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December 15th, 2012 AUTHORS, book, BOOKS, challenge, change, fiction, HUMOR, Kate Genet, Kelli Jae Baeli, non-fiction, novel, publishing, reading, RELATIONSHIPS, WRITING No Comments »

Diversify and Die

Kate_Dunedin_BeachNov12_480It’s so satisfying to sit at my desk and write to the sound of the ocean. Only this time, it’s not in my earbuds, but outside my window. Our move to Dunedin placed us within walking distance of the beach, and the rhythmic breath of the waves at shore soothes me. The cool, robust breeze from the water sometimes spits through our windows like a fire hose, but it helps regulate the temperature in this upstairs master suite, high above almost all other houses on this hillside. It’s Summer here, though luckily for me, the fall and winter-loving, heat-intolerant moi, there really hasn’t been much heat yet. Weather is weird everywhere, as I understand it.

Anyway, we’re finally settling in to our new home (not new, per se, but new to us), and we can both feel the pull of literary pursuits, engendered by the sense that the busy work of our lives calmed down, and we are able to deskpic16DDec12_320finally create some normal routines.

In OneNote, I have a tabbed list of blog ideas, just waiting for me to finish. Not so different from all the book ideas I also have–started or half-completed –just waiting for my attention. The problem isn’t that I don’t want to give my attention to them, it’s that I don’t have enough attention to go around. I really do look forward to the day when I can clone myself.

(Though Kate says in matters of sex, that would give her a heart attack.) teehee

That being said, (much to Kate’s chagrin) I will now give my attention to this blog post….

Kate and I talked a while back, before the move, about our writing–what our goals are, and the changes we are anticipating having to make.

In my quest to learn the craft of writing, I thought it would be helpful if I had the ability to write in any genre. bookgenresThus, over the years, I have managed to produce work in myriad categories. Fourteen, at last count. But it has become clear to me in recent months that my approach has not been wise. This diversification has only managed to erode the ground under my literary feet, and prevent me from getting a proper foothold in the market–especially when so many other writers have established theirs. And they are the ones who enjoy better sales. There’s a reason for that.

DeanKoontzspinesIt seems that most of THOSE-WHO-READ (myself included, though I made the error of thinking other readers behaved differently) tend to pick the type of book or author they like, or both, and then they continue to read that book/author. When they run out of an author’s work, they seek other authors who write in a similar genre and/or with a similar style. Thus, the readers who buy my books have read whichever genre of mine they are drawn to, and then discover there isn’t another book in that genre from me, and they move on to find those other authors they might also like who have books available which they have not read. This does not encourage a strong, growing readership.

Also, in diversifying myself as an author, I have failed to brand myself well enough to create the following that mybooks2012shelf_1268medprobably would have existed by now, after 29 books. Had those 29 books been in one genre, I would not have taken such a hit when digital publishing swelled to its current oceanic level. According to factzone.com, in America, a new book is published every 13 minutes. This groundswell of publishing is attributable to the ease with which we can now publish our work. Yes, that means more bad books from bad writers mucking up the booklist for the rest of us, but it also means more freedom, and demands that we employ smart-marketing techniques. Hence, the issue at hand with my diversification.

My highest sales occurred when I was writing in one genre for an extended period of time and had not gotten off that beaten path yet into nonfiction, for instance. Subsequently, my sales dropped. And right when I was getting used to having that rather large paycheck every month.

Kate also feels she needs to focus more on the mainstream horror genre she prefers to write in, and not give so much attention to the lesbian genre, which for a horror author, is a very small piece of the royalty pie. Not exactly a thriving subgenre yet.

The new plan for me is to refocus my energies on the lesbian fiction genre, even though I might not always write the same subgenre inside that. I need to rebrand myself as the author of a particular genre, and keep putting out books for it. It will mean rewriting what I have on five or six or seven partially completed books in order to fit my chosen genre, but the effort will probably be worth it. And I have noticed, in reframing those other stalled books, that it would solve the issues that stagnated them in the first place. Some of them were for the mainstream market and I just could not seem to get past a certain point with them. I suspect, because I should have been sticking with the one genre instead of branching out. Hopefully it will put me back on track to producing more books, more frequently.

{Cracking knuckles.} Now back to work.

typing2

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September 23rd, 2012 book trailer, BOOKS, challenge, change, Colorado, danger, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, RELATIONSHIPS No Comments »

Resurrection Sticks -Book Trailer

my novella, Resurrection Sticks

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June 28th, 2012 challenge, change, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Kate Genet, Kelli Jae Baeli, NEW ZEALAND, RELATIONSHIPS, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Land of New Zeal

Only five more days, and I will be on that flight….The excitement is finally becoming stronger than the fear and stress. Not that I don’t still worry…I’ve never flown to another country before, and dealt with all that entails–like going through customs. I’ve read the Air New Zealand website through and through. All the restriction on baggage and contents, how to check in, what to have ready in zippy bags, how much each can weigh, how big each bag can be. It’s hard to make choices about what to bring when it’s all you’re going to have for a while. If something should be amiss, and they say, “You can’t take that, or your bag is too big,” or whatever, I don’t know what to do because of course I’m only taking a paltry amount and all of it is crucial to me. Just have to hope that doesn’t happen. I have my large cargo/checked bag–pretty standard; and I have a small carry-on rolling bag, and my softside satchel, doubling as personal purse/bag. That’s it. It’s pretty amazing to see your personal requirements reduced to such a small collection of objects. But it does have a way of putting things in perspective. There are things you think you need, which, when it comes down to the wire, you realize you really don’t, or that you can always replace.

I’ve been living like a pauper in this HOT apartment…spending my days on the airbed in front of my computer (which I will mail out the day before, ahead of me). This computer is the only thing that keeps me in touch with my sweetie, and there will be an almost two-day period when I won’t be able to video chat with her all day as usual–see her face, communicate that way (Sounds silly, I know, but we have become quite addicted/dependent on seeing and communicating with each other while we wait for this reunion). I will only have my iPhone and Facebook Messenger until I reach Los Angeles, and then when I get to Auckland, I will have the phone she sent me to contact her between transfers there, in Christchurch and then Dunedin, where she will be waiting for me. And then we will have a wonderful week in a cabin by the water…a fireplace…the gifts we will exchange…and most of all, each other, finally. It is very much like two soulmates kept apart too long, and finally able to absorb each other again. I am living each moment for that.

This whole process has been a real challenge for me, an HSP–every single trigger is present, and still, i trudge forward with complete certainty. There were lots of stressful things to get done in a short amount of time; giving up all semblance of security and routine; selling or giving away or tossing my belongings; selling my beloved Cherryot–my favorite vehicle I’ve ever had; and of course, my two sweet cats. And there’s my crippling fear of flying…I will be on that plane from LA to Auckland for 13 hours…so there will be copious amounts of Xanax.

The truth is, no one can know the breadth and depth of what two people share, except those two people. And we are both quite clear about what we have, and how precious it is. There will be naysayers, and those who speak from their own painful experiences, but unless they have had this, felt it all the way to their marrow, as I do, they cannot and perhaps will not be able to understand it. And I don’t care. As my darling Kate posted recently:

“Sometimes life presents you with gifts of rare value and beauty. After unwrapping them, you don’t look at them and say no, it’s too much, or it must not be real because something this beautiful can only be a deception. You take it and cherish it, value it, and carry it around in your heart where it will never tarnish, no matter what the weather outside.

Jae is such a gift. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her, but I’m going to make sure she’s safe and loved and happy always. I carry her in my heart.”

Things change when you find true love. YOU change. You are willing to do and sacrifice many things you never would have dreamed of before.And I have had my share of challenges and heartaches and despair…but I have always resonated with this quote, which has become a sort of mantra for me, to bolster my courage when things seem too daunting to conquer:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”(Theodore Roosevelt)

I will ignore the naysayers and critics and be thankful to those who encourage such love and possibility, as I cannot imagine my life without her now, and wouldn’t want to. She is everything to me and I can’t wait to get started on the beautiful life we’ve planned. Love like this is rare, the very odds were so against it ever happening, and so many odd, synchronous things happened to bring us together. Most people don’t ever find this at all, so I will not take this good fortune for granted, especially after the slew of misfortunes my life has been. I will embrace it, leap off that cliff and FLY.

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May 8th, 2012 challenge, Highly Sensitive Person, NEW ZEALAND, RELATIONSHIPS No Comments »

Purging: I am, She is

Purging. Good for the soul they say. Also good for the tight-lipped, the guilty, and the occasional cyst. Between hours-per-day of yahoo video chatting with my betrothed, I am mostly engaged in the act of purging. As in domestic purging. This isn’t just a Spring Cleaning kind of purge either. This is the mother of all purges. The one that includes selling, tossing, or giving away 90% of everything I own. It’s necessary, it seems, when moving to another country, and not being someone with a bank account under the name Trump. It really is simpler to just get rid of it all and buy it back later once I’m there.

