2916 Finley

Errands took me to a part of Midwest City that I lived in a LONG time ago. I felt the now familiar feeling of knowing I used to LIVE in this area but I couldn't recognize anything. So I set out to find my old apartment (where I lived after the Scotty). I got so caught up in the search that it wasn't until I pulled up in front that I realized, this was my first apartment. I came home from the hospital with my daughter to that place. I walked around the block when I was in labor with her.

The past washed over me like a tidal wave. I got one of those emotions you feel right in your gut. It wasn't gas, I promise, it was the swelling in your throat and the tightness in what I suppose is the pit of your stomach. I pulled over and just sat around a bit and let it happen.

On the highway headed home, the emotion threatened to overwhelm me when the radio played one of my daughter's favorite songs. I missed her and grieved for her. I didn't try to look away-I never look away from other people's pain, so why should I hide from my own?

I turned off and found a few more firsts on the way home-one of the first bars I ever snuck into loomed into sight. That brought on a warm feeling-right in the pit of my stomach and a smile. I know emotions and food and overeating are all centered in the pit of the stomach-I just wish I knew why.

I was tired and really wanted to go home-only I took wrong turn because I've only been back a month or so and things aren't easily on autopilot yet. So I wallowed in the angst of that.

Then, I heard in the back of my mind, Ceasar Milan's voice saying "the dog lets it go, it isn't happening now. Only the human hangs on". And then I saw myself bringing my infant daughter home again, and just got a warm feeling in the old stomach pit-because that was a happy memory.

I've learned a new survival trick, or at least I think I have. Look at each memory as a moment-live that moment, but don't replay the remainder of the story that happened after. If you do that, you'll never get to the present.

When the sad parts tried to come back, I said (in Ceasar Milan's voice)"it's not happening now...let it go;" and you know what? It did. It went. Cool.