Changes

I sit here listening to my inspiration play list.

The goal is to inspire myself to write. 

Because the reality is I have not been writing and I realized today that the life I choose to live is one in which I write.

The life I choose is one in which I choose to write about what matters to me.

Right now what matters to me is my mental health and if writing is my way back to myself….

then I must write, no matter what

Two weeks ago i came to my cozy spot, sat in my comfy chair and I only felt ready to write when the place was closing.

Tonight, i realized, I needed to facilitate my spark to write much sooner. 

Or maybe i did not realize that consciously but after watching a touching episode of an old TV show,

I took stock in myself and my current situation.

David Bowie played, “Changes”, a fitting title

I have always loved this song and it felt like my song for tonight

Then I looked up the lyrics….

They surprised me

Even though I knew some of the lyrics,

I had not really heard the song as a whole before

Of course, it seams so fitting for me and my struggles

I still don’t know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets

And every time I thought I’d got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet

So I turned myself to face me

But I’ve never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I’m much too fast to take that test

Not sure if I really know what all of it means

I don’t think it matters what David intended in the meaning

I believe all that matters is what it means to me

Sure, I would like to know what the words meant to him

Yet, on a spiritual level, I know I need to just allow it to bring out my own meaning

As a means to help me on my path 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Face the unknown

Ch-ch-changes

Don’t want to be a richer man

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Face my fears

Ch-ch-changes

Just gonna have to be a different man

Everything in my life. Changes who I am

In each new moment, I am created a new

I can’t go back and be who I was before all my challenges 

I can only be who I am now….

And accept myself in who I am now

Time may change me

But I can’t trace time
I watch the ripples change their size

But never leave the stream

Of warm impermanence and

So the days float through my eyes

But still the days seem the same

Theses lyrics are poetry, as is the entire song

All I gather from it is that I watch life move on and yet feel so stuck in the same low place
The next lines have always been my favorite ranking alongside, “Another brick in the wall”

The message within these next four lines are what compels me to write

The message in these lines is what compels  me to be the parent I choose to be

And to always strive to be a better parent

It is my passion for living my life

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes

Don’t tell them to grow up and out of it

I almost overlooked this lesser known line

Let children be children

Let them be who they are now

They have value at any age

They will become adults in time

We don’t need to “train them to be adults”

We need to respect  them where they are now and allow them to be children

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes

Where’s your shame

You’ve left us up to our necks in it

Time may change me

But you can’t trace time
Strange fascination, fascinating me

Changes are taking the pace

I’m going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes

Oh, look out you rock ‘n rollers

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

(Turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes

Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older

Time may change me

But I can’t trace time

I said that time may change me

But I can’t trace time

I like how these lyrics leave me thoughtful and looking for deeper meaning.

Looking for meaning beyond what I see as the obvious meaning in the words

Searching

Is a good place to be in 

And most certainly so much better and more full of life than in a slump of depression

Avoiding and zoning out and “medicating” with distraction

Thank you AtoZLyrics

And an enormous burst of gratitude to David Bowie for writing and for singing

Pressure

Pushing down on you

Pushing down on me

These are the days it never rains but it pours 

It’s my life 

This is my fight song 

Take back my life song 

Why can’t we give love a chance 

Love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the light 

And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves 

This is our last dance 

He was my husband 

And then he became my patient 

Life will never be the same 

I was grateful, oh so grateful 

And then the grief rose 

Within my lungs, a cough that persisted 

Until it knocked me out cold 

On the side of the road staring at the sky

That Saturday in May

When my sense of invisibility came to life 

She saw me, after she hit me 

She saw me 

She said she didn’t see me, but after her white SUV smashed into my sweet grey civic

She had no choice but to see me 

I knew I would be ok 

They put a neck brace on me

As a precaution 

I Knew I would be ok 

There were bits of glass everywhere 

I found a piece in my ear like a week later 

I told the medic I felt like I had glass in my arm 

He told me, “there is no glass in your arm”

There was glass in my arm, tiny pieces. 

I have the scars to prove it 

I grabbed my phone and my purse before I climbed out the passengers side of the car 

because I thought the car was smoking, I had to get out, it could catch fire

It was the airbag, the passenger side air bar

The police officer asked me if my air bag deployed, why didn’t he just look in the car?

What did I know? I was just blind sighted and pushed across the road into a vehicle at. Stop sign

No air bag deployed, I hit my head on the steering wheel

Did I loose consciousness? Maybe for a few seconds. How am I supposed to know 

One minute I saw a car coming at me and I tried to swerve. It then I knew there was no time to get out of the way

I felt and heard the crunch of metal

And then I opened my eyes and my car was on the side of the road 

The window on my side in tiny pieces, the frame of the car door protruding 8 inches, I heard one medic tell another 

Some nice lady walked up to me as I came out of the car

The woman who hit me was a medic and she told the woman that I needed to lie down

I layer down on the grassy hillside 

I asked if  anyone else was hurt

Always the caregiver 

I was relieved no one else was hurt 

I later learned about the third car

I had no idea there was a third car involved

They stayed my lungs because I was wheezing 

All that grief still stuck inside

I had been having recurrent bronchitis for 6 months

I can’t remember if I still was having issues before the accident happened, maybe I was 

How was I supposed to remember?

I remember Don meeting me at the hospital while I was still in the ambulance

Jason and Don were there to meet me and followed me back into the all white room

Where I waited to be checked out 

They usually didn’t deal with trauma at this small hospital close to my house 

The room they put me in wasn’t a real room

I don’t know what it was

It had one door and no windows

I knew I would hurt the next day but but was I surprised how much pain I had

I was still nursing so I wouldn’t take any strong pain medication

My arm was so tender and painful all wrapped in gauze to bandage the glass cuts from the glass that wasn’t in my arm but really was

Jason was so gentle when I told him to be careful with mommy’s arm

Jason was 3

He was 2 when his father went into cardiac arrest in our living room

At least mommy got to come home that same day

For Jason’s sake

But I really needed a few nights at the hospital

Or maybe not, I needed my family yet I neeeded rest 

Recooperation from the shock and trauma of the past year and 3 weeks 

Since Don had his heart attack

Full cardiac arrest, ventricular fibrillation in our living room on the couch

They had to cut off his favorite worn blue rabbit t-shirt

They mixed up my cheap stethoscope with theirs and took my ice pack

I had tried to take his blood pressure, I remember his pulse was weak

I remember when it hit me, 

His arm was clammy and cold

Sure it was the wrong arm, but it was COLD AND CLAMMY!

Gina, his arm is cold and clammy, he is having a heart attack

And that’s when I called 911

I left his side searching for aspirin that I knew I didn’t have but knew he needed 

Thank God the medic showed up and was at his side when he went into cardiac arrest 

it looked like he had a seizure and he lost consciousness

and a medic escorted us out of the room, me and my three kids

Harrison was 13,  Abby was 9 and Jason was 2

Don was 52

His father died at atge 56 when Don was 17

He dided of a massive heart attack while in the hospital wiaiting for Bypass surgery

They called Don’s heart attack, “the widow maker”

He cheated death

he choose to live

He lived

That same year, 2 friends lost their husbands to heart attacks and another from cancer

Survivors guilt, its real