If this visit to Found Baby's musings is your first, welcome! Found Baby writes about her everyday adventures, about how she feels, thinks, and the challenges she faces living in a world so obsessed with beauty and perfection. As she adjusts to life out of the ground, she can't help but recall bits and pieces of her life before she was buried, and those memories are heartbreaking. It might help if you start from her first post back in March 2010, and read backwards to learn the story about how she was found. If you are simply reading the current post, may her story of survival and hope touch at least one of you. She believes there are no coincidences, and you landing on her blog isn't one either.
Welcome, no masks needed...........Found Baby.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Robin's Egg Blue Can Be Beautiful Can't It?


You know that feeling you get when you are so excited about the events happening around you that you feel as if you are going through the motions, s-l-o-w-l-y? I feel that, like this is still a dream and I am still breathing dirt. What I know to be true though, what I know to be reality like I am sitting on this cold, familiar, porcelain type of sink is that I am not in that dirt anymore. I am being carefully cleaned, like I matter, like I am worth something. I am being loved. 

I wasn't too crazy about this spicket above my head to be perfectly honest. It didn't look like any faucet I had ever seen, rather, it looked as if it would grow eyeballs and start carrying on a conversation with me at any moment. When she turned it on, and the cold shower began flowing over me like new skin I felt.....clean.

For years I had been rained on and the wet mud would soak into my hair and crevices. I longed for the rush of clean water through my hair and that gentle smell of freshness I used to get after taking a bubble bath. This was almost that wonderful, except, no bubbles, and that I believe is a crying shame. 

Looking down at my skin, it occurred to me that I don't look like I used to. My skin used to be soft, supple, and carry a peachy glow that one would only find on a freshly ripened  Southern peach. This skin looks foreign to me, like it isn't mine, but I know it is. I know the years of decay and dirt are stuck with me, and I am ok with that. I am simply grateful to be out of that ground, surrounded by life again, and in the hands of someone that loves me. I am grateful to be found. 

What happened next though, what happened in those next 17 seconds, was an extremely difficult part of my day. In fact, out of all the seconds that have ticked by in the past years, these 17 seconds felt the worst. These would be the ones that made me wish I was back in that dirt, buried, never to be seen by anyone. What happened next was that I was shown a mirror. 


At first, I was thrilled because after a bath I knew how beautiful it made me feel, all pretty and smell goody. But when she handed me a mirror, when I looked at my reflection, my heart collapsed a little bit. This didn't look like me, not the me that I remembered. My reflection was.....creepy. Several minutes passed. I touched the mirror ever so gently in the hopes that possibly the image would change, that I could get some of the blue skin off, but soon the realization that the person I saw smiling back at me was me sunk in, and I knew, this new life would be a challenge too.

After a couple of moments of wanting to crawl out of my skin, wanting to grab the nearest jar of Noxema, wanting to not look like this, I mean like THIS... I, ever so carefully, put my  big girl panties on, took a deep breath, and decided that if this is what I was given, then I would make the best of it. I still am not too happy about the roots growing out of my hair, but after a while I realized they made me look a bit wiser, and being 49 and alive made wise seem really appealing. 

Only 24 hours had passed since I was pulled back to life, back from that organic soup I was swimming in.  I knew my new course in life, the one I am on that has had me clinging to the "If this is what I have been given, then I will make the best of it," was going to be something of a hoot. To be honest, part of me is terrified, and I know terrified well. But the strongest part of me, that part that kept me alive and hopeful for all these years, that part of me that is a survivor, will be the part that I cling to, like this new shade of Robins Egg Blue clings to my face. 




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're amazing! I bless you, friend!

Ardith Goodwin said...

Thanks Kellie, you made my day! Found Baby says thank you for reading about her too! She can't wait to rock the world with some optimism!

Mojo Writin said...

Oh Baby, you look beautiful to me. I think you could be bald as one of those blue Robin's eggs and still be the most stunning creature alive. So glad you decided to embrace the new you *hugs*

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