You might call it paranoia, I call it a finely honed sense of when the shit is about to hit the fan and it is time to get the fuck out of Dodge, where ever Dodge might currently be for me. Anywhere can be ‘Dodge’ – Tokyo, Minnesota, Washington, Germany, my childhood house, school . . . a shopping center … my tatami room in Tokyo during the 2011 big 9.2 quake … it might be a post office, it might be a train carriage but when my spidey senses tingle, I am gone, out of there, vamoosed, and heading for the next hill or the safety of somewhere new.
As you can imagine after dodging potential death, destruction, danger and general nastiness my entire life, not even just my adult life, I am pretty much tired of doing so. But once that curtain is open, once you see the threats and realize the fragility of life, there is nothing else for it, but to make yourself feel better by being prepared for the worst to happen. I would rather be overly cautious than caught by a natural disaster or a monster of some kind or another.
Most monsters are entirely human, some are natural: earthquakes, tsunami, fires. All these things that life can throw at a human being and that are barely survivable, if survivable at all, are much bigger than we are. We survive by dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as Shakespeare once wrote, like a tiny mouse under the foot of an elephant. We dance between the atoms of destruction.
Everyone seems to have big ideas about how they would expertly survive a disaster, and how they would do that better than those who were actually thrown in the middle of the storm. Other women often say to me that they would have fought back and preserved their dignity, tamed the man I married and survived. They don’t know a thing about survival. Doing so would have ended up with me killed, and therefore unable to protect the children and damnit, I deserved not to die! I didn’t deserve to have to justify why I wanted to live and not let this man kill me. Fuck that. I withstood it all, in order to survive and not inflame the situation and die.
People say they would have helped more people, done better, not panicked, when the nuclear power stations melted down. They would have trusted the government and the ‘science’ (which let’s face it, has now become a religion in itself, its doctrines and orthodoxy not to be questioned), and would have been fine. I say, let your children play in the radioactive puddles, drink the contaminated water and do as you will, I was going to give mine the best chance I could of being ok.
People say they would do better. Perhaps they would. I say, until you have lived the nightmare, danced as a mouse under the feet the angry elephant, you simply don’t know what you would do. Perhaps you would save every single animal in a wild fire. Perhaps you would realize your energy and efforts and clean water and food are limited and you simply cannot afford to waste an ounce of anything – it all has to go towards saving your own life and those of those you love and are responsible for.
Perhaps you will be the kind of person to go into totally altruistic mode, or like me after the earthquake when things were tough and there was a limited amount of food, and safe food at that, for a while, you would do everything you could to get enough for you and your family. Perhaps you would be calm, cool and collected. Perhaps not. But do not judge survivors and how they survived until you have walked a mile or so in their tattered shoes.
So, no. I will not ‘feel safe’ and act as if the world was beautiful and calm and safe after all, because it is not. My innocence was lost a long time ago, and I would be a fool to try and pretend the world around me was safe. I live in my reality, where at any moment my entire existence and everything I love could be taken away from me. The PTSD is not a curse, but a blessing which increases my chances of survival should I be once again thrust into the storm.
I survive. I might not do it prettily, I might not do it as you think you would, but I am alive and with my Boy against all the odds, and if people don’t like how I did it, despite the fact I hurt not a soul, then ok. I really don’t care at all. I know I did my best. I know I did everything I could, and my precious Boy is sitting on the sofa, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book, with the light of happiness shining in his eyes.
I could not have made it this far without help. Those of us who are outside the storm can reach into the lives of those of us who are within its eye and help tip the balance in their favor sometimes. I am lucky I have at least one dear friend who tipped the scales in my favor for a while. It doesn’t make it easy, but it does make it possible. I am not superwoman, not even close, even though at times I have been asked to be.
It has not been easy for me to cope with being ill, with the uncertainty of my situation, with the potential loss of everything I love. Death is easy compared to the potential of separation from my Boy. That is more pain than I could bear, but I would do it if it was best for him. I have been dragged round by the heartstrings, beaten, suffered illness and injury and loss. I am tired, but at this point, the world can back off and understand, I did my best. No one walked in my shoes, lived my life with all the pain and loss and terror from the moment I started my life on this planet. I don’t care if someone else thinks they could have done it better, to paraphrase a famous old song, much loved by Mr Vicious, “I did it my way” and if that is not good enough… oh well.
All I want is some peace and quiet, a little happiness, and a tiny possibility that I can watch my son grow to be a man and make his own family and live a good and happy life because I gave it my all so he could have that chance. He wants to be a nurse, help relieve the suffering of others, be someone who helps, and that makes me very proud indeed. I hope he manages to get to see his dream through. I hope this world treats him kindly and everything I did, everything I gave up meant something.
My hands hurt. I think I have carried too much for too long. This inflammatory arthritis is agony. I spit up blood and I can’t walk properly. It doesn’t matter. There is still more marathon to run, and I will keep on running. If you want to wish me anything, wish me ‘long may you run!’ just like Neil Young sings. My heart might be more chrome than pure gold, but I did my very best and I will not be bowed.
Remember, if your gut says ‘go’, get out of there, run, take a walk, survive. Take it from one who knows, it is possible to live within the calm eye of the storm, and dance between the feet of raging elephants, it just costs everything you have…and then some. Watchfulness is not something to be cured, but something to be embraced, revered and celebrated. I watch so my Boy doesn’t have to. I watch for danger so I can sleep at night. I watch so I know I have done everything I can to survive. I watch because there is simply no other option.
I have no words, but my heart does! <3
💔💔