But this plan requires a type of letting-go that is unusual for most people in this Material World Madonna so engagingly sang about.

There’s a list psychologists use to gauge the most stressful life events. The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. In any given year of my adult life, I have experienced 70 to 80% of those, it seems. Some of those which apply now, are:

  • abandonment of family;
  • heartbreak/loss of a relationship and my two band projects I spent 7 years building;
  • loss of social groups;
  • loss of the friends associated with that social group (there is something so devastating about going from a stage, where you are applauded and admired, to just abject isolation and no friends, especially when it includes getting your heart broken by the first woman you were ever in love with).
  • Then after years of isolation, relocation to another state, alone;
  •  money issues all along the way, before and after;
  • then the death of a family member, but being ostracized from that family and not told, nor included in obituary as surviving family member;
  • then to moving again to start another relationship which turned into a nightmare of epic proportions, and also ended in abuse and the arrest of the partner, leading to another move by myself under great duress;
  • then being stressed by the environment I had to live in;
  • then heartbreak again with next relationship;
  • betrayal and abandonment by my best friend of 11 years, and simultaneously two other friends.
  •  And then there was another move, where I hoped to begin again, paying less rent, so I could have money to rebuild the life I wanted, convinced that I would spend my life alone and should try to make peace with that.

But I was circling the drain. I knew that I would never be happy without a partner–the RIGHT partner. I just don’t thrive alone. So I cried everyday. I lost interest in even the things that were my greatest joys–creating. Writing, especially. I was fighting a deep depression that I couldn’t seem to shake.

 And then there was HER.

We connected through our writing–that passion that means the most to both of us. Soon, this connection deepened and expanded. It was like looking at a trench, closing your eyes for a moment and opening them to a view of the Grand Canyon.

 We finish each others’ sentences. We share the same unique quirks. We share the same vocation, similar challenges, and kindred hearts. What i feel for her is an entirely new species of love, and the compatibility is flirting with 100%. I never thought I would meet anyone who matched every criteria I had for the perfect mate (aside from those things I had before listed as incompatible, but which have somehow turned into blessings, too). I know how deep my feelings go and how real they are, just by what I’m willing to do to be with her. What I’m willing to sacrifice, what I’m willing to risk–and without a single second of hesitation or doubt. This from someone who has had so many betrayals. Many of them freshly inflicted.

But she has renewed my belief that there are still good people in the world–though I know they exist, they have seldom crossed my path. And I know she is a good person because she is so much like me and I know I’m a good person. She is all those better things usually found only in increments in other people, and yet they are abundant in her. She laughs easily, perseveres through challenges; she has sacrificed her own needs and comforts for the needs and comforts of those she loves. I admire her parenting skills, and the way she has managed, alone, to raise five beautiful, well-adjusted and intelligent children. I admire how she accepts them and loves them for who they are, and not from some misguided attempt to fit them into boxes of her own devising. I am endeared by the fun-loving banter she shares with them, and the way I can feel their respect and love for her; her patience and kindness and good-humor, even throughout great challenge and sometimes insufferable pain.

I cherish her compassion, her honesty, her beautiful soul; I adore her humor and her laughter; I applaud her intelligence. I admire her ability to create beautiful, compelling characters and stories that say something real and meaningful amid the hordes of tripe in our literary world.  I am thrilled that she shares my love of simple pleasures, and my need for serenity and creativity. And I am most taken with the way she genuinely understands, accepts, and appreciates me for all I am. It feels like she is the one I’ve been searching for my whole life, and she shares that sentiment.

Thus, I will be moving to another country and giving up all my comfort zones, almost all my belongings, including my pets and my car, for all the right reasons, and willingly, to be with someone I believe with all my heart is my soulmate.

But it is still stressful. I have redeveloped a condition called globus hystericus. Modern terminology globus pharyngis[glō′bus \-fə-ˈrin-jəs-\]

SIDEBAR: [It occurs to me that globus hystericus sounds like a condition wherein someone is afraid to travel to the other side of the world.....]

 globus hystericus Etymology: L, small ball; Gk, hystera, womb.

a transitory sensation of a lump in the throat that cannot be swallowed or coughed up, often accompanying emotional conflict or acute anxiety. The condition is thought to be caused by a functional disturbance of the ninth cranial nerve and spasm of the inferior constrictor muscle that encircles the lower part of the throat. The physical examination result tends to be normal, as does the result of barium esophagraphy.

For a long time, I thought there really was something sticking in my throat, but when I think back to the times I had it, I was under a high amount of stress, and my Xanax and a warm compress on it, usually made it go away.

And of course, moving to another country to start a whole new life from scratch with a new beloved…that can be stressful, no matter how joyful the ultimate proposition feels. The stress makes sense. So many changes. The experience of deciding what is most important to me…what I must have to function in a healthy way, and what is just extra stuff I’ve collected that really holds no intrinsic value except that value I chose to give it…the act of going through all my papers and notebooks and files and scrapbooks and photo albums–all filled with remnants of those other things in my life–and being able to throw so much of it away.

Afterward, it creeps up in my consciousness, and becomes surreal. Like I will wake up and say, Wow, I had this really weird dream that I was throwing everything away….And at the same time, it is all so profoundly cathartic, and liberating, and yet still very stressful on some visceral level. I find myself walking around the apartment with a knot in my stomach, and my hands shaking, and feeling like I am just at the edge of panic. But not the panic born of doubt about the decision. Panic stemming from a lifetime of habits put in place to create my own solace–the solace I could not have with previous partnerships, and so was forced to create in perhaps an artificial way, just to get through the days. I am afraid, I am joyous. I am anxious, I am excited. But never do I second-guess the necessity of going to be with her. Of us building a life together in a country I’ve never been to. A country where I will be the foreigner. I will be the one with the accent and the strange customs.

 Another country. When I think of all the adjustments I will have to make, especially as a small percentage of the population who share a unique brain architecture of Sensory Processing Sensitivity…it is daunting. But she is also one of those people, and so I know she will always understand me as only those who share your nature can. She will understand that I will not have all the familiar and comforting things I’m used to (or as many conveniences). I will be, literally, a stranger in a strange land. I will not be able to drive for a while because they all drive on the other (laughingly, read as “wrong”) side of the road and the car steering wheels are on the other side too. I’m afraid that each time I go around a corner on the left side of the road, I’ll freak out, waiting for that head-on collision. I will be giving up one of those crucial things that gives me personal autonomy. And yet, I know she would take me anywhere I wish to go. And some places I don’t even know I wish to go.

Yet on a psychological level, it’s a cognitive dissonance wrought from a lifetime of doing things one way. The thing that makes it worth it–the only thing–is that I have 100% faith in my partner and the great potential for happiness we have together. This is like no other relationship I’ve ever had. And I trust with every cell in my body, and every synaptic connection, that it will be the last one, the lasting one, the right one. The one all humans yearn for. Nothing material, no preconceived idea, no habit sprung from a previous life will keep me from pursuing it.

Whether that makes me brave and crazy–or both–I accept the label. Life is short, pleasures and good fortune, and especially love, are rare commodities, precious cargo. I am leaping off this precipice and knitting my parachute on the way down. Because I know that she is there to catch me, and nothing will compare to the comfort of her arms, the radiance of her smile, the sweetness of her heart merged with mine.

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April 30th, 2012 Beverages, BOOKS, brave and crazy, challenge, change, coffee, Colorado, Denver, Emotions, fear, Geography, Hanging the Moon, Highly Sensitive Person, hope, HSP, Kate Genet, Kate Genet, Kelli Jae Baeli, Kelli Jae Baeli, kiwi, midlife crisis, Moeraki Boulders, moving, Neuro-Geological Translocation Syndrome, NEW ZEALAND, New Zealand, perception, PSYCHOLOGY, publishing, reality, reason, RELATIONSHIPS, relocation, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, WRITING No Comments »

Neuro-Geological Translocation Syndrome (with a side of Hope-smothered Fear)

Melissa Etheridge is Brave & Crazy. Why not me?

If I could have my way I’d check out right now I’d say out to lunch honey thanks a bunch It wouldn’t work out anyhow But this desire’s too much It’s rented out my brain It’s showing previews of your body Driving me insane And that’s crazy So all that I can do Is to beg, plead, won’t you tell me please What am I gonna do About you Brave….and crazy…

The changes on my personal horizon are formidable. And I’m not oblivious enough to march blithely through my life with no regard for the value of reality checks. I have my feet firmly in reality all the time, except for those moments when I knowingly allow my more fanciful nature to take over. Reality and Fancifulness… I’m knee deep in Fanciful Reality, I suppose, because both are happening right now. I am allowing my heart to feel, to have hope, to dream of the future wistfully, rather than claw away from the future in nightmares. And I am planning, thinking, devising, strategizing, researching, brainstorming to make it all happen in the quickest, most painless way possible.

