By Alex P. Vidal
A coffee shop in front of SM Delgado in the City Proper in Iloilo City has become the most favorite meeting place of "call girls" and their male clients (the most frequent and prominent customer is known as "Maw Tsetung," a bemoustached Chinese trader in his 60's who owns shops in the Mary Mart Mall and who hires two girls simultaneously like a chess player for an overnight tournament).
Most of these "pink" ladies are high school and college students and don't have regular pap smear tests as required those working in prostitution houses in Rizal Estanzuela, Timawa, Calumpang, Baluarte, Jaro, among other notorious "red barangays" in the metropolis.
They have no pimps and their services are hired directly and openly like commodities sold in "tiangge" or kiosk.
If the city task force against anti-pornography, prostitution and lewd shows is really bent on clamping down on these illegal transactions, all it has to do is visit the place from one o'clock in the afternoon until 10 o'clock in the evening.
Even malnourished-looking girls approach lolo "Maw Tsetung" for "tuition" and "text load."
QUEEN
Going back to the year 41 B.C., let's look in on Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.
This was a few years after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
A civil war followed between Caesar's killers, Brutus and Cassius, and Caesar's avengers, Octavius and Mark Antony.
The few independent kingdoms left in the world were in a bad fix.
They were always in a bad fix when civil war broke out in Rome.
They weren't interested in either side. In fact, they would have loved to see both sides destroy each other, but they could not remain neutral.
They had to pick one side and hope to high heaven that they had guessed right.
Now in this civil war after Caesar's assassination, they all guessed wrong. This was understandable. Octavius (who later became Emperor Augustus) was a young boy, hardly more than 17 years old, and Antony, the handsomest man in Rome, spent most of their time with dancing girls and having one big time for himself.
Therefore, everybody picked Brutus and Cassius, two experienced generals and particularly sober men, temperate in all things except in the study of politics and philosophy.
How could they miss? But they did miss! Young Octavius and Mark (wine-women-and-song) Antony beat their brains out.
Now for the payoff, Octavius and Antony divided the world with a third party who did not count for much.
COLLECTION
Antony took the East, and the first thing he did was start on a collection tour.
Collecting fines and taxes from these independent states and kingdoms that had picked the losers.
He was doing fine, real fine.
Antony showed an amazing understanding of world politics.
He assessed the people over a long term--so much a year, instead of crippling their economy and productivity with a huge lump-sum fine.
His next stop was Cleopatra. She, too, had sent some assistance to help Brutus and Cassius, figuring that she was on the winning side.
Antony pulled up at the city of Tarsus, and sent word to the Queen of Egypt to present herself to him so that he might pass judgment.
Cleopatra came, but on her own time.
While Antony sat on the throne in the Forum of Tarsus waiting for Cleopatra to plead her case and be judged, she was sailing up the River Cydnus, "in a barge with purple sails, gilded stern, and silver oars to beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps.
Her maids, dressed as sea nymphs, were the crew, while she herself, dressed as Venus, lay under a canopy of cloth gold." (Will Durant, "Caesar and Christ").
SUNDAY
When news of this barge reached the people of Tarsus, they all came out in their Sunday best, lined both banks of the river to watch the wondrous sight. Pretty soon Antony was sitting in the Forum all alone. His now regiment of Roman legionnaires were at the riverbank.
There was nothing left for Antony to do but to follow the crowd, and, as the barge was fastened to the pier, the crowds made way for Mark Antony.
He began by reproving her for being late, and ordered her to come to the Forum.
Cleopatra, in sweet tones, suggested that they could get their business done in more pleasant surroundings on her barge.
Antony's arms being twisted, he went aboard and stayed the night.
The next morning, he gave Cleopatra Phoenicia, Syria, the Island of Cyprus, half of Arabia, Cilicia, and all of Judea.
"Call girl" Cleopatra would have given those Iloilo coffeeshop "call girls" more than what "Maw Tsetung" is giving them if they were recruited as Cleopatra's maids.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Why I won't get mad
"One ought not to return a wrong nor an injury to any person, however strong the provocation." SOCRATES
By Alex P. Vidal
WHEN some people assassinate our character because they can't think and write the way we do, will we stoop down to their level?
Will we engage them in mudslinging, their forte?
Come to think of it.
Jesus Christ mocked and nailed on the cross.
Mary Magdalene stoned and called a whore.
Socrates found guilty of "introducing new gods" by a slender majority in a jury of 501 and forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.
Pompey decapitated.
Julius Caesar stabbed in the back by envious senators led by neurotic Brutus ("Et tu, Brute?") and ambitious Cassius.
Darius severely wounded before being killed in losing Persia to Alexander The Great in the Battle of Arbela. Montezuma humiliated in his own territory in Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, by Hernando Cortez. Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo.
The Battle of Acium. Holocaust.
Love birds Mark Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Ben Hur and El Cid. Pearl Harbor.
The Bay of Pigs. Gomburza. Jose Rizal. Andres Bonifacio. Antonio Luna. John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King. John Lennon. Moises Padilla. Ninoy Aquino.
INQUISITION
Bruno burned at stake by the Catholic Inquisition. Galileo forced to recant the heleocentric theory and spent years in jail.
Bloody Mary beheaded. Thomas Moore beheaded for refusing to solemnize the marriage of Queen Elizabeth's father King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn. Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution guillotine.
Diego Silang and his wife Gabriela executed.
Dona Aurora, wife of President Quezon, and their daughter Baby Quezon, killed in ambush by Hukbalahap.
Alexander Hamilton, Magellan, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Rasputin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler all died violently. And so on and so forth.
These great men and women suffered humiliation and cruel deaths.
Why should we bawl out our jealous and envious critics?
MILKY WAY
According to an editor, Harry Golden, there are at lease four billion suns in the Milky Way, which is only one galaxy.
Many of these suns are thousands of times larger than our own, and vast millions of them have whole planetary systems, including literally billions of satellites, and all of this revolves at the rate of about a million miles an hour, like a huge oval pinwheel.
Our own sun and its planets, which includes the earth, are on the edge of this wheel.
This is only our small corner of the universe, so why do not these billions of revolving and rotating suns and planets collide?
The answer is, the space is so unbelievably vast that if we reduced the suns and the planets in correct mathematical proportion with relation to the distances between them, each sun would be a speck of dust, two, three, and four thousand miles away from its nearest neighbor.
And, mind you, this is only the Milky Way -- our own small corner -- our own galaxy.
How many galaxies are there? Billions.
Billions of galaxies spaced at about one million light years apart (one light-year is about six trillion miles).
TELESCOPES
Within the range of our biggest telescopes there are at least one hundred million separate galaxies such as our own Milky Way, and that is not all, by any means.
