Here I explore my love for living in two different worlds; recognizing my near constant need for changes…

Born into life, lifeless. As I pushed through the canal of my birth, suddenly frozen was I.

For when the doctor slammed the mask over my mother’s face, forcing her against her will to a medicated delivery, the anesthesia paralyzed me in my path. A state that took me over 30 years to overcome!

Born on the first day of Virgo in 1975; the day of cusp betwixt her and Leo. I bridge her earthy rationality with his fiery personality.
The moon sign is the pisces fish.
Where water, changeability and emotionality prevail. As the lotus, finding comfort in the muddy waters.
“I contradict myself, therefore I am” was born that fateful Saturday in late August.

Born to a Christian mother and atheist father.
Her birthplace the rural mountains; the daughter of a tobacco farmer, she grew up in the land of red clay with an outdoor bathroom.
His birthplace a military city; the son of a successful ob/gyn and RN, his home one of the first to have a TV and air conditioning. Yet penny pinching and politically conservative; they hated The Kennedys.

Where he & his family were uber-rational, soft spoken, rarely emotional and loving, yet loved telling dirty jokes,
she was uber-emotional & sometimes loving; sometimes rational, her family was loud and sexually Uber-conservative. No joke telling here. Even though not rich, they shared freely with those more needy. Politically liberal.

At a young age, I learned to speak bi-lingual;
to talk and walk with one foot in his rational world,
the other in her emotional one;
often translating for them,
what the other was saying.

Then in grade school as everyone formed their cliques,
I could just as easily hangout with the punks, the jocks, the nerds, the preps, the no ones, sometimes the goths
the latter of  whom were often the most pretentious of them all; funny how the ostrasized so often become more ostentatious than their counterparts.

In the world of “The Breakfast Club,” I most identified with Allison portrayed by Ally Sheady (Amy, would you agree?).

In middle school I discovered the power and mystery of an all black wardrobe.
Feeling invisible and somewhat invincible.
Add the black leather biker jacket and combat boots in high school:
my external armor, my protection and isolation from you!
It hid my soft and sensitive core.

Being everyone’s counselor.
From my mother to the brother of a friend,
I kept your secrets and offered a different perspective for you,
even then.
A call to service even at a young age.
While I could easily listen to you,
you knew nothing of me.
I kept the richness of my inner worlds and everything else hidden,
even from my closest friends;
keeping so much that was shattered and broken from your view.

Even my grades I hid,
graduating in the top 10% of my class,
putting me in line for study at Virginia Tech.
now world renown for that awful day in April 2007.
Where so many young students were sent to heaven;
many young survivors left to live in hell. 

Once on campus,
I discovered with delight Ut Prosim “to serve” was our motto,
I knew I was in the right place.
The limestone Gothic architecture called to my soul.
I felt I was in another world just 5 hours away from home.
The me that was planted as a seed that day; now seems so far away.

Through college and grad school,
I sought the help of counselors to understand the mixed emotions of my body.
The suppression of feelings,
the expression of my soul,
being so bound up as a child,
I now know.
No one quite had the key to help me unlock the deep mysteries
I had buried in little jars within the sandy beaches in the landscape of my memories; locked away.

The call to service with the ability to speak two languages reinforced in PT school,
where we were graded on our ability to speak both medically
and in the patient’s tongue
to get the job done.
An indispensable trait once in the clinic,
with an uncanny ability to translate into a story complex medical concepts
in a way my clients could understand.
Often times, even to my own amazement.

It really is between the extremes that I enjoy to live and play.
Finding balance in my own way.
From crazy busy when I have my kids,
to quiet and calm (now, after the partying girl is mostly gone) when alone.
From a Prius to a Jeep Wrangler.
From loving the taste of sweet immediately followed by spicy or salty.
From the music that I enjoy, quiet to loud, loud to quiet, hard to soft and soft to hard. Often creating play lists (in an earlier life mixed tapes and CDs) that vary in tempo from song to song.
From crying alongside one client to laughing from the belly with the next.
From lying on the floor in the throws of the void, immediately followed by a flight into the cosmos.

From the couch (0.0) to less than 3 mos later completing a half-marathon (13.1), completing > 30 obstacle, mud and road races last year to push my envelope (watch it bend).

From being controlling to now learning to surrender; spiritually & sexually.

So here I stand now, a bridge between my professional degree and my spirituality. Guiding others to surrendering into their own femininity, and softness, both here and at work.
Helping to restore balance;
as I have learned through my experiences in the dark and the light.
A shaman, as it were. Gaining power from my pain and suffering. In turn, giving of my bittersweet lessons to others, in service.

Ut Prosim!

image: Google