On Grey's Anatomy and Reliving Traumatic Experiences

One of my general rules of life has been: Face it.  In life, there are shitty things that happen.  Avoidance does not make them go away.  Facing gives them less power.  But I think my theory has its holes.

When I was younger, and I was sure the Winter Warlock or Bigfoot was outside my window waiting to snatch me up (second story window in the city...talk about irrational), my way of "facing" that was to close my eyes tight until I fell asleep.  If my eyes were closed, whatever was out there could not touch me.  Or at least that was my logic.  And it worked.  Morning came.  I was safe.

However, there are bigger things in life that happen, and deeper wounds that I really think, rather than "facing" them to become calloused to the pain, I might need to start avoiding.

I think I should have turned this week's Grey's Anatomy off when I saw what was coming, but I figured "facing it" would be healthier.  For the last few seasons, Grey's has been fairly jolting and heavily sad.  There was an episode where a newly pregnant Meredith watched a gunman shoot her husband and then had a subsequent miscarriage.  This gunman had gone on a frightening rampage through the hospital.  I was pretty shaken by that episode.  Being in a profession that has "intruder plans," the idea of people going on shooting rampages is, alas, part of what could be any teacher's reality.  So, that episode was brutal on my emotions.

In this week's episode, a family was in an accident.  All of the adults in the car passed away.  One after the other.  First the grandmother, then the mother, then the dad, leaving the three children orphaned.  The oldest child was celebrating her 18th birthday.  She watched each of these persons in her life die.  Her father was on life support and his organs were slowly shutting down.  She had to decide to take him off life support.  It was at that point that I COMPLETELY lost it.  From the decision to her watching her father take his last breaths without a respirator, I was a mess.  It was not a "therapeutic" feeling.  It reopened a wound, and it felt awful.  So, my theory of facing things that are difficult really did not work out too well in this situation.

I know in life I cannot avoid stories that involve the ends of people's lives, and not every "death" scenario makes me have this type of reaction.  However, I am not sure intentionally exposing myself to storylines that take me down an emotional road that caused me decades to deal with is entirely necessary.  Live and learn.

Winter Break, Day 12

What a weird day, weather-wise.

• Got up and worked on some Move More Eat Well printouts. Realized that my printer software and I need to come to terms.  Lots of wasted cardstock.  Ugh!  The good news is that I got in my 100 sit ups/push ups while the printer wasted my (Bazzill white orange peel) cardstock.
• Did Zumba on the Wii with Kim.  
• Went out into the elements.  We actually had snow showers today. Max looked outside and thought it was foggy.  Snow was blowing around, the temperature dropped, and everything got slick.
• While out in the elements, I was in major pain.  My foot was a hot mess, and there was no stretching that could get me out of this one.  Finally, I came home, ate lunch, and lay on the bed with a heating pad wrapped around it for about an hour.  That actually was just what the doctor ordered.
• I wrote out my Christmas thank you cards and dropped them off in the mail.
• We had The Fresh Market chicken, twice baked potatoes, and (I had) corn souffle.  I started tracking my food intake on Lose It (online and app) just to get an idea of what I was shoveling in my mouth and to keep me accountable (or more than I was, which was not at all).  We shall see.  I did NOT like the scale's reading this morning.  I sure am physically active, so gaining a bit more control of my food intake will be good.  Also, mixing up my workouts will help.
• We watched Pawn Stars and American Pickers.  Love those guys!
• Now, I will be working a bit on my One Little Word project.  I took this photo, which I will be using for the first part of the scrapbook.  I need to put on the overlay (a slight frame that goes with the rest of the design) and then it shall be done.  I also took a photo of Max and I (posted below the one of me).  Love it.  Used my iPhone and Camera+ actions, hence the grain.

Winter Break, Day 11 - Welcome 2012!

Today:

• The boys and I went to see The Muppets.  So glad we saw it before it was out of the theaters.  They really seemed to enjoy it. I enjoy that, with the exception of one bathroom visit, Max now sits through entire movies without much of an issue. We have come a long way since Up! :)

• After a delightful Wendy's lunch (Ignatius' favorite), I took a bit of a nap.  Scott decided to play Mike Holmes and start ripping apart our basement.  What? you say?  But JoLynn, your basement was not completely finished.  Indeed, you are correct.  After almost 20 years of marriage, I realized that one of the golden rules of marital bliss is sometimes you ask questions, and sometimes questions will not help one understand any better.
• I also watched my first video for my MMEW scrapbook journey.  Really good stuff.
• Upon waking and inspecting the lack of walls in my basement, I did an hour of Wii Zumba, did my 100s (push ups and sit ups) that I re-committed to, and de-Christmased, to a degree.  The tree is still up, but that is the job of Destructo-Man.

Pondering the putting away of Christmas, I have to say that taking down the tree on New Year's Day is quite symbolic. I looked at the ornaments from the many years, thought about those years and events that occurred in them, and packed them away yet again.  Some of them were good memories, and some of them stunk.  But they all shaped our history and living through them shapes our future.  That's all I have to say about that.