The scientists have found that the further you got out into space with the telescopes the thicker the galaxies become, and there are billions of billions as yet uncovered to the scientist's camera and the astrophysicist's calculations.
When you think of all this, it's silly to worry whether the allegations of our critics will really change the way we live in society.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
'Batchoy' incident and Tagore's servant
"God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion."
Desmond Tutu
By Alex P. Vidal
THIS is a true story I will never forget for a long time.
My friend, a city tourism employee assigned in the old Iloilo airport, and his wife, ordered batchoy (hot native beef noodle soup) in a popular batchoy restaurant inside a giant mall in Iloilo City one Sunday afternoon.
They just came from the church, they were bejeweled and neatly-dressed.
I was in another table adjacent to the couple and we chatted about their niece, a nurse who just left for the United Kingdom, while waiting for our orders.
After a few minutes, a scrawny-looking waitress arrived ready to serve the hot meals in three bowls -- two La Paz batchoy for the couple and one sotanghon batchoy for me.
As the lady server was preparing to put the bowls on the table, she lost balance and slipped.
She accidentally dropped one bowl containing a smoldering batchoy straight into my friend's head, while his wife received another bowl on her body and lap.
Several noodles and sprinkles of soup landed on my face like hot raindrops.
The couple scampered away from their seats, dancing like they were avoiding the firecrackers.
They screamed and shouted expletives as other customers watched in horror.
HYSTERICAL
Shocked, the waitress became hysterical and didn't know what to do.
Fighting back tears, she apologized in hoarse voice, shaking.
Cooler heads prevented the wife, more embarrassed than hurt, from slapping the waitress.
But the couple took turns in cursing her loudly and violently; they questioned her culture.
They threatened to sue the waitress and the management.
She broke down while fellow waitresses came to her rescue, asking apology and trying to cool down the couple.
Some of them wiped off residues of noodles and beef from my friend's face.
"Sir, ma'm, pasensiaha lang ako indi ko hungod aksidente lang gid to. Malooy kamo wala pako katulog kay nagpulaw ako sa hospital may dengue bata ko (Sir, ma'm, please forgive me it was an accident. I beg for your mercy, I didn't have enough sleep last night because I attended to my child who is a dengue patient in the hospital)," she pleaded.
I managed to convince my friend to persuade his wife to forgive the waitress and leave the place because the commotion has distracted other customers.
They transferred to the adjacent Dunkin' Donuts.
As they left, they continued to give the waitress dagger looks.
TAGORE'S SERVANT
Another story has parallelism to the batchoy incident. The great Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore, tells us a story in exquisite poetry.
His servant did not come in on time.
Like so many philosophers and poets, Tagore was helpless when it came to the less important things in life, his personal wants, his clothes, his breakfast, and tidying up the place.
An hour went by and Tagore was getting madder by the minute.
He thought of all sorts of punishment for the man. Three hours later Tagore no longer thought of punishment.
He would discharge the man without any further ado, get rid of him, turn him out.
Finally the man showed up. It was midday.
Without a word the servant proceeded with his duties as though nothing had happened.
He picked up his master's clothes, set to making breakfast, and started cleaning up.
Tagore watched this performance with mounting rage.
Finally he said it: "Drop everything, and get out."
The man, however, continued sweeping and after another few moments, with quite dignity he said: "My little girl died last night."
Desmond Tutu
THIS is a true story I will never forget for a long time.
My friend, a city tourism employee assigned in the old Iloilo airport, and his wife, ordered batchoy (hot native beef noodle soup) in a popular batchoy restaurant inside a giant mall in Iloilo City one Sunday afternoon.
They just came from the church, they were bejeweled and neatly-dressed.
I was in another table adjacent to the couple and we chatted about their niece, a nurse who just left for the United Kingdom, while waiting for our orders.
After a few minutes, a scrawny-looking waitress arrived ready to serve the hot meals in three bowls -- two La Paz batchoy for the couple and one sotanghon batchoy for me.
As the lady server was preparing to put the bowls on the table, she lost balance and slipped.
She accidentally dropped one bowl containing a smoldering batchoy straight into my friend's head, while his wife received another bowl on her body and lap.
Several noodles and sprinkles of soup landed on my face like hot raindrops.
The couple scampered away from their seats, dancing like they were avoiding the firecrackers.
They screamed and shouted expletives as other customers watched in horror.
HYSTERICAL
Shocked, the waitress became hysterical and didn't know what to do.
Fighting back tears, she apologized in hoarse voice, shaking.
Cooler heads prevented the wife, more embarrassed than hurt, from slapping the waitress.
But the couple took turns in cursing her loudly and violently; they questioned her culture.
They threatened to sue the waitress and the management.
She broke down while fellow waitresses came to her rescue, asking apology and trying to cool down the couple.
Some of them wiped off residues of noodles and beef from my friend's face.
"Sir, ma'm, pasensiaha lang ako indi ko hungod aksidente lang gid to. Malooy kamo wala pako katulog kay nagpulaw ako sa hospital may dengue bata ko (Sir, ma'm, please forgive me it was an accident. I beg for your mercy, I didn't have enough sleep last night because I attended to my child who is a dengue patient in the hospital)," she pleaded.
I managed to convince my friend to persuade his wife to forgive the waitress and leave the place because the commotion has distracted other customers.
They transferred to the adjacent Dunkin' Donuts.
As they left, they continued to give the waitress dagger looks.
TAGORE'S SERVANT
Another story has parallelism to the batchoy incident. The great Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore, tells us a story in exquisite poetry.
His servant did not come in on time.
Like so many philosophers and poets, Tagore was helpless when it came to the less important things in life, his personal wants, his clothes, his breakfast, and tidying up the place.
An hour went by and Tagore was getting madder by the minute.
He thought of all sorts of punishment for the man. Three hours later Tagore no longer thought of punishment.
He would discharge the man without any further ado, get rid of him, turn him out.
Finally the man showed up. It was midday.
Without a word the servant proceeded with his duties as though nothing had happened.
He picked up his master's clothes, set to making breakfast, and started cleaning up.
Tagore watched this performance with mounting rage.
Finally he said it: "Drop everything, and get out."
The man, however, continued sweeping and after another few moments, with quite dignity he said: "My little girl died last night."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Crying With Someone Is More
Healing Than Crying Alone
By Alex P. Vidal
I love going to movies. You can sit in the dark and weep away anonymously. Sometimes I cry over the film, sometimes over anything I've needed to cry about in the past few weeks. I use a good sad movie to catch up on all the tears I've stifled and held in too long.
Anyone who knows me well has seen me cry. My daughter teases me because I cry over Kodak commercials, over sappy TV dramas where you can predict the ending even before they cue the schmaltzy music.
All my life I've been a crier. Every day of grade school I cried about something. If an injustice was done to me or to anyone else, I cried. My siblings teased me for being a baby; so did my classmates and a few teachers. I couldn't help it. When I felt something, it came out my tear ducts. For years I tried to hold in the tears. My goal was to get through a whole day of grade school without crying. I finally did it--in the eight grade.
I was in second grade when President John F. Kennedy died. The nuns at Immaculate Conception School held the First Lady up as a pillar of strength for not shedding a public tear. Jackie was the perfect widow, the perfect woman, the perfect Catholic. The world watched her in the black veil and saw a noble, dignified, and stoic widow who never broke down sobbing over his casket, not even when little John John saluted as it passed.
MARY
The nuns compared her to Mary, the mother of Jesus. They told us that Mary didn't cry. Not even when she stood at the foot of the cross. Not even when she held her dead son. Not at his tomb. Never. For years I believed them.
Decades later, I read that Jackie Kennedy used to spend time alone on a friend's boat grieving over her husband's death. She waited until she was far out to sea, looked out over the vast ocean, and wept over how much she missed him. By the time I was done reading the article, I, too, was crying. How sad to have to hide your years, especially tears of such deep sorrow.
I wonder what those nuns would say about her now. Come to think of it, I don't know if those nuns ever cried during my eight years of Catholic school. If they did, they never let us see it. Maybe tears were unholy under the old rules of the Church.
Many years after grade school ended, the movie Jesus of Nazareth came out. I love the scene where Mary stands at the foot of the cross in the pouring rain, crying over the death of her son. She's not crying, she's wailing and weeping. This Mary weeps like a mother who has lost her son, not a saint bowing to God's most holy will. She weeps like all of us would want to but are afraid to.
SIGN
Most of us were taught that tears are a sign of weakness. If you get upset at work, you go into the bathroom to cry. You hide in a stall and muffle the sobs with gobs of toilet tissue. Read any business article about how women can get ahead in the corporate world and they all warn: no tears. Don't ever let them see you cry.
If you cry out in the open, people try to stop you. It makes them uncomfortable. It's socially unacceptable. Worse than swearing. In fact, most people are more comfortable with someone swearing than crying. To cry openly shows a lack of control, a loss of power. In a culture that values strength, even tearing up is unacceptable.
All my life, I tried to become stronger by crying less. But whenever I held the sadness in, my face grew red, my cheeks hurt, and the tears escaped no matter how hard I tried to squeeze them back.
Then one day a counselor told me that those tears were an asset. Carol said they were part of me, just like my blue eyes and brown hair. "What a wonderful gift, to feel so intensely," she said.
The best advice I ever got on crying was to do it with someone. Carol told me that crying alone isn't as powerful as crying with another person. Cry alone and you'll keep crying those same tears over and over. Cry with someone and those tears have the power to heal you once and for all.
SAINT
When I was getting my master's degree in religious studies, I read a book about a saint who nearly lost his vision because he cried so much and so often. Saint Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits, considered his tears to be a great gift from God. He inspired me to write a 22-page paper on the gift of tears.
Ignatius was a macho military man bent on knighthood and the pursuit of happiness through women and power until a cannonball shattered his leg and he found God. He mentions tears 175 times in the first part of his spiritual diary and speaks of tears in every single entry in the second half. They weren't a few drops here and there, but great torrents so intense they left him speechless. Those tears brought him great gifs--humility, intimacy with God, greater devotion, peace, and strength. He considered tears to be a mystical grace.
REFUSE
Too bad so many men and women refuse to cry and boast of not doing it. I remember someone telling me after seeing the movie Schindler's List that he almost cried. Almost? Why did he hold it back?
Why did Jackie? Or the nuns? Why does anyone? I couldn't even if I wanted to. I let the tears flow and make sure all my mascara is waterproof.
One of my favorite verses in the Christian Bible is the shortest one of all: "Jesus wept." He showed his humanity. He shed messy, unmanly tears. He didn't do it in private. He did it in front of his friends and followers. In front of a crowd.
We need to stop hiding our tears and actually share them. It takes a strong person to cry. It takes a stronger person to let others see those tears. We need to be tough enough to be tender, no matter who is watching.
(Lesson 7: "God Never Blinks" by Regina Brett)
Healing Than Crying Alone
By Alex P. Vidal
I love going to movies. You can sit in the dark and weep away anonymously. Sometimes I cry over the film, sometimes over anything I've needed to cry about in the past few weeks. I use a good sad movie to catch up on all the tears I've stifled and held in too long.
Anyone who knows me well has seen me cry. My daughter teases me because I cry over Kodak commercials, over sappy TV dramas where you can predict the ending even before they cue the schmaltzy music.
All my life I've been a crier. Every day of grade school I cried about something. If an injustice was done to me or to anyone else, I cried. My siblings teased me for being a baby; so did my classmates and a few teachers. I couldn't help it. When I felt something, it came out my tear ducts. For years I tried to hold in the tears. My goal was to get through a whole day of grade school without crying. I finally did it--in the eight grade.
I was in second grade when President John F. Kennedy died. The nuns at Immaculate Conception School held the First Lady up as a pillar of strength for not shedding a public tear. Jackie was the perfect widow, the perfect woman, the perfect Catholic. The world watched her in the black veil and saw a noble, dignified, and stoic widow who never broke down sobbing over his casket, not even when little John John saluted as it passed.
MARY
The nuns compared her to Mary, the mother of Jesus. They told us that Mary didn't cry. Not even when she stood at the foot of the cross. Not even when she held her dead son. Not at his tomb. Never. For years I believed them.
Decades later, I read that Jackie Kennedy used to spend time alone on a friend's boat grieving over her husband's death. She waited until she was far out to sea, looked out over the vast ocean, and wept over how much she missed him. By the time I was done reading the article, I, too, was crying. How sad to have to hide your years, especially tears of such deep sorrow.
I wonder what those nuns would say about her now. Come to think of it, I don't know if those nuns ever cried during my eight years of Catholic school. If they did, they never let us see it. Maybe tears were unholy under the old rules of the Church.
Many years after grade school ended, the movie Jesus of Nazareth came out. I love the scene where Mary stands at the foot of the cross in the pouring rain, crying over the death of her son. She's not crying, she's wailing and weeping. This Mary weeps like a mother who has lost her son, not a saint bowing to God's most holy will. She weeps like all of us would want to but are afraid to.
