Broken Lives Matter

Hello Lovelies! Just sharing something cute I found. I didn't become the happy face realizing that trauma rewires your brain until much later in my healing journey. I hope that this finds someone who hasn't realized it yet, but is now that much closer--at a much younger age:) https://www.facebook.com/reel/969370487663776

Hello Lovelies! On the way out the door, ready for the impending holiday and looking forward to the many happy days of celebration to come. Since it has been a long time, once again, I wanted to send us all on our happy way with a wonderful bit of inspiration. I have always loved watching ballet, though physical grace of my own--is elusive:) Maybe that's why I DO love it. Watching the video below, I am reminded how I use my own arms for whatever grace and balance I can muster:) So the strength in this beautiful lady's legs must be impressive, to keep her so perfectly balanced and on pointe at all time. The use of the "e" at the end of point was very intentional, by the way. Also, notice how she stands even pre-show, in an elegant 3rd Position with one foot flat in front of the other, ready to dance.

Hello Lovelies! This entry is also about an image, but there's more to it than that. The picture I chose is of a wheelchair-bound concert goer with an intense expression but obviously challenged by CP or maybe something else--having a great time. He AND his wheelchair are being hoisted above the crowd to do a little surfing:) The caption reads: "Also Heavy Metal Hard Rock." As in, there are no requirements to what celebrating the music looks like. As in life, there are no requirements for the "right" anything. It is what it is. I've seen this meme before--may even have posted it here once. But I will never stop loving it, nor will it ever stop being relevant. I commented on the post: "there is so much heart in metal." As in life, there are those who look like everyone else at the concert and rock out in their own ways, and there are those who break the mold but are lifted up.

Hello Lovelies! Here we are again after just one day:) I decided not to allow myself another long time-lapse before adding content, an I really enjoyed this young lady's take on her own challenges. Very self-aware. I know I was certainly not that poised when I was younger! My generation (at least from my perspective) was all doing the best it could, but struggling to grip the walls of the slippery under-ground river of life we navigated. That was my impression, anyway! And I found it most relatable how "Actually Izzy" has trouble reading tone. Myself I find it hard to "stay with" jokes. Not so much that I miss the point, just that I kind of dissasociate. I assume that the sarcasm applied is rhetorical, as if it WOULD be hilarious, IF it happened, but not that it has. Thus, I miss out on a lot of punchlines. I assume they either don't apply to my current situation, or the joke actually being told, or that they have come at the wrong time in the story. En

Hello Lovelies! I know it's been a while...AGAIN. But I have my reasons. Healing AND finding a recognizable version of myself is a messy business. And I have to do it all while remembering not to expect too much of my balance, trying to maintain flexibility in my joints (ever tight now that the weather is colder, so I have to stretch more often), and maneuvering my walker through a world that isn't always built for it, meaning I have to work harder, which is exhausting. I also have to try to keep my energy up when most of the time my sleep schedule is hopelessly inverted, because darn it, I hate going to bed where it's dark and lonely. All this to say I know we've all got our struggles; I'm not trying to diminish anyone else's. In fact, I recently came across a visual representation of "the struggle" as I see it, that says to ME that the problem is even bigger than I imagine, that every single one of us doing the internal work to become aware of our

Hello Lovelies! Along the lines of this "not all disabilities are visible" track I've been on lately, I've blogged about a number of fascinating mental/psychological/emotional challenges people face in this world--and I've learned a TON! Or as the subject of the following video might put it because David Gray-Hammond is British, I've learned LOADS:) Unfortunately I couldn't find this man's precise location, and I'm just assuming based on his accent that he IS from the Isles, so it's possible, in the interest of full disclosure, that I am wrong:) But I'm going to proceed for the purposes of this entry as if Gray-Hammond is British. That is said with all love and respect; no matter the speaker or his location, it's the message that matters, and this guy is being tremendously brave an vulnerable putting himself and his own perspective out into the universe for dissection. And there will be dissection here, but it will also be with love an

Hello Lovelies! I don't know if any of you have seen the movie "Me Before You" from 2016, but I wanted to talk about it. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the premise. Sam Claflin's character in the movie has only become wheelchair-bound and paralyzed "recently" in the movie. I'm thinking that makes the disability and his immobility more digestable for general audiences, butI do have problems with it. For one thing, why not portray an individual who's had to deal with life in an inaccessible world his whole life? Why is it so much "kinder" to have an injury or illness to blame for disability? Does EVERYTHING have to have a reason? A "palettable" reason? Which leads me neatly into the second issue I take with this movie, that the paralyzed man falls for his able-bodied caretaker. Yes it's probably very likely that the guy needing help would develop feelings for the girl who cares for him. God knows my own fiance was a p