Still Something

She's going to be 19 next week. She plans to be back in university next year. She was out riding her horse when it spooked and bucked, giving her whiplash. She was thrown to the ground, layed there unable to move for over an hour. Her horse returned to the farm without her, and dad came out to find her. She can hardly see, her ataxia makes her movements jerky and hard to control - but she still texts her friends all day long on her cell phone (with a magnifying glass held up to her face). Her voice is flat and her sense of humour is sarcastic. She doesn't know why she just can't go home, she's fine you know, don't I see there's nothing wrong with her? Same as before the accident she says. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

He's only 28, soon going to be 29. He's married, they have a one-year old child. He's been here almost a month. He just. stopped. breathing. one night and his wife found him, EMTs came and rushed him to the hospital. Some type of cardiac arrest. Only activity seen was in the brain stem (our base base base brain). He was supposed to die, but he has lived, and he continues to fight. He's pretty much blind, and he can't stand or walk. He's getting stronger, his eyes squeeze shut and his whole body shakes and jolts when he laughs after telling me a bad joke. He'll never be what he was, but he's still something.

She just turned 20. She's been here nearly a year. Pictures of her 'before' are all over her wall. With her friends. Her brother. Her parents. Her graduation class. Happy, lovely, excited, long blonde hair, fully alive. She'll probably never walk, and she hates her chair. She's angry. She gives me the finger about a hundred times a month, and then tries to laugh. She can get out a few words now. The first word I heard her say was 'hi', the second was 'motherfucker'. We're friendly. She was riding in the car driven by her ex-boyfriend (ex for a good reason), home for summer after her first year away at univesity. She was going to be a teacher. He had been drinking, they were arguing. She was more confident after being away at university. She didn't want to get back together, told him she hated him for being so mean to her, and that she would never take him back. He missed a turn and drove the car off a cliff. He walked away. She doesn't remember anything that happened up to a month before the accident. She wonders why he doesn't visit. She loves him. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

She's 24. She's been here for 8 days, but she swears adamantly that it's been at least 4 months, and that she's going home next week. She smiles and laughs but her eyes and her voice are just flat, like a robot. She was in the car on a family vacation, summer off from nursing school. The car flipped. Everyone else was ok, enough. Her arm is in a sling, and her mind is like a mixed-up puzzle, the pieces put together in a way that doesn't make sense. She tries to make order out of it. She thinks she has made order out of it - what do I know, maybe she has. She talks and walks, and if you didn't know you'd never guess. Unless you actually listened. She'd never guess. She hasn't yet. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

Some days it is harder to work here than others. Coming in is a daily reminder about how lucky I am in life, and how quickly your luck can run out - no matter what kind of person you are in life. What keeps me coming back is knowing that where there was once no sparkle and shine, where there were no words, where there was no clarity, there's still something that can be coaxed out into the light. And while it might not make a person what they were, they're still something.

Dreams and Visions

If someone asked you 'what is your dream, or your vision, for your life?", would you have an answer? I assumed that I did, but if I do, I can't seem to spit it out. A person should have dreams for their life by this point, right? Everyone has dreams for their life, don't they? I feel a bit as though I'm just living from week to week and month to month and deciding from that point what to do in the next point, with the dream of having a dream. I've lived life that way for a long time. How do you define dreams? Should they be huge? Should they be small? Should they be attainable, or should they be something that's always just a *little* out of your reach? My dreams have always been shorter-term kinds of things; broad things that I accomplish, and then wonder why I set them as dreams in the first place?

