Hypnotized.
Entranced.
Enthralled.
Captivated.
It’s possible that last night, when I should have been putting my head to the pillow and getting some much needed rest for the week to come, I was instead completely and totally committed to watching the Diane Sawyer interview with Jaycee Dugard in its entirety.
All 2 hours of it.
I should point out that while I am a girl who admittedly has an unhealthy relationship with her DVR, I am rarely ever completely involved in anything that I’m watching. More typically, I’ll have something playing in the background while I catch up on emails, eat frozen grapes, text a friend, and fold my laundry. My television is my background music.
And I like it that way.
But with this interview, I couldn’t turn myself away. My full focus and attention was on Jaycee. On her words. Her grace. Her poise. Her demeanor. And her strength that far surpasses anything I have ever seen.
I have a new hero, and her name is Jaycee Dugard.
I have a confession to make. When Jaycee was found, I was just learning what this disease would really mean for me. Only 3 months out from my first surgery, I was already in pain again. Terrified and unsure of what my future would hold. Broken down and angry at a world I couldn't control.
And then here was this girl. Discovered after being gone for so long. I remembered when she had been kidnapped. Remembered hearing the news. She had been just a few years older than me. Her story served as a warning. A reminder once again about stranger danger. I remembered hearing her name way back then, and thinking that whatever had happened to her; it must have been terrible.
Then I went through my own struggles of last year, when I was at the height of grief over my first failed cycle. There were a lot of “why me” moments. A lot of tears. And a lot of bad decisions made in an effort to just feel anything other than what I was feeling.
I was depressed. Broken down. Hurting and despondent. Unsure that my life would ever be what I wanted it to be.
But I just kept coming back to Jaycee. This girl who had been lost and now was found. Alive. After 18 years. With two young daughters who made it clear she had been subjected to at least some level of sexual abuse.
To something terrible.
All I remember thinking was “There are some things you would just rather not survive.”
I know that sounds horrible. Harsh. Cold. Disturbing. But it’s the truth. I couldn’t wrap my head around how anyone could go through what she had gone through and ever be OK. I couldn’t grasp how anyone could survive it. How they could ever become a whole person. I thought that if it was me, I would rather have been kidnapped and killed right away than to be kept living in those conditions. As someone’s sex slave. Trapped and forced to live at the whim of a monster.
My heart ached for Jaycee Dugard. I couldn’t imagine a way in which she could possibly ever find happiness in her life. I figured she would be forever haunted. Forever broken. Forever tortured by a past she had no control over.
And while I’m not proud to admit it, she became my go-to whenever I started feeling sorry for myself. Whenever I was hurting, I thought to myself “It could always be worse. Think of that poor Jaycee Dugard. It could always be worse.”
She was my symbol of worst case scenario. The person I thought of when I needed to be reminded that I didn’t have it so awful. That my struggles were hardly as bad as it could get. That in so many ways, I really was incredibly lucky. Despite how I had grown up. Despite my health concerns. Despite my inability to carry a child. I was lucky. Because at least I hadn’t been kidnapped and forced to live in a series of tents in the backyard while some disturbed man and his likely even more disturbed wife tortured and raped me for 18 years.
At least I had never had to endure that.
My heart has always ached for Jaycee, but my picture of the woman she had likely become in all those years was that of a woman who couldn’t possibly find any kind of happiness in her life. Not after what she had been through. Because no one could possibly survive that and come out the other side OK.
So imagine my surprise when as I watched this interview last night, I saw a woman filled with strength. With light. And yes, even with happiness. Real, genuine, incredible happiness. A woman who struck me both as wise far beyond her years, and also still child-like in ways you wouldn’t expect. Which I suppose makes sense. She was forced to grow up in the most horrific of ways, but in the same sense; she was deprived of all those coming of age milestones most of us cling to on our path to adulthood. She really is both advanced, and stunted. And still, just spilling over with warmth and grace.
Her attitude, her persona, her strength; it was awe-inspiring to me.
She is awe-inspiring.
I don’t have too many heroes. There are a few people I look up to here and there. A few people I think are inspirational. But I’m usually pretty good about picking up the flaws in people as well. About recognizing them to be human. And as such, I don’t have too many heroes.
But Jaycee makes my list.
I have a new hero.
And her name is Jaycee Dugard.
If I could one day have half the strength, poise, grace, and acceptance she seems to possess, I could die proud.
As it is, I think Jaycee will continue to be my point of reference whenever I’m starting to feel sorry for myself.
But now, for an entirely different set of reasons.
Because if she can pick herself up and move forward with light and happiness after all that she has endured?
There really is no excuse for the rest of us not to do the same.
