Beer, Cigarrete's and Teenage Nudity

It's Girl Scout cookie time. One of the only bright spots of March in my opinion. I just grabbed a couple of Tag-a-Longs to eat with the Diet Coke I'm forced to have before I go to bed to get rid of my headache. The fact that I have to have a Diet Coke to get rid of my caffeine-deprived body, and the fact that I think I need a couple of cookies to go along with it is a whole other story.


Back to Girl Scouts. As I grabbed my cookies it brought be back to my own Girl Scout days. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. That place is practically the opposite of Utah in every way. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it's sure different. I remember when I was about 12 our Girl Scout leader decided to take us on a field trip to Winston Salem. I don't remember exactly how far away that was but maybe two, two and a half hours. It is only now after 16 years of living in the Utah culture that I see how whack that trip really was for a bunch of Girl Scouts.

The first stop on our field trip was Stroh's Beer brewery which was apparently, "the king of beers" before Budweiser was even around. Free beer flowed from the taps for all those that visited the brewery. I learned all about the beer making business. Something that comes in handy for any 12 year old girl. The beer was help yourself as you were leaving the brewery. I remember the leaders keeping a close eye on us to make sure that we only helped ourselves to the Coke products that were also on tap. I think I'll blame my Diet Coke dependency on that day. It sure beats me being responsible for it.

Next stop was the RJ Reynolds tobacco company. Since most of you didn't take NC history in school, I'll tell you that tobacco has been the number one cash crop of NC since NC began. That is a long time since the first colony in the New World was in NC. That's actually probably a well known fact from U.S. History too.  I'm guessing that most of you have seen the Camel cigarette icon:

I'm a little proud to say that at the RJ Reynold's headquarters they have a huge statue of that very same camel made from actual tobacco and I had the honor to see it and its tobacco-y goodness. Forrest Gump and his adventures can't top seeing that. So, after learning all about how to make beer, I then learned all about how to make cigarettes, chew, snuff, etc. What better place to learn it than from the largest tobacco company in the world. Incase you were wondering, they didn't have free cigarettes there for us to take on the way out. Only too bad for me and my dreams to become addicted to nicotine.

While those are both very interesting choices of places to take a bunch of 12 year olds, the best is yet to come. We were staying at our leader's sister's house I think. We just pitched a tent in the yard and slept outside. We didn't go to sleep, however, before watching a movie. I think what they picked was the obvious choice--The Blue Lagoon. There's nothing like teenage sex and nudity to top off a day of beer and cigarettes. I hope you can appreciate how I am less redneck than I have any right to be.

Tender Mercies of the Largest Kind

Yes, I have risen from the dead. I dare say it's a bigger miracle than Lazarus. Maybe that's a little blasphemous, so maybe let it be written that it's just a miracle.

Before I launch into my actual post, on an unrelated side note, maybe Hillyerie shouldn't make fun of me for doing this blog at 6:00 a.m. AT SCHOOL no less, because after all, only crazy people do that.

As another side note, Lynne, I happen to be writing something. Happy, Dear? I don't want to hear another word about it.

I digress. I experienced one of the greatest tender mercies of my life yesterday, and I think it's something I want to share. It's about to get real right here, so hold on to your seats. Actually, this may not be news to most of you that read my blog, as mostly the people I love best are the ones to read it and have knowledge of it on some level.

I've gone to therapy for lo, many years. The reason is because 1. I'm prolly a little bit crazy. (Though I dare say no crazier than pretty much anybody I know.) Mostly it's number 2. I suffer from severe depression. Severe enough that I've been hospitalized for it a few times and have had electroshock therapy. ( I told you that it was about to get real.) Fortunately, for the past couple of years I've been blessed with a period of happiness with no more than some blue days that we all experience from time to time. However, for the past several months, slowly but surely I've been slipping back into that not-so-happy place. Without going into too much detail (because I think that might be a little too real) the reason for my depression is because as a child I experience many years of abuse from more than one person. That tends to jack a child up and literally rewires their brain and the chemicals in it. As a result, anyone with intense trauma of really most any kind suffers from depression and many other issues that come with it on some level. I did my best to pretend that I wasn't slipping and berating myself for not being able to just deal with it and push through until it passed. I consider myself a pretty smart and definitely functioning member of society, so why can't I figure this one out? Only too bad for me, the brain doesn't really care what you want sometimes. It only cares about what needs to happen for it to heal and feel better.

