R is for Resilience
In my case, each sail adjustment was often preceded with a fight to stay on an old course and then with tears, sadness, sometimes tantrums or that “I can’t even scrape myself off the floor feeling”, before I had to get up yet again and work on adjusting those sails. I’ve had a “full life”, but the good thing I guess the sails are still up.
As a true Scorpio, I’ve had to regenerate and reinvent myself way too many times. There’s some description in astrology that compares Scorpios to a legend of Phoenix, a bright and colorful fire bird that lives a long life but at the end builds a nest and ignites itself on fire but only to be reborn out of the leftover ashes. Yes, sounds about right.
I can’t say every turning point was self generated, but it did literary feel I was rising myself again out of ashes. Again, in some instances, literary. I think I had quite a few of those “I don’t know why I survived times”:
– I was born very premature, actually I was supposed to be born in the next year, in January, not in November, and given my grave condition and a state of neonatal medicine in the former Soviet Union, “I don’t know why I survived” and was not brain damaged or such (but I guess that point could be argued :)) My great-grandmother who helped my mom nurse me back not exactly into health but you can say into life used to say “a loaf of bread in besieged Leningrad weighed more than your baby” (I think I got my sharp sarcastic tongue from her).
– And then I almost drowned when I was 17, right after graduation, when my class went on a 3 day camping trip and I got tangled in an underwater tree and was swept away by a quick river current – “I don’t know why I survived”, but at some point I got a sudden release from the tree branches and was able to swim up. Thank you my Guardian Angels!
– And then I almost died during a medical emergency when I was barely out of my teens (internal bleeding), my blood pressure was just slightly better than a dead person’s when they finally wheeled me into OR – “I don’t know why I survived”, but I think the hospital used most of its blood supply on my transfusions after the surgery trying to keep me alive and later functional.
– And then in my 30s I got breast cancer (with no family history or other know reasons), and as with any cancer, it could’ve gone either way, but “I survived”.
And I’m sure there were other “near misses” like a really bad car accident 10 years ago, the car was totaled – we weren’t.
I kind of hope I’ve done enough “sail adjustments” for the health reasons in my life, and actually a lot of other personal and career adjustments also, so I hope “The Upstairs” are taking notice of my prayers and send me some positive sail winds for a change.
R is for resilience and for making this Ritzy recipe
Ritz Carlton Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake
