Snapshots.

After very little sleep last night, I decided to take a quick cat nap this morning after getting the kids off to school. Knowing I have a long full day ahead, I usually cannot nap and don’t like to, but thought it was necessary.

I closed my eyes and immediately had a dark sensation overwhelm me. I thought how lucky I was to be afforded this time, and also how peaceful it was at that very moment, but how quickly things can change in an instant.

After a stressful morning and short fuse, I really needed this rest. But my peaceful moment was now being flooded with memories swirling like snapshots in photographs…

Within seconds I was there again…so clear and vivid…so chilling.

My mind was telling me a story again that I think about occasionally, but always on this day…every year…for eight years.

The time span of these snapshots this morning was not even thirty seconds maybe, but enough (coming fast and furious) to bring me to tears and wide awake.

The hotel lobby…the room…the smells…the pool…our luggage…

There were no cat naps or resting now.

I remembered the dark room in the spa. The knock on the door. The annoyance visibly spread over the masseuse’s face. No one ever interrupts a massage.

This was my moment of relaxation after several days in Disney with family-we finally planned it right…de-stressing from a whirlwind five days in Disney, now in Clearwater at a quiet hotel on the water.

The de-stressing never happened.

The car ride to Clearwater was more stressful than the visiting of the parks…the children were tired and cranky. We became tired and cranky…we should have just headed home.

But after several trips to Disney, we saved for this treat, knowing we always wished to find some chill out time after long full, yet fun days in the parks.

The following morning after we arrived in Clearwater, I was treated to a massage-a little Mommy pampering (maybe a belated birthday gift from a few weeks prior?), then back to the husband and kiddies for some beach or pool time…whatever we wanted at our own pace…we were relaxing…finally.

The knock on the door during my massage immediately made me think something was wrong with the kids, or maybe my husband’s 98 year old Grandmother back home who wasn’t well before we left…

The girl at the door told the masseuse it was an emergency and I needed to find my husband right away.

I quickly got dressed and found my phone buzzing away and noticed several missed calls from back home…oh shit.

What on Earth is going on????

I walked back into the vast lobby and see my husband charging down the stairs white as a ghost…where are my babies?

What is going on?

My husband was running to the car to search for his cell phone after getting a call in the room from a friend back home…

It’s gone…all gone.

Our home burned, not to the ground…but everything is gone…

The rest of the story now leaves me in tears as I write this…the hysterics on our children’s faces as we tell them what happened…

Their toys, their clothes, pictures…everything…their stuffed animals and trophies…their beds…

Where will we go?

What will we do?

The nightmare trip home of begging to get on a flight…only to have it delayed overnight because birds flew in the engine…

Are you frigging kidding me??

Why? Why now? How much more bad karma can one family take?

It could be worse, we were told…after almost 24 hours trying to get home, then arriving to family and friends covered in soot with tired eyes and heavy hearts…

These snapshots will haunt us forever.

We rebuilt a stronger and safer home…our family and community surrounded us with love and food and shelter and clothing…even Halloween decorations to cheer up our girls…

We came out of it all that much stronger…

When we feel weak and can bare no more, we remember these snapshots as I did this morning from eight years ago today, they lift us up and tell us we can and we will be stronger.

 

October 20, 2008

“Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. Strength comes from overcoming the things you thought you couldn’t”- Unknown

 

 

Advertisement

Two Faces.

As I get ready to cast my first stone, many will say I shouldn’t dare say what I am about to say. That I too, have two faces.

We all do.

We have a good face, and a bad face.

The good one is wrinkle free, blemish free and smooth and soft like a baby’s bottom.

The bad face is ugly…oozing zits, lines, scars,  dark circles…you name it, it is there.

I tend to like to think that I could look in a mirror and see the good face…underneath, there are flaws, insecurities,  self-doubt. But confident enough to say that what I am looking at is worth it enough to smile back in the mirror at myself.

I have bad face days too…but not to the extent I am speaking of. The dark circles and lines build up to the surface after too many moments like the one inspiring me right now to write this all down and clear my head.

My head is swirling with the images and emotions of people with these two faces. That are making me feel ugly right now thinking this way. That cause me to be angry, or sad or mad or even jealous.

Horrible childish feelings that make me want to scream or cry…in their faces and beg them to explain why they do the things they do.

To say something so hurtful or jaded and pass judgement on someone and then befriend them…why? Out of pity for them so you mock them behind their backs as well? To not speak or utter a word to someone for ages, and yet constantly creep into their world and stir up these ugly feelings? That is what it is doing and I do not know why I let it in…I just cringe at the thought of how mean some people can knowingly be…sometimes they are even so aware that they are this way, and just don’t care…maybe because they need to have the last laugh? Feel vengeful after feeling tormented their whole lives for not fitting in or knowing how to show their true good face?

It must be easier to reveal their bad face to overcome their own insecurities and darkness inside. Because now as I write this, I am reflecting on more and more moments of people with their bad faces staring at me.

Maybe its me.

I bring out the worst in people? I cause them to dig deep in the darkness and say or do these terrible things?

I think not.

I may be a lot of things, but the one thing I will never  own is someone else’s b.s.

I have enough of my own, thank you.

If someone feels the need to entertain me or build a “friendship” based on these ugly truths/lies/gossip, then they are no friend of mine.

At some point we should all have a comfort level to say how we really feel about someone or something. ..but only if we know that other person really well or “think about what you are going to say before you say it” mommy-ism in the back of our heads making sure we edit our thoughts and feelings before putting them out in the universe.

But sadly, many do not think before they speak…including me. But some things are better left unsaid. And the moments that are gnawing at me now are ones that should have stayed tucked away...forever.

I want to crawl under a rock or run far away from people like these, and cry for them.

I pity them…I know I am not perfect, but I have never recalled a moment where I could show such a wicked ugly face then turn and have my pretty happy face on, ready to put on a good show.

As I get older,  I am thinking maybe I just think too much…or care too much. Even about that person who was judged, who doesn’t want or need me anymore, and maybe even that dark ugly face of the person who always shows me their good face, to then turn their back and a split second later speaks ill of me.

I need to stop.

I have vented before about these trivial things because they truly do bug me. I don’t know why. My husband could care less about them. I don’t think that’s the right answer either though…

We should care how we treat each other and the example we set for our children…karma is a you-know-what so we need to remember our kids are watching and listening to every word we say…and checking our faces that we show them…the good one, or the bad.