Second Chances

As the fifth anniversary of my being revived after a Sudden Cardiac Arrest happened (in 2010), I wanted to write about it. After all, we don’t all get a second chance at life. I wanted to commemorate the occasion. However, what I found was that I couldn’t write the story as a true memoir.

I don’t know if I didn’t trust my writing skills. I didn’t know if I doubted my ability to tell the story in a heartfelt and meaningful way. Or – most likely – I didn’t have the strength to dig down deep and acknowledge my true feelings and thoughts from life since that moment.

So, I did what any self-respecting ‘chicken’ would do. I wrote the book but told it in a fictional manner. I created Jenny and had her tell her story. So, although many of the incidents and thoughts are true, including pieces of my actual journal entries here and there, it’s told as a fictional tale in A Second Chance.

I had thoughts about writing another book, this time a true memoir. But it’s not going to happen this year. This year is already so horrendously crazy that I know it won’t happen. Plus…I need to find where I filed all my notes and journals from twelve years ago. You know, where I stashed them for ‘safekeeping’.

Here’s a snippet from A Second Chance.

In trying to narrow down what I really wanted to do with my life, I started examining my dreams and goals. When I talked to someone else, I asked them what theirs were. I guess I thought that in seeing what everyone else dreamed of, I’d find a clue to my own ambitions.

I asked my friends about theirs.

Carla wanted to travel. A lot.

Amber wanted to lose weight. And she wanted to meet a wonderful man and fall in love.

Nancy never shared her private dreams. If she had any, she kept them hidden deep within.

Wanda, she just wanted to be famous. Although she professed that her dream was ‘to help others’, she was more transparent than she thought and time soon revealed her true motives.

I asked people that I met around the neighborhood and while out on errands.

The postman, he wanted to win a marathon.

The cashier at the grocery store, her big dream was to complete her bachelor’s degree.

I asked my coworkers at Crafty Hands.

Diane dreamed of finishing her showpiece garden.

Leanne’s dream was to open her own animal shelter.

Jane dreamed of having a successful business – any business – that wasn’t Crafty Hands.

Marvin fooled me. I thought his answer would be a promotion to manager. Nope. His dream was simply to hang on through the next five years and make it to retirement.

Go to Fiji, work at a big cat sanctuary, learn to weave, learn to make soap…every person I asked had something different. Some desires were small and achievable. Some longings were lofty and seemingly unattainable.

Most could only be accomplished after many steps and sometimes a lot of effort. Patience and fortitude would be required before many saw their end result.

A marathon runner doesn’t go from nothing to a five mile run without repetitive practice and work. Every day, or several times a week, the runner is sprinting, gaining endurance, and building their muscles. Hot or cold. Sunshine or rain. The runner practices, practices, practices until the goal is achieved.

No one else’s dreams and goals helped me focus on my innermost desires. But, they pointed out lessons I still needed. Perseverance was a common denominator in most of the goals. Patience was another.

Practice was needed for almost all of them.

Thinking of the inner critic mentioned above, my thoughts traveled to: I should have done this. I should have said this. I should have added this. That dreaded inner critic of mine never shuts up or goes away.

However, this harping pesky critter, so annoying and obnoxious, often bore knowledge I needed to see or learn.

I’m not the best observer of details. I’ve admitted this for a long time. I’ve often joked that I’d be a horrible police witness. If someone asked me to describe a robber, I’d probably say, “Ummmmm…It was a guy. Just your average guy. Hmmmmm…What he was wearing? I don’t remember. T-shirt and jeans? Maybe a ball cap. Glasses? I don’t remember. I didn’t pay that much attention.”

This inner critic sat on my shoulder the other day, yammering away. As if it’s ever gone for long. It’s summer and the weather is beautiful. You’d think it would be off relaxing somewhere, on a tropical beach or someplace. But no! Here it was, hanging out with me, in the back of a huge air-conditioned building where you can’t even see a window or the glorious outdoors, watching me cut fabric. It sprawled across my shoulder, making itself comfortable.

“Psssst,” I heard a soft whisper in my ear.

I ignored it.

“PSSSSTTTT,” it got louder.

I tried swatting it off of my shoulder, to no avail. It can be so persistent, that inner critic.

“HEY!” it screamed at me. I swear, I think it moonlights wearing that tight little red suit, complete with gleaming horns, a pointed tail and pitchfork in hand.

“What do you want?” I answered back. “Can’t you see I’m working here?”

“You’re not very observant,” Ms. IC told me.

“Yeah, so tell me something I don’t know. Go away, I’m busy.”

“You don’t notice details.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “So…I don’t notice details. I’ve never been good about paying attention to little things. There are more important things in this world than seeing what kind of shirts and shoes everyone has on. So, what about it?”

Ms. IC straightened up her shoulders and cleared her throat. “Don’t you see? If you want to be fully aware of life, you need to pay attention to details. It’s the specifics that will add dimension. You can’t go around, cloaked in oblivion, in your own little world.”

Ah, the voice of wisdom. I stopped trying to swat her off my shoulder and stroked the top of her cute little head.

Minor, insignificant details; I need to pay attention to them. I realized that this will take practice. Maybe I should shoot for that marathon instead. No, I’ll keep muddling through with my other efforts. A bruised ego sounds less painful than hurting, aching muscles.

It’s a funny thing about life, I found. It’s odd to see how the lessons build on each other. Or, was it that the more aware I became, the more I saw?

A Second Chance: Tuesday Tales Bookstore

Tuesday Tales Bookstore debuts today. Tuesday Tales is a group of authors that post a weekly snippet, written to a different word or picture prompt. Today we’re sharing some of our published books, stories that got their start in Tuesday Tales. I’m sharing one of my books, A Second Chance.

Here’s a blurb about A Second Chance, followed by an excerpt. Take a peek and check it out. Then head back to Tuesday Tales for more fascinating reads. (Pssst…I’ve heard that some of the authors may even be sharing some FREE books on their pages!)

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Not everyone gets a second chance at life. Usually, ‘the end’ is just that – the end. But, sometimes, a lucky person steps away from death’s door and gets a second chance. Jenny got hers one day on an early morning flight to California. But now she faces something even bigger. What will she do with this second chance that was offered to her? Will her life change? Will she do anything differently? Or will she fill her life with the same choices she made before her cardiac arrest?

Here’s an excerpt from A Second Chance:

Chapter 7

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

 

December 14th

Although I despised working almost every Saturday, the one saving feature was that I had a day off during the week. This Tuesday morning I enjoyed a leisurely morning of sleeping in.

