YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS RIGHT?????? IT'S FRIDAY!! AND THAT MEANS YES IT'S TIME FOR :

FRIDAY FUN FACTS !!!!

Yes Scratchy- it is Friday!!!!!!

Okay bloggers!! Here are my facts for this week!

1. I love to do logic puzzles and puzzles in general........I like to keep my brain working and love numbers and math.....Sick huh?

2. I love to investigate and research things.... I would have made a great private eye!.... I find out all kinds of neat things and mostly it's all within my computers reach....

3. One of my favorite things to do is sit under the stars at night by a bonfire... The beauty of the night sky filled with stars combined with the warmth of the fire is very comforting to my soul.

4. I love my cameras...I have several but the ones I use most often are my Kodak Easy Share digital and my Minolta 3000i  -35mm... I am on the prowl for a new one... looking at the Minolta Konica 35mm digitals....I love the capacity and ease of digital photography but I also want more expanded control settings to do more things creatively with my photography.

5. I love working in the garden and have created several new flower beds in our yard- We put in a rose garden last year with a fountain that is so pretty. I created an Oriental garden the year before and I also have a large herb bed that I created which wraps around the whole side and back of our garage that includes lavender, lemon thyme, chives, elfin thyme, catnip, spearmint, dill, rosemary, basils, orange mint, chocolate mint, oregano and chamomile...plus a few other things thrown in...I just love the fragrance of it......

So there you have it folks...... more about me- PolarB!

Tootles!

PolarB ;)

 

Okay bloggers- I have some important questions for you!

1. What is your favorite thing to snack on?
2. What is under your bed right now?
3. Assuming family and pets are completely safe, what would be the one thing you you save if your house was on fire or going to be completely demolished.
4. Have you ever skinny dipped?
5. Do you use the 5 second rule if you drop something you are eating?

 

So..... are we having fun yet? Here are my answers-

1. Popcorn! The more butta the betta...
2. Shoes and a family of dustbunnies...in fact, I think they are mating again as we speak! I heard strange noises coming from under the bed last night. :o
3. My cameras/pictures...yeah...yeah... I know that is actually two things but they go hand in hand....okay...my questions..... I can cheat if I want to! Na na na!
4. Yes
5. Depends where I drop it....

 

Have fun kiddies!

PolarB ;)

I decided to post another article I wrote that was also published in 2000 by Voices in Action. The year was Y2K and all the hubbub about that was going on... This was an article I wrote about my father dying and how it effected me.

 

Keep Moving Forward

 

     The new millennium has been a tremendous year for me, full of growth and opportunities. I am adjusting to being a thriver instead of just surviving. In the midst of this transformation, I received an unexpected phone call shortly after the New Year began. It was the news that my birth father had died suddenly of an apparent heart attack. It was sixteen days after I had greeted the New Year with the hopes that this would be the beginning of the best of my life. It was totally unexpected, considering the fact that I had not seen or been in contact with my father for over eighteen years. I had no idea of where he had been living or if he was even still alive. I guess another reason it shocked me was because my father was only fifty-six at the time of his passing.

     When I put the phone back in its cradle, I broke down and cried. My reaction puzzled me. I had always wondered what it would be like the day that I was totally free from my main abuser. I always imagined that I would be jumping up and down for joy. Apparently, that was not the case, to my surprise. The little girl inside of me cried hard, hot wet tears spilling down her face because her Daddy was gone and would never come back to be the Daddy she wanted. My adult self cried too, but it seemed to be tears of relief that it was finally over. I felt confused at my emotional response. I wasn’t sure of what I was supposed to say or do.

     The first words I spoke were, “He will never be able to hurt me again.” That was a fact. I think some of the tears was the fear leaving my body. Fear that someday he would come back and hurt me as he had for so many years. That would never happen now and I was safe at last. I don’t think I have ever felt such a mixture of feelings and emotions all at once. There was sadness, grief, anger, confusion, relief and a bit of uneasy happiness thrown in. It was an intense few days.