SIGN
Most of us were taught that tears are a sign of weakness. If you get upset at work, you go into the bathroom to cry. You hide in a stall and muffle the sobs with gobs of toilet tissue. Read any business article about how women can get ahead in the corporate world and they all warn: no tears. Don't ever let them see you cry.
If you cry out in the open, people try to stop you. It makes them uncomfortable. It's socially unacceptable. Worse than swearing. In fact, most people are more comfortable with someone swearing than crying. To cry openly shows a lack of control, a loss of power. In a culture that values strength, even tearing up is unacceptable.
All my life, I tried to become stronger by crying less. But whenever I held the sadness in, my face grew red, my cheeks hurt, and the tears escaped no matter how hard I tried to squeeze them back.
Then one day a counselor told me that those tears were an asset. Carol said they were part of me, just like my blue eyes and brown hair. "What a wonderful gift, to feel so intensely," she said.
The best advice I ever got on crying was to do it with someone. Carol told me that crying alone isn't as powerful as crying with another person. Cry alone and you'll keep crying those same tears over and over. Cry with someone and those tears have the power to heal you once and for all.
SAINT
When I was getting my master's degree in religious studies, I read a book about a saint who nearly lost his vision because he cried so much and so often. Saint Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits, considered his tears to be a great gift from God. He inspired me to write a 22-page paper on the gift of tears.
Ignatius was a macho military man bent on knighthood and the pursuit of happiness through women and power until a cannonball shattered his leg and he found God. He mentions tears 175 times in the first part of his spiritual diary and speaks of tears in every single entry in the second half. They weren't a few drops here and there, but great torrents so intense they left him speechless. Those tears brought him great gifs--humility, intimacy with God, greater devotion, peace, and strength. He considered tears to be a mystical grace.
REFUSE
Too bad so many men and women refuse to cry and boast of not doing it. I remember someone telling me after seeing the movie Schindler's List that he almost cried. Almost? Why did he hold it back?
Why did Jackie? Or the nuns? Why does anyone? I couldn't even if I wanted to. I let the tears flow and make sure all my mascara is waterproof.
One of my favorite verses in the Christian Bible is the shortest one of all: "Jesus wept." He showed his humanity. He shed messy, unmanly tears. He didn't do it in private. He did it in front of his friends and followers. In front of a crowd.
We need to stop hiding our tears and actually share them. It takes a strong person to cry. It takes a stronger person to let others see those tears. We need to be tough enough to be tender, no matter who is watching.
(Lesson 7: "God Never Blinks" by Regina Brett)
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Believe in Miracles
"Every moment in our lives is a miracle we should enjoy instead of ignoring." Yoko Ono
By Alex P. Vidal
THE doctor tried to break the news as gently as possible.
"You know how when you're little and you ask for a pony, you pray and hope for it and you never get it? Well, this is that same type of situation. Sometimes you don't get the pony."
The doctor was trying to tell Chris Wood's parents that the situation was hopeless, even beyond their prayers.
Chris was 21 and stationed in the navy in San Diego that June of 1989.
After an afternoon drinking at a Padres game, he fell out of a pickup truck on the way home when the driver switched lanes.
After an afternoon drinking at a Padres game, he fell out of a pickup truck on the way home when the driver switched lanes.
After Chris landed on the four-lane highway, a car hit him.
He bounced into another lane and was hit by another car. Luckily, the next vehicle to come along was an ambulance. Chris had a broken pelvis, jaw, elbow, and knee.
He had massive head injuries and tire marks across his back.
He bounced into another lane and was hit by another car. Luckily, the next vehicle to come along was an ambulance. Chris had a broken pelvis, jaw, elbow, and knee.
He had massive head injuries and tire marks across his back.
For the next three months all the news on Chris from the doctors was bad news. "He will not live...he will be a vegetable...he will never walk...he will never have a meaningful life."
PRAYER
His family back in Akron started prayer chains. One night his sister was awakened suddenly.
She says it was God who whispered to her these words: "He will live and not die and proclaim the mercies of God."
She says it was God who whispered to her these words: "He will live and not die and proclaim the mercies of God."
From then on, that was the family's mantra.
It got Chris through 32 surgeries, a three-month coma, and years of treatment at the Veterans Hospital in Cleveland where he goes for rehabilitation.
At 29, Chris had the same bright blue eyes and sandy hair as before, but everything else had changed.
At 29, Chris had the same bright blue eyes and sandy hair as before, but everything else had changed.
His speech is slurred, as if he's been drinking. The breathing tube damaged his vocal cords.
The head injuries slowed his thinking. His face turned crooked from his jaw healing incorrectly.
A purple zipper scar runs up his left arm, which dangles at his side. He must concentrate to be able to open his hand.
The head injuries slowed his thinking. His face turned crooked from his jaw healing incorrectly.
A purple zipper scar runs up his left arm, which dangles at his side. He must concentrate to be able to open his hand.
HARDWARE
Chris is a walking hardware store. There's a crew in his elbow, a brace on his leg, a hinge in his knee, and a plate in his head.
His brain no longer works the same. He used to excel at math but now struggles with the basics.
When he enrolled at Kent State University six years ago, he got D's and F's even in the simplest classes.
One of his rehab workers urged him to drop out.
His brain no longer works the same. He used to excel at math but now struggles with the basics.
When he enrolled at Kent State University six years ago, he got D's and F's even in the simplest classes.
One of his rehab workers urged him to drop out.
He gave it some thought. "My mind would say, You're wasting your time," he told me.
But instead of listening, he would turn to his favorite Scripture passage, Proverbs 23:7: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
But instead of listening, he would turn to his favorite Scripture passage, Proverbs 23:7: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
"It means what you believe is what you're going to be. If you think you are second and a failure or number one and front of the line, that's what you will be," he said.
He credits his mother for his successes. Linda coached him along using the Bible as her playbook.
Chris now has three jobs: he interns at Edwin Shaw Hospital working with head injury patients; he does computer design work for Living Water Fellowship Church in Akron; and he is an usher for the Akron Aeros baseball team.
Chris now has three jobs: he interns at Edwin Shaw Hospital working with head injury patients; he does computer design work for Living Water Fellowship Church in Akron; and he is an usher for the Akron Aeros baseball team.
LICENSE
It took three tries to pass his driver's test, but he finally got his license.
It took six years of therapy, but he put away his wheelchair and can now move with a walker.
It took six years of therapy, but he put away his wheelchair and can now move with a walker.
He still struggles to come up with the right words when he talks.
He pauses, squints hard, trying to force his brain to remember how to work.
He pauses, squints hard, trying to force his brain to remember how to work.
It works fine enough. On graduation day, Chris Wood gave a commencement address without saying a word.
He walked across a stage at Kent State University and picked up his bachelor of arts in psychology to a standing ovation.