What about goals? If I answer the question 'What are your goals in life?', the answer would sound something like 'to have goals'. I can't describe it in any kind of a straightforward way, no sensible words come to my lips. It's as though I move through my life toward knowingly and acceptingly being what I actually, inwardly, am. I move, very slowly it seems some days, away from who I'm not, from being who I think or thought that I should be, who others thought I should be. And that in itself, who I actually am, remains a daily discovery as well.
My life is a search for self, a path of becoming. Most days, I wish that I had more tangible, measurable goals, like other people I have met. Come on, I'm rigid: I like having goals, things I can measure, lists I can check off; anyone who really knows me would definitely know that! But, at the same time, I know I could never be satisfied with a life where my goal was to get married, have kids, and retire at 50... to have a good job, buy a nice house, buy a nice car, summer at the cottage, and winter in the desert.... Don't those dreams start to feel empty for their dreamers? In our world today we have these crazy quests that result in a stockpile of material goods, and an empty feeling where accomplishment might otherwise roost. I remember having those dreams, thinking that if I could just get the "picture perfect" life, I wouldn't have this feeling inside that something is wrong, that something is missing... thing is, I don't think those tangible goals in life will ever help me fill that space.
My little brother is 26. He's married, has 3 beautiful kids and a beautiful, loving wife; he has a house, a car and a good job. He renovates, enjoys the outdoors, helps and visits with our parents, and likes having a cold beer at the end of his day. And he is happy. He is satisfied with his life. "What more would I want, Shauna?" My parents did things pretty similarly... They had the house up in Ft Mac, the 2 cars (trucks), the 2 kids; they had the summer house at the beach, and the lake lot for camping. They work, and work, and work; they garden, they have family dinners, they watch TV, they enjoy the outdoors, they are comfortable. And they are happy. My mom says that she is happy, as long as her kids are happy. My dad, he doesn't really say anything. When they die, will they feel like their lives were fulfilling? Will they feel like they did what they wanted to do in life, like they became who they were meant to become, that they lived up to the potential of who they could have been?
My goal of becoming, evolving, discovering how to be who I am leaves me with the feeling that I am pursuing a strange end, a self-reflective end which defies itself and is never-ending. My truest self is the one who is in search of herself. How can I ever truly be myself, when the very act of reaching to find myself puts it out of reach? My life needs to have meaning. How do I become the person I was meant to be? My heart's desire is to be a genuine person; to communicate authentically, with an open heart. My life is a search for meaning and integrity, for self-actualization, for becoming who I am, and who I was truly meant to be. The discovery of that piece alone is a daily pursuit... but is it a goal? Is it a dream?
Everyone in life wears masks. I consciously wear the masks of wife, friend, co-worker, foreigner, student, teacher, woman and daughter. Every mask gives me a different energy, a different point of perspective from which to engage with the world. Even alone, I wear my mask of self, being who I think I am, or who I think I should be in that moment. In no moment am I truly unmasked. I can be charming, engaging and charismatic. I can be calm, quiet and introspective. I can be silly, fun and adventurous. I can be serious, directed and disciplined. I can be sexy, alluring and seductive. I can be kind, gentle and friendly. I can be curious, analytical and filled with wonder. I can be sure, composed and confident. I can be loving, honest and supportive. I can be genuine, real and open. I am all these things, these things are all parts of me, yet I am none of them. I can be jealous, petty and whiny. I can be angry, mournful and morose. I can be insecure, uncertain and afraid. I can be fake, dishonest and insincere. I can be closed-minded, rejecting and cold. I can be mean, selfish and harsh. And again, I am all these things, these things are all parts of me, yet I am none of them.

My intention in life is to become on the outside, in every breath and every step, who I am deep within on the inside. I have talked about this before with the people I love. I feel as though I go through my life split: I am both actor and audience. I am always on stage, at the same time watching myself be on stage. It's ironic really. I know a deep desire for unity within, but still I live every day split, standing to one side, watching myself be myself, captive to my own ideas of myself. In everything I do, everything, it as though I am watching from the sideline at the same time that I am interacting with the world. For as long as I can remember in life, I have been constantly consciously observing and evaluating myself, as though I am of two distinct energies. I cannot remember one time in my life where I was fully *inside* myself, where 100% of my energy was devoted to being in that moment. Why is that? Even now as I sit here and type, I review and edit from the perspective outside of myself, that sits and watches what I write and what I do in each second.
Goals... aspirations... desires... ambitions... dreams... visions... for the future, for life, for myself... I still can't define what mine are...

