Big Changes

Change is inevitable when you undergo trauma. It either affects you in a negative way and blankets you in darkness, or you find a light within yourself and make it burn. 

I have experienced a rainbow of emotions and hardships since my journey to Hawai'i and last year's trauma was the worst of it. I didn't come here to vacation, however, and despite all of the trials, I have made a survivor out of myself. 

Sometimes it is easier to stay in bed for a week and take vacation days feigning the flu, when it's really terrible depression. Sometimes I don't want to see or hear another person because I can't stand myself, let alone anyone else. But like the tide, life ebbs and flows. Bouts of depression fade and the sun is one of the most constant things on this transient island of tourists. Beach therapy occasionally works; great friends pull me from my lair as I make up a million excuses why I shouldn't go with, and we sit in the sun or float on the waves with beers and zebra ring floaties, pretending that life really is easy.

Of course Monday still comes back or vacation days run out, but if I were to choose to be depressed from all of the shit I've been through in Minnesota or Hawai'i, I would always choose here. Being away from family is incredibly difficult and riddles me with guilt, but I have grown in enormous ways that I don't think would have been possible had I stayed there. Trauma happens everywhere, so being a mile from home wouldn't have necessarily wiped it from my destiny. I am a statistic now, but I am still choosing to fight against becoming a different sort of statistic. I want to continue to be a fighter and a surviver instead of a victim. All of those could've/would've/should've's can shut the hell up.

So, that trauma: the hardest part a year later is seeing all of the wasted energy that I put into people and things that didn't deserve it; trauma shakes you awake and pumps you full of clarity. I am now conscious of my failures as much as I am conscious of those who have failed me. I am aware of how those around me either go through life half-asleep, or whether they, too, have been awakened. It's sort of an alternative reality that I've been placed into, for better or for worse. Sometimes the PTSD comes back in weird ways and disrupts my routine, embarrassing me and causing me great stress. I have a shitload of anxiety, but some of that was there before. 

Like anyone, we all have our cross to bear. Unfortunately most people never show their cross, especially when it's mental illness or something deeply personal like what I experienced. It's just too hard to face the critics even when I know I shouldn't be listening to them. How do I know? Because I've lost friends over this: people I thought were there for me decided they were not. That's super hard. So I don't talk about all of this openly anymore. Sadly. It is nice to meet others on rare occasions who have also gone through or are going through similar situations. We can instantly look into each other's eyes and know. That's powerful. And I am learning that those "friends" that couldn't be there for me don't matter anymore, but it still stings. I have tried hard in my life not to hold grudges, but that is challenging.

I am on a mission now to find more fulfillment in my daily work, something that has been missing for years. I'm sure I would've continued on struggling had it not been for this jolt. Perhaps it is the horrible ugliness of humanity letting me down that has caused my fervor, but it is a good and necessary thing for me to explore other avenues and find something that makes me happy 9-5. Night school on top of my 40-hour work week has proven exhausting in the first week but I am hoping that after the initial shock of the new schedule, it won't feel so hard. I am happier inside my head than I have felt in a very long time. I go to work every morning feeling hopeful and rejuvenated, with something at the end of my day to look forward to. I have had two separate work appointments in the past week where the people asked if I love my job, which I can only imagine means that my outward appearance reads that I am extremely happy (no one needs to know it isn't my current 8-5 making me happy, right?) I know that even if this new venture ends up being hard work, it will feel more meaningful than what I am currently doing. I will feel a sense of value about myself that I have not yet experienced. 

Being stripped of all of your self-esteem and robbed of something extremely personal and valuable changes you inside and out. Rebuilding will take years. "Trust" is something I used to do too easily, and now I trust very few, and even them with caution. It is a scary and lonely place to be. I am grateful for my new path to explore, for the ability to reach out to family and friends and have them say, "yes, we believe in you." Change can be very scary, even to an adventurous world traveler! I struggle with the thought of knowing I will never be that carefree girl I was a year ago that believed in the good in everyone, but also know that I've gained some tremendous wisdom and perspective. 

Always look for the positives, even in the darkest of corners.

Big Little Kids, Playing on the Beach

It was just before dinnertime after the annual sk808 tournament in Hawaii, and a few of America's derby legends from across the nation were gathered on a small beach called Cromwell's just past Diamond Head on Oahu. I don't know how I grew to be so fortunate to be there, but I was. These are my favorite moments in life.

"Calamity, Demanda found an eel!," exclaimed my derby wife, Pussy GoScore.

I dropped my belongings in a heap next to her and took off towards the shoreline. I had never seen a live eel before. Did they bite? Were they big? I had to see one. Demanda Riot was knee-deep in the water among the coral shorebreak, one hand balancing on a boogie board and the other carefully holding her signature dreadlocks in a spiral on the top of her head away from the water. Her face was submerged beneath the surface as she waded delicately. As I walked out towards her, I wasn't entirely sure if she was stalking the eel, or if I was going to step on it by accident. When she saw me, she stood up and offered me the face mask.

"Check it out."