After pouring a glass of orange juice, I turned on my computer and quickly went to Facebook to catch up with the world around me. Michelle Barr, an inspirational woman I follow, had posted an interesting thought. She was talking about dreaming big dreams and setting goals and intentions, and she wrote:

“…everything that is not in alignment with that rises up to be healed or transformed. I call that ‘Your stuff coming up.’ You can choose to heal and clear this so that you can move forward…”

Hmmm, I’ve noticed that my dreams contained lots of anger. There were old frustrations surfacing in my mind, mostly when my body had shut down for the night. Some of these memories and angers were from way back, some of them twenty years ago. Maybe, in order to heal and go forward, I couldn’t suppress these feelings anymore. I needed to deal with them to heal.

I knew that one way of releasing hurts and negative emotions is journaling. I decided to pursue that, to try to clear the chaff from my mind and my subconscious. I headed to my bookcases, knowing I had several nice, blank journals to choose from. Looking through them I couldn’t decide which one to use. They were all too ‘pretty’; too pretty to write ugly thoughts in.

Maybe a school composition book.

Then I had another thought. If I’m writing these words to ‘get them out of my life’, then I don’t want them written down and engraved in ink so that I can go back and re-read them, keeping them permanently on the page.

I decided to use scrap paper and write the ‘ugly’ things on them, the musings I didn’t want to see again, the thoughts and feelings I was trying to release. I’ll write them down, then tear up the paper and toss it in the trash. They will be my trash journals. I thought that the tearing up and throwing away would symbolically help me too.

The next day at work, as I headed out to my car for lunch, I grabbed some scratch paper to take with me. I scribbled away the entire time.

December 15: I’m going to begin my ‘trash’ journal. I don’t want to write in a pretty journal and keep my words forever. I don’t want these where anyone else can see them   I don’t want them where I can go back and re-read them and keep them in my mind. The purpose of these are to release the negatives and the anger – to write it and acknowledge it and then throw the words away and move on with my life.

I’m trying to accentuate the positive – to think on the good things to bring more of the good into my life. But … I still have some angers and negative, complaining thoughts in my head. Some old. Some new. Some frustrations with life. I won’t consider these complaints as I’m trying to strive to be complaint-free. This is for healing. Because I find if I don’t express these thoughts, they creep into my dreams and my sleep. They find their way to surface in some manner. And working themselves out in anxious, angry dreams isn’t helpful. It brings matters to my attention, but if I don’t do anything, it’s like an un-lanced abscess – still festering away and keeping me from the peaceful, joyful life that I deserve.

Releasing these feelings will allow for an enhanced spiritual life – one where I know myself better – where I’m more attuned to those around – where my spiritual and psychic senses can open up –a life where I can be in contact with my guides and where life in general is the life I need to be living.

I fully believe that for circumstances to have been what they were the day my heart stopped, that it was not my time to go. There is still more I need to learn or something I still have yet to do. Otherwise, I would have left this life peacefully fifteen minutes before the alarm on a normal, routine Thursday morning.

Instead, I was in an airplane, in an unusual and out of the ordinary trip to San Francisco – with Carla beside me to sound the alarm and start CPR to keep me here … with three doctors within a forty to fifty foot radius of me … with medical equipment and a defibrillator within arm’s reach.

What are the odds of that? Astronomical, I’d venture to guess. To know this, with every fiber of my being – but yet to continue life as before – unchanged – would be a gross waste. A travesty.

To honor the unseen guides and loved ones that were with me, and the physical beings on this earthly plane that were responsible for keeping me here with every effort of their beings, I choose to move forward and live a higher life. The purpose of my life is not to work a mundane day-to-day job, to eke out a bare bones paycheck-to-paycheck life. The trivialities and pettiness of co-workers are not important to me or why I’m here. I choose to move beyond that.

I choose to do the things necessary to my life, in living a higher life. One of the necessary things I need to do is to release anger and frustration – not to keep them sequestered and buried deep in the recesses of my mind. That, I choose to begin doing today. The other things, I’ll learn along my new path.

I intended to write down the ugly thoughts, then tear them up and throw them in the trash.

Something about this first journaling prompted me to keep it. I began with negative thoughts and emotions, yet thirty minutes later, at the end of my lunch, I’d already moved into an epiphany. I felt I needed to keep this ‘A-Ha’ moment.

I met Carla for dinner that night, and shared what I’d been contemplating all day.

“I’ll be changing,” I warned her.

“Changing?” she asked, acutely more attentive to my words. “Changing how?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll find out as I go along. It won’t be huge changes, like I’m not suddenly going to start doing drugs…or move to Alaska…or have any other drastic life changes. My basic personality is still going to remain ‘me’. But my life has to change, in some fashion. It would be a huge waste if it didn’t.”

I read her the last part of what I’d written and tried to explain how I felt I must become more attuned with my spirituality, not in a “church” or organized religion way, but as my inner being and connectedness to a higher power and all that is linked together. I had to question ‘why?’ I intended to slough off the pretenses and false faces that I often wear to the rest of the world. I had to become real. I had to be true to myself.

“I still don’t totally understand. C’mon Jenny. Fess up. Are you…like…gonna move? Going to change jobs? Shave your head and move into a commune?” she joked.

“No, nothing that radical. But, I have to take this second chance and have it stand for something. I have to change.” I took a sip of water, trying to come up with the words to explain what raced around in my brain. “To continue life unchanged is like taking this second chance and throwing it in the trash. It would make it mean nothing. And, I don’t want to disregard the importance of this opportunity.”

“As long as we’re still friends. I don’t want to lose your friendship over your journey of becoming more, as you say, real.”

“We will always be friends. You know how far Amber and I go back. You know I don’t take my friendships lightly, nor do I lose friends over trivial matters.” I reached across the table and patted her hand to acknowledge my words. “But, to go further with these new goals, to take off my masks and attempt to truly live a more authentic life, with loftier dreams and aspirations – will mean I must make changes in my life.”

That night I copied a quote in my journal, my ‘pretty’ journal, the one that I keep:

“Nature is one connected whole. At any given moment every part must be precisely what it is, because all other parts are what they are, and not a grain of sand could be moved from its place without changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.” Johann Gottlies Fichte, 1800

After the quote, I added these words:

My intent is to move some grains of sand, not a lot of sand, but important ones. And in the moving of these few select grains, the immeasurable whole will reflect changes. I cannot do this and remain the same identical person.

Onward bound, here we go…to a life with greater awareness!

Whatever that life may be. What was coming up ahead was the biggest mystery and I had no earthly idea what was in my future.

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

A Second Chance is available as an ebook or paperback

Release Day – A Second Chance

It’s here! A Second Chance is available, just in time to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of my own Sudden Cardiac Arrest. And yes, many of my own experiences and journal entries in the five years since have been sources of inspiration for Jenny’s story. (With some fictionalizing, much name changing and a lot of embellishments added.)

A Second Chance is the prequel to My Wildest Dream, where Jenny decides to leave Crafty Hands, follow her own dreams, and be true to her inner self. Once she figures out exactly who that inner soul truly is. (My Wildest Dream releases in January 2016.)

