.Five Minutes.

I write because it's cathartic....and truly the most healing thing I can do. The self realizations I make when I just start typing amaze me. We all need something....or we'll go crazy. This is my outlet--the one expression I have that I hold without fear--it is in the depths of my heart that I find myself really alive and I get there through writing and self discovery. It's really been one of the corner stones of putting myself back together. The discovery of so many things I didn't even know about myself and the ability to describe to most people who can't imagine walking this journey what just 5 minutes feels like.

I'll give you five minutes of today:

I was in a doctor appointment....with a PA I knew for all of five minutes before....and she asked me to tell her about my last year. At this point, I was a smidge irritated-I'm sure she was filled in by my prior doctor that my husband died just over a year ago....why don't you want to know about my whole life? I obliged and told her about how he died and synopsed the whole thing by telling her--Well, it really just sucked.........a lot.....but I'm here now and I'm making it every day. She looked at me blankly, wanting me to expand, and again, I dug in the gutwrenching part of my life and told her about some of my ugly days...you know, where you just don't want to get out of bed and when you do it's too late to do anything special with your hair so you spend the day apologizing for looking like crap and not taking care of yourself....and then you don't eat that day because there isn't any kind of appetite and then you run through the contacts on your phone at least three times before finally deciding to call one of your friends or your mom or dad who loves you more than anything in the world but just can't offer any kind of advice for this. As I explained all of this, she held no expression and only nodded here and there. Well, you wanted honesty I thought. She didn't say much...just that she was sorry it happened to me. I know. Everyone is sorry it's happened to me. I don't say that in a mean way, but really, I know. It's been a year of rebuilding and I know more than most how sorry everyone is that they watched me go through it.....but I did....and here I am.....so, I'd like for you to ask me what I'm doing now-right this moment. She didn't. I didn't throw it out there either. She wrote some notes, gave me a hug that just felt forced and continued on with the rest of the appointment--never talked about it again, never acknowledged, just wanted to know I guess....and I sat there, the whole time, crying inside. That's what most of my five minutes feel like sometimes. Crying inside. Strong outside. You won't know if you can't see it--and if you can, you won't be able to fix any of this for me, so cry inside....strong outside.

I guess it sounds crazy and if you want to know for sure, I guess I am a bit, but aren't we all? No one goes through this kind of thing with all of their scars healed. I still have definite red, ugly scars. Don't you? From something? And yeah, maybe I can be a bit over the top but it's called a coping mechanism.....until I'm somewhere safe enough where I can let it all fall apart.

Five minutes turns into 24 hours of being strong.....and when I'm surrounded by love, you will see this armor fall....but sometimes five minutes is just enough for you to imagine one whole day in this place full of strength, love, and a lot of hope....because just one year ago, that was only one minute for me. Five minutes is at least progress.