On one side, there’s this person who came into my life like full-blown technicolor against the backdrop of grayscale, and she gave me back my hope.  She exemplified the tenuous nature of love, and how any alternative path or decision, no matter how minute, might mean the difference between meeting your soulmate and not meeting her. She embodies the Quixotic list of characteristics i made years ago, when considering what the perfect mate for me would be like. And on the other side, there are so many unknowns. So many things that are for me a collection of the most terrifying specters possible for someone like me. I am aware that I tend to have a lengthy list of things that scare me. This, even though I think I have fleeting moments of courage. One friend once said to me, during my relocation to Denver, “You are the bravest person I know.” I didn’t really think I deserved the label. I had to ask her why and she pointed out that I had picked up and moved to another state, all alone, knowing no one there, dealing with all of it myself, 30 hours of driving, and while also being a person prone to panic attacks–and all because I wanted to find my life partner, and I just knew she had to be out there somewhere. Well, fair enough. I guess that was brave. Maybe I am brave. Maybe I’m also a little crazy. Brave and crazy. It continues to come back to that. Perhaps the battle between love and fear requires brave and crazy.

I have been experiencing anxiety, what can be described as a low frequency humming in my consciousness that underlies all other emotions. Not surprising, since the usual paradigm of my life has been up-ended. All my comfort zones infiltrated by possibility, but also the unknown. And isn’t it the unknown that most often frightens us? I would never have imagined visiting another country–the idea was at once frightening to me. And yet, here i am making plans to not just visit, but MOVE to another country–one at “the bottom of the world” as AmericaCentrics are fond of saying. New Zealand.  My Kiwi partner and I often rib each other about those perspectives:

“You’re at the bottom of the world…”

“No YOU are.”

…and even had this conversation, which I shamelessly used in our upcoming co-authoring project, Hanging the Moon:

Lily took a curve, and Jade’s hand went involuntarily to the dash, as if expecting an impact. “This is so weird because you’re on the wrong side of the road.”

“No, ” Lily quipped back. “I’m on the left side of the road.”

“Right, which is the wrong side.”

“No it’s the right side.”

Jade shot back, “I thought you said it was the left side?”

They both burst out laughing with delight.

I admit to a generous portion of fear in my brain. I am afraid of heights. I am afraid of flying. Afraid of being helpless, trapped. Of not being in control of my immediate environment. Most of this stems from my brain architecture as an HSP with Sensory Processing Sensitivity. But for me, as I try to discern what this feeling is like–this moving to another country– it feels like migrating to another planet. An earthlike planet where the locals speak English, even though a modified version filled with colloquialisms with which I am not familiar, and with accents derived from Britain. It’s not like the air there will have different percentages of oxygen or hydrogen, nor that the grass is blue and the sky green, nor that I will be required to learn how to maneuver in a space suit. Nothing so dramatic as that. But there will be, I surmise, a certain geographical confusion that will take some getting used to.

That even happened as I arrived in Denver the first time. It seemed so HUGE, and I was so displaced, and overwhelmed by it. Within a few weeks, it didn’t seem so big anymore, didn’t feel so foreign, but perfectly normal. Funny, how the human brain does that. Let me just coin a phrase, here, and call this Neuro-Geological Translocation Syndrome. The point is, human perception is different in initial exposure to a new environment, than it is after the environment becomes more familiar. I noticed that as my brain adjusted, my neighborhood and the surrounding areas seemed to contract; appearing not so expansive as it did when I first arrived.

That slight digression aside, I know that the same will be true when I board that plan to New Zealand, and will continue when I disembark, and on into a period of time when I arrive at the house I will be living in with my partner.

And in New Zealand, I know there will be products I don’t recognize, customs I find strange, and I will not have access to all those creature comforts and conveniences that served to soothe or steady me. I will likely make my coffee in something called a “coffee plunger” or “press pot.” Coffee grounds are dipped into a usually cylindrical carafe Kiwis call a “jug” and then a plunger presses the grounds to the bottom, and you pour the strained coffee out into your cup. Quite a different concept than the American Mr. Coffee drip brewing system, which most of us use on a daily basis. To say that there will be an adjustment period, flirts with piquant understatement.

But as I awakened this morning from a dream of reciting vows with my partner on a beach near the Moeraki Boulders, I see that the wonder and beauty of true commitment and partnership is quite capable of trumping any visceral, primal fears I have about moving through that unfamiliar landscape toward my future.  I will be free of the rat race cacophony found in the cities ( honk honk! fuck off!) and into a more idyllic and serene environment, which is more suited to my nature. I am already feeling the relief from purging all the material possessions I have carted around for so many years. It’s liberating. And yes, still frightening. But that doesn’t mean I have any intention of second-guessing the decision I made. I will do what I have to do to be with the person I have grown to love more deeply than I ever thought possible. I will face that screaming fear head-on, for the reward that it will bring. Not doubting for an instant that it is something I must do, and that I will forever be glad I did.

 

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February 22nd, 2012 challenge, change, fear, friends, Highly Sensitive Person, Human Nature, lovers, partners, RELATIONSHIPS, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, WRITING No Comments »

Stupid, Honorable, High-Road Seeking Fool

In a post from a few years ago (two posts, actually, under Going to Denver Because You’re Dead) I chronicled this transition of moving to Colorado to start a new life; again reinventing myself, with the hope of somehow finding my new place in this ever-changing, ever-challenging world.  I got rid of three-quarters of everything i owned, packed a U-Haul trailer behind my Cherryot, and off I went. A journey that lasted 30 hours on many days of little sleep. By the time I arrived in Denver, i was exhausted, lost, and had this sensation of being on another planet. I was not used to driving in big city traffic, with all its interchanges and exits and geographic complications. I didn’t know how to get to this new apartment I had secured for myself by phone and online. I ended up off an exit in a bad neighborhood, worn out, my iPhone battery overtaxed and at that crucial moment, dead. I launched into a full-fledged panic attack, with some unsavory gang-bangers headed my way, and I dug the .25 out of the console and clenched it, hoping i would not have to use it. The gang-bangers wandered off, and i fell completely apart. I couldn’t go on. But then i realized that there was no one to save me but me. It was a familiar feeling. Somehow i managed to calm myself down, wait for my battery to charge, and checked the map against the street signs i could see, and re-route. I tried again to find where i was going, and got lost again. Finally i just stopped in the road and got out and approached the car behind me–several Latino guys in a jacked up car, and just point-blank told them i was lost and needed to find a a certain address. The driver was kind and helpful and told me exactly how to get there, and i did.

After that, i tried to fashion a life. I didn’t know anyone. I used the internet to meet as many women as possible, hoping to make new friends, find dates, and finally that partner i just knew had to be hiding here somewhere. Long story short, I dated 22 women that first year. All of them either I rejected or they rejected me. Then I met one who seemed genuinely interested. I wound up eventually moving in with her, and so began a nightmare of epic proportions that lasted another 9 months. Her mother would NOT move out of the basement as promised, her family hated me, my girlfriend quit her job started smoking pot every day all day, and drinking, (When she had presented herself as a non drug user and not a problem drinker when we met–and knew that was criteria I would not budge on) and not communicating, and hitting me when we had sex, and sleeping all the time, or having meltdowns where she would destroy the house and scream, all the while using my money to pay her mortgage and her truck payment and not paying MY bills. It ended with me calling the cops and she being arrested for domestic violence against me, and then me having to move in a few days, while injured and upset and exhausted.

There was so much more to that process but I’ll skip it all and just say it was another few weeks and months of stress and misfortune before things settled down. [For blogs about this situation, see  Birthday Bash ; Fleeing Field Mouse  ;    Happy Effing Anniversary  ; EXTENDED STRESS Hotel. ;    Trauma Biscuit  ;  The Biggest Lies of All ]

Then I met someone else, four months later. Someone who made me feel things i hadn’t felt in 12 years. I was falling in love with her, and it had only been two months. My hope was renewed. I thought maybe it was my turn. That all my suffering had finally paid off somehow. But she could not feel sexual/romantic attraction to be 24/7–and thought she should. So we’d go platonic, and then she’d change her mind and want sex. I don’t get how someone can have sex with you 35 times in two months, but wonder if she had any attraction. Her attraction, though, she said, came and went, she said, and this became an on-again, off-again trial by fire. I continued to be patient and loving and kind and nurturing, and I made it all about her, and still, it ended. Trying to take the high road, as always, I agreed to be just friends with her, but then i saw very quickly that she could not be there for me. She could only handle her drama. All the while, I was dealing with my midlife crisis of getting older and facing that upcoming 50th birthday, and being reminded at a funeral for her friend’s girlfriend, that i didn’t get to go to my father’s funeral because my selfish petty family never told me he was sick or dead. And they left me out of his obit as a surviving family member. And i sat in that church–me, the atheist, listening to all that stupid blather, and wondering how many people would attend MY funeral. I realized it would not be many. And that also made me profoundly sad that I had gotten to this point in my life and didn’t have the fundamental things I should have by now. I had nightmares about my dad. Nightmares about me in a casket and no one there to say goodbye to me. Nightmares of drowning in an ocean with sharks circling me, and everyone I knew standing on a boat and watching, but not helping me. But she made it clear when I awoke from those nightmares the morning after that funeral service, that there was no room for my pain. She said “I really can’t take any of your negativity.”

