Just shut up...

HILST...

The summer drags on Im trying to work on my mental health.  I have not been reaching out to people and family, as I was shutting down more and more and that is not my normal MO...'

Im normally a squeaky wheel, Inquisitive and a person who observes.  When  you're so alone there is nothing to observe. 
The past week was a very difficult one for me, as I had to ask for help.  And it did help.  I am going to make more phone calls when Im feeling down and reach out more and be more direct about my needs.  

It takes a lot of courage to ask for help this I know...I have always been a self made person...when I was young coming up I had very few role models so I escaped to my own world....I did not ask questions I observed in silence and came to my own conclusions. 

I remember riding the school bus from the rural area where we lived into town to go to  school.   I was reading signs in town that said "Horses on sidewalks prohibited" and I didn't know what prohibited meant.  At that time we had not acquired our set of World Book Encyclopedia. The whole thing a-z came later with it's own wooden stand, my mom's determination to give us an education, not mentioned but illustrated by this sudden appearance of books in our meager home.  Most times we had old hand down shoes to wear and only a pot of beans on the table but...She was determined to give us what she didn't get. 

So I never bothered to ask anyone "what does prohibited mean?" 

So I imagined many thing this could mean, did it mean horses danced in the street, did it mean you had to lead them through here very quietly? In my young curious mind it was such a puzzle what couldn't horses do on this sidewalk??

Then one day I saw this one. "Curb your Dog."

For heaven's sake, now they are attacking dogs in this town...how does one "curb" a dog?  My dogs ran free in the country where I lived to do as they pleased...They were my friends not my property.

That was way back in 1960 the rest of the world was fighting about equality...down at the Fluff n Fold the sign above the door said, "No Coloreds" and then inside at the cool drinking water fountain a sign said, "Whites Only" My dad used to lift me up to drink from it. 

So one day I worked up the courage and asked my dad...."what does that mean?"

My dad had a friend named Jim, they had worked at the same garage as mechanics, but mostly they were drinking buddies...

So my dad said, 
"That means Jim can't come in here."  
That only puzzled me more cause I was only a barely out of the "see Spot run" reading book, but I did not see the word Jim on that sign. 

I remember the very first person of color I saw when my dad moved us from the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee to SC way back on July 4th, 1960, we arrived early in the morning my dad drove through the entire night while we slept in the back seat of his blue 1957 Chrysler with the fins on back...I was 6 yrs old would turn 7 that year...And I sat up when he made a turn to see where we were.  

On the street I saw a man walking, he had on a white shirt a hat and his skin was black...his face, his arms and hands all black...so I said "Daddy what happened to that man, is he burned?" 

My dad said, "No he is from Africa." 

AFRICA?
OH MY GOSH,  what is Africa? I had never seen anyone from Africa.  Then I found out more about Africa...I spent that whole year very confused...if we are in Africa where are the giraffes and the elephants.  And why are these other people so mean to the people from Africa? 

My political leanings did not come  from CNN it came from my own observations from young wide eyed elementary kid to adulthood. 

It took me many years of self education to figure things out. My dad died in 1967 I had no one to ask those questions of as most adults when asked would simply shout back, "why don't you just shut up." 

...and so I did.  

a fine memory...

HO ARE YOU?
WHO WHO - WHO WHO

Back in time to 2002, that's the year I moved out of Manhattan to Brooklyn into my own studio apartment, up until then I had been with a roommate, and I really didn't enjoy the company of that Cuban lady who rode home in a taxi one night and brought the driver up for a roll in the hay in the middle of the night...and who used to go into my room when I was at work...It takes a lot of worry finding an apartment, one you can afford one close enough to work with train access etc.  At the time I had sold my car since the parking was such a nightmare in the city.  

It took me about one month of looking, calls, digging thru the rentals in the back of the Village Voice, the Onion, and the NY Post.  I hit ever bulletin board and then finally in the Jewish Press I found some basement apartments.  So I went to see a few on my days off...one I didn't think I could do it was big but the floor was not level my head felt swimmy in there...another I really liked it was in Flatbush my job was in Canarsie area off Rockaway Parkway....so the location was great and even tho I told him Im a vegetarian he said "but that's not kosher." 