The 1,825 days – or 43,800 hours – or 2,628,000 minutes – since my heart started beating again has been an adventure. While no, not all of it has been easy, nor would I want to repeat a few instances here and there, I am truly grateful for my own second chance at life – a chance to create a meaningful one full of passion and possibility.

Here’s a snippet from A Second Chance. I hope you enjoy it and that it raises a few questions in your own life. Celebrate life and enjoy every breath you take!

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If there’s not something in your life right now that gets you excited to jump out of bed each and every day, it’s time for a new direction. Life is meant to be lived. Life is about expanding your boundaries and squeezing out every bit of your passions and talent each and every day. If things are not working out right now, that’s okay. Decide to chart a new course, a new you, and a life full of possibilities. Brad Gast

September

The wolves howling on my phone told me it was Carla calling without even seeing her face appear on the screen. “Meet me for dinner sometime this week? I have a book I think you’d like.”

“Any night but Wednesday or Friday,” I answered. “I have to close those nights.”

“Thursday? At Chili’s?”

“Perfect.

Thursday night couldn’t get here fast enough. This was the kind of week that cried out for a frosty, cold margarita. Carla looked up with a surprised look on her face when I ordered one. “Whaaaat? You don’t usually order alcohol. What’s up?”

“It’s been one of those weeks. Annoying customers, a manager that got on my last nerve, and a few coworkers that I could just about strangle.”

“Your manager being a jerk this week?”

“Not so much that. It’s just that sometimes I wonder how he gets through the day. I have an appointment next week and I submitted my form three weeks ago to have Tuesday off. The schedule comes out today…and he has me working that day.”

The server approached with our drinks and Carla reached for her sweet tea. “Remind him about it. Tell him he screwed up.”

Things were so cut and dried for Carla. She never had a problem speaking up. “I told him. It’s fixed. But it’s aggravating because this consistently happens. Once here or there wouldn’t be bad. But over half the time? That starts to get old.” A nice long sip of the frosty beverage in front of me soothed my inner beast. At least temporarily. “And then there’s Vicky. I was ordering today, so I could see when people went in the break room. Vicky took six breaks today. Six! And at least two of them were close to thirty minutes.”

“How does she get any work done at that rate?”

“I have no earthly idea. When I was clocking out for lunch, she was at lunch in the break room. She got up from the table, punched back in, then went and sat back down at the table to finish her conversation with Shauna.” Another big gulp of slushy margarita slid down my throat. “Oh good Lord, those women drive me crazy sometimes.”

“So…what would you rather do?”

“I don’t have a clue. Anything but Crafty Hands. I want out of there so bad.”

The server sat a steaming plate of fresh grilled tilapia covered in mango sauce in front of me, distracting me. “All it needs is a little sprig of fresh rosemary on the top.” I glanced over towards Carla’s meal. “Those sizzling fajitas look good too.” Those were the last words we spoke for a while as we each dove into our dinner.

Carla groaned and laid her fork down. “I can’t eat another bite. I’m stuffed.” She tipped her glass up and emptied the last of her tea. “Oh, I almost forgot your book.” She rummaged around in the bag she’d carried in with her, pulled out a paperback and handed to me.

“The Joy Diet, by Martha Beck,” I read aloud from the cover. “Have you read it?”

“Yes. I really enjoyed it. I thought you would too.”

I barely heard her as I scanned the blurb on the back.

Carla kept talking, even though I hadn’t acknowledged her earlier statement. That’s one thing about Carla though, she doesn’t need much interaction. She can keep the conversation going pretty much on her own. “I marked a section for you.” She pointed to a little yellow sticky note protruding from the center of the book. “Some of it seemed to match the questioning you’ve been going through lately. The author talks about being truthful with ourselves and how we can disengage from our experiences.”

“I don’t feel that I’m disengaging,” I countered. “I’m trying to dig deeper and be more real.”

“You are now. But maybe before you were, to some extent.”

“Maybe,” I reluctantly agreed.

“In the section I marked, she talks about words Virginia Woolf wrote long ago. Something about ‘living behind a pane of glass’. It’s how we distance ourselves from our reality, and that while living behind this pane of glass is numbing and empty, it also feels safe.”

Touché! How much of my life did I spent behind this numbing pane of glass? I’d never knew that I’d done this. Thumbing through the pages, I glanced at some of the headings. “Guess what I’ll be reading at bedtime tonight?”

Carla began humming a familiar tune and I knew the words as they fell from her lips. “…I…have become comfortably numb…”

“Pink Floyd,” I chimed in. The wheels in my head were already turning. I was thinking of the distancing I’ve allowed in my life. To live an authentic life and be true to myself, I must know myself – my true being – without the cloak of protection this gauzy layer provides me. So, what is my true being? What do I want to do with my life?

A Second Chance is available at Amazon

A Second Chance – Tuesday Tales ‘glass’

Here’s another snippet from A Second Chance, the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and is grappling with a flurry of thoughts and emotions about it. Her friend, Carla, is trying to help her figure out type of work she wants to do. This week our prompt is ‘glass’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

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October 21^st

Carla rummaged through the small ice chest sitting beside the park bench where we were leisurely eating our lunch and enjoying the October afternoon. She pulled out a small container and opened the lid, revealing two cupcakes laying inside, decorated with bright purple frosting proclaiming ‘1’. “Surprise! They’re chocolate. Your favorite.” Holding the treats out for me to take one, she continued. “So…how do you feel now that it’s been a year since your cardiac arrest?”

Not quite sure how to answer, I paused and gazed out at the pond in front of us, as smooth as glass except for the ripples around the fountain in the center. “Kind of strange actually. I mean, I’m glad…I’m really glad that I’ve had this time, an extra year that for all accounts I shouldn’t have had…”

“As you should be! And I, for one, am very glad that my friend is still here…living and breathing!” With that she bit into her cupcake, getting almost half the dessert in one bite.

Laughter bubbled up when I turned and saw her face with purple icing smeared all over her upper lip. I nibbled at mine, not wanting to make the same diner’s mistake. “It doesn’t seem like a year. It’s gone by in a flash. It’s been very strange though…”

I turned back towards the pond and watched a turtle’s tiny head cutting through the surface towards the bank as I gathered my thoughts before continuing. “My awareness has certainly fluctuated throughout the year. There’s been times where I was acutely aware of this second chance I’ve been given and I’ve been abundantly thankful for every breath. And yet…there’s been other days where I’ve noticed that I’ve slipped into oblivion, caught up in old habits and just going through life, task by task, errand by errand – living life payday to payday.” I took the last bite of my cupcake and stuffed the paper liner in the trash bag that sat on the bench between us.

“You’re still alive. That’s the important thing. I mean…what would I do without my best friend to hang around with?” Carla held her water bottle up in the air as if an imaginary toast. “It would be awful lonely sitting here eating lunch all by myself.”

