Notes to Jenny

Everyday we are influenced by the people and places around us. I know some people who try desperately to live uninfluenced...to go against the tide with pride...stand strong with the wrong...you get it! I have been learning that in this life of mine I can either "force" life to move or let it move on it's own. Throughout the recovery process since my last episode, I have seen that life cannot be forced anywhere. That people cannot be forced, jobs cannot be had, friends cannot be made to stay, family cannot be made to love, it happens. Something else also happens as people try to force life to move and that is SHIT. Shit happens and then it is over and done with and we move on...or try to stay there making the past relive itself. I have grown more and more in love with the fact that life lives on its own. I can't do anything to make it move, it does just because it does. Many times I have felt in the last 9 months that I need to catch up with life...that I lay stagnant in depression for so long that I need to be engaged, married, baby and job NOW! But something that has caught my eye is the simple fact that as I was seemingly stagnant, life was being experienced, new days were being put on with the morning sun and slipped off with the dew of twilight. I was in life, even as I felt I was taking no part in it. My life was always full of giggles to boot and smiles for miles, but this illness took them and an innocence from me that I will never get back. But I will tell you this..what is coming back is more genuine than anything I have ever lived before. My relationships are deeper, my family loves farther, my eyes see into souls and search out every bit of life there is left. There is so much to explore, so many more lands to experience, so many more skys to lie under with commrades in this experience called life, eh Cate? And so go my notes to Jenny, my dear sister from another time in life, another event in my years. Everyday we write eachother without fail, we write deep and shallow, we write strong but never weak. She is ever confident in my ablities to grow and shine in the glory of a God that showers mercy on all. I am influenced not only by her consistancy with me as a friend but in her love and strength as a daughter of God. May everyone meet and have their Jenny, Amen! And so this day ends with another shedding of the old and sinking into bed with hopes of new light. Each star will sing its own song tonight and fill the sky with joy even when sadness is all I can bare, even when laughter is all I can sing.