So he discriminated against my lack of religious practices.  Brooklyn is home to a very large Hasidic Jewish population and they own most of the businesses, and they are the main slum lords of the city and they own a lot of the property and rentals. So I kept looking, then I saw an ad for Coney Island, Atlantic Ave, SeaGate.  IT was way out on the end of the island  on Norton's Point off Gravesend Bay...and one of the main shipping corridors into the city and the old house was right on the water...

THE price was right!! It was a mile or more to the train station tho...22 blocks, and all passed right through Housing Projects, "the projects". 

                                                                           The F  train to work 

So I went, the owner was retired FDNY captain and he was Jewish but not Hasidic...just your everyday Jewish dude who allowed me to take the apartment because I was an EMT and that goes hand in hand with fire department as in NYC they run the EMS its part of FDNY.  So I got the Studio! I had to pay first and last plus a $525.00 deposit....it was a 20 x 20 ft basement studio apartment..IT had it's own exterior entrance, street side parking, and the beach and the ocean right outside. 

                                                        3848 with the grassy yard

It looks from this recent google map shot the brick building has been torn down It was a separate rental and while I lived there the tenant died and was in there 3 days before anyone realized, he was in very poor health.  So I guess they tore the building down it was never rented again while I was there. 

                                            this is the building from the ocean side 

I HAD no furniture it was not furnished, but it had one dresser in it, he said  he would have that moved out and I could pick up the keys on Friday and pay my deposits, so I put him off till Saturday the start of my days off and he agreed.  I said if you don't want to move the dresser leave it and I will use it, so he did. 

So I had a friend who had a Dodge Caravan and she brought it on moving day and she had a mattress set that she had replaced and it was stored in plastic in her garage, so she brought it for me, along the way we hit the curb side "shopping", I found a hollywood bed frame, a big bedside lamp, a bedside table, an eating table and 2 chairs, an ugly cabinet, and a weird modern style rocking chair by the time we arrived at my new place...her van was packed with my "new" Furniture!! 

That's a radiator I used for my headboard. 

I painted it yellow as you can see it on the left edge of the photo...I eventually got this quilt for my bed and I still use it to this day...The artwork was yard sale finds, that seascape is now in my sis's home out west. I gave it a more updated look a few months after the move and this is the way it was until 2006 Oct when I gave up my lease. 

The basement had a row of windows that faced the ocean side of course I couldn't see the beach being at ground level from inside and there was a concrete fence around the yard, but when I walked up my steps and turned to the left I could see the ocean the beach and  Staten Island  the other side of the Bay...and the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge...

And I could hear the ocean at all times...

                        I had one corner as my "office" area with the old desk top computer and a                                                                  found office chair. 

On the next day we went for one more haul driving around and found a wicker book shelf, and few more things I could use! So for ZERO money I furnished my apartment.  I hit the dollar store for a few things, and actually she also brought me some kitchen things a set of plates, some odds n ends cutlery a can opener, and the lady who I had been sharing with forced me to take her Microwave with me, she wanted to get a newer model.  My friend also surprised me with a full size sheet set and a comforter...and I had some towels I had brought from home, and a tiny TV set, old 12" one and had used it in my bedroom in the apartment share and SO I had all I needed to set up housekeeping in my studio...and it was quite cozy.  

My Vermont Rock Maple table found on the curb and mis matching chairs and the microwave.


My kitchen was not always this cool looking, it was dark brown and horrible, I asked if I could redo it and he said Okay.....so I put contact paper on the cabinets

And you can see that door on the left with some bohemian beads that I used to lower on nice days when I wanted my entry door left open...the little door on the right is the bathroom it had a large walk in shower.  

As a surprise my sis ordered a HUGE tv for me, it was 26 inches and I was able to squeeze it into the shelf unit with a couple tweeks, and I had a vcr/dvd combo that I still have and use today that I purchased at one of the many electronic stores in the city.  

                                          Very blurry of the small tv and shelf unit

 Im still looking for the picture of the rocking chair,  and the big tv, I hope I can find, it, 

Life in the city for me was not easy I did my job then had my days off and I stayed to myself...I had no TV connection so I used to rent movies at Blockbuster, and my sis used to tape CSI for me.  So once she got a tape filled she would mail it to me, and I would binge watch all of the episodes on my days off, sometimes she took out the commercials and she would get like 8 hrs of video for me...

Sitting in my rocker with my feet up the remote  for my 26" tv in hand, the sound of the ocean crashing outside my open windows, and the theme song...

"Who are you, who who who who"...I loved it. What a treat. It was the original series, and they had some really interesting episodes.  

