Mood Ring Chpt.1
(revised)
Author's note: I was re-reading my stories because I had been away from them for so long and I am trying to complete the series when I realized that I could make some minor changes to improve the flow and readability, so I am revising my submissions. Changes are minor to content, mostly new stylistic formatting with some deletion as appropriate where repetition became intrusive to serial reading.
The story hasn't changed; I hope the minor changes I have made make the reading experience more enjoyable.
*****
Hello. My Name is Lynne and I am a Lesbian!
I think it is best for a person to just announce out-loud something that they have long denied. In truth, this is the real spirit of saying that thing in those 12-step programs.
I don't believe that being a lesbian is anything to be ashamed of... My reference to the 12-step program is focused solely on embracing who and what you are and therefore defeating denial. So many people carry around guilt and shame for no reason. Shining the light of realization and acceptance into the darkness defeats the shadowy monsters that truly exist only in our imagination.
Until you embrace who you are, you are stuck denying the truth and will never evolve in your life.
*****
I live in the Deep South of the United States of America which is by all means, very conservative socially: that means conservative sexually. I am a product of my environment. I had grown up with the implicit understanding that I would find, fall in love with and marry the man of my dreams.
That is just the way life was scripted in my world.
I wanted to find, fall in love with, and marry the father of my children; a strong lover to whom I could look up and admire. I fantasized about the big church wedding with a big white gown with veil and train, birds, singing, and cake!
And until I was 24 years old, that seemed to be the way my life was leading. I was totally fine with it.
Little did I know that my life would literally spin out of control and when the ride was over, I would find, fall in love with, and marry the MOTHER of my children! Someone who is a strong lover; to whom I look up and admire. (
I still want my big white gown, birds, singing and cake!)
Whew, what a strange trip it has been!
So, I guess I should begin my story where it really began.
*****
Before my life took its fateful turn, I was an emergency department nurse living in an undisclosed city in the south (
sorry, my anonymity is important to us both even though we no longer live in that city anymore
) and our hospital had been trying to upgrade our ER status to attain "Level-One Trauma Destination" certification.
(In order to ensure that quality care is being provided, my state requires certification for hospitals to be regarded as trauma destinations and patients severely injured enough to meet "trauma alert" status have to go by law to a level-one trauma center.)
There already was one in my town, but my hospital wanted to compete and felt that doing so would better serve the general community.
Of course there was a certain amount of bitching from the staff; there always is when the status quo is upset. Some people do not like to have additional requirements placed on them in order to keep on doing what they have been doing. However, I looked forward to the additional requirements as it meant I would be gaining additional skills and certifications not only increasing my skill set but also making me more marketable as a nurse! In addition, the trustees of my hospital had hired a new trauma neurosurgeon who is an innovative master in the field. The opportunity to work with a living legend was appealing to me as well.
Anyway, the point of my story is not to educate you about state law regarding trauma centers. It is to tell you how I met my lover.
Dr. Anneke Beauchamp is one of the most respected trauma neurosurgeons in the world and conducted our trauma neurology class to bring us up to speed. It was the final section for our accreditation and I had been looking so forward to it! I literally worshiped the ground this woman walked on as she is my ideal of womanhood. She has attained a high level of peer respect and standing in a field that is dominated by men, but she has retained her femininity.
Dr. Beauchamp is of French descent from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France and damn proud of it! (
I don't know exactly what all of that means, but I do know that it gives her a delightful accent when she speaks.)
Tall, blonde-haired, and blue eyed, she is a paragon of fashion and always dressed for any occasion! I cannot think of a time when she has not appeared in a fashionable mode! She is elegant and graceful. She is one of the few women that I know of who has not garnered a lot of scandalous gossip as regards her social life.
However as she is a bit of a mystery; she has garnered a lot of speculative gossip!
Everyone wants to know: who is her lover?
She is a bit of a mystery sexually because as clever and beautiful as she is, she is not married and no man can legitimately claim to be or to have been her lover. No one is known to be dating her and no substantiated rumors about her having been seen in a lesbian environment exist either. Many people are curious but no one has ever been able to say one way or another!
So, of course the talk ran the gamut from her being a closet lesbian dominatrix to her being a tragically frigid Ice Queen. (
Strange that people try to fix some kind of derision to her status as an apparent model of virtue; I guess it is human nature to try to tear down anyone who appears to have their act together and behaves in a professional and unimpeachable manner.)
I hero-worshiped her because she appeared to live in that rare zone of self-awareness that is giving, requires nothing from anyone and is totally humanitarian. Despite her high social status, she still acts humbly and relates on a personal level to each and every person that she meets in the course of a day.
That and incidentally: she saved my life!
When I was 24 years old, I was involved in a serious car accident with a drunk driver. I was not drunk. In fact I was returning home from a long shift in the Emergency room. I do not remember anything about that incident except for waking up in the intensive care unit several weeks later.
From what I was told, the woman driving the other vehicle suddenly swerved in front of me and in my attempt to avoid her, my car flipped several times and I ended up being pinned in the wreckage. It took many minutes to free me and I was rushed to the existing level-one trauma center.
That night, Dr. Anneke Beauchamp was on call and was the surgeon who saved my life.
I survived my near-death experience with no brain injury thanks to her brilliance. She had perfected a technique of causing hypothermia in a patient post-traumatic incident (in my case a serious concussion) to reduce the free radicals from attacking the brain tissue as best I can understand it.
I had some severe facial injuries, but an excellent plastic surgeon worked on me. He had to reshape the bones in my face and my nose and now you cannot tell that I was so horribly injured. Of course with so much work having been done to reconstruct my face, you cannot tell that I am the same person either.
Before the accident, I was a model. My face had a unique angular dimension with light green eyes that slanted just so. My features were described as "vulpine"; I had built a portfolio doing some minor commercial/print work for local businesses and moved on to some minor runway work thanks to my "unique look." Now I am more the girl next door. My eyes are still the same, but instead of having my Irish heritage show, I now look like I come from a Slavic country.
I am lucky to survive and so grateful that I was not permanently disfigured. I have never been vain about my appearance: I consider looks to be a gift of nature. Truth be told, I was done with modeling. I was tall early in life and my youth kept me slim
(skinny really, but it was all young metabolism. I was never one to starve myself!)
But when I approached adulthood, my body filled out, my hips widened and I was told that quite simply "my body shape was not in demand."
I didn't get obese. In fact my waist appears very narrow because of my hip flare. I actually look like I am wearing one of those old-time Victorian corsets. Men find me sexy, but the modeling companies don't. At 5'9", I am a modest weight of 143; but I have curves and they want twigs.
I miss my previous appearance and mourn it as long gone. The repaired bones and nose give my face a much softer look than I used to have and old friends that haven't seen me since the accident do not recognize me the first time I talk to them.
I am told that I am still very pretty, the surgeon was a master in his respective field, and some of the procedures I received, people pay to have done to them electively. But I cannot help being self-conscious about my appearance in public and come across shy. I guess my scars are all on the inside because even now three years later, I superimpose my appearance from before the accident over how I look now. When I look in the mirror, even though I am completely healed, I still see the swollen discolored tissue in the changed lines of my face.
I used to be very outgoing and liked attention. I know that girl is still inside me somewhere, but these days, it takes a lot for me to be comfortable with new people and to open up.
*****
