Since I speak about PTSD a lot at 2 local churches, I went to one of them today just as an attendee to thank them. When I got tenure, they bought a congratulations card and a bunch of members of the congregation signed it with really nice messages of congrats. So today I went to thank them in person during the "joys and concerns" part of their church service.

At that church, I ran into a guy who is a fellow instructor at my college. Unlike myself, he's never driven from here in the mountains the 2 hours to DC to take in a major league baseball game. Earlier in the week he asked me how, and I told him. So he bought 2 tickets for us to a game over the Independence Day holiday. I had brought cash to his church today to pay him for my ticket.

He surprised me, by saying it was his treat. I told him how cool that was in and of itself, but it was even cooler because going to that game over the Independence Day was my birthday gift to myself since my birthday is July 1st.

So without knowing it, by treating me to that baseball game together, he'd given me a birthday gift! Since I live alone and have had no further contact with my family of origin for my PTSD health for the last 5 years, for the last 5 years I haven't gotten a birthday gift from anyone. So he gave me a gift without knowing it was my 1st birthday present in 5 years. Awesome, huh?

But wait, there's more to my magical Sunday. Afterward, I went off by myself and bought a Sunday paper and took myself out alone to a restaurant for lunch. Lo and behold, my waitress came over to me mid-meal and told me some anonymous person had paid for my meal and had left. I am guessing it may have been someone from that church service today.

What a nice thing to have happen! Surprises in my life with PTSD are often of the trigger variety. This day was wonderful. When I moved here 5 years ago, it was really hard. Before then, I'd managed my PTSD to the point that I could be an emergency room trauma chaplain. That was the peak of my journey from victim to survivor to thriver with PTSD and it was a result of years of work in PTSD recovery for me.

But it all came crashing down when I collapsed in front of my boss and was put in the hospital as a patient myself. I found out I had kidney disease. I had to leave my 10 year hospital chaplaincy career due to kidney disease and accept teaching nursing students at a community college instead. I'd had to leave a city of 2 million to live 1,500 miles away from all of my friends and in a much smaller city of 20,000, which I wasn't used to.

So for 5 years now I've succeeded in my new teaching job while I've been alone in this small city that's mostly made up of families. It was really nice to be treated by a stranger in this town today when I have having lunch alone! Whoever it was, blessings upon them. It was a nice surprise that really boosted my self esteem, I can tell you.