Our own Ethernet "Cloud"

Finally having the gods of the internet smile - or, at least take pity - on me, I have my old 2003 Gateway tower computer up and running quite comfortably.  I became painfully aware that I must navigate with an appropriately sized anti-virus program AND that I most assuredly need to increase my computer's memory.

This seemed to equate well and even colorfully to my life experiences over the last few years as I lived with a narcissist/psychopath and his"nutter-clan"...and the years following, dealing with being rather gruffly discarded when my money and service-capabilities had evaporated.  Finding myself captivated by my pie-in-the-sky fairy tale - written within my own mind and dreams - of living with a larger family and extended clan, I let down my guard and allowed many a rogue program to enter my sphere of awareness and acceptance, shutting down my natural protective parameters.

Overrun with their black hole of needs, I seemed to believe this sharing of life's yolk was a sign of love and longevity.  That came from my floppy disk, "the fairy tale."  The anguish over having misjudged the menagerie of   characters within the play of my marriage shook me to the foundations of my personal comfort arenas and self-esteem.  I "froze" just as my old  computer did while downloading and installing incompatible software.

I had been cheerfully oh-so-optimistic before this trek into the ever shifting abyss of gas-lighting and drifting realities.  My spiritual side had been tethered to my idea of God and the Universe and I believed in "The Just World Hypothesis."  Life over my many decades had thrown a few hurdles and I had survived, returning to my state of being part of a greater whole...and content that life was moving along as it should.

Perhaps my wounds within this eerily odd excursion into the dark side of humanity - or some download of human genetics - arose from my own sense of loss of "the" illusion.  To many of us who have high levels of compassion and who partake in that grand Don Quixote quest for finding "true love," we thought this was "the IT" of programs.  Our Holy Grail of sorts.  When my own world fell apart literally, it was like watching the movie "2012."  Of course there was fear, but there was also such an amazing loneliness.  Goodness and ideals seemed to have been twisted and turned against me.  My finances had been devastated, my emotions battered by an unfathomable storm, and my soul savagely attacked.  Melodramatic?  Without question, but the emotional landscape with symphonic swells of theme music looked frighteningly bleak.

As the days turned into two years away from  the tornado of upheavals and chaos,  I found myself seeking  that link to God and the Universe.  I so understand my computer screen as it states, "check internet connectivity."  My faith had been shattered.  I was lost.  There were moments when I felt deeply and genuinely moved by the tales of Oneness delivered by another, but my own history of being in tune with this Creator fell into the background and I couldn't seem to muster those old feelings of joy and unity.

Aspirations and even gumption that had seen me through job searches and trials of my past couldn't find a foothold in the "me" of today.  I finally have accepted that the train wreck of that relationship - so different from any others - has left me injured, damaged, and recovering...but, I am recovering.

With all the cloud formats for ethernet use such as security systems and browsers, I am delighted when the "history" is renewed and I can find my way once again in the internet connections.  It's a fantastic filing system, but you just have to know the address for the storage.  I came across two books at the library that unexpectedly caught my attention, Every Day Deserves a Chance (Max Lucado) and Where Miracles Happen (Joan Anderson).  The stories within were filled with love and warmth and stamina.  That's what I had lost in my crisis of faith where I questioned the existence of God.  It suddenly occurred to me that I had "dumped" every time that kind of "feeling" touched me.  I had engaged filters and a stricter fire wall to keep the associations of sharing at an arm's length.  It seems that I chose to avoid possible pain rather than risk a grand adventure.  These two books Did reach me...and at that split second, I began to believe once again in a Universe that has great bounty.

The gateway of information and emotional connection changed from a trickle to a rushing stream as if I had finally decided to turn the faucet on full blast.  Well, maybe I'm not quite to "full blast," but it's a start.  And as with shared data and storage in internet "clouds," I have once again joined this old world and let much fear drop away.  No longer like Scarlet O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind," with her "I won't think about that today...I'll think about it tomorrow," I can SENSE that it really will be OK.  Let's see what's "around the River Bend." (Disney's "Pocahontas")