Personal Issues

WARNING! Wordy, wordy, wordy!
I debated at some length whether to post this in my blog. For one thing, I've promised myself my blog entries will all be short. For another, it's all about personal issues, and while I know most blogs are just that, I always wonder, "Does anyone find this stuff interesting besides the blogger's friends?"
Well, I have decided, shrugging philosophically, this is a new blog, and my friends are the only ones reading it! If I get rich and famous, maybe my adoring fans will want to know what it is that causes that odd tockety in my tick. And I'll just point them to my blog and say cheerfully, "Second entry - February 1, 2006. You'll learn more about me there than you ever wanted to know!"
In the past few days, I have been hit, then hit again, then knocked down, then kicked while down. I feel (just like the rest of the race, no doubt) that I have a worse time than most people getting up and going on from these disasters.This has all happened, mind you, right after that noble first post in which I advocated the virtues of courageously getting up and taking one more step toward home, like the brave little. . . ahem! . . .donkey. . .I am!
This last kick has made me think about issues which are central to the living of my life. Maybe to the living of all lives, which is another reason I decided to post, after all.
(I did warn you this was wordy, right?)
It was a painful criticism. And I just couldn't seem to stop brooding. Time and again I turned my mind to other things. I talked to friends, who comforted me. I prayed continuously. Nothing seemed to help for long. And really, I thought I had grown up enough by now to handle criticism better than that! I advocated, in my book Gardens of the Soul, the following lofty word picture of how to deal with criticism:
"Here's an idea. When someone throws rotten fruit at you, the first thing to do - as always - is to call on the Gardener. Then, together, hold your nose, put on gloves, and pick through it to see if there are any seeds of truth there. Uncomfortably often, you will find some. If you find any, plant them! Compost the rest, and it will eventually enrich you, despite the intentions of the fruit-thrower. And if there are not good seeds to be found, compost it all! Your criticizer's loss is your gain." (p. 140)
But you see, this was a criticism, rather a strong one, of something I thought I had done unexpectedly well. And this morning I finally figured out what the kernel of truth was. It has to do with a pretty major hole in myself - one I've always feared might prevent my accomplishing many of the things I hope to accomplish in life. One I don't know what to do about. One that makes me want to just go back into my cave and not bother.
And to understand it, I have to go right back to the beginnings of my life.
Wordy, wordy. . .
When I was two years old, I had scarlet fever. My temperature, according to my mother, rose as far as 106 degrees F. I thought you died with fevers like that. I do know they cause brain injury. We were quarantined. They gave me quinine. Is that the right medication? I'm probably remembering this story all wrong. And my mother says that after that things were never--

I just had the greatest idea! I can keep my blog entries short, and raise suspense levels at the same time. I'll just put to be continued. . .
Which means I'll have to tell all those future adoring fans to read February 1 ff. Well, that's all right. By then, they'll love my Way With Words, and especially with Word Pictures! Right?
More tomorrow.
Repairing the Breach,
(especially when it's in my own heart)
Debbonnaire