This brings me to the tender mercy part. Probably 5 or 6 years ago I wasn't so functioning. I found myself in the hospital for I believe the 2nd time in as many years. The tricky thing about being in the hospital for depression is that even if you stabilize and begin to feel better, they won't let you out unless you have a therapist lined up to go see when you get out. I didn't have one, and I was more than ready to get out of that place. They gave me a list of possible places to go and a telephone and told me to go to work. I didn't know where to begin. However, my KT friend was friends with a therapist that she loved very much. Since I didn't have any better ideas, I called his office. The receptionist told me that he wasn't accepting new clients, however, they had a wonderful lady named, Erin that was new to their facility and could see me. I told her I'd take what I could get and we set up an appointment. I guess that was really the 1st tender mercy that led to the one I experienced yesterday. Heavenly Father sent me straight to Erin because she was the one who could take me on the painful journey I needed to take in order to heal and move on in my life. She was an angel in my life. I spent the next year and a half doing the most painful, gut-wrenching, but healing work of my life. On the first day that I walked into her office she knew exactly what I needed and didn't waste any time. She also didn't put up with any of my crap because I'd become pretty proficient at avoiding and telling people what I thought they wanted to hear. I loved and trusted her so much and felt so safe and so grateful for her, I would have gone to the ends of the Earth and back if she asked me to. (She never did ask me to go to the ends of the Earth, but she did ask me to go to places that I'd chosen the Earth over any day.) I truly believe that Erin saved me. I don't think I could have stayed here much longer with that kind of pain and hopelessness. Then one day I showed up to her office and she told me that she'd be leaving. My world flipped upside down and inside out. I was devastated. She said she would be gone in a couple of weeks. She needed to take a break from being a therapist for her own reasons. She told me that she didn't know how long that would be. Maybe a year or two. She just didn’t know. I felt the ultimate abandonment and cried pretty much for about 3 weeks after that. Honest and truly there are very few days still that I don't think of her and feel grateful for her. I'd give most anything to see her again and just hug her neck.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I finally realized that it was time for me to go back to therapy and do more work. I'm in a different, much better place now than I was when I met Erin, but the funny thing about trauma is that it keeps cycling back over and over. Each time is less painful and more hopeful because you know that you are getting closer to the time that you will have made your peace with it enough that it doesn't affect your life. I went back to the Family Support and Treatment Center where I'd seen Erin about 4 years ago. They got me in to see Nevin, which was great, but probably not the person I needed. After a couple of months of seeing him I realized that I should probably break up with him and try another therapist that I was more comfortable. Only another tender mercy because he told me that he was leaving and I'd need to get a new therapist. I was a little butt-hurt because I'm not a fan of being abandoned and he was the second one. He even had Erin's old office. I got over that pretty quickly, though. He referred me to a girl named Jessica. She is fantastic. Only you're not going to believe this because on my first meeting with her she told me that she was only going to be there until sometime in April and then she was leaving to go back to Canada. Are you freaking kidding me?! Now I had a huge decision to make. Did I go ahead and see her for the time she was here and have the faith that I could find someone else when she was gone? The catch with this one is that I only have 20 visits a year with my insurance and I'd used most of them on Nevin. I only have about 8 left so when she's gone I'm all tapped out. So that required more faith that the funds would come. Choice number two was to not see her for this time and save my visits for the new person. The flaw with this choice is that I'm pretty sure I'm not okay enough to go that long without someone. Seems like there was a third choice, but it wasn't a very good one and I've forgotten it now. I decided to take the leap of faith and continue to see Jessica although I was scared to death to really get to know and trust her and to pray the funds would show up. So, here's the really good part: Yesterday I showed up to see Jessica and she was fairly shaking with excitement. She said she'd been counting down the minutes until she saw me. I thought that was a little intense, but whatever. She said that she had news for me. (I think you probably know where this is going.) Apparently, Family Support and Treatment Center was rehiring ERIN to replace Jessica and Nevin! Shut Up! Are you even kidding me? I'm pretty sure I squealed in delight and so did Jessica. Heavenly Father loves me so much that he sent the one person back into my life when I needed her most. Can I tell you how glad I am that I took the leap of faith route and decided to stick with Jessica and pray it would all work out? I am absolutely beside myself with joy and feel the most hope I've felt in months. I'm also deeply humbled and grateful for the blessing and tender mercy Heavenly Father saw fit to give to me.  I think he must love me best.