Becoming Unhinged

I wrote on a reply on my Facebook page this morning that said I was feeling people around me were becoming "unhinged." It occurred to me, during this morning's beach walk, that perhaps I was projecting. Perhaps I was projecting my feeling unhinged from myself to others. Perhaps I am the one who is really unhinged... and the rest of the world is sealed tight. All bolts secure, all screws in place.

I think the blessing...and the burden...of this P.I.'s life is that I care. So much. Too much.
I am one of those investigators with hope/help in the eyes first, dollar signs second. And therefore, I spend more time than necessary with a client, a victim, a student, friend, my animals. The longer I take someone in, the more I absorb them.

In my youth and all through my life, I always identified with a character on the original Star Trek who was what they called an "Empath". This was the original Star Trek, the TV show, many many moons ago.

Kirk, McCoy and Spock were strung from the rafters by big-headed aliens appearing to test the guys' ability to withstand torture. Then the Empath... this beautiful, perfect. non-speaking sensual women some/most men us to be aspire to be... reached out and touched their wounds. One of the guys, I think McCoy, told her to stop, she might die. She didn't care. She healed them absorbed their pain with her touch, processed through it. And then everybody was all good.

Turned out the big-headed aliens felt the humans, who suggested the Empath save herself, were worthy of being saved as a species and decided not to blow up earth.
And they also discovered their beautiful Empath was in perfect working order.
The aliens transported Spock, McCoy and Kirk, back to their ship.
And they took their Empath back with them for her to do whatever.

It didn't occur to me as the episode ended, that time would pass and one day the Empath would go on to start in a key role in Guiding Light. And Kirk would one day appear on John Stewart citing Sarah Palin poetry.

I think we grow old slowly at first and feel like no one or no thing can bring us down. Our twenties, our thirties are challenging. It's when he hit our fourties and then the big 50, that the clock begins to speed up and suddenly all the people on tv were grew up with, like the Beaver, The Fonz and Opie are old. Physically, there is no "forever young." Instead, we, as Picasso said, "are only as old as we think we are."

The new generations, our children and the children of others, evolved as we grew up.
At times, my kids and their friends, this whole young generation, appear more like
aliens to me, than humanoid. More technoid than home-spun. More self-entitled than self-deprecating. More sedentary than driven.

And I imagine my parents.... and their parents.... and all those before them.... who fought wars and crossed seas; who blasted away to mountains to build our roads, train tracks, cities... they must've thought the same of us.

I, the P.I., write this to let you know we see it all. And we feel it all.
Even when we pretend we don't.
Even when our apprehension turns to strength as we walk through the door of an Intensive Care Unit to see and photograph a tough Harley biker broken into pieces.
Even when we take photographs of a fatal accident scene, while hearing the sobs of the mother, father, family who led you there and stayed.... so they could mourn at the road-side wooden cross honoring their dead. while you photograph the scene and their pain and suffering.

Living here in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by military bases and forces...
I spend a fair amount of time with soldiers who survived Iraq, Afghanistan, Granada, Vietnam... only to be mowed down in a crosswalk or hit head on by a drunk driver. The soldiers are stunned that the worst disability they sustained, the straw that broke their camel's proverbial back, was back home in their own country.

It works that way with civilians too.
Some one goes out to get their mail, or take their little dog for a walk...when out of nowhere... a raging attack dog or two, feeds on them.

Last week, I sat with a woman who was a Sargent Major in the Army, served two "tours" of combat (I really wouldn't consider a war a "tour")... and got out to become a supervisor of over 30 people in a job she loves.
So just a few days ago, she was out taking the beloved Harley she wanted all her life.... the one she just bought four months earlier...
the one she added about 4k in after-market stuff to...
the one she took two safe driving courses just to get it all right...
"that" Harley.
She took it to her friend's house and at sunset, decided to take a ride towards Mount Rainier, which is an awesome sight to behold, especially as close as she was tp the mountain.
She approached an intersection.
She had right of way.
She had a green light.
She saw the car stopped at the light ahead of her.

Then to her disbelief, just as they got to the intersection, the stopped car turned left. The car smashed into her right leg breaking it.
She separated from the bike, flew onto the hood of the car, hit the windshield, did a complete somersault and hit the concrete with her left shoulder, then left elbow, then left wrist.

There were witnesses everywhere. An Army Medic happened to be stopped behind the car that hit her. Everyone, including the Police Officer who wrote the report, agreed the 24 year old driver who turned left at the light was at fault. She said she didn't see the Harley. She was cited.

So my job was to meet the attorney's client in the far away place she was staying because her leg was broken, her shoulder was dislocated, her elbow was chipped, and her ankle was twisted. There were other injuries, I will spare you those.
They figured she'd be down for 3 to 6 months.
She was staying with her female boss and her female boss' husband, kind people who evidently loved her.
"I just moved to Washington 6 months ago," she said, "I have no family here, No one"

She was emotionless as we talked about her 60% military disability, and how she survived that and the surgeries from an enemy attack.
An she was quite courageous despite the pain as we removed the brace on her leg so I could photograph the full extent of her damages to her legs. The right one was a mess.

And so I did my thing, went back to my place, wrote up her case. I realized I needed just a little more info before I handed it in, so I called her. I asked my questions. She answered them.

As the investigation questions drew to an end, I asked how she was doing.
It was with those words I think, that the wall around her crumbled down. She fell apart. She could not comprehend how a simple drive down the road in a Harley would lead her to a clueless young woman who made an illegal left turn and destroyed not just her beloved Harley. The young woman destroyed her life.

"I am broken. I can't work. I am helpless and dependent" she said. I could hear her voice crack, I heard her tears.

I told her what I tell all bikers I work for who survive hit like hers.
"Well, the way I see it, either you've got an angel protecting you or you're just a walking miracle, because many of my clients on bikes hit by cars are dead or in intensive care"

She told me her mother recently died, she thought she felt her mom's presence as she flew over the car.
"You did feel her, " I said, "she was there."
Usually, clients go on and ask why I know that.
This one just said "I agree."

It was in her becoming unhinged that she was able to put herself back together.
And it is in writing about that moment, I too feel myself coming together....
on one of those mornings you wake up unsettled and feeling, on one level or another, "unhinged"... sorry for yourself, your circumstances, whatever.

Every day, every moment above ground is a good day. As dark as it gets, as hard as it gets, as long as you've got the day to think about, to move freely through, then that's as good as it gets.

I think so many people spend so much money to find or buy happiness outside themselves, that they haven't figured out, it's all in our heads.
We can be happy anywhere as long as we can control our movements, our days. As long as we are free.

Youth can not be contained forever. When the lights aren't shining on Cher, or Donnie and Marie, when they're in their homes, in real life, real time, their age shows. Take away the surgeries, the make-up, the masks, mirages and pretense.... and you see one generation... mine... giving way to a new generation, theirs. Whatever it becomes.

And all those video games and texts and violent movies and high tech Twitter conveniences of this new world.... they will evolve, mutate or morph into a new life form when we are long gone.
Meantime, all we can do is the best we can do...
keep the bolts tightened, the body lubed, the mind stimulated so we do not become... unhinged.