Healing

Blogging Friends.... Sigh!! I have caught cold. Yes, again!! I only enjoyed one week free of feeling "under the weather". One freakin' week!! I am counting. This cold's symptoms seem different from my last one. Somehow. At least this time, I do not feel as though I'm constantly drugged, sans any over-the-counter medication!! I am also, I'm fully aware, still lagging behind in reading/commenting on your Blogs!! Not okay with that. I will have to fly through and happily "make the rounds" very, very soon!!

I love quotes!! I always have. Quotes are interesting. They're motivational. They are glimpses into an individual's soul. It matters little to me whether or not I even agree with the speaker of a quote. Because, after all, anybody can create one!! What matters to me is whether or not I feel the quote. Whether or not I can relate to it. I have been reading this wonderful memoir entitled: "Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected" by Kelle Hampton. She has a Blog which I frequent. And, yes, I am behind in reading it!! She also has two equally beautiful blond-haired little girls, one of which was born with Down Syndrome. Nella. Sweet Nella. The other day, while reading Kelle Hampton's book--about accepting and loving her Down Syndrome little girl--I came across this quote: "Healing is a bit like watching a flower bloom. You don't really know when it's going to happen, and despite the fact that you might be sitting there in front of barren ground attempting to will a bare stem to blossom, it doesn't happen on command. No, it is gradual. Like time-lapse photography. And as you are sitting, waiting, pleading for growth, you eventually begin to forget that you are waiting until suddenly, days later, you look and behold... a bloom.". This quote!! Mmmm, this quote!! It so poetically reflects exactly how I lived well over ten years while struggling with self-acceptance regarding my learning disabilities. My unwanted learning disabilities. How I have bounced back and forth like some pressurized air-filled tennis ball against a wiry racket from self-acceptance to plain stubbornness. I like being different!! No. I wish I were normal!! How so many who I am in close proximity to--family, friends--told me that I am beautiful. And I did not listen. Why, God even tried to use Rose--herself being born different--a mutt, my Beautifully Unique Mystery Dog!! But what I needed was healing. And, I did not realize this until reading Kelle Hampton's quote!! Then, I sat in our local movie theater, being entertained by "The Avengers" last May, and--after all those years--and Tony Stark/Iron Man said: "You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a... terrible privilege.". Then, suddenly, I looked, and beheld.... A bloom. A bloom, which, like our cat mischievously biting off my Mom's orchid buds, I severed. Repeatedly. And, like Mom's orchid, my bloom has always returned!! Every time. "It's a... terrible privilege.".

 

So, I wrote Robert Downey Jr.!! Now, all I need is boldness, an address, and courage!! Tons of courage!! Writing his letter was--surprisingly--the easy part!! I simply acted as though Robert Downey Jr. were a friend, or some crazy, eccentric far-away Uncle. Wouldn't that be fun?! Yet. Still freaking out!!