Someone recently reached out .... and I’ve been twisting things around in my head for a while.
Hey y’all....
This isn’t an easy to write. I feel like the piece of me that used to run SCaR all those years ago is finally at rest. They don’t need to be rustled or poked back into existence- it wasn’t a healthy place for me to be.
But messages prove that people still think of them from time to time. Worry about them.
About me. Because as much as I talk about Kris from SCaR these days as a ghost, that was me.
So this is to say, I’m still alive for anyone who was worried. Alive and well. I’m married, living in a little two bedroom apartment with my wife. It’s blue, very very blue. I’ve worked hard to make it ours, to claw a space for myself. I work 50+ hours a week and am currently trying to work on my life balance. I say life balance because the truth is I am still happiest while I am working. My job is wonderful and fulfilling. I am making a difference, even if it is only in the lives of a small number of people.
I don’t get messages about saving people’s lives anymore, but I don’t get them about destroying them either. I look back at who I was and just see a bleeding wound who never listened to the age old advice about putting your own oxygen mask on first. And as much as I cherish the fact that I did help some people, I also understand that at times I was a mess. That for some, it was even anxiety inducing to watch. I apologize for that. I know how scary it is to watch someone light themselves on fire.
I want you to know that I’m in a better place now. That I sleep 8 hours a night consistently and my wife makes sure that I eat dinner and drink water. That I’ve been working on my physical health- did you know that if you’re flat footed, you can fix that? I didn’t even realize that was possible. It wasn’t a goal I set out to achieve, but as I’ve worked on my body’s balance I’ve grown an arch. How wild is that?
My father finally passed, last fall. I know many people in my life know how he struggled with his health, and how exhausted and scared I was for him all the time. A heart attack took him the week he was diagnosed with cancer. I am still grieving- but I bought a beautiful windchime in his honor and it’ll hang facing the roses we planted last year. He always loved roses. And I made a photo book of all the photos that we’re both in. Trauma means I still don’t remember those times, but the photos are a firm reminder that it happened. That he was there, and there were moments of happiness.
That’s where I’m at on my trauma journey. Less walking wound, more perspective.
I hope that you all are well too. I hope the years aged you with kindness, and that you weathered the storms that came with them. That there were glimpses of joy and humanity in the years that have passed. I wish you rest in the future. I wish you softness and not needing to be tough to survive.
I thought I would be a wound forever, that the blood could never wash from my teeth. C-PTSD is a lifelong illness.
But these years between now and then have taught me that it doesn’t always have to look the same. If this message imparts anything, I hope it imparts that. That life can grow around the pain.
Take care of yourself today, okay?
