Jody Foster has a new movie coming out called “The Brave One.” It is about a woman who suffers a terrible loss and a brutal attack only to become a vigilante dishing out justice in dark alleys and subways. When Terrence Howard, the cop who is working her case, asked her how she “pulled it all together after something like that happened to her?” She responds with “you become another person.”
That is what I had to do– I became Deborah.
When you suffer extreme loss, pain and brutality, and you survive it, you have two choices: curl-up in a ball and die or forge through the chaos and desolation to emerge another person.
If you are lucky, there maybe some remnants of the “old” you. For me, there is my “first” family, one friend who calls on my birthday, and few tattered pictures still remaining to remind me of my past “unobtainable self” that was “Debbie”.
“Debbie” was a party girl! She had a family, a nice car, and plenty of friends with plenty of money. She was young and wild, and ignorant to the fact that her life was actually very good. She always wanted “more” and “better”.
Debbie was a “high maintenance” babe, who loved to shop. She ran two miles everyday; she was fit, out-going and comfortable in any situation. She mingled with “Low Riders,” “Hell’s Angels,” “speed freaks” and danced the night away at the hottest nightclubs and gay bars in the city. She enjoyed spending lazy afternoons sipping “Dom Perignon” poolside at her friend’s exclusive home, or going on excursions to Neiman Marcus to find the latest addition of Waterford Crystal.
I will not bore you with the gory details of how “Debbie” was destroyed or how “Deborah” rose from the rumble. The wounds are deep, and the tale is to long for me to blog about it now. I can’t do that yet.
What I can share with you is my life as “Deborah”.
I am a hardworking single parent, who weighs twice as much as “Debbie” did. My friends are few, and my life is dedicated to my children. I attend church and “partying” to me now means, “pizza and video’s” with the kids. Our apartment is furnished with used furniture and I never have enough money to make it through the month. The majority of my purchases are made at “Wal-mart” and the “dollar store”.
Like “Debbie”, I want “more” and “better”.
However when I feel this longing for yesteryear’s “carefree” lifestyle or I am over rot with the depressive weight of my current life, my daughter BJ, who witnessed my metamorphosis, is always there to lift my spirits and remind me that I have come “so far” and have “achieved so much.”
You see “Debbie” has come through the maelstrom that was her life and made a new one in Deborah.
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