Coming and Going

This was sitting in my drafts with a couple of other things I'll click on shortly... I have no idea, but I'm irritated with having writing just 'sitting' there, so I'm clicking "Publish"... 2006... wow...
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The last time I said I was going overseas to live and travel, one of my friends was upset, saying that he thought I might never come back again.  Well, I came back, here I am, so don't worry my dear friend, you were wrong.  I've been here for 15 months and a couple of weeks now, and every cell of my being has been screaming for me to get back on the plane, no matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise.  I have driven my friends and loved ones crazy with my inner struggle, allowing it out to play.  I have quietened the argument, solved it by finally listening to my heart, and making my plans to leave again. 

Coming home on someone else's agenda was one problem.  I had been living in Korea, teaching and travelling and some kind of happy, and I came home to do what someone else needed to do.  I remember the sad longing I felt when I walked alone down what had been "my street" for the past 2 1/2 years, for what was to be the last time.  I knew at that time that it wasn't my time to be leaving, but I didn't listen, and I got on the bus, and then the plane back home again.  I dipped my feet into the water of what the rest of my life was going to be like if I stayed my course.  I spent 6 weeks on this amazing trip, and let it be smothered and marred by fear, loneliness and my caged spirit.  I tried on the path of my imagemakers while I was away from home, which I can only think now was the only way to know that I didn't have to choose that path for myself.  I don't regret the experience of it all, and I will spare you with the gory details; save to say that I chose my direction, I chose the color of the walls of the box I allowed myself to become caged within, and I sat within it in my gloomy fog, waiting.  Thankfully for me, the fog cleared, and I moved back into myself; remembered who I had been, who I was, and who I was trying to become.


I have been living in a new city since coming home; I have put myself back together, remembered more about who I am, what I want in my life, and so much more about the things I won't have in my life.  I took a job that gave me some really great experience, and taught me more about ways that I sacrifice my dreams in life without seeing it at the time.  I met some incredible women, and watched many struggle through their own black skies and torments.  I watched others bloom and grow as they came into the knowledge of how strong and incredible they really were, and recognized the force they could become in their own lives.  I knew from listening to my own heart that I had done what I had meant to, and that it was time for me to move on to something more.  I would like to think that I had some positive influence on the system before I left, and that some of it might continue to carry beyond. 


I also found my way into new learnings about how I live my life; the ways I set myself up and knock myself down; the ways I know to make myself shine.  I have learned so much in the past year about being part of something bigger, something incredible and universal.  When I finally got the piece of knowing that *I* am the one thing that has been constant in all things that happened in my life, I was finally able to let go of some of the painful stories I had been carrying around with me.  A wise man told me this summer, that life is not what happens in the minutes, hours and days that pass you by.  Life is how you choose to respond to the things that "happen" every day, and how you interact with the world around you in each moment.  I see now that I choose in every minute how I am going to handle everything that comes to me.  I can fight and stomp, I can smile and laugh, I can scream and cry, I can walk away or I can run toward... it's all up to me.  These things define my life; they define me, who I am, and who I am not.  Sometimes I still choose the more foolish path; sometimes I still cry when I could laugh, I worry in silence when I could talk, I do nothing when I could spark a huge blaze.  But, more often than ever before, I consciously pick up the bat and swing, even if I don't know if I'm going to be able to hit the ball.  It's something, not knowing what I will get in response, but doing it the best I know how to anyway... life is so different when I engage with it as an active experience, as something in which I know that I choose my reality, instead of as something that "happens" to me every day.

I have gotten many gifts in my life since coming home as well, that I might never have found if I didn't end up where I am... but those I'll speak to in another post.  My heart is aching with the loss of a love and light in my life, but I am reticent in starting something in my head that will take more that I want to give at this moment.  So, instead, I'm going to go outside and enjoy the cloudy day, maybe take the puppies to the park or something.  The other, I can write of later.

For now, I am off to enjoy the day!