Panorama of San Bernardino

Monday, July 5, 2021

Fireworks

Last night, my shih tzu Chewbacca shivered in my arms as fireworks echoed in the air. He wouldn't calm down, and I was worried that, with his heart condition, he might pass out.

I hugged him. Kissed him. Rubbed his chest.

It made me think of all the times in my life when I'd been terrified. When I couldn't figure out what was going on. When life seemed unmanageable. And overwhelming. When my head was not in the game. But I always had heart, always.

Even when I dropped out of high school, I knew it wasn't over. Then, while working my way through junior college, I couldn't pass my Algebra  2 class. Somehow, someway I muddled through. Then my car blew up and I lost my job and my apartment. 

You'll have to read my memoir to hear the story, but I made it through that time by moving into my parents' trailer with them, taking it step by step. 

Flash forward to after UCR and USC Law School, when I was a desperately unhappy civil lawyer. I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. Was this success? It couldn't be. Not for me. 

After my dad died, I realized I had to do something else. Becoming a writer and then a deputy public defender. Finding and believing in my voice. Doubts persisted in my writing. 

Years later, trying to have a baby and visualizing it happening over and over. Then realizing it wasn't going to happen after failed in vitro and a horrific traumatizing miscarriage.

Crying in the shower for a year. Waking up one day and seeing, finally, that my purpose is to write my stories. To publish them. To reach people's hearts. To hear my father's voice in my stories. 

To merge law, writing and music is a dream come true. Two books coming out in the same year. It's a dream. A dream realized. I am so grateful to the universe.

So here I am my friends. Here I am. Listening to fireworks in the dark, thankful for everything I've been given. My life, my family, my dogs but especially for my voice and heart.

4 comments:

  1. Totally get it. When I returned from vietnam I freaked on fourth of july, and that's after having grown up on a fireworks crew. It had changed meaning for me and I saw it as chaos. This year I struggled again, because I'm writing a vn collection and it's all up again. My thought to you and to Chewbacca.

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  2. Thank you for your words! Good look with your collection. Please keep writing!

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  3. And after my father died all I see is criminals like you...

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  4. You put yourself out of your misery and assist yourself in your own suicide is painless it brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    I try to find a way to make
    All our little joys relate
    Without that ever-present hate
    But now I know that it's too late, and
    That suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    The game of life is hard to play
    I'm gonna lose it anyway
    The losing card I'll someday lay
    So this is all I have to say
    That suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    The only way to win is cheat
    And lay it down before I'm beat
    And to another give my seat
    For that's the only painless feat
    That suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    The sword of time will pierce our skins
    It doesn't hurt when it begins
    But as it works its way on in
    The pain grows stronger watch it grin, but
    That suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    A brave man once requested me
    To answer questions that are key
    Is it to be or not to be
    And I replied 'Oh, why ask me?'
    That suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    'Cause suicide is painless
    It brings on many changes
    And I can take or leave it if I please
    And you can do the same thing if you please

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