“But that’s just it. It’s not the most important thing. Well…it is…but it isn’t. I feel like I do at the end of the year when I think about the New Year resolution I made and how I didn’t accomplish any of it and now the year is over.”

“That’s why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.”

“That solves the problem for you. But I do. And here I am, 365 days later, and I’m also frustrated because I don’t feel that I’ve done enough with my extra time.” A hawk soaring over the park caught my attention and I pointed towards it. We both sat watching it as it circled, seemingly lazy in its drifting, yet knowing that it watched the ground beneath it intently, ready to dive in an instant.

After it drifted out of view, I continued with my rambling. “I read a quote last week that really made me think. It was by Milton…no, Mill…wait, I think I have it with me…” I stuck my fingers in my jeans pocket and pulled out a folded, and now slightly worn and worse for the wear, slip of paper.

I unfolded it and read it out loud. “It’s Millard Fuller, and he wrote ‘It’s not your blue blood, your pedigree or your college degree. It’s what you do with your life that counts.’ So…” I folded the paper back up and stuck in back in my pocket. “…what have I done in the past year that counted? Have I made good use of those extra days?”

“You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“Not really. What have I done any differently? Other than I stopped playing all those farm games on Facebook and started playing with real plants in my garden instead.” I stood and started pacing to counteract the restless feeling that threatened to consume me.

“That’s something. That’s a biggie. I mean, look how many hours I spend playing computer games.”

“It is. I admit it. But it’s still not enough.” I stopped at the huge oak tree towering over the park bench and placed a palm on the surface of its thick, rough bark. I stood mutely for a moment, trying to connect with the silent sentential, guardian of the park who had seen this area change over the past hundred years.

Carla remained quiet, letting me gather my thoughts, which was very odd in itself, as she was usually one who chattered like a magpie the whole time we were together.

Not getting any answer back from the tree, I continued. “What’s been one of my biggest gripes over the past year?”

“Not enough money?”

“Ha! That too. But besides that, what do I always seem to be complaining about?”

“Your job. Your boss. Your coworkers. Your schedule.”

Yep, Carla knew that one. She must have heard that song and dance from me more than once. “Exactly. Crafty Hands. In one form or another.” I took a deep breath and stood straight. “And where am I still at? Crafty Hands.”

“So get another job.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“There’s lots of jobs out there. You just haven’t looked.”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.

“Go apply at the new Aldi’s. Or Tom Thumb.”

“Yuck!” That response flew out of my mouth without any reservation. “I have no desire to work in a grocery store.”

“There’s lots of warehouses around. Try some of those.”

“Too physical.”

“Taco Bueno? Dairy Queen?”

“Nope. I’ve never worked in fast food in over fifty years. I don’t want to start now.”

For every idea Carla had, I had a quick negative response. For such a good friend that, I thought, knew me so well, she sure threw out a lot of ideas that didn’t tempt me in the least. I didn’t want to tell her what I really thought – that these were all dumb ideas. “Besides, even if I went to one of those places, I’d simply be trading in one time clock for another. One boss for another. It would only be a new company telling me when I had to be there and what I had to do every day. It wouldn’t be any different, it would only be in a different building.”

“True. But it would be a paycheck. And you need a paycheck.”

“Yes, I need the money. But I want it to be something creative, something that touches my soul, and something that’s not just a job.”

“Well, you’ve been doing all this gardening lately. Work at a nursery.”

“Naw. The plant part would be fun. I guess the big problem is that I don’t want to be an employee. I don’t want to be someone’s minion anymore.”

Carla stood and stretched, making a little groan as she twisted her back. “So start your own business. With plants.”

Hmmmm…maybe not all her ideas are stupid. I ran my fingers up and down the ridges in the tree’s bark as I thought about what she’d just suggested. “There’s lots of nurseries around…I’d need something slightly different…I need to tweak it a little…”

“So…what are your favorite plants?” She laughed as she watched me. “Except for fondling trees in the park that is?”

I looked at what I’d been doing and had to laugh too. I broke away from communing with my new found botanical friend. “My favorites? Iris. Herbs. Roses. Oak trees.” I patted my buddy to let him know he was in my list of favorites. “There’s already an iris business over in Argyle. But you know…there’s not really a nursery with a good selection of herbs. Calloway’s has a decent selection in the spring. But otherwise everyone carries the same old offerings of the basic dozen or so.”

“Lavender!” Carla started hopping around and waving her hands in the air. “There’s that lavender farm up in Gainesville. You could do something like that.”

“Well, yeah, but not with lavender. They’ve already got that market covered.”

“It doesn’t have to be lavender. There’s more herbs than that. But something similar. You know, with herbs, and a garden area, and a little shop inside.”

Heart’s Ease Herb Shop, Cambria, California

Pictures floated through my mind – images of a quaint little shop, filled with potpourris and sachets, teas and bundles of cinnamon sticks, jars of dried herbs and spices, books, live plants, birdhouses. It was like a slideshow flashing by filled with delightful scenes. I could almost smell the inside, fragrant with the aromas and scents of the goodies that stocked it from floor to ceiling.

“Earth to Jenny. Earth to Jenny.” My friend’s voice jerked me back to the present and I realized I’d been staring out across the pond, not seeing a single thing around me except for the vision of my new business.

“That’s it. An herb store. Not like jars of pills and bottles and extracts. But herbs, in the garden, and birdhouses and bee skeps and…”

A Second Chance – TT ‘grim’

Here’s another snippet from A Second Chance, the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and is grappling with a flurry of thoughts and emotions about it. This scene takes place months later as she joins a friend for dinner. This week our prompt is ‘grim’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

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The wolves howling on my phone told me it was Carla calling without even seeing her face appear on the screen. “Meet me for dinner sometime this week? I have a book I think you’d like.”

“Any night but Wednesday or Friday,” I answered. “I have to close those nights.”

“Thursday? At Chili’s?”

“Perfect.

Thursday night couldn’t get here fast enough. This was the kind of week that cried out for a frosty, cold margarita. Carla looked up with a surprised look on her face when I ordered one. “Whaaaat? You don’t usually order alcohol. What’s up?”

“It has been one of those weeks. Annoying customers, a manager that can be so incompetent sometimes, and a few coworkers that I could just strangle.”

“Your manager being a jerk this week?”

“Not so much that. It’s just that sometimes I wonder how he gets through the day. I have an appointment next week and I submitted my form three weeks ago to have Tuesday off. The schedule comes out today…and he has me working that day.”

The server approached with our drinks and Carla reached for her sweet tea. “Remind him about it. Tell him he screwed up.”

Things were so cut and dried for Carla. She never seemed to have a problem speaking up. “I told him. It’s fixed. But it’s aggravating because this consistently happens. Once here or there wouldn’t be bad. But over half the time? That starts to get old real fast.” A nice long sip of the frosty beverage in front of me soothed my inner beast. At least temporarily. “And then there’s Jane. I was ordering today, so I could see when people went in the break room. Jane took six breaks today. Six! And at least two of them were close to thirty minutes.”