     The call came from a distant cousin who had tracked me down. She told me that a social worker was looking for the next of kin. She gave me the name of the county she was from, but did not know the woman’s name. I ended up playing investigator and after many calls, I was finally able to connect with her and find out the details surrounding my father’s death. I told her we had been estranged for eighteen years. She told me he died at home, but they took him to the hospital in an ambulance and had tried to revive him. They thought it was his heart, but they had sent his body for an autopsy to rule out suicide. There were things at the scene that made them suspicious. He was a poor man, no insurance, no funds to speak of, he was living off the state to get by. He would be cremated and there would be no funeral services. I wrote down all the information and drove two hours to see where he had been living.

     His residence was a little shack by the river. He collected a lot of junk, probably in hopes of fixing it up to resell for money. The surroundings reminded me of the old show, “Sanford and Son” with all the heaps of things piled up everywhere, in the yard, all around the shack, in the driveway. I could only imagine what the inside would look like. I didn’t have a key nor did I want to go inside. I made several passes to get a closer look at how my father’s life had turned out. He was still married to his third much older wife, my stepmother, who was mentally ill and in a nearby nursing home. I called to get more info and was told she wanted to speak with me. I was more than a little hesitant about going to see her. She had also been abusive to me while I was growing up. I pictured an old crackly witch in a wheelchair, haggard and evil looking, drawing me ever closer to spit poison at me.

      The reality was a tiny old woman sitting on the edge of the bed calling me “Honey” every five seconds and rambling on and on about a hundred miles a minute about this and that. She told me I had grown into a lovely woman. It was the nicest words this woman had ever spoken to me. She was so frail and helpless and seemed very lonely as she spoke of my father. All my fears of her dissipated as I listened to her. I didn’t forget what she had done to me, but I was no longer scared of her.

     She told me my father loved to fish but that he couldn’t get around much anymore. He had gangrene in his legs. He couldn’t drive anymore, his license was taken away. He drank too much, which was news to me, considering that my father had never been much of a drinker. She said he would often pull out my childhood photos from his worn wallet and talk about his little girl to anyone who would listen. He had heart problems and had open heart surgery previously and was scared of losing his legs to the gangrene infection.

     As I listened to her talk, for the first time in my life, I began to see my father as a man and not just my abuser. I felt compassion and pity for the man he had become. My fears unraveled and scattered like leaves in the wind. It’s kind of like walking around with a two ton weight wrapped around your body for all your life, and then one day being able to stop, and take it off and walk away. I have to tell you, it felt good.

     My stepmother wanted to keep his ashes, which was more than fine with me. I would have liked to see what my father looked like after all those years, but I never got the chance to. In my mind, he had always been a big man towering over me. That certainly would not have been the case now. Seeing my stepmother in the nursing home proved that to me.

     I was able to close another chapter in my journey. Another tremendous growth opportunity had transpired. I seem to keep growing each day in so many ways, at home, at work, and in helping other survivor’s on their journeys. I was a strong little girl who survived and I am an even stronger woman now because of all of my experiences. The new millennium is turning out to be the absolute best of my life after all! Let’s keep moving forward, that’s my motto...

 

Love & Light

 PolarB ;)

Wow bloggers today went fast.... I worked on our taxes most of the day and got them all finished and mailed off late this evening... Lovey and I went out for pizza and I am a bit tired after crunching numbers all day long....

I was going through some of my old writings and poetry looking for things for my poetry site (The Woman Within)- and I came across some articles I had written for Voices in Action. Actually Kazza had asked me about some of my stuff that has been published so I found this one and decided to post it. It was published in 2000 in Voices in Action in The Chorus newsletter.

 

 “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby”

     When I think about how far I have come in my healing process, the phrase,” You’ve come a long way, Baby…” comes to mind. Indeed, I have traveled a long road on my healing journey. I was thinking about it the other day and remembering how I was when I first started this process. I didn’t even know the term “healing process” or “healing journey” or any of the lingo I have come to know so well. I didn’t know what an “inner child” was, nor did I care. All I knew was that my world was falling apart and I didn’t know why. I thought I was going crazy or I was already totally off the wall, because that’s how it felt at the time.

