Ashley's Atrium

Hi! So, it’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve actually been busy-ish. I mean, busy for me; which is actually a good thing. Too often in my life I’ve done almost nothing. Especially over the past five years since my last back surgery. At first it was because I spent the first 6 months after surgery lying in bed. After that the only time I could go out for the next six months were things like going to the grocery store with my mom, because I could use one of the little motorized carts to drive around in. Other than that it was being pushed around in a wheelchair for that year.Now with that year, doing things and keeping busy wasn’t really an option. The only way I got through it was because I was so doped up on painkillers that honestly, I don’t even remember most of that year. That is probably a good thing, or I would have gone insane.

After that first year, when I was in recovery from my back surgery, I just sort of lost myself. I would try to do “normal” things, try to be busy with life. That would work okay for a while, but then I’d go back into sleeping all day, or lying in bed all day, or just doing nothing. During the recovery time, that was okay. The problem was, after I was healed, or mostly healed, I stayed in that zone of doing nothing. I think there were a lot of reasons behind that. Not only was it just habit because of having been immobile for so long, but it also became about me hiding. I still had so much emotional hurt and pain in addition to the physical pain, and the easy way out became to hide.

Of course there were times that I didn’t hide. I actually held down a couple of full time jobs in those years. Those jobs didn’t last very long though. The first time was in 2006 when I worked for Cisco, but only did so for a few months. The reason I quit was because my family had been planning a trip to Canada to see where my brother served his LDS mission, and to meet the people he served there. It was very important that I go on that trip, so before I was even hired, I made sure that a stipulation of my employment would be that I be allowed time off for that

trip.Well, when the time came to leave, my boss told me that we were too busy, and there was absolutely no way he would let me take the time off. I explained how stupid that reasoning was, because I was going regardless of the consequences at work, so he might as well keep my employment on hold until I got back instead of me resigning and Cisco having to hire someone new and pay for all new training. I mean, that’s just logic! But he didn’t get it (he was an asshole anyway who later ended up in prison for child pornography). So I tendered my resignation and left that job. After I got back from the trip to Canada, I just didn’t get another job. I don’t remember my mindset exactly, but I’m sure it was just easier not to get a job, to go back into hiding; which is exactly what I did.

In 2007 I got a job with Dell. I was there for all of six weeks. I could have done really well with that job. I was making more than I had ever made before, and I was great at what I did. I didn’t exactly love the job, but it was a job, and a means to an end. If nothing else, it was a paycheck.That all came crashing down. Everything was pulled out from under me. I and two other women in the training class had been being sexually harassed by a disgusting older man in the class. We complained time and time a

gain to our trainers, and when nothing was done, we went over his head. Still, nothing happened. That is, until they threatened myself and the other two women with our jobs if we didn’t stop rocking the boat, as it were. That silenced the other two women, but not me. I mean, I understand that they needed their jobs and their paychecks, but at what cost? Selling your soul? I have morals, standards, and principles that I will defend to the death if needs be. Anyway, I wouldn’t keep quiet, so they fired me. Yes, I got fired for being sexually harassed. That’s justice, eh? Anyway, long story short, I had a huge lawsuit against the company, let alone the man that was sexually harassing myself and the other women. I was actually working with the office of the Attorney General of Utah, the problem was that going through with the lawsuit would take a lot of time, effort, and money. I had the time, but I didn’t have the effort or money to continue with it. So I had to drop it. The only thing that comforted me was that I knew they’d all get theirs. Not only in Karma, but someday God would take care of it. So I turned it over to Him.

After that I was just broken. Here I had put so very much into succeeding, only to have the rug pulled out from beneath me. I was angry, hurt, and overall depressed. I sank back into the pit of despair I’ve so often found myself in. The problem was, this time I didn’t bounce back. I just sank deeper and deeper. Of course some good things happened in my life, but they were overwhelmed drastically by the bad things. So once again I hid, and have been hiding ever since. However, things are starting to change. I have my ups and downs. It seems at times that the bad still greatly outweighs the goods, but I’m working on changing that. Even though it seems like every step that I take forward I end up taking 10 steps back, I’m still taking steps, and that’s a start.

I noticed the other day that almost everything I write about in my blog is sad and depressing. I think that’s because I use my writing as an outlet; to let things out that I otherwise would keep bottled up inside. The things I feel like I need to get out most are the negative things. I talked to my therapist about this very thing, and she said that even though writing about the bad things is good, that I need to stop focusing on just the bad things. I need to focus (and write about) the good things too. So that’s my goal in my writing, is to write about good things in addition to the bad.

One good thing that I want to start writing about are my passions in arts and crafts. I absolutely LOVE arts and crafts, and want to share that love with others. I’m working on starting a

business to sell my artwork and artisan crafts, and think it would be fun to write about those things too. So I’m going to write about that. Not only am I going to write about what I create, or what I have for sale, but I’m also going to do things like write tutorials and such. I’m even working on one right now; a tutorial on creating a greeting card. I’ve had to wait to do this (and to start my business) because I haven’t had a good enough camera to use to take pictures of my work. Now I do, so here I go! I’m sooo excited. I’m delighted to actually be doing something. Not only to be creating, but to have something to be proud of.

So I’m going to create a separate blog for my arts and crafts. It’s going to be named after my Esty shop; The Queen’s Quill. The URL for The Queen’s Quill blog is: http://www.thequeensquill.blogspot.com . I hope you’ll check it out, and find it fun and useful. I would definitely love and appreciate any feedback you could offer on it! I’d love suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. Most of all, I hope you enjoy it!