Oprah was right!

I think I turned that corner. You know the one Oprah says you’ll turn when you hit 50 or so? The one where you are finally comfortable in who you are and you embrace the lumps and bumps and bruises you have had along the way. The one where it no longer matters if you fit into a mold or size or state of mind. I think I turned that corner.

As I am fast closing in on the end of my 55th year, I realize that the last five years of my journey have been hilly. I’m going to even go back 10 years - I lost my sister to lung cancer in 2001. September 2, 2001. Somedays, it seems like such a long, long time ago and then I realize that’s probably because so much has happened in between now and then.

Of course, we all know what happened just 9 days later. My lovely little niece had a memorial service planned for my sister on September 15, 2001. While I was able to be with Micki when she passed away, and I had every intention of returning to Florida with my brothers to go to the memorial, after September 11th I found myself unwilling, unable, to budge. Too much unknown, too much fear, too much out and out horror. I couldn’t move. My brothers made it. They drove there and back in just a quick trip but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. I had a daughter in high school, a daughter on a college campus and a son in another state. I needed to be “home base” cause we knew not what was to come. I was rocked to my core.

I worked in a building where I was ridiculed every day. Belittled and bullied, but I plodded on. Good things happened in my life and they almost made up for the daily pile of pooh I went through each day, just to earn a paycheck. I began to unravel though, just a little bit, every day. Didn’t really know it at the time but looking back, I can see it starting and I know how it finished. But, the good news is, it finished, before it finished me.

This begins a new series of my reflections folks. This one is not going to be as light hearted nor as sunshiney as the rest of my posts. This one is going to get a bit dirtier...and I don’t mean cuss words, I mean dirt. Grime. Icky, ewwie. We are going to examine words and deeds and why we endure what we shouldn’t have to endure. I won’t use names, but you are smart people and if you figure out characters, okay by me. These are MY events, this is MY story.

You see, kind ladies and sirs, I’ve turned a corner. I’ve come to embrace my fragility and my failures...mine. But I will not, do not, accept the bumps and bruises inflicted by others. I’m going to ask you to open your mind to the truth of words and deeds, and of bullying behaviors. Where it happens, when it happens, what causes someone to bully another and why oh why, is it tolerated, acknowledged but not addressed, from the playground to the office building, and everywhere in between.

This could get uncomfortable.