But, like the stupid, honorable, high-road seeking fool that I am, I continued to be supportive and wonderful to her, swallowing my own pain…swallowing my heartache over her not returning my feelings, when it had been 12 long years of me thinking I could never fall in love again after that one gigantic heartbreak with the only woman who had been my first and last great love. I put myself aside again, while KR enjoyed my support, but gave nothing back. As long as i remained cheerful and strong and supportive, she was fine. I hoped it would all normalize and equalize somehow, if I was just patient.

Near this time, having not seen my best friend, JH, in two and half years, though we talked every day on the phone, I was looking forward to her upcoming visit. She knew me better than anyone on the planet and we had been extremely bonded for 11 years. She had planned to move here even before me, but I wound up having to go sooner before I lost my mind, being so unhappy where I was. Finally, then, she came to visit. First, in December. It was to be our bonding time. I had so much I wanted to share with her and i needed her more than ever–to talk to–in person. To help me figure out how to get my life back on track. But I introduced her to my two friends CW and KR (whom I had been dating and fell for, but was now just my friend). JH and CW had instant chemistry, and so it then became about them.  I didn’t get that time with JH. But she assured me she was coming back the next month, to do that. Oh, and also to have me design her book cover. And of course, to see the new love interest, CW.

But that 2nd visit was even worse. Out of the 9 or so outings and plans, that were all planned by my best friend, JH–it was me and JH and CW. Or, it was JH and CW. I began to feel like a hotel, and a chauffeur. None of those plans were me and my best friend. My very missed and needed best friend. None of them. After several days of this, I voiced my feelings, and begrudgingly, she cancelled that date with CW that night and we got Chinese food and alcohol and watched a movie, but i never got the chance to talk with her like I’d wanted to for 2 and a half years. Because she preferred the movie, or talking about CW every few seconds. Another few days passed with the same paradigm. All these wonderful plans with CW, or allowing me to tag along with THEM. They had even made plans to go to Vegas in February, and New York in March for the CW’s birthday, which was near the same date as MINE. Finally I could not bite my tongue any longer.  I had literally drawn blood in my own mouth biting my tongue. I told her how it made me feel (Again) and how much I had needed her, and how I had waited for this visit for two and half years.

Her response was, “Why are you trying to ruin my happiness?”

She was MAD. Actually MAD at me for expecting her attention, and some time together after all that time apart. I became so livid, I knew I would say something I’d be sorry for. I told her I was going to the store and would be right back. I spent an hour sitting in my Cherryot in the park, drinking a Hard Cider, smoking cigarettes I had sworn off of; and calmer, ready to have a rational discussion again, I went back.

She was gone. She had packed her bags and was just………GONE. She ignored my texts and my phone calls, (and after over a month, still no response). I even sent her a text that said “You mean I have lost you because I needed you?” I was met with more silence. Her new girlfriend, CW, then became my EX friend, because she ignored me too, except to send me the name of a counselor she had used. She had her own agenda now, and it no longer included me.  In desperation, I tried to confide in KR, and I was an obvious mess, could not stop crying. She said she couldn’t help me, that I needed professional help. No. I needed a friend, and until that moment, I kind of hoped she’d come through finally, in my hour of need. But now, she was the third betrayal and abandonment within a few days. And no word from her either in all this time.

I called my VA counselor and could not get a regular appointment, because there were so many veterans now who needed help and they were understaffed and booked up. How could i be selfish enough to dismiss those soldiers who had their legs blown off in war, and suffered horrible psychological damage? So I called that counselor CW mentioned. I had a quick appointment the very next day and I thought it went well, and i started to feel like I would be okay. But then I got a call from that counselor, who informed me she couldn’t see me again because I owned GUNS. I am a single woman living alone, and only one of those was my usual one…the other two I had acquired quite by accident and never used. So now I was faced with my fourth abandonment and betrayal–by someone PROFESSIONAL, who I went to for help, because I knew I needed it. I tried to reason with her on the phone, telling her that taking away my guns would not keep me from killing myself if that’s what I wanted to do.  There were a million ways to die, and it would have happened a long time ago, if that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t go to her because I was suicidal. I went to her because i was profoundly sad and hurt and needed some help dealing with it. Help my “friends” could not give me because they were too busy walking in the other direction, after their own selfish wants. The email exchange is posted appropriately under the entry the Fourth Betrayal.

I now have this recurring nightmare of being bloody and bruised and broken, lying on the ground, and everyone who ever said they loved me, or were supposed to, are kicking me, spitting on me…walking away….

Now it’s February 22nd. My lease is up here on April 1st. I needed to find another cheaper place to live because I’m paying $1200 a month to live here. With more money, I could make other things happen–like fixing my credit that the last relationship ruined, and finally buying a home to call my own. I found a cheap apartment (even though it was up stairs and stairs destroy my knees), but maybe it was some rare good fortune, and I could just deal with it. Even though I didn’t even trust it; I chose to believe that things might be turning in my favor. Then I found out I couldn’t have my DTV dish there, and I was under a bundled contract with my internet, phone and TV. This, after I had already been packing and putting boxes in the garage for a week. I need a TV more than most people. All this time alone. And all those shows with familiar characters and storylines…it makes me feel in some strange way I have this virtual family…and I can also lose myself in the TV, and it keeps me from thinking too much about how I feel. I need that. I NEED IT like I need WATER and FOOD and SLEEP.

Honestly, I have not felt this degree of loneliness and heartache since 1999 & 2000, living in my van, crippled and fighting Big Brother, when all had forsaken me. It is the same now, lo these many years later. I feel crippled on the inside, and it’s no less harrowing and difficult than being unable to walk without crutches…I am lonely because the cold hard truth is no one loves me. Those who professed to, have forsaken me. My cats are the only living beings who I can say for sure have love for me, and how pathetic is that, especially at my age? My heart breaks from abandonment and betrayal. I have cried every day for over a month now. I don’t think I can ever understand or have any peace about what JH has done to me. It’s just three times the injury that CW and KR are also guilty of the same. Theirs is only a lesser crime perhaps because they have not been in my life as long. But does that really make it a lesser crime? The deed is done, no matter how I turn it. And yes, it does seem that JH’s crime is a capital offense. She and I have been best friends for 11 years…how is it that she can throw me away so easily, and for no compelling reason? She has been the only person in my life I could ever depend on. I would have taken a bullet for her. And yes, I realize that I have had her on a pedestal for some time because of that. I made a decision that i will never again need anyone so much, that when they leave, i can’t survive their absence. But it doesn’t take away the pain.

At the very least, it could be compared to a divorce. But it is also deeper than that. I am grieving over a death. The death of our friendship, at her own hand. And still, it seems more intense than divorce or death. When divorces and deaths happen, there are usually other people there to help support you, hug you, tell you everything will be okay and they love you and will be at your side. But what if what has been lost are all those people? What if you have no family and your friends have abandoned you? how much harder is it to pick yourself up off that hard ground, with no hands reaching to help you? There is no ameliorating force to dull the pain or provide strength. The only comfort and strength to be had has to come from inside the person on the ground. And what if that person is particularly sensitive? what if that person’s heart is tender and bruised to begin with? what if that person was reaching out for help with other pains when it happens? I feel that I have been beaten half to death and reached for my friends and they kicked me, and pelted me with stones. Where will I find the strength for this?

I have begun to make new friends, but that process is slow, and it is much too early to lean on those people, even though I desperately need to. They have been as supportive as they can, but it’s awkward to dump this all on them, since they haven’t known me very long. It’s not what I want to build new friendships on..and truthfully, I don’t expect them to stay around either. I fully expect them to just disappear too).

