mir·a·cle /ˈmirək(ə)l/

noun 1. a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

Hope in tragic times shows up in many forms. I am grateful I have learned to look for the signs.

Of all the things that have happened in the last year, the dental surgery, the heartbreak, the bone break, the computer break, the car break..(I’m seeing a pattern here)…

The thing that actually hurt the most was when I thought I had lost four pieces of jewelry, each acquired on a trip/adventure where I felt the most free from any sort of “breaks”.

I even wore them on the day I went to have my ankle surgery. When I came home I put them somewhere “safe” and when I went back to retrieve them, they were gone and I was crushed. It felt like my last little bit of life force had been taken away from me and thus begun an even deeper spiral into the darkness.

I slept for days, and when I was awake I literally played solitaire, feeling isolated and alone, incased in my own solitary confinement. I know it seems silly that little trinkets acquired on a random road in a far away city would be the breaking point, yet it was mine.

For the next couple of months I tried to rally, often had to rally. Life of a single working mom doesn’t stop because you’re depressed. Groceries, rides to practice, school, work, appointments, laundry, new shoes, hair cuts, orthodontists must go on.

All the while there was a deep endless hole within me.  Sometimes, like Gollum, I would scour the house looking for my precious little gems, as if somehow they would hold the power to revive me, light the flame dampened in my soul.

Silly, I know…But when there isn’t an ounce of hope anywhere in sight, we then to try and hold onto something, no matter how small and these baubles were mine. And they were gone.

As many of you know I am now in a battle for my home, dealing with a predatory landlord. I intend to fight like hell, and I might lose. But someone has to fight these corporate villains.  I guess I have chosen (or it was chosen for me) my hill to die on.

Yesterday, I went to visit a friend, she cut my hair and I felt a little lighter. We chatted and had tea and she exclaimed she is heading to Columbia next week on an amazing adventure into the wilds. And I was immediately jealous. Grateful that I could express that to her. Columbia holds much meaning to me these days, as you read 50 Shades of WTF you’ll soon learn why.

I sat and held both excitement for my friend and a deep pain and honestly resentment. The feeling of being stuck like a fly to sticky paper reverberated through my entire body. I held back tears and she was gracious enough to let me show her my pictures from Ecuador. Reveling in the memories of my own escapades into the wilds.

As I drove home lost in my sadness, boxed into the life I have created, angry at myself, angry at those who have abandoned me, sobbing… oddly all to the Bee Gees playing loudly on my radio (FYI never underestimate The Bee Gees), I realized how long I have felt this way and that when it becomes too claustrophobic even for my tenacious, resilient self, I explode and usually my life does too.

I recalled something my co-creator Will used to say about me while making “Bleep” – “Oh no here comes another Betsy Blow up” – at the time these were usually good things and as I made my way home and recounted some of my epic blow ups, I remembered that after the chaos there was calm.

A small flicker was igniting somewhere within me, I wouldn’t know it yet….

I arrived home, my friend had sent me off with some herbs to make a tea before bed.  As it steeped, I lit the candle on my alter and looked up at BoB and asked for a miracle.

When I made my way to bed I noticed my phone charger was left downstairs, ugh.. stairs with my ankle is not an easy or quick trip. Knowing full well there was not going to be an extra in the drawers of my nightstand, I opened the middle drawer anyway, a drawer I don’t recall opening in a very long time,  practically empty save for my soul enshrined in four pieces of jewelry.

BoB had sent me a miracle indeed. He sent me hope.