“How’d she get any work done at that rate?”

“I have no earthly idea. When I was clocking out for lunch, she was at lunch in the break room. She got up from the table, punched back in, then went and sat back down at the table to finish her conversation with Shauna.” Another big gulp of slushy margarita slid down my throat. “Oh good Lord, those women there drive me crazy sometimes.”

“So…what would you rather do?”

“I don’t have a clue. Anything but Crafty Hands. I want out of there so bad.”

A steaming plate of fresh grilled tilapia covered in a mango sauce distracted me when it was placed before me. “All mine needs is a little sprig of fresh rosemary on the top.” I glanced over towards the dish being presented to my friend. “Those sizzling fajitas of yours look good too.” And those were the last words we spoke for a while as we each dove into our dinner.

Carla groaned and laid her fork down. “I can’t eat another bite. I’m stuffed.” She pushed her plate towards the center of the table. “Oh, I almost forgot your book.” She rummaged around in the bag she’d carried in with her and pulled out a paperback that she handed to me.

“The Joy Diet, by Martha Beck,” I read aloud from the cover. “Have you read it?”

“Yes. I really enjoyed it and I thought you would too.”

I barely heard her as I scanned the blurb on the back.

Carla kept talking, even though I hadn’t acknowledged her earlier statement. That’s one thing about Carla though, she doesn’t need much interaction. She can keep the conversation going pretty much on her own. “I marked a section for you.” She pointed to a little yellow sticky note protruding from the center of the book. “Some of it seemed to match some of the questioning you’ve been going through lately. She talks about being truthful with ourselves and how we can disengage from our experiences.”

“I don’t feel that I’m disengaging,” I countered. “I’m trying to dig deeper and be more real.”

“You are now. But prior to your cardiac arrest maybe you were to some extent.”

“Maybe,” I reluctantly agreed.

“The section I marked is where she talks about words Virginia Woolf wrote long ago. Something about ‘living behind a pane of glass’. It’s how we can distance ourselves from our reality, and that while living behind this pane of glass is numbing and empty, it also feels safe.”

Ouch! How much of my life have I spent behind this numbing pane of glass? I’d never noticed that I’d done this. Thumbing through the pages, I glanced at some of the headings. “Guess what I’ll be reading at bedtime tonight?”

Carla began humming a familiar tune and I knew the words as the fell from her lips. “…I…have become comfortably numb…”

“Pink Floyd,” I chimed in. The wheels in my head were already turning. I was thinking of this distancing that I’ve allowed in my life. To live an authentic life and be true to myself, I must get to know myself – my true being – without the cloak of protection this gauzy layer provides me. So, what is my true being? What do I want to do with my life?

“Why such a grim look?” Carla’s words interrupted my train of thought and brought me back to the two of us sitting in the restaurant.

“Just thinking. You know, wondering who I really am and what’s important to me and where I want to go from here.” I chuckled and tipped my glass up for the last of its melted liquid comfort.

“So…what do you want to do?” Once Carla started probing, she wouldn’t let it go. “If you left Crafty Hands, what type of job do you really want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. “I really have no earthly idea what I’d really like do instead.”

A Second Chance – TT ‘steel’

Here’s another snippet from A Second Chance, the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and is grappling with a flurry of thoughts and emotions about it. This scene takes place several months later as she and three friends, two of them psychic, spent several weekends in a row trying to find the body of a murdered woman. This week our prompt is ‘steel’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

*****

The alarm rang much too early for a Sunday morning, my one guaranteed day off. “This is the third week in a row. Ugh, this is getting old,” I grumbled to myself. I hit snooze, thankful for another five minutes of slumber before that obnoxious ringtone would interrupt me again.

Four snoozes later, I groaned and finally rolled over and sat up. I debated about skipping my morning shower. If this Sunday went anything like the past two, we’d all be filthy and sweaty by the end of the day. I headed towards the shower anyway.

There’s something about wanting to be clean and fresh for a girls day out, knowing that at least two of the four of us would be dressed to impress, especially Nancy. I don’t care how casual the outing was, Nancy always looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine. Carla, well she’d be in her typical tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans. Her attire never wavered. With Gail it was hard to tell. Sometimes she dressed in nondescript slacks topped with a nice ordinary blouse. When she was trying to prove how ‘psychic’ she was, she’d morph into Wanda the Fortuneteller, complete with crystals draped around her neck and bangles filling her arms.

I opted for my own off-duty uniform. Blue jeans, of course and my favorite gray t-shirt with dragonflies flitting all over the front of it. When I opened the door and realized how chilly the morning air still was, I returned to the bedroom and added an open Levi shirt with rolled up sleeves.

By the time I pulled into the parking lot where we all were meeting, I saw I was the last one there. The other three were standing around Nancy’s BMW chattering as if it had been years since we’d seen each other, instead of the single week that had passed.

“Hello!” All three called out to me. There was a brief pause in the conversation giving us time for hellos and hugs, and then Carla started talking again as if my appearance hadn’t happened. “I was thinking we could drive around the lake first to see if you pick up on anything, and then go to the old barn again.”

“Yes, the lake,” Gail broke in. “I was talking to some friends about it and it kept coming up that’s she’s buried under water. Under a bush.”

Her phrase caught my attention and I looked up to see if anyone had noticed it. ‘Talking to her friends’…hadn’t we all agreed that we weren’t going to mention our informal investigations to anyone else? Weren’t we going to keep quiet, until we found something concrete?

No one else seemed to notice. All three were talking fast and furious, as if each were trying to monopolize the discussion. My head bobbed back and forth, listening to all of them, with an occasional nod or ‘Uh huh’. Which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions, but when others dominate the conversation, I quiet down. This wasn’t a new occurrence with this group of friends. I’ve always been like that. The more animated the rest of the people get, the less I interject. Especially this early in the morning. I’d be perfectly happy if morning occurred, say, around noon.

However, even when I’m still half asleep, that doesn’t mean I don’t realize when I get cut off in conversation, nor does it mean it doesn’t bother me. We’d been together for several hours as we first walked around a cove area at Lake Lewis, and then moved to the old barn. After repeatedly being talked over, my aggravation level was increasing from a slow simmer to a rolling boil. We sat in the old barn, eating sandwiches we’d picked up at the sandwich shop where we’d met.

Gail was peering off in the distance, consulting with her ‘guides’. “She’s in here. She’s buried in this barn.”

Hmmm, I thought she’d been telling us how she was buried at the edge of the lake and was now under water. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. “But…what about the…”

“No. She’s here. They’re telling me that he buried her in here.”

“But Gail…didn’t you…”

“I know for a certainty.”

Carla wrapped her trash up and pushed it in the plastic bag. “Where in here though? This is a big barn.”