So today after I came in from mowing the yard had a shower sat down and  said Im gonna watch some tv, and put it on and guess what I heard....on the old antenna tv?

WHO ARE YOU, WHO WHO WHO, and now I'm rocking in the arms of a good memory. 

                                            Had so many beautiful sunsets...

Rather be living...

ITH DREAMS

I've had my share of them for sure...Some terrifying moments when you are like frozen and yet you need to run...glad to be awake from those but some you just wish you could enjoy forever...that you might live inside that dream the rest of your life. 

The other morning at exactly 6:01 am  I awoke shouting, "you came back"
Then I burst into a spell of tear laden grief. 

Because  it was only a dream, I saw myself on my back porch curious about a car that had driven up so I peered  out and was shocked. I saw the driver of the car was MY MOM...I was running with arms open she was out of the car standing beside it, and I was screaming "you drove all this way by yourself, you came back," and just as I got to her, right before I got that hug, that embrace, I woke up because I was yelling, "you came back".

Then the tears, the begging, the pleading, but sleep or dream did not return.  And when I got up I realized I was running a fever and I was in fact quite ill.  So for about 3 days I have barely moved from couch to bed.  Today Im better not well but better.  Its a head cold sneezing, sore throat, sinus congestion, pain, and just general malaise.  I will survive to try and make it through another day.  

 I am tired of being alone and I hate being around people...

I'm between worlds. 

Hope

ENT DARK FOR A FEW DAYS...

Sorry bout that...I don't know if sharing my soul feelings is a good thing or a bad thing...this blog is suffering as I am from not knowing how to deal with certain aspects of life.  One of those is losing hope.  I guess I'm playing my own therapist?  I know grief is very difficult and it can flip you over on your head.  It's not just that, it is the measuring stick of life that has me disillusioned. Did you know the last thing you lose in life is hope?

No I'm not off my rocker, I am sane, and I am a functioning adult.  But not everyone can say that.  I do sometimes have nightmares from the whole 911 thing and the building collapse in FL has brought back a lot of those memories.  PTSD is a real thing.  We may not even realize we have it or are suffering from it.  We did have talks with Phycologists after it happened...I was employed at the time with Con Edison.  We had all watched the entire event unfold across the river from our bank of corporate windows on Hudson Ave in Brooklyn, just over the river...but then as a newly minted NY state EMT I joined the volunteer effort to triage survivors that we thought would be found, and since there were none as in the FL collapse, we ended up cataloging the bodies they brought in from the rubble pile. I did that for 3 days then I went back to work as our office had been closed until the trains were moving again.

I was there when building 7 collapsed and we all ran for our lives, because we had no clue how far it could reach...the towers collapsed at about 9 am and building 7 collapsed around 5:30 in the afternoon when ALL of us were there trying to help victims. I was NOT working on the rubble pile, I was  with a group of volunteers who would render first aid to any survivor they may pull out and I had been there since around 1 pm...we had set up tables and stocked them with wound treatment, splints, general triage items so we could do vitals and we had ambulances waiting to move people to hospitals etc...so when we hear the rumble someone said RUN, and we did...I was actually asked by a news reporter on camera if this would change how I live my life, I replied, "no, because if it does then they won." 

I think If I had to answer that question again I would say "YES, I want to understand why they hate us enough to do this."  Did anyone of you actually try to find the answer to that question? I tried to read the Koran after that and since no religion makes sense to me, it made no sense to me at all...what I learned is "don't allow your mind to be highjacked by extremists." 

That building was very unstable as  you could see  horrible collateral damage  the towers one and two caused while falling down. I lived on 4th street and Ave A in the East Village. North of Houston St.  That night I slept on a park bench just out of "ground zero" as we started calling it.... because I had this HUGE hope survivors were going to be  found...and I wanted to help them if possible...but I just collapsed from exhaustion of the day and I remember looking up at the stars in the sky and asking "why"?

The next morning I walked to my apartment, I lived on the 22 floor of a 26 floor building, to clean up and eat, and then walked back down to ground zero met up with my co-volunteers and that is when I was asked to work in the temp morgue area.... I saw the real horror of what a collapse does to the  human body.  In my apartment there was a pile of ash at least 6 inches thick on all my window ledges, and it stayed there for months until rains could wash it all away.

Eventually two weeks later I began my job as an EMT then went on to become Paramedic and after 6 years of losing hope I quit and left the city.

