coping

It was painful to contemplate the distance between the future of accomplishment I'd imagined for myself twenty years earlier...it was painful to understand that the cushion of exceptionality invoked by the drug had made me oblivious to my inertia. And it was painful to have to define myself again, at an age when most people are happy in their own skins.

For every evil under the sun,There is a remedy, or there is none.If there be one, try and find it;If there be none, never mind it.

It takes a certain kind of man willing to work long, grueling hours in a career offering few rewards.

To get through the night, I sometimes imagined the sky filled with a canopy of stars. I imagined that each star contained the soul of a girl or boy who had died too young, and the light the stars gave off was their brightness.

No one can escape their past. The sins we've committed... and the sadness we've caused... No matter how far we run, our past remains, as ever-present as the moon in the sky. It looms in wait... for the day when we are forced to face it. But only in doing so can we truly make peace and move on in hope towards tomorrow.

Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it... Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It__ been protected by the efficient armour, it__ never participated in life, it__ never been exposed to living and to managing the person__ affairs, it__ never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it__ never properly lived. That__ how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced...And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It__ their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can__ understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That__ the carrier of all the living qualities. It__ the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn__ come out of that creature isn__ worth having, or it__ worth having only as a tool__or that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful...And so, wherever life takes it by surprise, and suddenly the artificial self of adaptations proves inadequate, and fails to ward off the invasion of raw experience, that inner self is thrown into the front line__nprepared, with all its childhood terrors round its ears.And yet that__ the moment it wants. That__ where it comes alive__ven if only to be overwhelmed and bewildered and hurt. And that__ where it calls up its own resources__ot artificial aids, picked up outside, but real inner resources, real biological ability to cope, and to turn to account, and to enjoy.That__ the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they__e suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That__ why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember.But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells__e becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you__e gone a few weeks and haven__ felt that awful struggle of your childish self__truggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence__ou__l know you__e gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you__e gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself.

May our spirit fill us with understanding of victory and defeat, the gift of collaboration, the wisdom to choose the right path, and opportunities that inspire hope.

When the silence and the aloneness press down and around me, crushing me, carving through me like ice, I need to speak aloud sometimes, if only for proof of life.

A little manic was okay. A little manic paid the bills and got him up in the morning, made him magic when he needed it most.

I told her I was not sure I could bear living with memories, she said, Look up at the stars, look, they are not there, what you see is the memory of what once was, once upon a time.

Here is the voice of my main Character in my Talon book series, I__l let her introduce herself to you:My name is Matica and I am a special needs child with a growth disability. I am stuck in the body of a two year old, even though I am ten years old when my story begins in the first book of the Talon series, TALON, COME FLY WITH ME. Because of that disability, (I am saying __hat_ disability, not __y_ disability because it__ a thing that happens to me, nothing more and because I am not accepting it as something bad. I can say that now after I learned to cope with it.) I was rejected by the local Indians as they couldn__ understand that that condition is not a sickness and so it can__ be really cured. It__ just a disorder of my body. But I never gave up on life and so I had lots of adventures roaming around the plateau where we live in Peru, South America, with my mother__ blessings. But after I made friends with my condors I named Tamo and Tima, everything changed. It changed for the good. I was finally loved. And I am the hero and I embrace my problem. In better words: I had embraced my problem before I made friends with my condors Tamo and Tima. I held onto it and I felt sorry for myself and cried a lot, wanting to run away or something worse. But did it help me? Did it become better? Did I grow taller? No, nothing of that helped me. I didn__ have those questions when I was still in my sorrow, but all these questions came to me later, after I was loved and was cherished. One day I looked up into the sky and saw the majestic condors flying in the air. Here and now, I made up my mind. I wanted to become friends with them. I believed if I could achieve that, all my sorrow and rejection would be over. And true enough, it was over. I was loved. I even became famous. And so, if you are in a situation, with whatever your problem is, find something you could rely on and stick to it, love that and do with that what you were meant to do. And I never run from conflicts.

It's not a crime to feel sad, down or depressed. Moving through difficult feelings is an essential part of living life authentically. Though society would have us believe that when we are sad, we need to smack a silly smile on our face and pretend everything is okay. Problems arise when we repress, deny or bury these feelings. We need to know when it's time to seek help and support, to avoid becoming overwhelmed by these types of emotion. Life is a bittersweet symphony, we need to hear every instrument and listen to every note.

...I still saw everything through the filter I had created in order to survive. I could not see the happiness that preceded the abyss. I had forced myself not to acknowledge my life's most splendid moment, in order to be able to live out the rest of my life without it. I think that was what had happened. It has changed since, but back then it was impossible for me to embrace the happiness I had lost.

The door slams in response, and I laugh. I'm glad she can laugh. It means she really is coping. I know she__ internalizing a lot, though. Putting on a show for me. She__l have new scars on her wrists soon.

The dirty secret she__ learned about grief was that nobody wanted to hear about your loss a week after the funeral. People you__ once considered friends would turn their heads in church or cross to another side of a shopping mall to avoid the contamination of your suffering. __ou might imagine I__ coping day by day,_ she murmured. __ut it__ more a case of hour by hour, and during my worst times, minute by minute.

Throw off your grief,' doubters imply, 'and we can all go back to pretending death doesn't exist, or at least is comfortably far away.

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it...I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.

It was a lesson she was still learning. When she had first started nursing, she had taken every death personally, like she was losing her father all over again. Every patient lost under her care was a little piece of death she would carry around with her until the end of her own life. But the alternative seemed so unfeeling. Tina and the other nurses could crack jokes and banter back and forth about contestants on American Idol before the body of a deceased patient was even cold. It was a coping mechanism, she knew, but not necessarily one she thought she would ever adopt. There had to be something in between. Olive had been called a bleeding heart before, but her heart no longer had the same plasticity and tenderness__t was scarred and worn beyond repair