I tried again. “But I thought…”

“I brought my pendulum. Let me see what I get with it.” After digging in her pants pocket unsuccessfully, Gail stood to retrieve her divination tool from her slacks.

“Gail, didn’t you say…”

She turned her back on me and started pacing the length of the barn.

Clamping down the rush of steam that threatened to explode from my ears, I rose and stomped out of the barn. I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth right then, or something ugly was bound to pop out of it. Standing in the bright sunlight I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth, away from the chattering magpies inside. I let the angriness subside and seep out of my limbs into the earth beneath me.

Nancy’s quiet voice spoke beside me. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

“Trying to calm down.”

“Gail? She can be a bit dramatic sometimes.”

Rustling footsteps behind us approached as the other two joined us in the neglected field surrounding the ramshackle barn.

“The dramatic doesn’t bother me. It’s repeatedly being talked over and interrupted.” I spoke louder at the end of my sentence, making sure that the others could hear me as they got closer.

“But you never speak up,” Gail said. “You’re always the quiet one and the rest of us are so loud, we just tend to take over.”

“I can be loud too,” I protested. “Next week I’ll be the noisy one.” I spoke with steely regard. I was going to be too. Next week, I vowed, I’d talk up a storm and rule the group with my chatter.

On the drive home I was already contemplating the hat I was going to make that week. Maybe even a t-shirt…I was going to proclaim my noisiness to the world, or at least to those at our next outing.

My newfound plans lasted until I crawled into bed and picked up the book I’d been reading. In One Man’s Love Story, Jason Hughes had a statement that stopped me in my tracks. “…it is about feeling a oneness and unity between body, mind, and soul, and perfectly accepting ourselves just the way we are.”

Ouch!

Just the way we are.

I am not the noisy one. To think that I could suddenly transform myself into a talkative, boisterous woman taking control of the group and not letting them get a chance to talk is disregarding myself. It means I am not accepting myself just the way I am.

Despite this revelation, I did proceed with my plans to make a special ball cap to wear the next week. When we met at our usual parking lot the next Sunday, I was sporting my newest creation. Topping my head was a black ball cap, embellished with paint and rhinestones. ‘I’m the QUIET one & PROUD of it!’

A Second Chance – TT picture prompt

Here’s another snippet from A Second Chance, the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.
In A Second Chance, Jenny suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and is grappling with a flurry of thoughts and emotions about it. This scene happens after Jenny eludes a coworker’s invitation to lunch and she escapes to one of her favorite lunchtime locations…the local cemetery.

This week we’re writing to a picture prompt. The scenes will be short, 300 words or less, so it will be quick reading. For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

********

Something about this old, historic cemetery called to me. With hardly more than a handful of headstones, and just as many large rocks signifying a burial, it sat next to a new housing development of towering McMansions, fenced in but otherwise ignored.

I’ve loved visiting cemeteries for years, long before my cardiac arrest, so that’s not the reason. Cemeteries give me peace. Sitting there, trying to commune with lives past, is soothing to me. At one point in time, these people also walked this earth. They too lived and loved. They provided for a family, protected them, clothed them, they were a member of a community.

Maybe. They could also have been a traveler, a man out to see the world, without a place to call home, following the wind and a dream. Now, what’s left to commemorate their life is a headstone with a time-worn name etched in granite or stone. Sometimes only a half-buried rock or pile of rocks marks a place where a body was once buried. Many gravesites sprout trees or shrubs, sprouting from the place a body was once buried; a plant flourishing, taking nourishment from organic matter that the soul no longer requires.

Many people are cremated and have been scattered to the winds, the sea or the earth. No tangible monument marks the site of their final burial. Fifty or a hundred years from now, no one will stumble across a headstone, rock or tree, marking the site of their last earthly presence.

What memory of my life do I want to remain after I leave this cellular body?

What do I want to leave to the future besides a name etched on a granite stone?

A worthy answer eludes me.

A Second Chance – TT ‘hardy’

Here’s another snippet from A Second Chance, the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and is grappling with a flurry of thoughts and emotions about it. This scene takes place about four months later as she and three friends, two of them psychic, spent the day trying to find the body of a murdered woman. This week our prompt is ‘hardy’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

*****

We sat at our booth in the back of Waffle House, each of us intently looking at the menus, except for Carla who always knew immediately what she wanted. “Pork chops and waffles,” she announced.

I waited for the waitress to finish filling up the coffee cups before I looked up and asked my friends a question that had been bothering me for hours. “What made it Maureen’s time to die that day?”

“What do you mean?” Nancy asked. As the sensitive with the most accurate gift, you’d think she wouldn’t need to ask such a question.

I tried to explain, haltingly, searching for words to express the thoughts that tumbled around in my brain. “I mean…everyone always talks about ‘it’s your time to go’ or ‘it’s not your time to go’. But, what are the determining factors that make it ‘my time’?”

Nancy looked like she was thinking of an answer. Gail sat there trying to look wise and all-knowing, but naturally didn’t have anything to say yet. She had to see what Nancy said before she’d know which direction she wanted to take that would make her look the best. Carla was busy digging in her bag for her cigarettes and I don’t think she’d even heard what I’d said.

“Everyone keeps telling me that ‘it wasn’t my time.’ Which I get. I mean, when I look at the players that were in place, and the situation where I had immediate care, including oxygen, I can easily apply that phrase to what happened to me.” I stirred some creamer in my coffee, waiting. I wasn’t getting any immediate answers, so I continued rambling on. “So, why were all the synergistic forces in place that day to save my life, yet they weren’t there in December to save Maureen’s life? What made it her time?”

“We don’t know all the answers,” Nancy finally said. “Even I don’t. Just because I can contact people that have passed, they don’t give me knowledge of the other side.”

I kept on with my incoherent thoughts. “I kept thinking of questions I wanted to ask her. ‘Did you know you were going to die that day?’ ‘As you were putting on your makeup that morning, did you realize that this was your last day on earth in this physical body?’ ‘As you met with your attorney or drove out to the property, did the thought ever cross your mind that – today I’m going to die, today my husband’s going to kill me?”

“Now, we have to keep an open mind,” Carla spoke up. “We all think that her husband killed her. But there’s no proof yet. That’s what we’re trying to find.”

“I think he did. A big hardy farmer like he was, out in the remote area they lived, with two hundred acres at his disposal?” Nancy smoothed her loose bangs back behind her ear and gazed off into the distance as if trying to see something in the black night sky. “I think he had it planned. But I don’t think she saw it coming, or she wouldn’t have driven out there alone to take him the divorce papers.”

Gail finally spoke up. “Most people never know, since most people aren’t sensitive or aware of other worlds. They don’t know things such as I know.”

“But some people have premonitions, of their own or other’s deaths,” I argued back with her. “Not me. That day as I dressed and we drove to the airport, the thought never crossed my mind that ‘Today I will die’.”