     I realized I had to do something to stop the madness. I couldn’t sleep. I was having horrific nightmares where I would wake up feeling like I was dying or wanted to anyway. I was always trying to get away from something, but I didn’t know what “it” was. I couldn’t breathe, I was scared to speak or even move at times. I would lay there for hours in my bed paralyzed and afraid to even breathe. But I couldn’t name what I was afraid of.

     My waking hours were no better. I was zoning out of my body and having waking nightmares as well, which I have come to realize were flashbacks. I would see these awful images flash before my eyes that would immobilize me and it was as if something awful was happening to me at that moment. I had intense feelings and an overwhelming fear that I could not explain. When I would come back into my body, I was alone and scared. I just knew I had to be going crazy. I knew it had something to do with my father and why I never wanted to be around him. I would get sick to my stomach for no reason whenever he came into my mind. I started seeing images of hands reaching and grabbing for me. It terrified me.

     No matter how many times I would try to push it out of my mind, it would always come back. It was finally time to deal with “it”. I knew I needed to get help. I came across a book that is very familiar to most of us survivors called, The Courage to Heal” by Laura Davies and Ellen Bass. It was like a lifeline to me. It became my Bible if you will. I could finally put a name to what I was feeling and going through. I was an incest survivor. To be able to put a name to it was a great relief.

     At times it was not easy. There were many moments that I would go back into denial and tell myself that it was not true. Then there were the moments when I would have flashbacks or the terrible nightmares when I could not possibly lie to myself, and had to come to the realization that yes, it was true and it did happen. I would go back and forth many times, not wanting it to be true yet knowing deep within my heart that it was.

     One of the absolute best decisions I have ever made in my life was to join an incest survivor’s support group. Up until that point, I had not talked to anyone about the incest and I was trying to handle it all by myself. It wasn’t working. I needed more. I cannot explain to you the benefits of joining that group. First of all, I discovered that I was not alone. One out of every three women are survivors of some type of sexual abuse. I believe it is also one out of every five men that have been sexually abused or molested.

     We need to stand up and tell our stories and let it be heard, so that maybe we can save another child or woman or man from going through what we went through. It is being talked about more than ever today and children are being taught to tell, which is very important. It is okay to tell. We have to tell in order to stop the madness.

     That was the other thing I learned in the survivor’s group. That I did not have to keep what happened to me a secret anymore. Again…It is okay to tell. It is essential to our survival to tell. I know many of us have the fear that if we tell, our perpetrator will know and find us and harm us. That was how they took our power away from us and made us afraid. They were counting on that fear to protect them. Don’t let it!

     I remember walking into that first meeting, terrified, not knowing what to expect. I would not even speak or hardly look anyone in the eye back then. But I stayed and I listened to the other women’s stories and I knew without a doubt that I was in the right place.

     That was many years ago and the beginning of my healing journey. I learned that I was not alone. I learned some healthy coping skills. I learned its okay to cry and feel my feelings. I learned that I don’t have to be afraid anymore. I have learned and embraced so many wonderful things that have brought me to where I am today.

     Yes, I am a survivor and yes, I survived in spite of my perpetrators damage. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. So many times I wanted to just throw in the towel and say forget this, I can’t do this anymore…. But, I would pull myself up and continue. If I had given up, it would have meant that my perpetrators had won and I wasn’t about to let them do that! It was a long, hard, difficult road…Was it worth it? You bet it was!

     I know if you are in the beginning stages of healing, it seems overwhelming, difficult and painful, but believe this…. You will make it! You are stronger than you think you are, after all, you survived. That was the hardest part, whether you realize it or not. You survived for a reason. It may be a long painful journey, but when you come out on the other side, and you will…. You can look back and tell yourself,” You’ve come a long way Baby”…… I did and I have faith that you will too.

 

PolarB ;)

This is one of my favorite paintings...."Native Warrior Woman" I did it about 6 years ago...



This one is more recent...It's called "Three Sisters"



This one is "Serenity"-- It's actually hanging on my door that comes into my art room / office.

Enjoy!
PolarB ;)