Isn't it Ironic???

Thanks to those who were interested enough in what I had to say to actually read my first blog. I am returning after the most surreal, epically ironic day of my entire life. This day has been loaded and I am beat. Thing is this, I can't progress further on those details without this history lesson first. I am going to be brutally honest here, and I just feel the need to start as cleanly as possible. So here we go back a bit... Thing is this, I am the most broken woman you know. If you know me, you know this is true and I wear it on my sleeve, right out in the open. If you know me, you also know that this fashion choice, the heart on the sleeve variety, makes most people extremely uncomfortable. In fact, it causes a lot of undue ugliness that really has not a single thing to do me (ohh I digress in a rant) At any rate, I have been a mess most of my life, some of you old school homies can attest, for those of you in the dark, here is light shed. A mess....When I say mess, I do not mean like a heroin addict or a child abuser yada yada, I mean mess like Jason Mraz says, a beautiful mess. A tragic love story. A bad comedy. Which ever you prefer. It is not as pretty as that song and yet, it is exactly that pretty. For reasons too varied, I grew up believing that I was a total piece of worthless shit. I believed I was dumb, useless, fat and ugly. The worst for me was the dumb and useless. For many years following my fucked up childhood I abused myself in ways that would secure what was quickly becoming a comfortable numbness. I picked bad men who cheated and lied and told me I was dumb, useless, fat and ugly, go figure huh? This quick re-cap does the pain no justice but today isn't just about me so I want to get back around to the day. Geesh sorry. Okay and so, I gave up on my life and said FUCK IT, mess be made. Until recently when I began to love myself and kick the world's ass little by little.... Today - today began with the heart break of the beef stew and missing my Papa. I decided to finally set up a blogspot (it is huge that I am confident enough to do this) and felt a real sense of depressed, surreal accomplishment. My BF Mary called and I excitedly reported that I had done it, finally managed by the grace of God, to correctly type enough damn security codes to progress to the next page and in the end SET UP my OWN BLOG (a year ago I would have thrown the computer clear across the room)...I read it to her, she teared up, the ending is sad about growing up and losing the ones you love from youth... She asks me "Slutly you check your email about the writing contest yet today?" I log on and check,  though not anticipating one. Back story: wrote essay last year for school contest. Honorable mention award and got it published, (my first ever submitted piece of me, in college that I was terrified I would fail at) This year I told the head of the English dept. "I don't want to place in the contest, I want to WIN." To get that win, I wrote about my love from adolescence Omar and the impact he and his death had on my life... I check the email and it says, "Dear Deborah we would like to inform you that you have one first place......." I cried so hard and sudden,  I literally peed a little. This was one of the best moments in my life. For a few reasons. One, finally proof that power exists in believing that you can. Setting forth with clear intention is key to arriving right in the center of the bulls eye. BAM. I did it. Two, the material was huge for me, HUGE. His death changed my life and he has watched as I have pulled myself up and righted the gait and posture of self worth. He is my champion from way back, even in death. I have missed his mouth every day of my life, badly. Three, I did it for me and him and his dear sweet mother Borjana. I wanted her to know that his life meant something. Not just that it meant something but that the loss of it was so devastating it changed the course of mine. Although I had the essay done and debated sending it to her over Thanksgiving, I REALLY wanted to win first place and invite her down to the ceremony where I will read the piece and receive my award. I was hoping that I would be able to see her here and feel her arms around me. And so, after I changed pants I logged onto facebook to wall post my pee worthy good news. I see the letters RIP on her facebook page and am immediately tingly all over and feeling short of breath. Just then, literally simultaneously, a message pops up from my old friend and rival sex pot Sherri McGuinness, she is asking, "What's wrong with Borjana???" Moments later it is confirmed that she had died, never woke up from her slumber. I am reeling right now....Just reeling. Here's that thing, I am glad she is with him now, she suffered long enough with devastating pain, they are together after all these years apart. How can a Mother ever recover from the loss of a child? I just can't contemplate that, even conceptually, without immediate hyper ventilation and borderline hysteria. A pain I pray everyday I somehow escape. I am glad in the same way I was with my Papa, relieved. I am sad for me and for everyone who loved her, especially Steve who loved her for so long and through the hardest parts...I am devastated but more  freaked out by what it means that that it is. This whole day has been a circular motion towards Irony and the greater, hidden, unspoken rules of it's lessons...Irony always means something so profound is occurring. For me, in my personal scope, this is where I am with this day... There is a plan of some kind and we are all so interconnected. Life comes full circle always. I was held down by myself most of all. I got brave (thanks to my M&M muses) and began to fight for my own life and believe that it was worth something. Omar always knew that it was and so did his beautiful Mother. I found him often in the dawn of my loneliest days, suddenly the sky would light on fire and a blaze of orange would turn my landscape into the image of my own heart. I would feel him push me along, a kiss on the neck in the breeze sometimes, with the window down and Journey playing....a loving push for twenty one years. Today, is the first day I do not need to be pushed anymore.... The irony. Today I personally have come full circle. What I felt when I first woke up this morning, a pervasive sadness, somehow my old me is moving on. AND I made the stew, wrote the first blog, won the damn contest and she died before I could tell her. Why? Because I don't need to, their work is complete and with that they go. To everyone else, it is something different. In my world it is three people got wings today. The three people who needed them most. As I sit in puffy eyed irony, feeling as though the core of life's meaning cracked open wide for me today I am more grateful than earlier. I am BROKENHEARTED and WHOLEHEARTED for the time ever....My whole new healthy heart is really sad at more loss from the passage of time. Death is always there, it could be any day. Love Love Love. Do good with your love, don't be selfish. give it freely, be confident that it is the only right thing you can ever really do right. LOVE. Crying again...Ugh. Omar and his Mom loved me and their love made all the difference. Make a difference today, right now. Make a difference. It matters more than anything.

P.S. I should mention that the picture above is an Einstein that Omar did in pencil, my most prized possession and the picture earlier from the stew blog, is of my Nana's last violet and my Papa's bottle of Irish Mist that he got on the plane when we flew to Ireland in 1980.