So Im waiting for rain to wash it all away. 

Years they pass so quickly...

HERE DID IT GO?

Im referring to time... 

Sometimes I feel as if Im a lone survivor of  a terrible disaster that was my family life.  I know I  ran away from family responsibilities at one time, and I needed that I may not even be the lone survivor otherwise.  I felt the door opened and I ran out of it...my son was going into this 3rd year o f college, my mom was retired in fairly good health and content, my sisters were doing okay my husband so wrapped up in his own world of working part time at his business and then golfing every afternoon...so I felt they didn't need me at that point in life.  

I just redid the post on my other blog of when we moved this old house I live in way back in 1977 from town where it was built in the '50's to this land.  All the photos were missing from the post, so I dug them out scanned them in and made it whole again.  IF only we could do that with our past with the lives of people, rescan them and make it alright again. 

While I went thru those photos I relived the memories...and then the 44 years of life and death and loss that followed that move. When I die those memories will no longer exist, they will become ash blown off in a hard wind....and the life those memories represent will be lost forever. 

To say it left me hurting is like saying the sun is bright...damn it hurt to recall all the life we all had here; the happiness, the hard times, the good times, the bad, the hanging on, the trying  again.  The past and the lives in it flashed before me, and before you know it my own will do the same.  LIFE is so damn SHORT...Maybe I have survivors guilt...add that to long list of malady I am currently experiencing.   I think of bones, walls, and distance and suddenly my world is a small island one in danger of sinking and being washed away by the next storm.

Here I am again will you take me as I am?

Stuck for words

HEN IT TAKES 5 MINS...

to write one word, maybe  I shouldn't be writing?

I actually popped a bag of microwave popcorn...I had sworn off the stuff a few years ago, and I gave up chips trying to loose a few lbs but I don't see a change yet.  The popcorn was left over from the movie nights my son and I were having...that doesn't happen any more and there was 3 bags left in the box, so I said wth may as well try it.  I don't like palm oil.  I read all the ingredients of things I buy and IF I can find one without palm oil I will get that one. 

Today I only cried twice, so far...not bad for an old lady who is spiraling down faster than a post hole digger.  We rented one of those things long years ago, when we first started digging this homestead out of 3 acres of woods. My husband on one side and me on the other we dug  500 holes....or so it seems.  I had a horse and we wanted to get more so the first thing we did once we got the house settled was clear some land and put up a fence, I now call that my field or pasture.  We had as many as 4 horses at one time but no grazer on it other than deer for over 20 yrs now. I have been here with the exception of the nearly 7 yrs in NY for almost 44 yrs. 

I was just a young girl when we moved here 24 yrs old...and in 2 yrs I will be 70.  

I really find that so hard to believe.  I thought I would do so much more with my life, my time on Earth than I have.  Once you summit 50 time seems to go into warp speed. 

Today I worked out by my shed sanding my yard chairs for the next layer of paint that's a yearly thing when you live in humidity...if you don't paint it rots.   And since I came in about noon my eye has been burning like crazy I washed it out a few times already...but I have no clue if something flew into my eye during the sanding, I did not feel it happen.  Im sanding by hand. 

My mental health:

Today I realized I was very happy during the 13 yrs I lived with my Mom.  We got along for the most part very well.  I have been reading back thru my old journals and I did do some complaining about not getting the help I had expected from the rest of the family like being able to go on travels, but for the most part it was a very positive time in my life...
I really miss that feeling of contentment, and happiness.  I have been doing a lot of thinking of what my plans were and how did it work out.  I'd say I'd have been better off to have had no plan atall.  Seems I just bounced from one non plan path to the next.  Like doing a thru hike and never staying on the trail and never finishing.

The stages of grief:

Right now Im in  all of them at once.  One is denial, then anger,  followed by bargaining, depression and finally acceptance....but lets put it this way a 4 whammie loss one right behind the other...leaves you in mental deep doodoo.

My x who I had so much love for died in 2018, he suffered from early onset dementia, his older son from a previous marriage poisoned him against me, and before you know it he had made that son his power of attorney, and then within a week he filed for a divorce from me.  I was in the end forced to buy him out or lose the homestead. I did buy him out and after one year of him living alone since the son promised he would come live with him in VA, (that never happened), my x was penniless when that son removed him  from the checking account and had him declared incompetent...and the rest is horrible history.  Needless to say I will never speak to that stepson again as long as I live. He never even came to his father's funeral!!! And never even sent flowers...AND never paid for the funeral either.  My family paid for his funeral.  In his will he had left everything to my son, but the evil son had taken over everything and had dismantled it all before my x died...so there was Nothing left to Inherit.