I have tried to keep busy. I have tried to stay in my left brain. I have ignored every painful thought that bubbles up in my mind. I have done all I know to do, and still it is not enough. I still cry every day. Sob. Bury my face in my sweet cats, and douse them with my tears. The medications I’ve tried are not working. The positive affirmations are not working. I am barely getting by. I don’t want to die, but this is killing me. I want to have hope. I want fortune to smile on me. Isn’t it time? Haven’t I suffered enough? Yet, to think this way is to somehow suggest that life is fair and there’s some balancing force that will reward me for trudging on. The truth is it’s all random. There is no fairness, there is only life, and what comes to you. It has little to do with how deserving you are, or how hard you’ve tried, or how good you’ve struggled to be. where does that leave me?

During this time, to have still another computer crash–which seems to happen every 6 months, is another thorn in my side. I was without a computer for a week, and this is not a good thing for me…it’s how I occupy my mind. But I had to sit in front of the TV and struggle through each minute, each hour, each day….I had to order a new computer and spend money on that which I needed for other things. And I am about to move again, in April, when my lease is up, to a cheaper apartment. I hope the extra money will help me reach at least one of my goals, which is to be able to clean up my credit so I can finally buy a home of my own. So now, in anticipation of that, determined not to injure myself by doing it all too fast, I have been packing up all the things I can do without for the next six weeks. I am surrounded by boxes and debris, the detritus of my existence, the things I carry around with me to set up in proper places to create this semblance of a life, but which has become merely the settings for a stage to serve a fictional play that is my life. Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…” quite existential–and that’s how I am feeling. I will turn 50 next month. 50. I am closer to my death than to my birth and I still don’t have a home, a partner…and no one loves me. This statement is usually some lament that is not accurate, but shockingly, it is in this instance, TRUE. There is no one in my life who LOVES me. That’s got to be the worst feeling in the universe. Especially while facing this threshold of getting older. I’m afraid. I’m fearful of too many things, now. Fearful of being ill with no one to take care of me. Afraid of something happening to me and no one will know, or even care….terrified of dying alone.

If I give myself to someone in friendship and love, and am repayed with betrayal and cruelty, then I might respond by withholding the precious aspects that make love valuable…but by withholding the very nature of what love is, I garner no interest in anyone loving me, and so I am caught in my own trap of self-protection. So I either have to choose a life of giving with the very real possibility of betrayal and pain, against the choice of loneliness, but without betrayal and cruelty. Which is the more formidable negative? which pain is greater?

Last night I had the same nightmare, over and over. I kept waking up from it, going back to sleep and then dreaming it again. And though I know, emotionally, that it was awful, I can’t remember a thing about the dream.

I can’t just stop caring. Believe me, I’ve tried. And I just go on caring anyway. I wish there was a pill for that, I’d twist the arm of the VA docs until they gave it to me. Sometimes I need to not care so much. It’s really a burden to care. Caring means it matters, and if it matters, it hurts when things don’t go well.

So today, I made the mistake of trying to correct the failing Internet connection on my computer and when using it wirelessly on My Nook. I called Century Link, and the woman wasn’t making sense, had me crawl under unplug and move to other room after I had to hunt for another phone cable and then when i finally get it hooked up in other room she had disconnected me. I wanted to drive down there, find her, and bash her face in. Not the kind of emotions I like to have.

Then Tom calls about my apartment–I can’t have a satellite dish on 2nd floor where my apartment will be. I’m under contract and can’t get Comcast because I am disputing what they say I owe and trying to be in the class action suit against them. So can’t get their service and couldn’t anyway because I’m under contract with Century Link along with DTV, Verizon. But, he said, he will have apt opening up on top floor, but not sure when it will be available because they’re being evicted and might fight it and that will put me over my lease period–and also I can’t climb that many stairs, my knees will blow and moving, will kill me unless I can pay someone to do EVERYTHING. And the past moving experiences have taught me that I NEVER have the help I need, and I wind up injuring myself to the point where it takes me months to get back to normal.

Tom’s supposed to call back.*

SO while I’m waiting, I couldn’t find my charger for my ear bud, and need it, because my neck injury won’t let me hold the phone with my shoulder like some people do, and I keep dropping my phone and If I hold the phone with one hand, like many people do, my hand goes numb, and I drop the phone that way too. If I break that I’m fucked because an iPhone is not cheap to replace.  I did finally find the charger, mislabeled among all the other thousands of cords and cables, and plugged in my earbud. My only stupid victory in months. And I fully expect it to start smoking and catch on fire.

All the while, I am stressed because I’m stumbling through the chaos of packing…and the place is a mess. I’m about to lose my mind.

I’ve been crying again, feeling lost and alone… popping Xanax, drinking Hot Damn and Mudslides and Hard Ciders. Last night I spent $36 at liquor store–had to walk there because I was afraid to lose my parking spot outside because I’m using my garage for all the packing, and if I return to no parking spaces–which is VERY common here, I will have to then move ALL THOSE BOXES in the garage again to make room, and my back and neck can’t take it right now. Now my knees and hips are killing me, because there’s a big hill on the way up to Ohio street by the liquor store, that I simply HAD to climb to get some damn alcohol to try to calm my nerves, deaden my emotions.

I’m afraid I’ll get cancer because I’m smoking again. And that means I’ll deal with dying alone for sure.

I feel fat. I feel ugly. I feel useless. I feel hopeless. I feel alone.

 

_____

*ADDENDUM: Tom called back and said he couldn’t do it. SO good luck finding an apartment, sorry,,etc. SO back to square one. Square one seems to be my default position

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January 22nd, 2012 challenge, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, PSYCHOLOGY, RELATIONSHIPS, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 1 Comment »

The Fourth Betrayal

NOTE: So, in my seeking help when i needed it, for my recent betrayals and abandonments, the counselor i went to see called the next day to inform me she couldn’t see me anymore and for a really stupid reason. I tried to reason with her on the phone, but she had to stand by what she felt was her principals, but which was only LOFTY IDEAS getting in the way of her ability to give the actual care she had sworn to as a medical professional. Finally frustrated beyond words and feeling even worse, i hung up on her. The next day, i got this mail. My answer follows below.

 

Jan 20, 2012

Therapy@[Name Withheld].com

Dear Jae,
Since our telephone discussion did not go entirely well yesterday, I thought I would try to reach out to you via email. I was impressed with your level of honesty, as well as with your convictions about protecting yourself. As I mentioned, I fully understand where these fears emanate from and want to validate them as real and persistent concerns (for us both). On the other hand, as a therapist, and human being who has your best interest at heart, I would be remiss in minimizing the clear and present dangers of having weapons in your home, particularly when you are trying to sort through past and present trauma that exacerbates your hypersensitivity challenges. The boundaries and conditions that I have set in order to work with you are not to disarm or harm you, but are to perhaps protect you.
During our initial assessment, it was clear to me that you are ready for change, and that you have the internal and external resources to continue that process. I wish you ongoing success in all of your endeavors, especially the ones that keep you in touch with your passion (writing), and in touch with other writers. I believe you have a special gift.
I wish the best for you Jae, and sincerely hope that your tireless efforts to find a therapist suited to your needs end in success. The Maria Droste Counseling Center might be able to help you in your search (303) 756-9052.
Kind regards,
[VW]

 

Jan 20, 2012

FROM: jaebaeli

TO: [VW]

VW-

Strange. I just sat down to write to you, as well. Thank you for being the sort of person who follows up. That part is much appreciated.

Now, to clarify, I hung up on you because you had planted your feet and there seemed to be no reason to belabor a point you were incapable of exploring, even when I was willing to compromise. And in my emotional state, I was afraid to let the resulting impact of that escalate. It was best to “walk away.” But I couldn’t do that, because it was a phone call, so hanging up was my way of simply walking away. But I also realized you did not/do not know me, and so I decided I should explain myself in the best way I know how (writing) so that this chapter can have some closure. I don’t like leaving things undone.

Let me just say that I appreciate your stated reasons for the ultimatums you gave me, however, I cannot appreciate, nor accept the underlying truth that keeps those ultimatums from being thoroughly-reasoned-out conclusions. Disjunctive reasoning is a valuable skill that has saved me on many occasions, and I only wish you had been able to employ it as well. I will tell you exactly WHY your conclusions are ultimately not applicable:

a)   I have had guns all my life. I grew up having them as a child, I have a healthy respect for them. I have also, as an adult, always had a handgun for personal protection since that incident in the early 80’s. I have had plenty of emotional/mental provocation to use one of them against myself, if that’s the type of person I am. I have not.

b)   If you were able to destroy or otherwise remove any and all guns from my possession, or even do that also for everyone else in the world, it would not prevent someone from committing suicide, if that is their true intent. There are a million ways to die. If I wanted to die, I could simply fling myself in front of a Mack truck. DONE. Ergo, I firmly believe that guns do not kill people, people kill people.

c)   I made a decision long ago after that attack in Oklahoma, that I would never put myself in that foolish position of being defenseless against the violence present in this world and in some evil people. I was naïve at the time and had no cognizance that such things were truly sprinkled around everywhere, and could actually endanger me. Part of growing up. I will make no excuses for that decision, as I feel it is a wise one, and the right one for me. For me, the definition of stupidity (not insanity) is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For me to continue my life without protection, after what that experience taught me, would have been the definition of stupidity. I am many things, but stupid is not one of them. You cannot ask me to place myself in danger just to satisfy some erroneous idea you have about proper ethical concerns of your profession, when it might not always apply. That was inherently myopic of you.

