Opening the Door

As I have mentioned before, I started therapy. Initially this was grief counselling to help me through the "fallout" from my father's passing.  It has been a rough time and the therapy has shifted somewhat to some of my personal issues that I have not addressed.

The hardest thing to admit was that I don't truly have an idea of who I am as a person or what I want.  And.. if I do know what I want, I'm not willing to admit it or confess it to even myself.  My life outside of work and roller derby is... okay, let's be blunt... it's empty.  For the past couple of weeks I have done nothing more than go home after work and sleep.  The depression funk that I have found myself in the past few months is like the tides.... ebb and flow... ebb and flow....

The ultimate thing that came out is that I have been living my life for way too long as an "island" - on my own, depending on no one but myself, forging it alone.  What that has done is isolate me from so many people.  I was asked to go through my cell phone and give people a "star" rating of how much I thought I could depend on them.  I only gave one person the highest four star rating.  It made it perfectly clear that I need to allow myself to be a little more vulnerable, let people in more, and truly forge some deeper friendships.

So what does this mean... I need to be out among people more.  I need to share more about me.  I need to allow people into my world, into my past, and truly trust that who I am as a person is enough to keep them around.  I don't need to be funny, witty, sarcastic.  I need to let the facade go...

Starting now, starting today, I'm opening the door and walking through... I feel more vulnerable now than I ever have before... 

Pause and remember

13 years ago today I was on the 5th floor of what was then Bear Stearns world headquarters at 245 Park Avenue when a coworker, Alison, got off the phone and told us that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. In my normal smart ass mode, I joked that it wasn't me who did it. What unfolded over the next few hours shook me to my core like few things ever had before and would do since. Living in one of the outer boroughs and not having a way to get home outside of my own two feet, Alison took me into her home with her now husband Michael where we forged a wonderful, deeper friendship as watched the world we knew at that time irrevocably change. Many people chose to leave NYC following those events in 2001. I chose to stay for another 12 years despite my mother begging me to move. If I was going to leave, it was going to be on my terms. Today, pause and take a moment to remember those we lost - the innocents who seemingly had no choice and the brave who charged forth into danger to save as many as they could.