So, What Gives?

Gently nudged by a co-worker writer friend to further explain details regarding my last post, I sat uncomfortably hunched over the keyboard for half an hour, fingers hovering as to whether or not I was capable of appropriately conveying in one email why a pair of boots were wielding such inexplicable power in my world.

Obviously I didn’t wish to replay the PTSD trauma in my head, but clearly if I was still bothered emotionally, I was gonna to have to eventually suck it up and deal with my issues. 

Granted, it’s not like I have throngs of readers here lining up to understand why I continue to “Try To Make Sense”, but since the boots were actually a stimulus for getting me to write my first blogs on Yahoo!, I do owe the few of you who have followed so loyally, the ugly truth.

After all, I made a promise to myself five years ago to own my mistakes, and (with minimal editing), I typed the following to my friend (a back-story for those of you unfamiliar with the birth of this blog):

“Since you asked - and frankly they (re: my boots) are a part of why I took up blogging for my own therapy! - I got arrested for a DUI after a wrap party in 2006.  My blood alcohol content was through the roof, and I'd hit a parked car on the street somewhere in the Hollywood Hills.  Not pretty, but at least no one was physically harmed.  Appropriately escorted in handcuffs to Van Nuys for booking and tossed into the drunk tank overnight, I thought the worst was over (aside from not knowing how the f**k to get home from Van Nuys the next night) until I went to court two months later... 

“Not only did the Judge slam me with 9 months of alcohol awareness classes for a first time offense (which the Owner of the School ended up making me teach the class (???)), but also a minimum of 30 AA meetings. 

“Oh yes, and 29 days of hard labor serving for Caltrans, wherein I had to take two buses (my driver's license yanked for a few months) to get to "The Yard" under the freeways at Elysian Park by 7am in the dark to "qualify" to load tools, hop in a van with other criminals and a port-o-potty; to strap on the icky re-usable sweaty orange vests and hard hats, and hoe the side of freeways, tossing bagfuls of litter and foliage into the back of the dump trucks, whilst occasionally cleaning up vile "bum" camps that really should have been handled by a Haz- Mat team...  And let's face it, I'm not really a Schwarzenegger when it comes to upper body strength, so it took me MANY months to complete 29 days...

“Caltrans requirements:  bring your own lunch, long pants, long-sleeved shirt, gloves, work boots.

“Yes, I became the creepy, stinky, freeway-exhaust-covered raccoon-face in my eyeglasses on my two bus rides home that NO ONE wants to sit anywhere nearby, reeking of God Knows What, with peanut butter breath eaten out of the jar with a spoon whilst sitting on the side of the 134 freeway!!!!  YAY!!!!   And all I could do was stare down at my shoes in complete humiliation.

“I think my parents had to financially support me for about a year or more, until a friend/Life Coach reached out to me and finally dragged me out of my robotic mind-set of fear of absolutely everything...

“And thus, my Comedy/Drama blog was born!!!” 

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Still hunched over the keyboard in the moment, I had to take a minute (actually many, many, more) to breathe…

I immediately recalled the fumes of the freeway, and reliving one specific PTSD afternoon of sitting under an overpass in the shade on a particularly unkind hot August sunny day (sweating profusely whilst hungrily scarfing down peanut butter on a lunch break); my temporarily ungloved hand felt something soft next to me lying on the curb.  There were well-worn bead-like items attached at the ends; maybe an adorned bandana flown out the window of a passing convertible? 

But starving after hoeing absolute filth with a dozen of my “co-felons”, I took comfort in the moment, giving up a ciggy to a “co-worker” who offered in exchange for the smoke to throw the last of my bags of crap into the trucks.

Elegant?  (Most definitely NOT.)

And the soft “bandana” next to me with the beaded trimming?  Yeah, that turned out to be a deceased animal carcass with its toenails still in tact…

EEK!!!!!!!!!!

(Hand sanitizer, NOW!)

>>><<<

Yeah...

Not pleasant, nor particularly eloquent.

But sometimes you gotta own the past, to fully appreciate the future!

And having unintentionally sparked an entire philosophical discussion with my last post, I’ve discovered that there were throngs of people in my life that have very specific opinions! 

Some say that it’s imperative to throw away the boots and take away their inanimate “power”.  Some say it’s impossible at this point to ignore the journey.  Some have even cheered me on to defy the past, and wear them like a badge of honor!

>>><<<

But for now, for me, I’m happy to keep them in a bag in the hall closet; harmless friendly soldiers who got me through the rough stuff (literally!) and were eventually able to prance with me on a Hollywood soundstage!!!  :)

>>><<<

Opening the mail box a few days ago, a pay-stub and check sat patiently waiting.

Apparently I’d gone into some Network/Union Contract Overtime the night I got to play my on-camera role…

And as The Universe would have it, I had a wee bit more to deposit in my checking account than I’d anticipated!

Hmm…

$9.99 at HolloweenExpress.com?

*click*

Soon to be the proud owner of my very own scepter!!!

Making My Own Sense (if only in the present moment!),

~P