Carla held up an empty coffee cup in the air, getting the waitresses attention and signaling for more. “I don’t think we’re meant to know. Most people wouldn’t have the strength to know things like that.”

“Wouldn’t our lives be much different though, if we knew?” I asked. “At work a lady told me how her daughter’s friend was spending the night and started crying. The daughter said she felt her mom was going to die. Jana said she did her best to comfort the child and reassure her. A week later the girl’s mother died form an unknown brain aneurysm.”

Gail replied, “She was probably a young sensitive. Children can be tuned into worlds that adults can’t see. Most lose that ability. Like me, I was a child when I started seeing people that weren’t there. With me though, instead of losing my ability, my gift has only gotten stronger through the years.”

I took a sip of coffee and searched her face for signs of deceit. A memory surfaced of when we were all at a meeting about a year ago. Carla specifically asked Gail about if she had any paranormal gifts and her reply was emphatically ‘no’. I didn’t wish to follow that line of inquiry right then. I was keeping my own doubts about this woman to myself.

Instead, I shared another story. “When my brother died, my sister-in-law told us that he’d been sleep-walking the night before. She said he’d been ill that evening with a fever and sweats. She woke up in the middle of the night as he was getting up and clumsily trying to put on a pair of shorts. She said she tried to get him back in bed and he said ‘I have too much to do.’ Do you think he knew his heart would give out at thirty-five years old?”

The waitress returned to fill our coffee cups and take our orders, bringing the conversation to a halt.

I mused to myself as the others were busy chatting. If my brother knew his heart would fail before the day was over, I doubt he would have gone to work that day. I feel certain that he would have spent the day at home with his wife, on the land that he loved.

Work. Is that how any of us would choose to spend our last living hours? Probably not if we knew it. Right now I work at Crafty Hands. Do I love it? Nope. Not one iota. If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, or next week, or next month…would I continue working there? Absolutely not. I’d call the boss and quit in an instant.

The conversation picked back up and I returned my attention to the three friends in front of me. I knew my thoughts would return to this subject later, when I could reflect on them more. Gail launched into a monologue about her physic abilities and how talented she was and how many people she’s accurately read for. I figured that she was tired of the conversation focusing on someone other than herself.

Our friendly server headed our way, her arms laden with plates. Talk stopped and we quieted down and spent our energy cleaning up our plates. It had been a long day out driving around the countryside as my friends attempted to tune into energies and messages from the other side.

Nancy finished her meal first, pushed the plate slightly away from her and leaned back in her seat. “I am so ready for a nap now. What time is it anyway?” She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and looked. “Oh my goodness. It’s eight o’clock already!”

“I’ve got to get home soon, then,” I said. “Tomorrow’s my long day. Six am will get here too soon.”

We quickly wrapped up the evening after that. Nancy and Gail headed off to their opposite sides of the world while Carla and I headed back to the parking lot where we’d met up. On the way back I ran some of my obscure thoughts by Carla. “So if working at Crafty Hands isn’t where I’d want to spend my last days, why am I still working there?”

“Um, other than the need to buy gas, buy food, or pay for silly things…like rent?” Carla suggested.

“Well, there’s that,” I agreed. “But it’s been several months since this all happened. If haven’t looked for a new job, there must be something holding me there. Maybe there’s a lesson I still need to learn.”

“Or, you’re comfortable there?”

That’s the bad thing about best friends. She knew me too well; probably even better than I knew myself. “Maybe you’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe a fear I’m afraid to face?”

Carla turned the corner that led into the parking lot where we’d met at eight o’clock that morning. When we’d made our plans for the day, I sure didn’t think that we’d really spend the whole day together.

It was a quiet drive home as I kept mulling over these thoughts. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from October experience it’s that life can end at any unexpected moment. Do I want the last days of my life filled with hours spent at a job I abhor, dreading the alarm clock each morning, hating the five days a week I have to go there?

No!

Life is too short to spend working at a job you don’t relish. However, In the interest of my desire to eat next week and have a roof over my head, I won’t go to work tomorrow and quit. Not yet.

A Second Chance – TT ‘buzz’

For Tuesday Tales this week I’m stepping away from the romance to finish up a contemporary fiction that’s due out in October. A Second Chance is the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny finds herself struggling with the aftermath of an unexpected sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). She is coming to terms with having a second chance at life and what these changes will mean to her current life. This scene of the story takes place about three months after the SCA. This week our prompt is ‘buzz’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

********

“Jenny, what on earth are you doing?”

Leanne’s voice pulled me from my deep thoughts as I stood in my aisle at work examining one of the products. “These are different.” I held up two sheets of plastic canvas for her to see.

She walked down the aisle, carrying a repack box and held it out in my direction. “These are yours. Not our department.” She laughed as she dropped it on the floor at my feet and held out her hands to see what I was so intently looking at. “I love it when I can pass stock onto someone else to put up.”

She held the two sheets, looked at one, then the other. She held them both up to the light. “And…?” She sounded perplexed.

“Look how different they are. This is the new one.” I reached for one and flexed it in the air. “Look how pliable and soft this one is. And it’s clearer.” I pointed to the other. “Look how stiff the older one is, and it’s not as clear.”

She nodded her head in agreement and handed the other sheet back to me. “I see that. It’s not like it’s defective though. Maybe they just changed suppliers or something.”

“Don’t you wonder why the older pieces are stiffer? Don’t you wonder if it’s the manufacturing process or the materials? Or, does it harden and stiffen with time and exposure to air?”

“Girl, you think about too many things. Who cares why they’re different?”

“I never did before. It caught my attention though, and I was curious.”

Leanne shook her head and started to walk away. “You’re getting strange. You’re different lately.” She stopped and straightened a few packages on my felting display, then turned with a parting jab. “You sure that cardiac arrest thing didn’t buzz your brain or something?”

As she darted away, back to her department as if she were going to ‘catch something’ if she hung around too long, a memory surfaced.

I remembered when I was about ten or eleven. Our family was driving from California to Ohio, My mom was driving with me, my brother, sister, and our four-year old cousin, Timmy. We had him with us so he could visit his dad in Michigan. The memory of this trip, engraved on my mind forty years later, is four-year old Timmy asking ‘Why’. Four thousand miles of: Why? Why? Why? Today, with many more than four years under my belt, I feel like I’m going through that four-year old phase … why, why, why?

I find I’m more curious about life and reality. I’m more curious about the “whys”. I catch myself asking ‘why’ about many things that I never would have given a second thought to before. Maybe Leanne is right. Maybe my cardiac arrest mixed up the circuitry in my brain somehow. Or, am I merely looking at life and the small details that fill our world with more interest and childlike awe?

A Second Chance – TT ‘writing’

For Tuesday Tales this week I’m stepping away from the romance to finish up a contemporary fiction that’s due out in October. A Second Chance is the prequel to My Wildest Dreams, the first book in A Growing Wings series.

