Have You Ever Asked Yourself “What If”

Last night Chris and I watched one of our all time favorite shows NCIS.  The show was all about the What Ifs in Leroy Gethro Gibbs (main character) life.  See Chris’s blog NCIS is a Great Teacher for more information.

The show made me think about the big what if’s in my life.  Here are a few examples of some obvious what ifs in my life.

When I was in high school in southern California, I wanted to be editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times.  I always have liked journalism.   So what if I took my scholarship and got a journalism degree?  Would I have found photography and become a photo journalist, perhaps travel the world and end up working for the National Geographic?  Now that could be awesome.  But then I could have been a small town newspaper reporter writing about events that happened last week and trying to make those events sound interesting.

When I was 20, I had a chance to work with the CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) in their Los Angeles, California office.  I had to have a Top Secret clearance before they would do the final interview in Washington DC.  Those months I was connected to the CIA were the most interesting months of my life.  I was a naive, wide-eyed 20 year and I loved every minute of it.  The only reason I didn’t get the job, was someone didn’t file the right paperwork and the job went to someone else.  Many years later, I met someone who was retired from the CIA and he said I would have been well taken care of by the Agency, but my life would have been so very different.

What was the moment that changed your life?

Chris asked a question which really made me think and I would like to answer her.  The questions is “What was the moment that changed your life?”   Check out her blog My Mother Hates You to find out her answer.

I don’t know the date, like Chris does, but I can explain the circumstance.  There were really two distinct and related instances that definitely changed my life.

I come from a family that never got divorced and life to the world seemed fairly normal.  I have one sister who is 18 months older than me.  For most of my younger life, my father sexually abused me.  When I was in the 7th grade, I gathered up the courage to tell my mother what he was doing to me.  When I told my mother, she didn’t disagree with me.  First thing she told me was that she was abused too as a child and it was “no big deal” and “normal”.  The second thing she did was get my father and confront him.  He admitted to the sexual abuse.  But he didn’t take any kind of responsibility.  He said it was my “fault”.

My mother was always concerned what our neighbors thought, even though we didn’t know them.  We were the type of people who would go to church on Sunday’s just for “show”.  So it was only natural that my mother made sure I was out in public with my father so we would look like an ordinary family.  This was in the early 1970s and incest was so not talked about.

I’m definitely a “glass half full” type of person.

Chris and I were talking a lot this weekend about our blogs and what we want out of them.  One thing I really want to share is that life is about the little things, not the big events.  The quiet moments, the unspectacular, taking time to look at the beauty around, sharing a smile with a stranger.

I have Chronic Lyme Disease, as most of you know, and that disease starts out small.  A little tick bite.  I may or may not have had a reaction when I initially got the bite.  I’m not sure.  I don’t really know when I got bitten.  All I know it was between the ages 22 and 24.  That little bite slowly over the years has dramatic changed the course of my life.

Chris has always said I know how to turn the bad into good.  I’m definitely a “glass half full” type of person.  I always do look for something good.  I was like that as a child and young adult.  I come from an abusive household.  My father sexually abused me for years.  When I was in the 7th grade, I told him to stop and told my mother.  The abuse stopped at that point, but my relationship with my family was in some ways more of a nightmare.  By the time I was 19 years old, I was speaking about incest in public.  I was fortunate enough to hear other adults and some even in their sixties and seventies, voice their own stories of abuse for the first times in their life.  This was back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when there weren’t as many avenues for adults, let alone children, to speak of incest.  I’ve always been a strong advocate for people telling their stories and to feel their own victories of surviving.

I’m not sure where this writing is going today …. I just know it’s part of my story and who I am.  Maybe it’s a sneak preview of who I am at the core of me.  I’ve always been supportive, loving and encouraging for people.  Since I got Lymes, everything in my life seems to have left me.  Now I’m starting to feel healthy enough (mentally, physically and spiritually) to start seeing who I really am again.  And being a mentor and supporter has always been a huge part of who I am.  I am beginning to embrace that part of me again.

When I worked at Staples, my last full time job, on of my favorite things I would say to my co-workers was “I at least made you smile”.   Even at some of my sickest times, I could still somehow make people smile and feel better.

The photo below will hopefully put a smile on your face…especially those in the northern hemisphere!

Hugs and blessings

Cee