Coping Mechanism Blogapy
It was 1992…I was 22. I just had my heartbroken…again! And I was crushed. You know that kind of young love…you think he’s the one…he meets your Mom…and then…total devastation. Won’t go into details…but all girls have that one guy…that really…well…how do I describe? That curl up into a fetal position with the phone for days…sobbing with your friends and eating gallons of ice cream “Guy”! Mine was named Shaun.
The song I would listen to over and over again was called, “Walkaway Joe”, by Trisha Yearwood. She was a pretty young unknown country singer…and this was before country became “chic”.
I would play my cassette tape over and over again. Pressing the rewind button just long enough to get back to the beginning of the song…but not too far back…because then I would have to listen to the end of Journey’s “Open Arms”.
Well…today I got out of the shower and had my usual country music playing in the bathroom. I heard a song that I had heard a dozen times before. But you know when you really listen to a song…not just hum along while you’re doing your make-up…but really listen.
The song is called, “I Drive Your Truck”, by Lee Brice.
It’s about a man who lost his brother. He was a soldier.
He talks about how he cursed, prayed, cried…but when he really missed his brother… he would go out and drive his old truck. He would find an old field and tear it up until the dust was so thick he could hide in it….and probably cry his eyes out.
He kept the same radio station on that his brother had been listening to…never touched the .89 cents that he had left in the ashtray…and the half drunk bottle of Gatorade on the floor.
We all have different ways of coping with loss. And when I listened to this song…I could picture it. I understood what it must be like to be a man…and mourn.
You see…I’m a woman. And I’ve mourned more than my share of losses. The sudden death of my father in a car accident. The sudden loss of the rest of my life with my Brain Cancer diagnosis. And the sudden end of my marriage…when I was at my most vulnerable.
And I swore…I cried…I prayed…I went to counselor (and told him to F**K OFF!)
Not everyone copes the same way. And, as a part of this new team dedicated to helping returning Veterans with PTSD…I’m trying to really rethink everything I did. How I got through everything…The proverbial “Trick”.
I’ve been asked the same questions over and over again …
“What was your trick?”
“How did you overcome your tragedies?”
“When did you pick yourself up and start anew?”
Here’s the answer…I have no idea…you just do.
Until you go through any tragedy…overcoming one becomes unthinkable. I also always hear… “I could have never gone through what you did.” And to that I say…BULLSHIT! You just haven’t had to yet.
Because the reality is…there is no other option than to move forward. It’s going to happen anyways. Time…it does have a funny way of moving forward… regardless of how you are doing.
The one “trick” I did figure out is that I didn’t want to waste any of the little remaining time I had left. So I had no other choice than to jump on the fast track.
And I can tell you that the quicker you decide to move on… however you need to move on… write… talk… drive…whatever it is….start now. Go listen to this song…cry…and then start to move forward.
That’s what the song is about. Getting it out…screaming it out…singing it out….driving it out…the guilt…the anger…the fear…the sadness.
And then doing something new.
New is good.
New… gives you a tomorrow.
New… can just be reading this blogapy…and promising to read the next one I post.
Love,
Tra