When I woke up this morning, I was thinking of taking the easy way or the hard way. Now ever since I was a kid, I have never done anything the easy way. I have a nature that is stubborn and strong willed. I know by being this way, I have made some things harder on myself. But upon reflection I don't think it has hindered or harmed me in any way.

As a teen that had snuck out of the house to go joyriding with friends and I did partake in the 2 liter bottle of 7-UP mixed with a bottle of Southern Comfort. We were coming sdown my road almost to my drive, when Robbie turns off the headlights of the car, so as not to alert my parents I was being dropped off. It was smart thinking of Robbie's part, except just as the words "Careful of the ditch" left my mouth, the car was laying sideways in the ditch, still running, tires still spinning. We all poured out of the car and left it there. Me, creeping inch by inch into the house, my friend Bonnie with me whose car it was, starting to flip out. I lived on a farm. Bonnie is panicing cause it is getting close to her curfew. So I think OK, I'll bite the bullet and go wake my dad up to get the tractor to pull the car out of the ditch.

I go into my parents bed room and wake my father, trying to gauge a safe distance from him so he can't smell my breath. He gets up muttering. He gets dressed, we walk out the front door, the car is gone from the ditch, it is parked on all four tires in the driveway, running. My father stops swings around to me and asks how much I've really had to drink? I answer as truthfully as I can, "Not much, a few".

To end the story, it would seem the guys had run to someones house they knew who had a tow truck. that tid bit of info would have been helpful earlier if I had known. But being a budding thrill seeker, I would have missed out on the scene that followed. My father yelled, my mother cried, my father beat me with a stick. But I never wavered from not sayiing another word or admitting more then I had to. I never admitted to what I had been drinking, nor did I change my story from offhandedly saying a few. I have always been stubborn and pig headed, but even getting beaten with a stick, never made me take the easy way. I could have taken the easy way that night and admitted a few details that my father asked for. Like who had been driving? I wouldn't even admit that. So I just waited as time passed that night to see how the drama unfolded. I got through the beatings that night by telling myself in ten years, none of this would matter and tomorrow would be a better day.

I had mentioned that I lived on a farm. Farming as a way of life is tough, hard work and often mother nature plays cruel tricks of fate on a farmer. So it is a different perspective I grew up with. I saw as a kid, life isn't always easy or it follows the grand plan. So I learned to roll with what was handed to me. Which is probably why I never make a plan now or make resolutions or live day to day in such a structured way that I would go crazy if something unexpected occured. I don't live my life by a clock anymore, not that I did so much pre stroke, unless it had to do with work.

I once worked with a girl who was a twin, was deaf and so emotionally immature at 40 that she couldn't handle the fact that she was still unmarried at 40. She had been pampered and protected by her mother all her life that she never developed the skills needed to face life. She had her life all planned out by 30, she would be married, 35 have kids and I forget at what age she should have been a homeowner. So she was so unhappy within herself because she felt inferior and lived her life as a failure. In this case her mother babying her didn't help her learn what life is all about. It is a good thing she hasn't had a strroke yet. She'd be the whiner kind, the poor me, the easy way through rehab, the 75% effort in recovery. I never went about my life thinking I was owed anything, never had expectations. If something seemed to good to be true, it usually was. Stay away from that kind of stuff.

I've learned that with each experience or situation I found myself in, I learned a lesson about life from it. Now I didn't always absorb that lesson. But each lesson is like a building block to a certion attitude. A hidden skill that I would need at some indistinct time in the future. Pre stroke I lived each day jammed pack full, I enjoyed my life. I had built a life I really loved. Then I had a stroke and realized the life that I had taken for granted was no longer. It took me awhile( more then a year) to figure out how to deal with what happened.I spent many hours on my deck, thinking and smoking and sorting through the huge amount of alien emotions I was feeling. I was at the same time getting to know this new unskilled person I had become. There was still enough of me from before lurking inside, that I could grasp on to and guard that part of my personality with my life. In rehab I fought my PT when he would comment on something and want me to focus on it and change it. I would refuse and tell him that that was something that was innately me and I wasn't changing it for him or anybody. Now I really don't know if those little personality flaws were important and worth the battle but at the time I thought they were. I was putting myself back together piece by piece and I didn't have directions to follow, no map to guide me, I just reacted from my gut. I didn't have any emotional support from the spouse, I was in this battle alone, fighting only on blind faith. I had so much blind faith in recovery that I was questioning if it was really denial turned inside out? I remember questioning Roberto if blind faith really was denial in disguise? I emailed him. He answered me that for some it could be, depending on how it was used? Was it used to attain high goals in recovery? Did it make the person highly motivated? Was the person based in reality? Well that question has always been debateable I think.

I know that when the old irish lady said to me after I stroked, well you can't have the celebration without the suffering. How true is that statement? I think there have always been two schools of thought in this country. Years past, be a good solid citizen, work hard and things will be right for you. Key words being "work hard" Then there is the present modern day school of thought, Show up for work, but show me the money, we must be politically correct, because god forbid! we might tarnish someones self esteem or Horrors! make them squirm a bit or feel uncomfortable, yup the modern day school of thought nurtures a bunch of wimps. I don't buy into that nor do I subscribe to that. I work hard, I don't shirk my duties, I don't whine because something isn't laid at my feet. I do what ever is necessary and I fumble my way about in life, I sure don't waste time standing around demanding guidance or instructions to life. I live life and learn as I go.

Pam