In A Second Chance, Jenny finds herself struggling with the aftermath of an unexpected sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). She is coming to terms with having a second chance at life and what these changes will mean to her current life. We jump into this story about half way in, two months after the SCA, because it was the best scene to incorporate our weekly prompt of ‘writing’.

For more fascinating story snippets from the wonderful authors in the group, return to TUESDAY TALES here.

********

A few weeks later, one of the inspirational women I follow on Facebook posted an interesting thought. She was talking about dreaming big dreams and setting goals and intentions, and she wrote:

“…everything that is not in alignment with that rises up to be healed or transformed. I call that ‘Your stuff coming up.’ You can choose to heal and clear this so that you can move forward…”

Hmmm, I’ve noticed that these dreams contained lots of anger and ‘old’ frustrations, surfacing in my mind, mostly when my body has shut down for the night. Some of these memories and angers are from way back, twenty years ago some of them. Maybe, in order to heal and go forward, I can’t suppress these feelings anymore. I need to deal with them and heal them.

One way of releasing hurts and negative emotions is writing in a journal. I decided I needed to pursue this, to try to clear some of this from my mind and my subconscious. I headed to my bookcases, knowing I had several nice, blank journals to choose from. Looking through them I couldn’t decide which one to use. They were all too “pretty”; too pretty to write ugly thoughts in. I thought about getting a school composition book to write in. But then, I thought, if I’m writing these words to “get them out of my life”, then I don’t want them written down and “engraved” so that I can go back and re-read them, keeping them written and permanently in my life.

I decide to use scrap paper and write the “ugly” things on them, the thoughts I don’t want to see again, the thoughts and feelings I’m trying to release. I will write them down, then tear up the paper and toss it in the trash. This will be my “trash journals”. I think that the tearing up and throwing away will also symbolically help me.

The next day at work, as I headed out to my car for lunch, I grabbed some scratch paper to take with me. I scribbled away the entire time.

December 15, 2010: I’m going to begin my “trash” journal. I don’t want to write in a “pretty” journal and keep my words forever. I don’t want these where anyone else can see them – I don’t want them where I can go back and re-read them and keep them in my mind. The purpose of these are to release the negatives and the anger – to write it and acknowledge it and then throw the words away and move on with my life.

I’m trying to accentuate the positive – to think on the good things to bring more of the good into my life. But … I still have some angers and negative, complaining thoughts in my head. Some old. Some new. Some frustrations with life. I won’t consider these “complaints” as I’m trying to strive to be complaint-free. This is for healing. Because I find if I don’t express these thoughts, they creep into my dreams and my sleep. They find their way to surface in some manner. And working themselves out in anxious, angry dreams isn’t helpful. It brings matters to my attention, but if I don’t do anything, it’s like an un-lanced abscess – still festering away and keeping me from the peaceful, joyful life that I deserve.

Releasing these feelings will allow for an enhanced spiritual life – one where I know myself better – where I’m more attuned to those around – where my spiritual and psychic senses can open up – to a life where I can be in contact with my guides and where life in general is the life I need to be living.

I fully believe that for circumstances to have been what they were the day my heart stopped, that it was not my time to go. There is still more I need to learn or something I still have yet to do. Otherwise, I would have left this life peacefully fifteen minutes before the alarm went off on a normal routine Thursday morning.

Instead, I was in an airplane, in an unusual and out of the ordinary trip to San Francisco – with Carla beside me to sound the alarm and start CPR to keep me here … with three doctors within a forty to fifty foot radius of me … with medical equipment and a defibrillator within arm’s reach.

What are the odds of that? Astronomical, I’d venture to guess. To know this, with every fiber of my being – but yet to continue life as before – unchanged – would be a gross waste. A travesty.

To honor the unseen guides and loved ones that were with me, and the physical beings on this earthly plane that were responsible for keeping me here with every effort of their beings, I choose to move forward and live a higher life. The purpose of my life is not to work a mundane day-to-day job, to eke out a bare bones paycheck-to-paycheck life. The trivialities and pettiness of co-workers are not important to me or why I’m here. I choose to move beyond that.

I choose to do the things necessary to my life, in living a higher life. One of the necessary things I need to do is to release anger and frustration – not to keep them sequestered and buried deep in the recesses of my mind. That, I choose to begin doing today. The other things, I’ll learn along my new path.

My intent was to write down the ugly thoughts, then tear it up and throw it in the trash. Something with this first writing prompted me to keep it. I’d started with the negative thoughts and emotions, yet thirty minutes later, at the end of my lunch, I’d already moved into an epiphany. I felt I needed to keep this ‘A-Ha’ moment.

I met Carla for dinner that night, and shared the thoughts that were racing through my head all day.

“I’ll be changing,” I warned her.

“Changing?” she asked, acutely more attentive to my words. “Changing how?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll find out as I go along. It won’t be huge changes, like I’m not suddenly going to move out, or move to Alaska, or have any other drastic life changes. My basic personality is still going to remain ‘me’. But my life HAS to change, in some fashion. It would be a huge waste if it didn’t.”

I read her the last part of what I’d written and tried to explain how I felt I must become more attuned with my spirituality, not in a “church” or organized religion way, but as my inner being and connectedness to all that is. I had to question ‘why?’ I intended to slough off the pretenses and false faces that I often wear to the rest of the world. I had to become real. I had to be true to myself.

“I still don’t totally understand. C’mon Jenny. Fess up. Are you, like, going to move? Going to change jobs? Shave your head and move into a commune?” she joked.

“No, nothing that radical. But, I have to take this second chance and have it stand for something. I have to change.” I took a sip of water, trying to come up with the words to explain what raced around in my brain. “To continue life unchanged is like to taking this second chance and throwing it in the trash. It makes it mean nothing. And, I don’t want to disregard the importance of this second chance.”

“As long as we’re still friends. I don’t want to lose your friendship over your journey of becoming more, as you say, real.”

“We will always be friends. You know how far Amber and I go back. You know I don’t take my friendships lightly, nor do I lose friends over trivial matters.” I reached across the table and patted her hand to acknowledge my words. “But, to go further with these new goals, to take off my masks and attempt to truly live a more authentic life, with loftier dreams and aspirations – will mean I must make changes in my life.”

That night I copied a quote in my journal, my ‘pretty’ journal, the one that I keep:

“Nature is one connected whole. At any given moment every part must be precisely what it is, because all other parts are what they are, and not a grain of sand could be moved from its place without changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.” Johann Gottlies Fichte, 1800

After the quote, I added these words:

My intent is to move some grains of sand, not a lot of sand, but important grains of sand. And in the moving of these few select grains of sand, the immeasurable whole will reflect changes. I cannot do this and remain the same identical person.

Onward bound, here we go … to a life with greater awareness!

Whatever that life may be. What was coming up ahead was the biggest mystery and I had no earthly idea what lay ahead in my future.