He walked across a stage at Kent State University and picked up his bachelor of arts in psychology to a standing ovation.
He wasn't the smartest one there.
He wasn't the most talented one there.
But he was there.
His mother never lived to see it. She had died the previous June of a heart attack.
But she lived long enough to know that the doctor who said it was too hopeless to even pray was wrong.
But she lived long enough to know that the doctor who said it was too hopeless to even pray was wrong.
The doctor got a postcard from Chris's dad letting him know how it all turned out.
It simply said, "We got the pony."
(Lesson 33 of "God Never Blinks" by Regina Brett)
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The most important sex organ is the brain
"When it comes to sex, the most important erogenous zone is between your right ear and your left ear."
By Alex P. Vidal
THIS is the second "lesson" from God Never Blinks, a compilation of essays written by Regina Brett, a veteran journalist and a breast cancer survivor.
When she turned 50, she reflected on all she had learned through becoming a single parent, looking for love in all the wrong places, working on her relationship with God, battling cancer, and making peace with a difficult childhood.
Then she wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the 50 lessons life had taught her.
It became one of the most popular articles the paper ever published, crisscrossing the globe via e-mail to hundreds of thousands of people, and shared at weddings, graduations, Sunday schools, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversaries, and more.
Now Brett expands the 50 lessons into essays that are inspiring, deeply personal, sometimes funny, and often poignant. They're sure to strike a cord with anyone who has ever gone through tough times--and is there anyone who hasn't?
ESSAY
Let's hear from Brett in her essay, "The Most Important Sex Organ Is the Brain."
My friend Sheryl wanted me to meet her friend.
I don't do fix ups, I told her.
It's just a party, she said.
She didn't tell me much about the guy. He had a beard, he was divorced, he was in public relations. That's it.
Had she told me more, that he smoked, that he was an agnostic who loved jazz and sushi and big city life, that he was a Virgo who was never home, I would have never given him a chance.
I was a nonsmoking Catholic vegetarian Gemini who loved country music and small towns and nesting most nights. On paper, we were no match.
At the last minute, I decided to go to that party back in 1992.
Sheryl introduced me to Bruce and we never stopped talking. We sat on the couch for hours.
He loved his work and was passionate about making a difference in the world.
He had beautiful warm brown eyes that made me feel safe, yet they were alive with excitement. There was something going on behind those eyes.
He called the next day and we talked for three hours. I learned that he sang in the shower and cried at movies.
But I was cautious. I had given up on men for a while, stayed celibate for almost two years.
After a few years of intense counseling to deal with childhood issues, I wanted to break the pattern of attracting unavailable men who struggled with intimacy and commitment.
I wanted someone to love me, to want me for the long haul.
Like every wounded woman, I wanted someone who would never hurt me, never let me down, never reject or abandon me.
It was an impossible order.
FIRST DATE
I didn't know what to do with Bruce, so on our first real date, I gave him three choices: we could see a movie, go out for dinner, or drive to the town he grew up in and do a tour of his homes, school, and points of interest so I could learn more about him.
He turned the tables on me and suggested we do the tour in my hometown.
We drove around Ravenna, population 12,000.
We drove past my grade school, junior high, high school, places I worked, my old home, and my church.
We ended up at the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.
We sat in the car watching a fingernail clipping of a moon rise over the scarlet sky and naked trees.
He declared that moment with me was as good as sex.
This man was certainly different from anyone I'd been with.
Later that night, we ended up at a restaurant talking about what we were looking for.
Would he ever marry again? Would I ever marry at all? We agreed on one thing: if we did, we would choose not a husband and wife, but a life partner, a best friend.
That night I started to trust loving a man. Bruce was bright, funny, and honest.
I learned he was Jewish but loves to sing Christmas carols outside cafes in December.
That he gives the Little Rascals high sign to kids, has tons of books in his living room, and would quit smoking for the right person.
WAVY HAIR
He loved my wild wavy hair, my skinny nose, my hands, my feckles. He showed me pictures of his mom, grandma, sons, and siblings.
He even took out his cell phone, turned it off, and said, "I never do this."
He mailed me a cassette tape of romance and jazz on one side and his favorite Christmas songs on the other.
He said he sent it to seduce me. It worked.
All his words and acts of kindness made me feel safe. He acted like a child, so happy to see me.
He held my hand and we sat talking on the couch for hours.
He was like having a sleepover with a best friend. Bruce became my buddy.
We didn't have sex until we had The Talk. His idea, not mine. One night we sat up all night on the couch talking.
He wanted to know about my past relationships, all the detours and broken roads that led me to him. He'd been married for 15 years, divorced for two.
I had never lasted more than a year with the same guy.
Lots of dad issues, lots of men who resembled my dad and brought their mother issues. Not a good combination.
Bruce joked that he liked a woman with a past. We laughed but we also cried as I talked and he listened to the challenge of loving me.
There was still so much healing to be done. In my entire life, I'd never felt completely emotionally and physically safe with a man.
I was barely aware of my own intimacy needs. I grew up believing that a woman performed for a man and if she got something out of it, fine, but if not, it didn't matter.
Bruce encouraged me to speak up about everything, to say what I liked and didn't.
I didn't know what I liked or wanted in a relationship because I never got the chance to figure it out.
Most people emerge into a sexual being. When you are abused sexually as a child or raped as a teenager as I was, your sexual identity is stolen.
You don't get to gradually come of age. When someone else's sexuality is forced on you, it stunts your own growth.
I spent my adult life trying to please a man by doing all the things I guessed he wanted, but didn't have a clue as to what made me feel good.
KEY
Bruce wouldn't have that. He told me the key to our relationship was building and keeping a friendship, that sex wouldn't make or break a relationship.
He taught me a great eternal truth: friendship comes first.
That is the soul of the relationship, he said.
Before I met Bruce, a girlfriend in recovery had shared how she created new ways to relate to men by using the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous. The writers of it must have had a sense of humor, because the sex advice starts on page 69.
The book advises one to take a personal inventory, to look at resentments and fears, but also at one's sex life, what worked and what didn't.
Then create a sane and sound ideal between you and God about what is right for you alone.
I need to trust God with my sexuality. I had to look at sex as a gift that springs from a God who made me with desires and longings and passions.
I needed to know and believe that God was creative enough to design men who would not abuse or abandon me in a relationship.
LARGER
Sex had to be part of a larger, whole relationship. This time, it was.
Before we ever got to "home plate" we sat and talked for hours.
At one point, Bruce pointed to his head and said, "Sex is up here."
It's not about performing for each other. It's not your job to please anyone.
"Not that much of sex is about having an orgasm," he said. "That's the icing. All the other ingredients make up the cake. Let's make the cake."