I had to keep my cool. Demanda was a derby legend, after all. I couldn't show fear. I didn't know if eels bit off toes or faces, but I was willing to take my chances in this moment because, duh: EEL. I buried my head in the water to look directly at a large Moray eel glaring wide-mouthed out from a coral formation, his beady eyes looking straight into mine. He looked like he was waiting for his photoshoot but I didn't have a camera. I took a zillion mental snapshots of this bizarre sea creature. The eerie feeling of knowing this fishy thing was capable of damage and not exactly knowing what sort of danger I was putting myself in was an interesting 30-seconds of adrenaline. I can't imagine having a run-in with a shark while scuba diving. I'll stick with eels.

I handed the mask back to Demanda, but she said I could keep it because she was going up on top of the big rock nearby to look for other stuff. I ventured on in search of other weirdness. It occurred to me as my ears fell silent that while I was submerged underwater I was temporarily in another world. A parallel universe, almost, completely separate from my M-F worries at the office and all of the stress that was happening day to day. I could seriously escape by putting my face in the ocean. This seemed like a pretty silly epiphany because it wasn't a new experience to be in the ocean, but I was digging it especially at this moment. I kept looking for coral and pretty rocks. I became an 8

Meanwhile down the beach, Ivanna, Trish the Dish, Quadzilla, Pussy GoScore, and a few others were sunning and playing in the tide pools. Ivanna found a sea cucumber and squirted it all over Quadzilla. I approached the towels as the sun started to set and Pussy mentioned how awesome Team Green was, referring to her team's jerseys from the tournament earlier that day. I decided to make her at one with "green" by pushing her into the nearby bushes. She really landed really good in the middle of them, which was funny and also caused a backlash of sand wrastling in good fun. We tossed each other a few times rolypoly until we were both covered from head to toe and in a fit of giggles. I almost peed. We joyfully went into the ocean to get the beach off of us. Then we heard Ivanna.

"Uh oh. Look at Amanda. How much do you wanna bet it's something dead?"

Further down the shoreline was a very proud Amanda Jamitinya accompanied by Dirty Verde. She marched towards us all, dangling a long, somewhat stiff object in her right hand. If it were anyone else I would think it was a stick she was holding, or maybe some seaweed... but I knew Amanda well enough to remember that she was a taxidermy hobbyist and heavily interested in roadkill. Still, like a car accident, we all had to see what she had in her hand. As if caught in a trance, walked towards her. We gathered around her in a circle.

"It's an eel! A DEAD eel!"

Ivanna wanted to touch it. Dish didn't. Now Ivanna's hands smelled bad. Put your hands in the sand. Pussy wanted to know if it could bite. Quadzilla thought it was nasty. Dirty Verde laughed. Amanda showed us how to make the mouth open and close, and we took turns touching it's rubbery skin. Ivanna took the eel from Amanda and started chasing Dish down the beach, threatening to touch her with it, then turned it on us. We sprayed in different directions, forgetting for a second that it was dead.

"It's not alive!" she reminded us. We gathered around it again. The eel was our beacon.

Amanda said it was important to pay tribute to the eel.

"Everyone make a wish."

She paused for a moment, then whisked the dead eel out over the surf towards the horizon line, the body helicoptering around in a symbolic ouroboros as it reached towards the point of the ocean meeting the sky.

"Goodbye, Mr. Eel," she said.

We turned to the right to watch the sun as it began it's descent, dipping low towards every photographer's ideal sunset.

Ivanna turned to us and insisted that we wait for the green flash.

We waited.

I didn't see it, but someone said it was there.

Just a group of big little kids, playing on the beach. Time suspended, all of our worldly concerns lost in the mist of sea and sky and sand.

New Year. Good Grief, I'm Glad.

So... 2014 was not a good year for me. I will say that there were some highlights, and I will positively list them first:

• Successfully did not get fired from my job
• Checked "See a live Volcano" off my bucket list
• Visited my family in Minnesota/Traveled
• Helped with my brother's film production doing character makeup, and was an extra in, Underland II, The Rise of Grout
• Helped with my sister-in-law's Yoga Calm camp, and took a 1 week workshop towards being certified as a Yoga Calm instructor
• Conducted two successful 3-month long fresh-meat derby new girl boot camps to help secure the future of my league
• Volunteered for the first time as a Voting Official at my precinct on election day
• Led Team Hawaii as Captain into battle at the first annual State Wars Roller Derby Tournament in Daytona, Florida
• Successfully trained for and completed my first full marathon--the Honolulu Marathon

This year, something horrible happened to me in May that is actually too personal and heartbreaking to even talk about, and it will challenge me for years to come-maybe for the rest of my lifetime. I am working hard with a therapist on this setback, to change this horrific event into just that... an event...instead of something that defines me. With this event came some trials of friendships, and the losses of those friendships that were not truly friends to begin with. You really learn who your friends are when you need them most and finally lean back. If they are there for you, they are your friends. If they are not, they were never friends, I guess. Some of those people were steadfast and helped me out a lot. I am very grateful to those people. I don't know if there is a way to repay them, so hopefully I will be able to pay it forward to someone else if I am never able to give back to them individually in some way.

Loss, in many ways, in 2014. Loss of a great college friend to cancer, loss of my dignity, loss of "friendships." But with loss comes room for growth, and I am learning all the time.

I didn't party on New Year's this time. I couldn't wait for it to be over. I cried and was miserable in my pity party for a few hours until I forced myself to get up, put on my dragon pajamas, and drink a few gin and tonics. Because New Year's eve comes and goes, and that bad year is gone and has opened up a new space for new beginnings. Cheers to new beginnings, universe.