I contacted you simply because I needed a friend and my current friends did not step up to the plate (their failing, not mine, as I have always been there for my friends [if they ARE my friends] no matter how uncomfortable it was for me, because I believe that is the very heart of friendship, and it’s also the person I choose to be). You were to be that surrogate friend, until I got my footing again. I did not reach out to you because I was suicidal. That was your assumption. Perhaps you had no way of knowing this because of how I sounded when I left the message—but I am an HSP and I allow myself to have my feelings, and they are sometimes (perhaps too often for my own good) that raw, and that’s the place I was in emotionally. I went to you in the practical sense, because I needed immediate attention, and for frequent intervals for a period of time, and could not get that at the VA because they are understaffed and there are so many veterans who need help. I went to you in the personal sense, because of my feelings of sadness and disillusionment, but mostly to deal with the sense of betrayal and abandonment. Then you informed me you could not see me if I had guns, after I had opened myself up to you in trust, and then exacerbated this by calling my counselor at the VA. Again, more betrayals, in my mind–emotionally. It was not your place to do that. Imagine my dismay when I took responsibility for myself, and was proactive, and the new therapist I reached out to, gave me still another example of those two vexations for my heart, mind and spirit.

This is not the way to gain the trust you so desire of your new patients. And as I pointed out, there’s a flaw in the logic, when you can ultimately do nothing to prevent someone from killing themselves if they really want to die. Your position, as I see it, is to give them reasons not to feel it is a solution, not to throw fuel on that fire.

Thus, open and honest is apparently no longer serving me. I did that with my best friend, telling her how I felt, and she turned it into something about her and betrayed me and our friendship and this has caused me great pain. This is why I needed some help—because the very thing I needed most was ironically the thing that caused the immediate problem.

I have reinvented myself many times, as conditions demanded, and I can do it again. Perhaps it’s time for me to join the masses and start playing those hold-out games, because it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I am (especially as an HSP) much too sensitive to withstand the salvo that seems to naturally result. I will have to start protecting myself more by holding back. I never liked how that felt, but I like very much less the result of my honesty and openness when it seems so many are able to take that information and inflict more harm. I have always blogged, and included in my books, every nuance of what I experience and feel; most directly in blogs—all those entries where I reveal myself in hopes that it might help someone else see that they are not alone in the human experience of isolation, or pain, or despondency, or anger. So I will now be making a private blog—private for ME. Anonymous, without my name or identity attached. That way, I still might be able to help someone else, without putting myself before a Grand Jury who will judge me based on their own biases, and not on the individual truths that reside in all of us. As I’ve said before, you have to recognize your truths in the daylight, before you can find them in the dark. Insofar as honesty with other people goes, I have also always said, I am only responsible for being honest, not for someone else‘s reaction to my honesty. But I can see now, that as honorable and ethical as that position is, it does not always translate well in this world when the result is more damage to ME.

I started my writer’s group for myself, yes, because I needed to get back into my passions and joys, for my own well-being, but I started it equally for the purpose of helping others because I knew that doing that would be good for them. And I don’t like the idea that anyone has ever felt the things I have. I won’t be that ghost that vanishes in their lives when the going gets tough. I will do what I have to do to survive, as I always have, because that’s who I am at my core. But I will not allow myself to walk around without skin anymore.

And I will let go of this idea that there are professional therapists who can really help me anymore than I can help myself. Crisis is the only time I reach out, because I don’t feel I can access those parts of myself when I am in that mode, and I need a steadying presence to help me do that. Friends have been that for me, but sometimes they are not there when that onslaught come around the bend.

I hope that helps to clarify my position on this situation.

Thank you for your time.

Jae

 

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September 24th, 2011 challenge No Comments »

Being Fully Human

Theodore Roosevelt once said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

My sentiments exactly.

We all have a past. We all have things we have done, said, been–that we would have liked to be different. Yet, that is part of the human experience. Part of being fully human includes getting your hands dirty. We know and appreciate joy because we have experienced sorrow; we know and appreciate love because we have been familiar with fear and envy. We do not grow as humans until we live fully in the human experience, in all its wonder and agony and beauty and ugliness.

We cross paths with perhaps thousands of people in a lifetime, and who is to say how many of them are there to learn their own lessons by knowing you, or you, them? We can say that a person inflicted pain on us, or was our nemesis, wronged us, or in some way did us damage, yet perhaps this is the only way we could have learned what we needed to learn. We can indeed thank these people in our minds and hearts for bringing us valuable lessons (i.e., everyone can be a teacher) even though this is often hard to do, because if we blame someone else, we don’t have to take responsibility for ourselves. 

It’s a real challenge to be okay when your past rears its head via the opinions from those who were alongside you during the journey; those who saw the dark side of your soul, the ones who might have felt the sting of your lessons, the pain of your anger or angst or confusion. It then becomes about forgiving yourself; and yet, why would we need to forgive something that is intrinsically part of the process and indeed the very reason we are here? While there is a precarious balance between personal accountability and accepting the inevitability of human foibles, this balance can be had, and is one we should strive for.

I have done so, and continue to do so, even amid my own frustration, confusion and misinterpretations. I am not the same person i was 10 years ago. If i was, it would indicate that i am not evolving. And i find that concept not only unacceptable but repulsive. 

I am not merely a human being, but a human, BEING.

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April 2nd, 2011 challenge, Colorado, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, RELATIONSHIPS, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 1 Comment »

EXTENDED STRESS Hotel.

My Cherryot was loaded to capacity, with the things I thought I’d need for two months, until an apartment became available.

 

At Extended Stay, I checked in with desk clerk–started to unload, and had to take several things up first (5 trips in elevator) before I noticed that there was a luggage cart in front with a tattooed guy leaning on it talking to another guy. “Oh a luggage cart!” I said. “I need that.” He said he only had a couple of things and rushed off to get his task done so I could have it.

Meantime, I wanted to get the cats out of the Cherryot so they’d be safe and I’m sure they needed some freedom. That cardboard box in back of crate with litter was bound to be hard to lay next to.

I was trying to figure out what to do to get the cats up there safely. I also knew there was a limit of one animal, and so I had to be careful they didn’t see two.

I emptied a small gym bag and tried to put Monkey in it, but she doesn’t like being trapped, and I felt awful that I’d have to zip it up and scare her, and it was a small bag; I was stressing her more. So I dragged out the big red rolling suitcase, emptied it, and put her in it fairly easily, and then rolled her down the walk, through the breezeway, onto the elevator, all the while reassuring her in a sweet voice that it was okay and I was right here and we’d be in the room soon, etc. I always talk to my cats, explain things to them, as if they completely understand the English language.

I put Monkey in the bathroom and closed door, went to get Biscuit. She’s always harder to manage because these travel scenarios wear her out. Again, I discovered she was lying in the litterbox and wouldn’t come out. She did that on my move here in 09. I had to move a bunch more things, just to get that huge crate turned so I could get the door open wide enough, because I had to reach all the way to the back to get her. Monkey just came out when I asked her to, and then I just picked her up. With Biscuit, it was another story. I would have to be aggressive and just grab her and poke her in the case, because no amount of quiet explanation would get her to do what I needed her to do. And I had to be careful she didn’t slip out the door of Cherryot and run away. Horrifying thought for me.

SO she was in there and I asked her not to cry too loud so anyone would hear. Just as we reached the elevators, and passed a maintenance guy, she cried once, and I hurriedly coughed rudely continually, punching the elevator button. Finally the car came down and I rolled her in, and had another soothing conversation with her, for what it was worth. Even told her she was a pretty kitty and mommy loved her very much.

Got Biscuit in the bathroom with Monkey, and knew Monkey would console her, while I went to get the rolling cart and unload the rest. It still wasn’t there.

Mind you, there was a memory foam mattress rolled up and attached to the luggage rack of the Cherryot, along with the litter box with that 35 pound container of litter, and couple other things. I didn’t want someone to steal it. The bed, not the litter. My friends know that my foamy bed is as crucial to me as breathing, because I can’t sleep on anything else without my back going out.

Finally I procured the luggage cart from Tattoo Guy and began loading it up. Hard to do, since most things were not neatly arranged in one size liquor boxes or crates. Had to be creative with stacking since a couple of the plastic tubs had no lids. I had to pull them out of the garden shed thing off the back porch of house and clean them out. Anyway, it took about 4 trips to get it all up there.

