Monday, April 29, 2013

A Date with Destiny

"She had a date with destiny. And this time she was ready. Unlocking the door, she opened it to the druids, standing back with a smile to let them pass." ~ Blessed Are The Peace Makers
May 1st approaches. May Day. Beltane. The beginning of the Summer season. For me it is timely, heralding the beginning of The End: the end of rewrites and first revisions of Blessed Are The Peace Makers.

Soon it will be ready for other eyes.

I am chafing to write, yet I feel stifled. I balk, turning to Netflix after work, then go to bed feeling cheated.

To ease myself back in, I commit to one hour a day, butt-in-chair writing, beginning today. Journaling doesn't count, nor does blogging. Or research.

One hour a day forwarding Peace Makers to press. No Netflix or Hulu until I am done.

Them's the rules.

Just saying.

~ Olivia J. Herrell



Wednesday, April 17, 2013

He Told Me To (Part II)

Back to Brian and our session. (If you missed Part I, find it here.)

We talked. I shared about my trip to the ER. And about the screaming fit two days later. Oh yeah, that. It began when an empty coat hanger had the audacity to fall out of the closet. I bent to retrieve it and something snapped inside me. I grabbed that hanger and beat it mercilessly against the closet door, screaming at the top of my lungs.

What did I scream? The words don't matter. But I beat that clothes hanger until there was nothing left but tiny, little pieces and I was hoarse from all the emoting.

On to Brian, talking about 'power surges' like these and the connection they have to identity. For two years now, we've been divorcing me (energetically) from my parent-family-of-origin. Here was another clue, another layer. And for once, instead of stuffing my anger in to tumors, I let it out. Yay for me!

He led me through a series of questions (and answers) and let me assimilate. The net result? I am freed, finally, of ME.

Whaaat?

I am free. Of the me. I have identified AS. Since the ripe young age of two, the age when we first begin to grasp such high concepts as 'me'.

Imagine little Olivia in the terrible twos, exerting my will and creating my Me. But I'm two. I don't know jack, much less how to go about making a Me. So I watch my parents, my siblings, close relatives, family friends. And I piece together a Me, the persona I will wear, the person I will believe myself to be. For the next fifty-plus years. My identity.

The Me. I think. I am.

But I'm not. I am not that hodgepodge, that Franken-girl, nor am I that Franken-woman. I am not that Me, that selfish, self-serving, fearful Me.

I am the I AM. And that's all that I am. Shades of Popeye.

I get it.

For the first time ever, I get it. (oh yeah. we think we know. but we don't.)

My declaration?

"I desire to live in the glorious I AM and to let go of the Me that really wasn't.

Thank you for stopping by That Rebel. I hope it was worth the wait. Stay tuned for more in He Told Me To (Part III) coming soon.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

He Told Me To (Part I)

Today I saw Brian, my ubertherapist. Somewhere toward the end of the session he said, "You should blog about this."

Eyebrows raised, I asked, "Really?"

"Yes," he said, "Some of our sessions are phenomenal."

And they are. Today was one such example. Problem is, without a recording, I recall less than half of what went on in an hour session. Yes, I can nutshell it, but the process is as revealing as the outcome and leaving that out, well, just doesn't seem right.

But maybe I should back up a little. Saturday I spent most of the day at the Villa Rica Art Fest, one of the volunteers available to assist artists and guests. At eleven I ate a hot dog from the concession stand, the first I'd had in ages. For the last eight weeks I've been on a mostly vegetarian diet. It tasted yum, even without the requisite onions.

Then, at the end of the pollen-filled, sunny day, too lazy to make a smoothie or a juice, I broke my own rule and went to Johnny's for a slice of their Italian Special. Sausage and pepperoni, onions, peppers, olives. Mmm. I also allowed myself a Coca-Cola, something I'm no longer drinking. Dinner was divine. But did you hear about the meat recall? I hadn't.

Around midnight-thirty, I turned The West Wing off, stretched loooong in the recliner, and felt a touch of vertigo. Uh oh. Don't need a case of that. On my feet, the vertigo's there and now, hmm, there's that feeling in the back of the throat that says 'make a dash for the toilet'. So I did.

Fast forward an hour and a half (be glad I'm sparing you the details). My long-sleeved tee is soaked with sweat, I have a wet towel around the back of my neck and I'm freezing cold. Also, don't forget the violent retching every time I move.

Desperate to get warm and go to sleep so the erping will stop, I ditch the wet towel and take my trashcan to the bedroom where, hallelujah, I finally get prone without retching. And almost passed out.

That did it. Pretty sure I might not wake up (ever) if I pass out, I punch 911 on the cell. A matter-of-fact, concerned female voice started asking me a series of questions. Bearing down on a brain that is as haywire as my guts, I answer each one. Until she asked if the door was unlocked. Uh. No. It's not. It's in the wee hours of the morning, after all.

Lisa? Linda? Whatever the saint's name, she stayed on the phone while I crawled to the front door, too weak by now to do anything else. I did have the presence of mind to grab my Uggs and a fleece jacket and managed to drag them on while I lay shivering on the floor, waiting for my bumpy ride.

The ambulance got me to ER (only a mile from my house) and delivered me unto the hands of the staff who stripped off the wet tee, slapped an IV on my left hand and a blood pressure cuff and sensor on my right hand/arm and proceeded to take my temperature. In the ambulance it had been 94.7 degrees! After several attempts orally, I was told to roll over. And you thought they didn't use rectal thermometers on adults. Wrong.

Now it's confirmed. My body temp is only 95 degrees. I am hypothermic.

At body temperatures under 95 degrees, the organs don't work well and the heart can (and eventually will) stop pumping. But passing out comes first.

Thank God, thank GOD, I called 911.

Otherwise you'd be minus one Rebel. Not that you'd notice much difference at my blog. I've hardly been around this last year or so. In my defense, I did write the bulk of a 95,000 word novel.

Only I digress. It's time to get back to Brian and our session, but I've decided to keep posts to manageable sizes. Stay tuned for Part II to be posted tomorrow.

Sayonara, Olivia J. Herrell

P.S. Rather have the full post all at once? The whole 1022 words? Rail against the machine. I'll put it up.
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