Walk on Scar Clan

It has been cloudy and rainy for the better part of ten days here in North Carolina. This is usually my favorite time of year.  I have to fight with myself to keep working as I’d rather be out, camera in hand, tramping through Duke Gardens, just breathing the air.  Instead, as each day went by my mood plummeted and before long I was in a serious funk, feeling half sick with allergies and malaise, and pretty sure I was dying of something.

When I’m in such a frame of mind it doesn’t do any good for someone to tell me or for me to tell myself that “everything is exactly as it should be” or “live in joy” or “just breathe” or any of the millions of upbeat sayings that we see all the time on the internet.  “Hog wash!” as my mother used to say, and her father before her. During the down times I get particularly annoyed with posts on Facebook (mine included) that want us to believe that it’s easy to be happy.

Despite what I may write here and post on Facebook, and I do truly believe what I write and post, it’s almost never that easy or that simple to be happy or even to keep going. It’s a challenge to rise above the pain of the moment and embrace the positive, particularly for those of us who are, as Dr. Estes would call us, members of the “scar clan”, who carry wounds that run deep and wide.

But, as often happens after a rain storm, the sun came out today, and along with it, my mood lifted. Yes, in spite of my allergies, my stomach ache, my angst about life, I felt upbeat. Happily, for the first time in days I looked forward to my morning walk with Rowdy. I let the sun beat down upon me as I hiked up the hill in front of my house and then hung a left, watching the crazed, super fit neighbor woman with her two dogs and pooper-scooper hang a right to avoid me (or my dog; for that, I don’t blame her!) Yep! I was still a wee bit irritated by life, in spite of the sun.

Once on the straight away I picked up my pace. My heart was pumping and I was enjoying the feel of my muscles as they worked. I could almost feel a lilt in my step and a wee bit of joy around the edges. Then it happened. I stepped on a rock and down I went in a silent and unsightly heap. I scrapped my hand and knee on the pavement and that fall-off-your-bike-stinging that always brings back childhood memories, began…and the embarrassment, even though no one was watching…at least no one that would admit it.

Before I knew what hit me, last week’s mental leftovers spilled forth in earnest. “Great! That’s what you get when you start to feel good! You don’t get to feel good. You don’t get to be happy and light-footed. You’re too much of a clutz! You’d trip over a feather given the right opportunity! You know you look really stupid don’t you?” Wow! The mean girl came out in force. It almost took my breath away…again.

But, do you know what I did? Yep, you’ve got it. I turned to her and I said, “Excuse me missy, but will you please SHUT UP!”and the warrior arose from the pavement. Back on the road, around the corner and up the hill I went. The spring made its way back into my step and the pounding of my heart drowned out the stinging of my hand. It was not a catastrophe, just a bump in the road. Literally.

Just like life. We fight through the hard times; talk to ourselves; cheer ourselves on; brush ourselves off and walk on with joy in our hearts when we can and when we can’t, we put our nose to the grindstone and put one foot in front of the other.  If we can’t do that, we cry perhaps, we wait perhaps, we muddle through anyway we can until the clouds lift and the sun returns, accepting that we only have so much control over all that we are and all that we have; the rest is simply a matter of finding the courage to go on.

©Dorothy Sander 2013