Mom died one year later in 2019, I really thought she would make it to 100, she was 95, then my sweet little Casey, he was only a dog, but dammit he was special...and in Jan of this yr my son took me out of  his life.  I will not go into his problems, as dragging someone's else's club is not a good thing...but he wants no part of me in his life because I am still clinging to the person I wanted him to be...is how he put it. 

I had no idea I was doing such a thing and honestly he is wrong.  I am currently the only person left for him to blame and hate so that is how it goes...
So the 2018 loss Im in stage 5,
the 2019 loss Im in stage 4, 

the 2020 loss Im in stage 4
and the 2021 loss Im in stage 1...

Ok make that 3 times now on the tears...it may sound like Im feeling sorry for myself...and yes I am, I was handling it pretty good for a few months then it hit me like a ton of bricks. 

And to put the last cherry on the top both my sisters live 1800 miles away and I haven't seen them in well over a year and the oldest one I really doubt she will ever make the trip here again.  

Both my dogs Annie and Floss are now 13 they are not in the best of shape, they are 91 in dog years.  So traveling with them right now would put a hardship on them.  Neither of them can jump in or out of the van without help and I cant lift them anymore they are both about 60 lbs.  And if I outlive them I will be right back at stage one again.  

OK fine, where is the bright side?

Write it down...

ELL....

A very deep and dark place...

I almost feel like I could say something profound, it's right on the tip of my mind, but it hasn't  made it's way to my fingers.  I would like to say I'm healed, all good, in a good place emotionally.  If I said that it would be the lie of the century.  I've never found myself to be so emotionally low and the feeling of complete hopelessness is the mainstay of my pallet. I could paint only a monochrome storm if I had canvas in front of me. 

I do try to "cheer myself up" but it's only a temporary stay as I can NOT fix what is causing the trouble  inside me.  I can't bring the dead back to life, I can't go back and undo the mistakes I made, I can't cure addictions, and I can't even find the words to explain myself.  What once was my sanctuary now feels like a prison. 

I have kept a written journal since 1996...the day my precious Sundance died...I had to get that hurt out of me, put it someplace else so I  wrote  down the emotions, the sorrow, the sadness and the disbelief.  Now I have soooo much sorrow in me I can't even write it out.  It simple lays there and rots.  My paper is blank my journal untouched.  The feelings follow me around like a cloud of bad omens. 

I try to fix it all up in my mind, I imagine how life could be, if only, but then I have to come back to the real world and deal with "there is no butter in the fridge, and I have just toasted the perfect small everything bagel." Ordinary things fall through the cracks and the motivation to do something about it turns to silly putty. 

I purged some things...one day I saw some clutter.  I can't deal with clutter in my surroundings, my van is a complete mess and I have to address that...but my house is normally clutter free.  The cluttered and muddled thinking has spread to my van, my laundry room, and my house.  Suddenly I saw the clutter and it had to go! So I went on a cleaning spree.  I tossed out, I tucked in closets, I dusted under the bed, I collected filed the paid bill stubs...I toss out my old PC Tower that I have dragged around since 2003...
I even moved my sweet Casey's sleeping bed out of the bedroom.  It has lay empty for 16 months, the smudges he left  with his dirty paws still right where he left them.  I however only made it to the laundry room with it and then I broke down and wept like a child  who was lost in the woods, I put the vacuum away, I hung the duster up, stashed the dust pan by the trash can and called it done. 

How can I toss that out? It's like tossing him out.  I just can't do that. Dealing with grief the past four years has taken a huge toll on me.  I am no longer the same person, I don't get that same excitement that I once did from the activities I enjoy doing...I find it very hard to get OUT of my own way. 

I can't go into depth of what is at the root of my sadness, I do know what it is I just  cant share it with the world right now.  I can only continue to WANT things to change, things I have no control over.  
I understand so many things now that I never understood before, it has not made me happier only it has put me in a place of bitter acceptance. I feel any wisdom I had is irrelevant, I am yearning for just an ounce of hope.
Death by fire or death by ice is just as dead in the end.

"he is running a 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction"
Casting Clowns.