lingers. For some they hope that by not talking about it will mean that they can forget. But "it" continues to loom. The abuse has shaped them, is a lens through which they view many aspects of life and is never forgotten.

A few years back, I was scrolling through FB and ran across a post from an extended family member that had me seeing red pretty much all day. It was a picture of a little boy, probably not more than 2 or 3, being held by a woman with large breasts and, as little boys do, he was touching her breast. The caption read something to the effect that he would never make it to the Supreme Court because of the picture, alluding to accusations against the then nominee for the Supreme Court, Mr. Kavanaugh of attempted rape. Along with sharing the photo this extended family member made a comment to the effect of, "I know I'm going to be hear about this but how dumb is this investigation." I clicked on the comments. There were only a few, but they all said pretty much the same thing - "haha, great photo, isn't this whole investigation so ridiculous?"

At lunch that day, I scrolled back through FB and there were more comments on the post. One person, a woman, commented that sexual harassment wasn't a joke, wasn't okay and shouldn't be taken lightly. The extended family member replied with "yeah, but it's those 'liberals' who are making this all a big political mess and how can anyone remember what happened 36 years ago anyway?" I saw flaming red. 

I thought about commenting on the post. I thought about asking this extended family member how they would feel if that woman was one of their relatives. I thought about asking, if the Supreme Court nominee was more liberal leaning if they would believe the woman coming forward. I thought about asking them what their earliest memories were or if they had ever been assaulted or been in a traumatic situation. I thought about leaving a snarky comment, "great Christian witness you are", or "casting stones are we?", but knew that was just stooping to their level. The discourse on the post was already flaming and the "stupid liberals" phrase was being banded about so much I knew whatever I had to say was going to fall on deaf ears. Ultimately, the decision I needed to make was simple. With one click we were no longer FB friends. I haven't talked to them since and, honestly, that's okay.

Twenty-nine years later, I couldn't tell you the book I was reading or the make, model and color of the car next to me. I couldn't even give you a really good description of the leering man in the car next to me. What I do remember is the feeling of being violated, in a sense. Even recounting the experience my stomach turns and I feel slightly ashamed, and all I was doing was studying in my car by the beach. Just because I didn't tell anyone, doesn't make it any less real. Just because I didn't report it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I wonder if that extended family member would believe my story? Does actually knowing a person make their story more credible, more believable? Or would my "liberal" viewpoints overshadow my story, my experience? I'll probably never know.

Watch this space. There is more to come.

I used to blog a lot. In the "hay day" of blogging, it wasn't uncommon for me to post several times a week. I also used to have a lot more time to contemplate, where my introverted self wasn't being called on to be in extrovert mode. My job was to teach, to inspire, to create messages that engaged teenagers and encouraged them to explore the world of faith. Writing came naturally, speaking came naturally but I needed time and space to find the words to best convey the message. I had that in spades and thus creativity flowed pretty easily. 

Blogging was an overflow of having time and space to think. A thought might ruminate for a day or two but once I had the moment to write, the words would usually come out quickly. Of course, there are many drafts that never made it to the light of day, but the words were typed out on the screen, even if no one else ever saw them.

I'm now in a job that requires my 90% introverted self to be 95% extroverted all day long. My day is a constant disruption, from the moment I walk in the door until everyone else leaves. Emails, calls, Teams messages, people walking in and sitting down on the couch, someone calling across the room, interaction with others is my constant. If I'm NOT disrupted for an hour, it's unusual. By the time I come home at night, my brain is tired. The half thought-out blog post that I had on my way TO work, is long gone. I have nothing else to give.

I still have a lot to say, though. It's buried underneath the layer of tiredness that is my ever-present companion. When I do have time to stop and think, that's about all I do is stop and think. Sometimes I will snap a photo and do a quick rumination of something or other on Instagram. But pulling out the computer, signing on and actually blogging...yeah, that doesn't happen. Just thinking about doing all of that wears me out. 

