Apple Jacks

Not everything is as happy-go-lucky as this drawing would lead you to believe. But life goes on, and we regroup and recalibrate and reassess and… well… I guess that’s all you can do. I still struggle, more than I realized, with certain triggers — ones that unleash my insecurities and general lack of faith in myself. When that happens I’m still unable to call upon all the resources I’ve stored up. All the mental lists I’ve made about pausing before talking, standing firm with boundaries, being clear and not communicating in vague terms — all that goes right out the window — and I hear myself panic talking, saying and feeling the same things that I’ve felt for years and years and years when confronted with Something Threatening. Or at least something that some part of my wee brain feels is threatening.

So, I find myself once again at the beginning of the path. Like in a video game, when you die and are resurrected wherever you last saved. You check all your experience and skill points, rummage through your Bag of Holding to see what’s in there, and check the map to see how far you were set back in the Quest. And then you carry on.