Monday, June 19, 2017

Unwelcome And Uninvited Guests + #MyPostMonday The Week's Best Original Content

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This morning my ears started ringing and it was so uncomfortable. It stopped me dead in my tracks and I couldn't focus on anything until, thankfully, it finally went away. I can only surmise why it started. Was someone talking about me? You never know! But more likely is that we went to the movies earlier and I think that whenever we go, my ears suffer because the volume is always so loud. Then it hit me that my husband has a constant ringing in his ears 24/7! He has tinnitus. Ugh! It stemmed from his Sony Walkman days as a teenager, with the sound as loud as he could possibly get it. He used to complain about it a lot when the ringing first started. But now, he has learned to live with the never-ending tone and it has faded into the background. Except when it gets angry and loud. Then it is torture all over again.

It made me think about other painful constants that people have in their lives. How do they live with them? Does it eventually just become normal, so that they just expect the company and walk with it throughout life, good or bad? 


I wonder about the people who have lived in prison camps. How do they have the will to survive the daily routine of interrogation, torture, and starvation? Yet many of them do survive and come out living as normally as one could ever hope, having lived under such circumstances!

What about the lost girls who were abducted when they were just young teenagers and kept for over a decade by a depraved sociopath. There were so many victims of this sickened man. It is amazing how one person can turn so evil, when others make the most out of a bad  situation and can still lead productive lives. Somehow the victims came out of this ordeal as shining examples of survival, love, and strength. How did they do it? 

I guess I have some experience with going through hard times and coming out on the other side not defeated, but more resilient than ever. When my boys were 9 years and 18 months respectively, they were stolen from me by their father when I had left them in his care while I was visiting a childhood friend for two days. Unbeknownst to me, he had master-minded a plan for years to do just that. They were whisked away to another state and I had no idea of their whereabouts. After divorcing me, he secretly and fraudulently obtained sole custody, so I didn't have much of a legal leg to stand on when it came to calling on law enforcement to help me. I had no idea that someone who had been so close to me could be capable of such cruelty. But I was quickly slapped into reality about that. The upheaval that it caused in my life, and in their young lives was catastrophic. Especially to my 18 month old, who was so young, and who hardly knew his father. It would take years of legal battles and our own sleuthing to first find them, then have meaningful contact with them, and eventually establish a visitation system that would enable them to at least be able to know me as their mother again. Those were really hard years and when it first happened, I came as close to not wanting to live as I ever hope to be. I had to get through the panic, grief, gnawing loneliness, the constant worry of whether they were OK. I had so many sleepless nights, so many times of waking up sobbing for my children, and when I finally did sleep, being tormented with nightmares about them and me and anything else. The first 6 months were the worst, but then I became numb and was able to carry on and go about daily life. No matter what I did, however, grief and loneliness were my constant companions. I obviously had to go on, but these were my new, very clingy friends. 
Image - John Lloyd

Fast forward over 20 years later. With the help of my husband now of almost 18 years, we found the boys, we pressed for custody. It wasn't easy, as the ex fought back hard and won, mainly because the statute of limitations had run out for domestic fraud charges (in the state where we filed, it was only 6 months!) and because once someone has custody, it's really hard to reverse that. But we were able to keep track of them, make sure they were relatively OK, have visitation, and share some vacations and special times with them. 
 
My son and I after going to India Palace Restaurant. The food was bad, but the company was amazing!

Now there are no more custody battles, no more sleepless nights, and they come and visit me often. 
It would be useless for me to hold a grudge against their father for robbing me of the chance to be my own children's mom, because that would be giving someone else power over my life. I feel like I won in the end! I have no bitter baggage that I need to carry around. It didn't happen overnight for sure, but I worked on it, and it's now a reality! 

You're at the end of this post, thanks for bearing with me as I explore thoughts and feelings on endurance. And remember, there may be certain things in your life that you may be carrying around as unwelcome and uninvited guests, but know this:  1) You can bear it because you're strong  2) Eventually it will get easier to bear because you will get even stronger and 3) Someday you'll look back and think, wow, did I really go through that? I must be really strong! And you'll have those first unwelcome guests of loneliness, drudgery, and disappointment to thank!
 Today is "My Post Monday!" It's all about original content from bloggers who care to share what is on their minds--from Crafts to Camping, Wellness to Wealth, Fashion to Food, and whatever else is on the brain!  I  open up with a post of my own and then follow it up with a linky of the week's top original blog posts! It's all about what the writer thinks, believes, and knows--in other words, they are active, writing blogs. If I happen to find a great original, non-sponsored post, I'll link it up and share it with you here and on Twitter via the #MyPostMonday hashtag!  I can miss some amazing posts, but I don't want to!  So, in addition, if you'd like to link up yourself, you can do that too!  I'll visit your site, comment, promote and publicize! (Affiliate links welcome!)   


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