So we did. A decade later, we're still having a great time baking.
Our sex life has never been dependent on our bodies alone. Good thing, because age comes along and changes them.
In my case, cancer did. After I lost my breasts to cancer, it took a while to feel sexy again.
Bruce kept telling me it would just take a little time for my brain to rewire itself. He was right.
When it comes to sex, the most important erogenous zone is between your right ear and your left ear.
By Alex P. Vidal
THIS is the second "lesson" from God Never Blinks, a compilation of essays written by Regina Brett, a veteran journalist and a breast cancer survivor.
When she turned 50, she reflected on all she had learned through becoming a single parent, looking for love in all the wrong places, working on her relationship with God, battling cancer, and making peace with a difficult childhood.
Then she wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the 50 lessons life had taught her.
It became one of the most popular articles the paper ever published, crisscrossing the globe via e-mail to hundreds of thousands of people, and shared at weddings, graduations, Sunday schools, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversaries, and more.
Now Brett expands the 50 lessons into essays that are inspiring, deeply personal, sometimes funny, and often poignant. They're sure to strike a cord with anyone who has ever gone through tough times--and is there anyone who hasn't?
ESSAY
Let's hear from Brett in her essay, "The Most Important Sex Organ Is the Brain."
My friend Sheryl wanted me to meet her friend.
I don't do fix ups, I told her.
It's just a party, she said.
She didn't tell me much about the guy. He had a beard, he was divorced, he was in public relations. That's it.
Had she told me more, that he smoked, that he was an agnostic who loved jazz and sushi and big city life, that he was a Virgo who was never home, I would have never given him a chance.
I was a nonsmoking Catholic vegetarian Gemini who loved country music and small towns and nesting most nights. On paper, we were no match.
At the last minute, I decided to go to that party back in 1992.
Sheryl introduced me to Bruce and we never stopped talking. We sat on the couch for hours.
He loved his work and was passionate about making a difference in the world.
He had beautiful warm brown eyes that made me feel safe, yet they were alive with excitement. There was something going on behind those eyes.
He called the next day and we talked for three hours. I learned that he sang in the shower and cried at movies.
But I was cautious. I had given up on men for a while, stayed celibate for almost two years.
After a few years of intense counseling to deal with childhood issues, I wanted to break the pattern of attracting unavailable men who struggled with intimacy and commitment.
I wanted someone to love me, to want me for the long haul.
Like every wounded woman, I wanted someone who would never hurt me, never let me down, never reject or abandon me.
It was an impossible order.
FIRST DATE
I didn't know what to do with Bruce, so on our first real date, I gave him three choices: we could see a movie, go out for dinner, or drive to the town he grew up in and do a tour of his homes, school, and points of interest so I could learn more about him.
He turned the tables on me and suggested we do the tour in my hometown.
We drove around Ravenna, population 12,000.
We drove past my grade school, junior high, high school, places I worked, my old home, and my church.
We ended up at the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.
We sat in the car watching a fingernail clipping of a moon rise over the scarlet sky and naked trees.
He declared that moment with me was as good as sex.
This man was certainly different from anyone I'd been with.
Later that night, we ended up at a restaurant talking about what we were looking for.
Would he ever marry again? Would I ever marry at all? We agreed on one thing: if we did, we would choose not a husband and wife, but a life partner, a best friend.
That night I started to trust loving a man. Bruce was bright, funny, and honest.
I learned he was Jewish but loves to sing Christmas carols outside cafes in December.
That he gives the Little Rascals high sign to kids, has tons of books in his living room, and would quit smoking for the right person.
WAVY HAIR
He loved my wild wavy hair, my skinny nose, my hands, my feckles. He showed me pictures of his mom, grandma, sons, and siblings.
He even took out his cell phone, turned it off, and said, "I never do this."
He mailed me a cassette tape of romance and jazz on one side and his favorite Christmas songs on the other.
He said he sent it to seduce me. It worked.
All his words and acts of kindness made me feel safe. He acted like a child, so happy to see me.
He held my hand and we sat talking on the couch for hours.
He was like having a sleepover with a best friend. Bruce became my buddy.
We didn't have sex until we had The Talk. His idea, not mine. One night we sat up all night on the couch talking.
He wanted to know about my past relationships, all the detours and broken roads that led me to him. He'd been married for 15 years, divorced for two.
I had never lasted more than a year with the same guy.
Lots of dad issues, lots of men who resembled my dad and brought their mother issues. Not a good combination.
Bruce joked that he liked a woman with a past. We laughed but we also cried as I talked and he listened to the challenge of loving me.
There was still so much healing to be done. In my entire life, I'd never felt completely emotionally and physically safe with a man.
I was barely aware of my own intimacy needs. I grew up believing that a woman performed for a man and if she got something out of it, fine, but if not, it didn't matter.
Bruce encouraged me to speak up about everything, to say what I liked and didn't.
I didn't know what I liked or wanted in a relationship because I never got the chance to figure it out.
Most people emerge into a sexual being. When you are abused sexually as a child or raped as a teenager as I was, your sexual identity is stolen.
You don't get to gradually come of age. When someone else's sexuality is forced on you, it stunts your own growth.
I spent my adult life trying to please a man by doing all the things I guessed he wanted, but didn't have a clue as to what made me feel good.
KEY
Bruce wouldn't have that. He told me the key to our relationship was building and keeping a friendship, that sex wouldn't make or break a relationship.
He taught me a great eternal truth: friendship comes first.
That is the soul of the relationship, he said.
Before I met Bruce, a girlfriend in recovery had shared how she created new ways to relate to men by using the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous. The writers of it must have had a sense of humor, because the sex advice starts on page 69.
The book advises one to take a personal inventory, to look at resentments and fears, but also at one's sex life, what worked and what didn't.
Then create a sane and sound ideal between you and God about what is right for you alone.
I need to trust God with my sexuality. I had to look at sex as a gift that springs from a God who made me with desires and longings and passions.
I needed to know and believe that God was creative enough to design men who would not abuse or abandon me in a relationship.
LARGER
Sex had to be part of a larger, whole relationship. This time, it was.
Before we ever got to "home plate" we sat and talked for hours.
At one point, Bruce pointed to his head and said, "Sex is up here."
It's not about performing for each other. It's not your job to please anyone.
"Not that much of sex is about having an orgasm," he said. "That's the icing. All the other ingredients make up the cake. Let's make the cake."
So we did. A decade later, we're still having a great time baking.
Our sex life has never been dependent on our bodies alone. Good thing, because age comes along and changes them.
In my case, cancer did. After I lost my breasts to cancer, it took a while to feel sexy again.