The entire time, I am limping because of my injured knee (thanks to my Awful X– as in previous, X–as in crossed out, gone, no longer applicable), and my hands were so sore, and my spine felt like it had hot bricks for discs, my feet were throbbing, and my neck was making threats to rupture a disc again. If that happened, I was down for the count, and I would be completely immobilized. I hoped for good fortune and carried on.

Once in the room, I had intended to go straight to bed, too tired to shower. But then I had to find things and then I started unpacking in increments, and then before I knew it, I had unpacked everything, maybe it was just leftover nervous energy.

During this time, I was on the phone with my best friend Justi, and my spirits were considerably higher because I was allowing myself to feel relieved that I was somewhere I could rest. Make camp. I told her about the fine art of controlling a loaded luggage cart; it likes to spin around at will like a go cart with one bad brake.

Then I can’t avoid the need for food any longer and about 12:30, I hoped there was a drive thru open. Problem was, I seemed to be in a section of the city that was a fast food dead zone. I drove North on Wadsworth, and saw nothing. I was going to use my Mango fast food app on my iPhone to find it but realized that app was lost in the last screwy update I did where I forgot to select to save apps. I searched it and got it again, while still talking to her, and she was on her computer trying to find me a place to get food too. Then I said I just wanted a cheeseburger and fries. Small. My stomach was shrunk. I had already lost five pounds from stress and exertion in the last 6 days.

“There’s an Arby’s on Jewel,” she offered.

“I don’t want Arby’s, I want a cheeseburger. I’m looking for McDonalds and Burger King, because I knew they were open late, too.”

“There’s also a Wendy’s on Jewel,” she added.

“I don’t want Wendy’s because I want fries and I don’t like their fries. Too fat.”

I finally located the Wendy’s though, and drove past it looking for ARBY’s because she began extolling the virtues of sliced roast beef and cheese sauce and seasoned curly fries. I didn’t see it, and my stomach was growling and I was a little dizzy from hypoglycemia. I turned around and went back toward Wendy’s. “Fuck it, I’ll got to Wendy’s. At least they have cheeseburgers.” And then I discovered they had something called a Baconator, with natural cut fries with sea salt. Enjoyed a playful conversation with the order taker and got my goodies. The fries were delish, and when I got back to the hotel and tried the Baconator, it became automatically my new favorite burger, so it all worked out.

The fact that I would post this is perhaps an indication that vanity is not one of my shortcomings.

There was much I needed to do–I didn’t have time to actually let the emotional aspects kick in. I was afraid I wouldn’t get things done if I was blubbering like a two year old. I had paperwork from the court and advocacy group people to go through, information to fill out, notes to take in Daytimer, figuring out my next steps and priorities. I still had bills I needed to take care of, (that my Awful X had failed to pay, though she had used my money to pay HERS for about 4 months while she stayed unemployed). I had to update my bank account info before the bills came due, etc. I started my water distiller and drank what was left in previous jug, so dehydrated. My eyes were bloodshot, and I looked terrible in the bright light of that hotel bathroom mirror. So I graced my best friend with a photo of that and MMS’d it to her.

I looked like I’d been dragged behind a horse. Or at least my EYES had been dragged behind a horse. Or maybe a goat. A large, feral goat.

On the TV the size of a breadbox, I’m sort of watching some movie called Teen Witch about a coven of high school witches. Ironically it was partly about them discovering their powers to take vengeance on those who had wronged them, and I wished fervently for a little of that craft. Then I started watching another movie and eventually fell asleep.

Next morning, fire alarms go off, pulling me out the door onto the balcony muttering what the fuck? It stopped and I went back to bed, then the alarms went off again, just as I was dozing. I went back outside to look around to see if there was any smoke or firetrucks and heard a guest below me mutter What the fuck? which made me think that was quite the appropriate response. My nerves were raw by now, this 6th day of the debacle, with 3 hours sleep, on top of 2 on top of 2 on top of 3, on top of 5 on top of NONE and none. I was certainly not going back to sleep now. I checked to see if my direct deposit had been transferred to the new account from the old one, and it hadn’t. I’m getting more and more stressed. I called the bank and they said it would happen within an hour. So I got dressed and went to the front desk to arrange to pay for another day.

Enter, stage right, the archetype of Rude Managers. Anne, I think her name was. I had missed checkout time at 11. And because my money didn’t transfer to my new account yet, I explained and said the bank was correcting, would be ok within an hour, but she said I had to be out by 3p. She wouldn’t let me pay for another day, even with a credit card, she said I had to pay for the week. I said the agreement I had made with them on the phone was to pay for two nights and then pay for a whole month, for this month and then May, until my apartment was available. She said I had to pay for the week. I said I could pay her cash or use a credit card for one more night and then she’d have over a thousand dollars for me to stay the month, and she wouldn’t budge, she said get out by 3p. Now, this was particularly hurtful and aggravating, because I had explained my predicament to her on the phone, and she knew I was escaping a bad situation. Before walking out the door I said “Just remember, lady, Karma is a castrating bitch.”

SO then I’m freaking out, because now, not only am I dealing with the bank glitch, but having to load the Cherryot AGAIN, with no place to go afterward. I’m not good at feeling helpless or trapped, and this was exactly that situation, in spades.

At Justi’s counsel, I called the Apartments office to see if they had a different apartment that would be available NOW, and if not, a month to month one until the other one was ready. If not, where would they suggest I stay? I was trying to go to the bank while talking to Justi and got so disoriented, I didn’t know where I was. Took me 10 minutes to get the map to make sense on my phone. All the while I’m chanting, I am stronger that her (D), I will get through this. I will be okay. And then I was angry that I was dealing with all this because of her, and for the first time in my life, I used that word I hate so much. I shouted, “She is such a cunt!”

Then I had to pull over and take a deep breath, because I was losing it and I had to keep control in order to get myself out of this situation. I continued to chant I’m okay…I’m strong enough to deal with this, it’s just temporary, I’m okay…

I went to the bank, and they were so nice. They did a credit memo, based on my direct deposit, and made $2000 available to me, in cash. I’m standing there at the counter at the bank, tears streaming down my face, my body throbbing, my knee killing me, desperately needing a drink of water, food and some sleep. I redeposited enough cash to cover the 200 dollar security fee, and $20 application fee I wrote temporary checks for at the Apartments, plus some fees for the cashier’s check. Traded out the other cash for that. I kept hearing that song in my head by Billy Pilgrim: Got my own falling-apart-ment….

SO I left with a sealed envelope of $2000 and felt slightly better. Except for the possibility of being mugged. That would have been the first horseman of the Apocalypse. I tried not to think about it. At least I had money. I’d be very careful. I also had the $300 from pawning my guitar–which i was loath to do, as it is beloved, and a symbol of happier days when i was playing and singing with my band in front of a receptive audience… But strangely, having cash is not always helpful these days. Most people won’t take it. And temporary checks are shunned. And I didn’t have a debit card yet to get to my funds that way.

As it turned out, with the apartments, I didn’t even have to go to the second choice of a month to month or third choice of asking them to refer me elsewhere, because they had an apartment. It was a 2br,  with a private garage – it cost more of course, but just as Justi said, I make more now and can afford it. Plus when I get my storage, I’ll have an extra $135 from not paying that; and my Cherryot pays off in May, so starting in June, that will be an additional $330 per month I’ll have. I was relieved, though still shaky and skeptical…

I spoke with Shelia (had spoken to Kayla earlier too) they all knew the story of what had happened. When I got to the Apartment office, Kayla came out of the far office with her arms wide, saying “You poor thing! Come here, you need a hug~!” and she gave me a big hug. It almost made me cry. She said not to worry, I was home now, and everything would be okay. That also nearly made me cry, because it did feel like home. All the things home is supposed to feel–safe, pleasant, convenient, with supportive people around you.

Before any business was done, Shelia came over to sit with us and the two asked me details of what happened. I talked about more of what I’d been through and details about D’s arrest and that night when she threw the gun in koi pond. They were both rapt. It was like sitting with two old friends. They know I’m gay and they don’t care. They were supportive and encouraging. It felt so good and went a long way to relieve my stress. I said I would be writing all about it.  Kayla said I ought to do a memoir about it. I said I already have a memoir about events 10-14 years ago; I had hoped never to have this kind of thing to write about again, at least not if it was nonfiction, and happening to me; but this is another kind of drama that would work as a memoir, yes. Or I could just make it fiction. They both said they would LOVE to read it.

Kayla rushed through the application process. When I went out to get my banking information, I grabbed the new final proof for Achilles Forjan and gave it to Kayla. She was genuinely thrilled and said she couldn’t wait to read it.

