Lots of folks I don’t know rolled in with this new crew, and I am loving connecting the dots! As it turns out, one woman, Al, and I have been connected by less than six degrees for a number of years. She is from the Denver area and thanks to my years in the EMS field there, we have quite a few people in common. In fact she works for a guy who trained me when I got my first “EMS” job doing wheelchair transports. One of the cool things about TR, the military, and the world of first responders is that it is a very tight knit world. Half the time if I sit around with someone long enough it turns out that we know the same people, or have potentially crossed paths in the past. So Al reminds me so much of some of the wonderful women I used to work with back in Denver. It was one of those situations where we automatically connected. By the end of the week, here we are giggling like little school girls.

Ash and I met on my first op with TR and we have kept up on FB for the last 21 months. I didn’t recognize her at first when she appeared out of thin air earlier this week, I noticed Jaz. Her lovely service animal. I don’t think I was quite awake, all I saw was a lovely puppy running up to me. Both of them remembered me. It has only been 20 months, but it feels like it has been longer. It was so great to reunite!

Wanderers, sometimes when you are missing something in your life, you don’t notice until you have it again. The life I was living before wandering was a lonely one, filled with crap that held very little importance to the life I wanted to live. Part of that crap was men who only wanted one thing from me, no matter the words that came from their lips. It has been slowly hitting me that I was missing so much more than I realized when I would say I was lonely in the past. Spending time with Al and Ash and the other lovely ladies fills that hole I have. It is the hole of a saddened wandering soul, looking for kinship in the midst of a crowd of strangers. I used to not value the women in my life. Somewhere along the way I found them to be “bitches” or arrogant or enemies. I would try to be friends and it would end with them saying similar things about me. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? I often wonder this, in my head, and yes, in all capital letters.

I used to wear the fact that I only hung out with guys as a badge of pride. Not that being friends with men is always in poor taste, but in my case it became that way. The female who is always friends with guys MUST be REALLY FRIENDLY with them. I didn’t get it at first when I heard that. It made the other girls not like me and eventually I became too friendly with them, because that was the expectation from everyone around me. I chose to continue being friends with guys because, what other choice did I have? I couldn’t be friends with girls, their words were worst than what the guys would say. So at the point that I came back from war, feeling like I was either to be a piece of meat for men to taste or for women to beat on, I kind of gave up. Then again I didn’t really, I just selectively chose people who mentally or emotionally abused me, because that is what I thought I deserved. I would have moments of sanity, where I would run from those people, only to feel like I had nowhere to run to, so I would return to insanity and continue the old ways. Somewhere in my head I had trumped up these ideas that I had no one to turn to. They were all my enemy; I was not worth anything. I was valued as nothing more than meat. I was still me though, somewhere inside of me. I worked tirelessly to learn a medical trade, to help save people from physical ailments. I was still me, looking back on it you would think that I was insane. I was working to help people while simultaneously believing that all people had a really nasty ulterior motive, no matter their gender.

My shrink said this would happen. As I heal I will begin to create again, and so I sit here blogging, she also said that things would come out in my creations that surprise me. I used to think that the more beautiful creations come from the dark places. This recollection however is coming to light because of the light in me… which is the point of where this whole thing started.

So there is Ash, Al, Mo, and Mel… and me Vic. We realized by this point that we all basically have guy nicknames, so we went with it! The moral of the above is that the things I believed, whether they were perceived or true, don’t have to be anymore. Oh, and women are awesome! I find myself very occasionally falling back in to the old routine of disliking those around me. I still struggle. I will probably always struggle a little bit. The members of TR help me though. They will plain face tell me how they feel. If I ever forget this, I am certain someone will remind me. So this week was one of those special weeks, that I wish I could trap in a snow globe and visit on lonely cold nights. The hilariousness of us 6 gals, the closeness we felt. The joy I found in being so unified with other women. I think the guys felt bad, we really had a secret girl club going on. I can’t truly express to you the lighthearted feeling I got with these women. It is sad to know we will part in a few days. I have the feeling though that we won’t be silent in our parting, and will stay in close contact as we each move on and wait for the next operation to bring us together.

Signing off Wimberley, TX