Pondering Existence

I saw this online. I love brainstorms that make me question my existence. 

"If you had the opportunity to call yourself ten years ago, but only had sixty seconds to talk, what would you say?"

This would be a can of worms...2016 is just before the pandemic.

1.) "There is a pandemic due to hit around January 2020...Stock up on supplies especially toilet paper, rubbing alcohol, and N96 masks." Would I have listened to myself? Probably not. I was warned in advance from a friend living in Asia to do just this. I did not understand the seriousness of this advice so my supplies were not nearly stocked enough. I did, however, already have a huge supply of toilet paper having just cancelled my membership with Costco. The one N96 mask I used for art had to last me about six months!! It was pretty worn out once I was able to get a supply!

2.) "Apply for unemployment and grants immediately. Don't sit around for long wondering if you should."

3.) "DO NOT go to work for that idiot herbalist!" I worked for her about a week before the pandemic lockdown started and I'm pretty sure that's where I got COVID. Otherwise, I was typically pretty isolated in my day to day life. I don't know if not going to her house and being exposed to her children would have prevented me from getting COVID another way, but...

4.) "If you get COVID, don't drag your sick self out of bed to getting the test." For the first six months the COVID tests were only 20% accurate. Why bother?

5.) Prepare to sell the house and move. Start getting rid of belongings in 2017 and get rid of EVERYTHING!" It took me about two years to get rid of everything and much of it was donated or given away in the end. If I would have started early maybe I could have sold more? Or I would have become tired of selling anyway. Maybe this wouldn't have been possible since so much was shut down for so long during the pandemic? I don't know if eBay was working during the pandemic.

6.) "Put the house up for sale in 2021". My neighbors sold their house in 2021 and got top price. By the time I put it on the market in 2024, everyone was doing the same thing and the competition was too hard.

7.) "Buy a house or buy land and build something else immediately (before 2023) before the real estate prices are through the roof."

8.) "Sell the van in 2021 and buy another either new or in Arizona so it hasn't been contaminated with mold."

9.) "Do not waste your money on those functional medicine quacks. They are all idiots charging too much money for knowing very little! Just know you have Hashimoto's and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome all from a mold saturated body and go from there!"

I wonder if I could say all that in sixty seconds? I'm pretty sure when I finished my 2016 self would say, "Hmmmm....WHAT? Let me get a pen and could you repeat that?" I guess I should start with, "GRAB A PEN FAST!" Well, then my 2016 would have said, "Who the hell is this?"  Or hung up! OK, I doubt if I'd even answer the call from my own phone number identifying my own name! I'd think it was a scam. LOL!

What would you tell yourself ten years ago in sixty seconds?

Trauma Anniversary

August 1, 2026: Exactly one year ago today I slipped on a muddy beach, twisted my ankle, fell on top of it, and heard it crack loudly as two bones broke in half. What a horrible experience!  The year has gone fast, but the trauma still haunts me. Anytime I encounter a wet surface, I panic, assess the situation, and proceed cautiously. The hardest part of the total experience was realizing how alone I am in the world. No matter what happens to me, there is absolutely no one who would ever help me survive it...other than complete strangers who through their own humanity and compassion would volunteer to assist. I had to figure out how to get out of a foreign country, how to drive with my left foot, how to fight with health care to get the care I needed, how to drive across country without being able to get out of the van, how to survive the horrible physical therapy bitches, and how to work through the pain to be able to walk again. That experience accentuated how vulnerable I now feel living in a van especially as I age.

On the positive side, I can walk! There were times when I wasn't sure if that would ever be possible again. I can even hike! I'm not always walking comfortably due to the pain of the hardware and stiffness caused by cold weather freezing that hardware, but I can walk! I survived one of life's challenges and that makes me feel self-reliant as hell!

Other than wet and/or slippery surfaces that now make me pause and give me a nervous breakdown, this made me ponder what other trauma recalls do I have? What little quirky behaviors do I exhibit when confronted with a not-so-good past memory? 

For instance, I hesitate when I walk on wood, especially old wood. I'll usually stop, assess the surface, maybe give a little tap or careful bounce to see if it's stable. Why? When I was eleven years old my father told me to get something out of the barn. As I recall he was in the middle of castrating a bull so he wanted me to do it quickly. I took off like a bat out of hell, ran up the rickety flight of outside stairs to the second story of the barn. I grabbed whatever it was he wanted, turned, ran back across the second story, jumped through the door archway over a piece of wood that went across the floor at the base of the archway, and landed on the stairwell's landing. The landing broke and I fell through down one story into the chicken coop underneath the stairs. I was bruised, but not injured. With the wind knocked out of me, I was unable to move for several minutes as chickens clucked and nervously fidgeted around me. I guess it made a loud sound because my whole family came running. Any kind of rickety wood: boardwalks, stairs, planks, decks, walkways, etc., and I freeze for a minute, assess the surface, tap my foot, and carefully proceed. 

I also run if a man asks me to get something for him. I get adrenaline spikes if I hear a dog bark. I'm always hesitant to swim in ponds and lakes that are not crystal clear. Hmmm...what else?

What trauma recalls do you have?