Bruce kept telling me it would just take a little time for my brain to rewire itself. He was right.
When it comes to sex, the most important erogenous zone is between your right ear and your left ear.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Make peace with your past so it doesn't screw up the present
"A noise. A smell. A comment. Something so small sends you back into your own personal darkness, fear, and despair."
By Alex P. Vidal
REGINA Brett is a veteran journalist and a former breast cancer patient.
When she turned 50, she reflected on all she had learned through becoming a single parent, looking for love in all the wrong places, working on her relationship with God, battling cancer, and making peace with a difficult childhood.
Then she wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the 50 lessons life had taught her.
It became one of the most popular articles the paper ever published, crisscrossing the globe via e-mail to hundreds of thousands of people, and shared at weddings, graduations, Sunday schools, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversaries, and more.
Now Brett expands the 50 lessons into essays that are inspiring, deeply personal, sometimes funny, and often poignant.
They're sure to strike a cord with anyone who has ever gone through tough times--and is there anyone who hasn't?
Let's hear from Brett in her essay, "Make Peace with Your Past So It Doesn't Screw Up the Present."
Ever have one of those days where everything is fine and then suddenly it isn't?
Nothing on the outside has changed, but everything inside you just did. Something you can't name happened, and suddenly, you find yourself at the bottom of a hole deep inside yourself.
It's hard to figure out what sent you spiraling down. A noise. A smell. A comment. Something so small sends you back into your own personal darkness, fear, and despair.
It happens so fast, you don't know how you got there. Or sometimes you can feel yourself falling in slow motion but you can't stop it.
What sets it off? It's different for everybody, especially those who have suffered child abuse or neglect in some form or another.
For me, something as small as the smell of chalk and milk cartons will do it. The sight of tiny folding chairs like those we had in the first grade. The sound of a weeping child in a store. The sight of an angry parent dragging a toddler across a parking lot. The sound of flesh hitting flesh in a violent movie.
Some days, any one of those sends me into the hole. All at once, I feel scared and lonely and disconnected. I call them attacks of childhood. In a flesh, I'm suddenly not a full-functioning adult. I'm powerless and scared and can't figure out why.
One therapist who used to counsel Vietnam veterans told me that adults who suffered abuse and neglect as children can have post-traumatic stress.
Childhood injuries remain with us for years. Like shrapnel, the pieces keep working their way out of the body.
CLIMB OUT
It used to take me days to climb out of the hole. Meanwhile, I'd go to work, fix dinner, play with my child, try to function, but inside it felt like I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.
If someone pulled one more string, I'd unravel in puddle of yarn and no longer be whole.
We all have childhood holes. Most people have a few here and there that are small enough to avoid and easy to get out of quickly.
Others have a lunar landscape of deep craters left behind from mentally ill relatives or teachers, encounters with domestic violence and sexual abuse, or beatings and rages by parents who were also once children who were abused or neglected by someone else.
Big things rarely push you in the hole. Big things you can see coming and avoid. If you see or hear a train coming, you step off the tracks and stay out of the way.
It's the small things that knock you down the hole. Things you don't see coming until you look in the rearview mirror.
One day I pulled my car into the garage as I do every day. My husband was standing in the driveway and told me to move my car up an inch. So I did. It still wasn't good enough for him. No, a little more, he insisted.
I could have easily smiled and moved it up or left it alone or handed him the keys to park it perfectly. Instead, I felt an instant rage come over me, like he'd lit a short fuse to a huge bomb. KABOOM!
I was blasted back to childhood. Why do I have to be perfect? Why am I never good enough? Why do I even bother?
But instead of exploding, I usually implode. Instead of yelling and raging, I cave in and cry. They're old tears.
I can feel them come from a different place in me. My face hurts, my sinuses ache, and afterward, I need to sleep.
INCIDENT
The incident with the car? Hours later, I was able to trace it back in time to the exact moment it triggered, decades earlier when I was 21.
I'm standing in my parents' driveway and my dad wants me to help him put a TV in the back of his station wagon.
It's heavy and awkward and I'm not sure how he expects me to carry it and squeeze it into the small spot he pointed to.
I grab my half of the TV and slide it in the car. He tells me to move it back. Back where? I don't know what he wants. He screams at me. My dad was either quiet or screaming.
I don't know why, but he'd go from zero to 100 in a flash. His rages were almost always accompanied by these words: "What the hell's wrong with you? Can't you do anything right?"
Standing there in the driveway holding the TV, he screamed them. I couldn't drop it and leave so I was stuck standing there as a target for his anger.
There was never an apology, never an acknowledgment that he was having a bad day or a bad moment.
Over time I learned how to get unstuck. First, you have to recognize that you're stuck.
For me here's my warning sign: whenever my emotions don't match what just happened, it's about my childhood.
I've learned to freeze the moment, just like you would pause a movie, and ask: Wait. Is this reaction about the present moment? Or is it about the past? I can't change the past.
But by changing my response to its leftovers, I can change the present.
One counselor helped me avoid falling in the hole by using this technique. Get an index card. Jot down proof that you are a functioning adult.
Write down your age, education level, degrees, job title, the fact that you can drive a car, parent, vote, and others things adult do.
When you find yourself teetering over a hole, take out the card and read it. Get grounded in today, in the adult you are, not the kid you were. It helps you regain your footing.
On the other side of the card, write down your search and rescue team. List your 911 friends to call to help you get out of the hole.
Choose people in your inner circle, people who love you the most, as is. People who aren't afraid to search in the dark for you, people who can yank you back into the light.
REWIRE
It takes work to rewire your thoughts about yourself, but when you do, everything in your life changes for the better -- especially your most intimate relationships.
If you don't do the hard work, you will constantly bump into your past and run into the worst of your mom and dad in every relationship.
Rewiring your thoughts won't get rid of the holes in life, but it can prevent you from falling in them.
My friends in recovery told me this story:
A drunk leaves the bar one night and on his way home stumbles and falls into a deep hole in the road. He can't get out. One passerby tosses him a Bible, cites a Scripture passage to give him hope, and leaves.
A counselor stops and tries to help him figure out why he fell in the hole. Finally, a recovering alcoholic hears the screams and stops. "Can you help, please?" the man in the hole cries. "Sure," the sober man says. He jumps into the hole. The alcoholic screams. "Oh, no, now we're both stuck in this hole!" The sober man smiles and says, "Don't worry. I've been here before. I know my way out. We climb out together."
The goal isn't to walk around the hole. Or get out quicker. The goal is to fill the hole so no one else falls in it. What do you fill it with? God. Which is to say, love: love of self, love of others, love of God.