My heart, however, longs to get back to this space. A place where I can stretch my own thoughts. Where I'm not limited by the amount of characters. Where I can write a sentence and erase it easily because that's not what I REALLY mean. (I can't tell you how many posts I've deleted on Instagram and started over because I deleted ALL the words and not just one sentence.)

I long to get back to writing. To creating. To imagining. To exploring. To being a little daring and speaking out, even when it's scary, on things that really matter. To sharing from my soul to anothers. I'm tired of being so exhausted the everyday by the trials and tribulations of being a Customer Service Manager, that I don't have space to create.  

I don't know what to do about that, how to leap over the burden of being mentally wiped out and carving out room for my creative brain to engage with this space again. But my soul is telling me it is time. There are words that need to be "spoken", topics that need to be broached, feelings to be expressed and there is this space just sitting here waiting.

Watch this space. There is more to come.

A post about nature and me

There was a spider in my hair this morning. My hair was in it's usual half bun/half ponytail, messy from sleeping. I took out the hair tie, felt a knot of hair and thought not much of it since I was headed to the shower. Washed my hair, took my hands out of my hair and there was something stuck on one hand that wasn't hair. I reacted like any startled person should, I violently shook my hand and off flung a spider...dead. It went down the shower drain. I have no idea if the spider crawled in during the night or got stuck in there when I was briefly doing yard work last evening. All I know is there was a spider in my hair and I've been grossed out all day long. I've felt like something was crawling on me and my head has itched. I remembered hearing stories of the spiders that somehow lay their eggs under peoples skin and, eventually, when the eggs hatch a spider emerges from.the.human, which has me a little paranoid! NO, NO, NO!! (Pretty sure this happened to the sister of one of my friends. She was living in Africa at the time, but still!)

The night before the skunk visited our house. It was outside, but I sleep with a window cracked open and that stinker made itself known about 10pm. I was closing windows, lighting candles, turning the air purifier on high and basically doing anything I could to get the smell of skunk out of the house. I finally blew out the candle (cause we all know it's not okay to go to sleep with a candle burning!) and went to sleep about 11:30pm only to have the phone ring at midnight. Phones ringing at midnight in my house means bad news...or, in this case, the stupid junk fax people that keep trying to fax to our home phone. Of course, I was awake then. I got back to sleep after 1:30am only to wake up at 3am, because, well I have no idea. I got back to sleep about 4:30am and then the alarm went off at 5:45am. I was kind of a mess at work on Monday.

Some parts of nature and I are not getting along these days. But then there is nature on the deck that I'm getting along well with. Beautiful daffodils, freshly potted pansies, violas and petunias. Plus the cool new solar fountain I got for Christmas and the other plants that are starting to come back after winter. The front deck is my happy place in nature these days. OH and we had a visitor back in February that we caught on camera. Unfortunately this visitor brought an unwilling guest...but hey, that's nature!

The road to blogging again starts with a sentence...or maybe two

The words that seem to flow easily through my head in the car or in the shower tend to stop as I get to this page and the blinking cursor. That is, if I make it to a computer at all. Blogging on a cellphone or on a tablet just doesn't work for me. I need the clicking of a keyboard, my fingers working and back and forth spilling out my thoughts onto a blank, white page. But turning on a computer at night, after a long day of work isn't always appealing. So the thoughts, the words, the blog post ideas, wither away within my brain.

13 blog posts sit as drafts. On the rare moments when I sit down watch the cursor flash on this blank page, I get only so far and then I lose momentum. I can't find an ending. Wrapping up my thoughts seems to be too difficult, require too much energy and so I hit "save" and another draft is racked up.

Spending time writing is one more thing that has taken a back seat to work. Writing used to be something that I did for work. Passionate words about God and Faith and Jesus that flowed from my heart. My words weren't always written on a page but written in my heart and spoken to ears that needed to hear. Now, the words I write are about office supplies. They don't really come from my heart and, though I am an office supply junkie, I'm not really passionate about them. Somewhere in this journey of life, I wandered away from writing, and I want to get back there again.

And so, the road to blogging, the road back to writing starts now. With one sentence, and then another, and another, and another...