So then, I went back to the bank to get a cashier’s check, and re-deposit the 200 and 20 to cover the temp checks I wrote for security deposit and app fee, and trade off cash for cashier’s check. Always nice to be recognized and waved over to a clerk at your bank–but I wish it wasn’t because I had been in there earlier in crisis mode.

All this, I did without a single Xanax.

I headed over to my new place, feeling relieved, stunned, exhausted and a little happy, all at the same time. I kept thinking, and miles to go before I sleep…

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June 20th, 2009 challenge, RELATIONSHIPS 4 Comments »

On the Heels of…



I had a marathon conversation last night with an ex from 10 years ago; and reconnected with her (Terra), via something she came across in my blog. The last half of the conversation created a feeling of great discomfort for me–both then, and this morning. My dreams were filled with people from the past, and anxiety tinted the start of my day.

I was aware that in this phone conversation, I had slipped back into old habits and patterns of response and emotion. Our conversation was triggering me like a pack of firecrackers. She is, at the moment, inextricably attached to so many painful memories. She is attached to that battle with the Government/VA, that pain, disability, depression, ostracization, helplessness, and sense of generalized abandonment. While I know she was not responsible for all of that, she was still attached to that time period, and there remains a strong association in that regard.

She has an association also with my first and second bands, and with the only woman who broke my heart; the one I was recovering from, when Terra came along. Terra gave me back that feeling that I was valuable and worth loving.

Last night, I didn’t even realize I still carried all that emotion from my life 10 years ago. The way I somehow became the villain, the scapegoat for everyone concerned. I thought I had healed and left it all behind. (These are the lies we tell ourselves). I guess I had merely buried it, ignored it and got on with my life as best I could. But you musn’t bury something that isn’t dead, or you run the risk of something along the lines of Pet Cemetery…specters raised from the dead to terrorize you. But how do you kill something without a MEANS of killing it? I never got closure in that situation. So I buried it alive.

A lot can happen to people in ten years. I had hoped that talking to Terra might allow me to reposition her in my life–not as that person a decade ago, but as someone familiar, yet new. Obviously, that’s going to be more challenging than I thought. I have a great deal more self-work to do when I get settled into my new life.

This re-connection came on the heels of recovering from the ruptured disc for 8 stressful and difficult weeks, much of which included the most excruciating pain I’ve ever had, being bed-bound, (while my computer crashed twice, by the way); coupled with this renewed realization of how truly isolated my life has become, and how there are few people for me to turn to, here. And nothing that interests me in the least. It all became vividly clear to me during this recovery period. I was even more resolved to move and start fresh. More convinced of my own brilliance in simply identifying the problem and taking steps to repair it, and reach for that happiness I have always so vehemently sought.

This reconnection with Terra also came on the heels of a series of betrayals by a few people in my life–who, in one way or another, showed themselves to be disingenuous, two-faced, and sometimes just plain mentally delusional or downright crazy. (I know most of my readers can relate). When Terra and I got on the topic of various social “Friends lists” I had such a caustic, strained and bitter response to it. No one REALLY has a hundred friends, I argued. That’s just a way for people to create some artificial self-confidence. They are only pictures. And very few actually understand the definition of what being a friend IS. One of those friends abandoned me in my greatest hour of need, after promising to be there for me in exchange for living here rent free. I had two relapses because I was forced to do things physically I should not have done, that she had promised to take care of. Not only was she a no-show, but she stopped calling for weeks, when I was in the middle of needing her help so desperately. And this person had done this sort of thing to me about 4 other times, and I had always forgiven and taken her back when she begged forgiveness and made new promises. So that was another trigger. Friends.

Terra’s mention of my previous bandmates, and other “musical people” topic in general, to include looking at professional photos on the Internet she had taken of them, also triggered me. I have always felt betrayed by them. After I was the one who did the bookings, the management, the publications and marketing, provided the van to carry the equipment, which was purchased on MY credit, and never got reimbursed or compensated for the wear and tear on, and gas for my vehicle, and also being the principal song writer…it was doubly hurtful to be pushed out of both bands. On top of performing with my ex (the one who broke my heart) and being mistreated and insulted by her at every turn…I had to walk away from something that was very much like a marriage to a person I was still in love with; while still being in love with that person still in the band. Now, I see these musical people from my past doing the music again, and enjoying that process and being respected, accepted and admired, and those feelings of betrayal and unfairness well up again. Why didn’t I get to have that? It wasn’t like I didn’t work hard enough for it.

This reconnection is also coming on the heels of a complete and utter dismantling of my own personal worldview, which has been a two year process of letting go of all I used to believe about the existence of a god and what my purpose was in this life. Until you have walked down that road, you have no idea how completely devastating it can be at first. I embraced my atheism, and of course found that the Bible Belt is a terrible place to do that. Especially if you’re also a lesbian. This (currently) 630 page book about it (“Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology”) was draining to write, but had to be done. Yet, facing my own personal truth with raw honesty also took its toll and I know that it will still be some time before I am completely at peace about it.

This reconnection with Terra also came on the heels of me finding myself isolated again, while those in my life moved, took other jobs elsewhere, found relationships, had children, and generally moved on with their lives, leaving me in the floodlights of waning purpose. Yes, I worked on my self and tried to be the most ethical and honest person i could be, even when it hurt like hell. Yes, I have written 13 books. And yes, I am proud of that. Yes, I recorded more songs and shared them, and yes, I created all kinds of art that was also something about which i was proud. But none of those things engaged me in a healthy interaction with other people on a daily basis. I kept exemplifying the definition of stupidity that I always counseled others about when they sought my advice: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I had moved from place to place, thinking that it would alleviate the broken parts of my life, and then finally it dawned on me. My mistake wasn’t in moving place to place, seeking the life I wanted, it was moving to the SAME types of places, in the same region, and expecting things to change.

I was saved only by the information from my best friend who had returned from Colorado to inform me that change had come to that area too, in the form of affordability and an even wider variety of experiences waiting to be had. And then I researched again and found that every single thing I was missing in my life, was to be had there. That’s when I gained another caveat about life: Just because you have made a decision previously, it does not mean it still applies now. Things change, people change, and you have to look at the facts all over again and see if that decision you made still applies. Fortunately, I discovered mine didn’t and this opened up other possibilities for me.

So I began the goal of relocating, and it has taken me a solid year to get within 6 weeks of actually getting out of here. Setback after setback, betrayals, disappointments, misfortune, new health issues, and loneliness all colored the fabric of that scratchy cloak, but I wore it. I wore it and I vowed I would be free of it as soon as humanly possible.

And after coming out of a process in which a neurologist told me I had no choice, I created a choice, and having proved that prediction wrong, I was hopeful again. Laughing. Feeling my real self emerging once more.

Then a blast from the past unearthed my tenuous bomb shelter. And I was reminded with as much shock and ferocity, that I never really did have a grip on all of it. I had merely chosen to ignore it until it appeared to move away.

But I’m not done. I refuse to let go of this dream. I will not let this be my life. I will create another one. Again. And while I am weary and struggling to keep my chin up, I’ll push through this obstacle too, because this pinpoint of light shining in a dark place is searing my eyes, and it’s all I have.



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December 9th, 2007 challenge No Comments »

Being Fully Human

Theodore Roosevelt once said:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

My sentiments exactly.

We all have a past. We all have things we have done, said, been–that we would have liked to be different. Yet, that is part of the human experience. Part of being fully human includes getting your hands dirty. We know and appreciate joy because we have experienced sorrow; we know and appreciate love because we have been familiar with fear and envy. We do not grow as humans until we live fully in the human experience, in all its wonder and agony and beauty and ugliness.

We cross paths with perhaps thousands of people in a lifetime, and who is to say how many of them are there to learn their own lessons by knowing you, or you, them? We can say that a person inflicted pain on us, or was our nemesis, wronged us, or in some way did us damage, yet perhaps this is the only way we could have learned what we needed to learn. We can indeed thank these people in our minds and hearts for bringing us valuable lessons (i.e., everyone can be a teacher) even though this is often hard to do, because if we blame someone else, we don’t have to take responsibility for ourselves.

It’s a real challenge to be okay when your past rears its head via the opinions from those who were alongside you during the journey; those who saw the dark side of your soul, the ones who might have felt the sting of your lessons, the pain of your anger or angst or confusion. It then becomes about forgiving yourself; and yet, why would we need to forgive something that is intrinsically part of the process and indeed the very reason we are here? While there is a precarious balance between personal accountability and accepting the inevitability of human foibles, this balance can be had, and is one we should strive for.

I have done so, and continue to do so, even amid my own frustration, confusion and misinterpretations. I am not the same person i was 10 years ago. If i was, it would indicate that i am not evolving. And i find that concept not only unacceptable but repulsive.

I am not merely a human being, but a human, BEING.

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