The last time I climbed out of the "I'm not enough" hole, I prayed, "How will I ever believe that I'm good enough?"
The answer came in that small still voice from my heart: "By helping others believe that they are good enough."
By Alex P. Vidal
REGINA Brett is a veteran journalist and a former breast cancer patient.
When she turned 50, she reflected on all she had learned through becoming a single parent, looking for love in all the wrong places, working on her relationship with God, battling cancer, and making peace with a difficult childhood.
Then she wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the 50 lessons life had taught her.
It became one of the most popular articles the paper ever published, crisscrossing the globe via e-mail to hundreds of thousands of people, and shared at weddings, graduations, Sunday schools, Bar Mitzvahs, anniversaries, and more.
Now Brett expands the 50 lessons into essays that are inspiring, deeply personal, sometimes funny, and often poignant.
They're sure to strike a cord with anyone who has ever gone through tough times--and is there anyone who hasn't?
Let's hear from Brett in her essay, "Make Peace with Your Past So It Doesn't Screw Up the Present."
Ever have one of those days where everything is fine and then suddenly it isn't?
Nothing on the outside has changed, but everything inside you just did. Something you can't name happened, and suddenly, you find yourself at the bottom of a hole deep inside yourself.
It's hard to figure out what sent you spiraling down. A noise. A smell. A comment. Something so small sends you back into your own personal darkness, fear, and despair.
It happens so fast, you don't know how you got there. Or sometimes you can feel yourself falling in slow motion but you can't stop it.
What sets it off? It's different for everybody, especially those who have suffered child abuse or neglect in some form or another.
For me, something as small as the smell of chalk and milk cartons will do it. The sight of tiny folding chairs like those we had in the first grade. The sound of a weeping child in a store. The sight of an angry parent dragging a toddler across a parking lot. The sound of flesh hitting flesh in a violent movie.
Some days, any one of those sends me into the hole. All at once, I feel scared and lonely and disconnected. I call them attacks of childhood. In a flesh, I'm suddenly not a full-functioning adult. I'm powerless and scared and can't figure out why.
One therapist who used to counsel Vietnam veterans told me that adults who suffered abuse and neglect as children can have post-traumatic stress.
Childhood injuries remain with us for years. Like shrapnel, the pieces keep working their way out of the body.
CLIMB OUT
It used to take me days to climb out of the hole. Meanwhile, I'd go to work, fix dinner, play with my child, try to function, but inside it felt like I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.
If someone pulled one more string, I'd unravel in puddle of yarn and no longer be whole.
We all have childhood holes. Most people have a few here and there that are small enough to avoid and easy to get out of quickly.
Others have a lunar landscape of deep craters left behind from mentally ill relatives or teachers, encounters with domestic violence and sexual abuse, or beatings and rages by parents who were also once children who were abused or neglected by someone else.
Big things rarely push you in the hole. Big things you can see coming and avoid. If you see or hear a train coming, you step off the tracks and stay out of the way.
It's the small things that knock you down the hole. Things you don't see coming until you look in the rearview mirror.
One day I pulled my car into the garage as I do every day. My husband was standing in the driveway and told me to move my car up an inch. So I did. It still wasn't good enough for him. No, a little more, he insisted.
I could have easily smiled and moved it up or left it alone or handed him the keys to park it perfectly. Instead, I felt an instant rage come over me, like he'd lit a short fuse to a huge bomb. KABOOM!
I was blasted back to childhood. Why do I have to be perfect? Why am I never good enough? Why do I even bother?
But instead of exploding, I usually implode. Instead of yelling and raging, I cave in and cry. They're old tears.
I can feel them come from a different place in me. My face hurts, my sinuses ache, and afterward, I need to sleep.
INCIDENT
The incident with the car? Hours later, I was able to trace it back in time to the exact moment it triggered, decades earlier when I was 21.
I'm standing in my parents' driveway and my dad wants me to help him put a TV in the back of his station wagon.
It's heavy and awkward and I'm not sure how he expects me to carry it and squeeze it into the small spot he pointed to.
I grab my half of the TV and slide it in the car. He tells me to move it back. Back where? I don't know what he wants. He screams at me. My dad was either quiet or screaming.
I don't know why, but he'd go from zero to 100 in a flash. His rages were almost always accompanied by these words: "What the hell's wrong with you? Can't you do anything right?"
Standing there in the driveway holding the TV, he screamed them. I couldn't drop it and leave so I was stuck standing there as a target for his anger.
There was never an apology, never an acknowledgment that he was having a bad day or a bad moment.
Over time I learned how to get unstuck. First, you have to recognize that you're stuck.
For me here's my warning sign: whenever my emotions don't match what just happened, it's about my childhood.
I've learned to freeze the moment, just like you would pause a movie, and ask: Wait. Is this reaction about the present moment? Or is it about the past? I can't change the past.
But by changing my response to its leftovers, I can change the present.
One counselor helped me avoid falling in the hole by using this technique. Get an index card. Jot down proof that you are a functioning adult.
Write down your age, education level, degrees, job title, the fact that you can drive a car, parent, vote, and others things adult do.
When you find yourself teetering over a hole, take out the card and read it. Get grounded in today, in the adult you are, not the kid you were. It helps you regain your footing.
On the other side of the card, write down your search and rescue team. List your 911 friends to call to help you get out of the hole.
Choose people in your inner circle, people who love you the most, as is. People who aren't afraid to search in the dark for you, people who can yank you back into the light.
REWIRE
It takes work to rewire your thoughts about yourself, but when you do, everything in your life changes for the better -- especially your most intimate relationships.
If you don't do the hard work, you will constantly bump into your past and run into the worst of your mom and dad in every relationship.
Rewiring your thoughts won't get rid of the holes in life, but it can prevent you from falling in them.
My friends in recovery told me this story:
A drunk leaves the bar one night and on his way home stumbles and falls into a deep hole in the road. He can't get out. One passerby tosses him a Bible, cites a Scripture passage to give him hope, and leaves.
A counselor stops and tries to help him figure out why he fell in the hole. Finally, a recovering alcoholic hears the screams and stops. "Can you help, please?" the man in the hole cries. "Sure," the sober man says. He jumps into the hole. The alcoholic screams. "Oh, no, now we're both stuck in this hole!" The sober man smiles and says, "Don't worry. I've been here before. I know my way out. We climb out together."
The goal isn't to walk around the hole. Or get out quicker. The goal is to fill the hole so no one else falls in it. What do you fill it with? God. Which is to say, love: love of self, love of others, love of God.
The last time I climbed out of the "I'm not enough" hole, I prayed, "How will I ever believe that I'm good enough?"
The answer came in that small still voice from my heart: "By helping others believe that they are good enough."
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