The Strength to Inspire
By
Carolyn Aspenson 

How long have you been visiting EOS? I’ve been coming around, lurking in the shadows, for about a year. Maybe a little more or a little less. After a few months of reading the often hilarious and right on target commentary by the writers, the scoops, Sage and Katrina, I befriended Kathy via email. She’s someone I now talk to via phone daily and consider my friend, regardless of that creepy met on the internet thing! I’ve never physically met any of the people associated with this site but August brings about the GH fan event in Studio City where I will personally meet Kathy and Katrina and hopefully a few others. I’m looking forward to that! How fun will it be? A truck load of women from different walks of life, different sides of the country, coming together to scope out the GH and PC stars and talk about how much better we could write the soaps if only given a chance. All that aside, I do feel there is one person from this site I feel I know pretty well and I wonder if at times you might feel the same.    

Quite some time ago, before I started writing for EOS, I meandered through one of Katrinas “Nonsoapy Journals” and, quite frankly, I was floored. At that time Eric her husband, was unemployed and Katrina was battling the ups and downs of financial stress, maintaining a house full of kids, her sanity and the ever present ego issues of a man without work.  I truly felt sorry for her as I read her personal thoughts and fears, typed out for all of us to critique, judge and ponder. Until I got to the end of one journal entry. Though I’ve gone back through her journals for the purpose of this essay, I still can’t find the one specific day I’m referring to. I wish I could because the powerful, uplifting comment ending her journal that day struck me. I didn’t feel sorry for Katrina anymore. I felt her strength, her cautious optimism, her “all will work out within the universe” attitude. The person I now felt sorry for was me.  

Of course, it’s truly not all about me. Honestly. But as I read her journal, day after day of frustrations, let downs, positive possibilities that didn’t come through and continued fears, such as losing the car, (which I believe she finally did) not eating enough and not giving her children the things she wanted or needed them to have, I thought about me. I was struggling with losing my job, my parents were both very ill (and one still is) and I wasn’t sure if either would make it. My kids couldn’t understand the loss of my incomes’ effect on us financially and continued to expect “things” while my ego was so damaged I wasn’t sure who I was (and still am not sure, as a matter of fact.) I felt frustrated and angry and sorry for me.  Me. Me Me. The one with the horrible life who suffered in this three story house with two relatively new cars, a closet full of Eddie Bauer clothes, almost new furniture, a transformed backyard with a new, additional deck and enough food to feed not only my kids, but the neighbors kids too. Through all of this tragedy we bought a new car, had a wonderful Christmas with too many presents under the tree, I adjusted to my different, but still alive and relatively well parents and I got to spend every day with my toddler son, experiencing the things I missed while I worked and he sat in day care left for others to raise.  Through all of it Katrina lost her car, tried to find a job for herself, struggled to pay her bills, shopped at thrift stores, told her kids they would have to do without and continued to watch her husband struggle to find work all while attempting to maintain some sort of sanity.   

I was humbled.  

How could I complain about my life when this person was struggling so much yet could continue to reaffirm the happiness of life and remain positive? She continued to write about her appreciation for her life and the experience which is brings:  

“After my experience, I really do believe that the whole purpose of the challenging and scary things that happen in our life is to teach us Faith and Grace and that those gifts truly do make all the difference in the world. I’m now positive that they saved a wretch like me. I was blind, but now I see that Faith simply means that there really is nothing to fear.”  Katrina, December 5, 2002  

And what did I do? Bitch and moan. Repeatedly.  

I sort of in a sick, twisted sort of way, became entranced with Katrina and her life. Okay, not really in a sick or twisted way (this is a soap opera site, so I try to stay true to that with my adjectives!) but in an appreciative, anticipatory sort of way. Each morning after getting the girls off to school and my son interested in something for more than 33 seconds, I’d plant myself down at the computer to see what happened in Katrina’s life the day before, if it got any better and what she learned from it.  Usually I learned the same thing, after she threw it my face at the end of her entry, that is!  I felt as though I was right there with her, experiencing what she did, feeling how she felt, crying when she cried. And yes, I did, a time or two, shed tears. Likely because I felt like life was screwing her and she was too blindly positive half the time to even see it! But again, I was the one learning a more important lesson.  

Katrina is and was not blind. She is strong. Regardless of what went on through each day of her life, good or bad, she took something from it. She gave (and still gives) the most she can to each person she knows and those of us she doesn’t know, with things like this website. She takes what life gives her and makes something of it. That is a rare gift that so few of us have. It’s a strength, almost a magical power, to be able to see the good through all the dark storm clouds that often take over our lives and don’t let the sun shine for months at a time.  I know I am not one that possesses such a gift, hard as I might try. 

Even now, as a writer for EOS, I continue to read her journal entries each time they pop up at EOS.  I read them because I’ve grown to care about this person I’ve never physically met. I read them because I feel a sense of friendship and warmth toward Katrina even though I know nothing of what we have in common except ABC soaps and writing. I read them because she’s a darn good writer. I read them because even though her life isn’t always going well and isn’t always glamorous, she is able to take her daily apples and make applesauce. (Don’t laugh, that’s all I could come up with today!) I read them because I thrive on her strength. Her struggles and how she tackles life inspires me to be a better person, to remember and at least attempt to practice her theory on life. It may not always be what we want it to be, but in order to survive we must find the silver lining on each dark cloud.   

Katrina finds happiness in simple things, like a small gift from a friend. Would that make me happy? Of course! Just like any person, I love gifts, whether big or small. But Katrina more than loves the gifts she receives, whether they’re actual presents or gifts of life. She relishes in them, almost pulling from them their energy to help sustain her own. She has the ability to take something positive from something small and make it last for what feels like an eternity. I envy that. I’m more superficial and materialistic. Once I get the gift I’m thankful, but like a child at Christmas, I’m on to the next present before I can even finish unwrapping the first.  

Katrina has taught me a lot in the past year. Probably more than I can write in such a short essay. If you haven’t read any of her journals, you should. Take the time. It’s worth it and I’m sure you’ll be humbled and learn a lesson or two.  Thanks Katrina, for making me see so much of what’s right before my own eyes.