with love,<BR>J

for never

for newbies--<BR>Love and Welcome,<BR>J

up

We, speaking for the newbies, continue to need advice and comfort from those more experienced. I, myself, can feel a huge difference from the first time I posted and now. I know how hard it is for each of us to talk to people we don't know....but how hard is it to talk to someone who's going thru something just like you're going through?This is the greatest therapy for me!!Talking to others who are in my similar situation is a great comfort to me. Keep talking! Thanks for being here!!!

Thank you mbm <P>Pushing this up for more newbies. If it helps 1 person at all, it's worth it!

at CD's suggestion--thanks CD

Jenny and Scalett P,<P>Hope you guys do not mind but I just really thought Scarlett's analogy was so wonderful it might be beneficial to our newbies so I brought it here...<P>Pretend for a moment your a successful writer and have been for many, many years. Then because of a tragic accident you lost your right arm from the elbow down. You are right handed and work with your hands every day. When you first lost your arm you were devistated and had no idea how you could go through life let alone work without your right arm! You cry and are depressed for days even weeks. Everytime you start to feel a little better, you glance down at the stump it it reminds you all over again and again about the loss. <P>Out of habit you reach for things with what's left of your right arm only to see that stump again reaching in vain. Frustrated, you still want those things so to put your left arm out to reach for it. It's awkward and unsteady, but you are able to do it. Weeks after the stiches come out and the wound scars over, it's not as painful anymore, but the stump is a constant reminder of your loss. You start to grocery shop again, drive your car and make your bed. You fumble through everyday life and wonder how you will make it as a writer. You still have the desire, but don't know if you have the tools, you were right handed! <P>You realize that you have to continue living, you start to teach yourself how to live with your left hand. You start to practice writing w/ your left hand, then typing with only your left hand. You say to yourself, 'how am I going to learn to write all over again at my age?'. It is hard but slowly your penmenship improves and your typing speeds up. Out of reflex you still reach for things w/ your right arm, but it gets less and less all the time. <P>Before you know it, with alot of work, your writing again! You've learned to drive, type and write with just your left hand. Every once in a while you look down at your stump and think how tragic that day was, you'll never forget it ever, but then your thoughts drift to how you've been able to over come the loss of it. You find yourself comparing your life now to your life then and realize it's not much different, in fact you're amazed how much time has passed. You're the same person, living the same life, just doing things a little different then before. Your happy again, even though you have that 'useless' stump hanging off your shoulder as a constant reminder of that tragic day long ago. While it never goes away, you've somehow learned to live with it.<P>May God bless all of you in this journey...

BW<P>thank you for rewriting the analogy. I couldn't resist checking to see if something on the mb would help me feel better today, and you just did. God Bless You!<P>ivc

br-w, I think that was a GREAT idea! <P>CD once made the analogy to (rebuilding) a house that was great too...

up for newbies!