One Toe At A Time...

Soooo.

Here I am. This feels so strange, does not feel familiar or easy. And THAT is what feels strange, I think. I have been blogging (of sorts) for years, writing to (and for) myself for most of my life. It has always been easier for me to write it than say it; I'm more concise, more articulate.

And yet, here I am. I just don't seem to have the desire for it anymore. That is so very weird. So very different. Even in my darkest days, even in the depths of this stupid, ongoing depression, I always wanted to let it spill out here. All the rage, the grief, the blackest of moods, the happiest of times, the thoughts, the ponderings....they all made it on here. It's not like I don't have any of those any more; I do and I "write" them in my mind every night when I am trying to sleep and my brain just will not stop. I "write" them every day when my mind fills up with them, between times of forced verbal and physical interaction with other people.

But that's as far as it gets. I don't feel the need or the desire to get out of bed and blog and I don't feel the need or desire to come home from work and blog. I don't feel the need or desire to blog.

I still read other blogs. I read a lot of other blogs. Some of my old favorites and many new. I've been reading a bunch of decorating blogs because some day, I need to do something with my humble little abode and make it a home. And other blogs I stumble on some how and keep reading for some reason or another.

Do I miss blogging? Well, yes. I miss it in the same way I miss cleaning my house or taking regular showers (depression: it ain't pretty) or coloring the gray in my hair or wearing makeup (really. it's not pretty) or spending more time outside of my home than in it. I miss all of these things in a slightly disinterested, abstract way. I am trying to bring all those things back to "normal" - including blogging. I feel like I am going into a cycle where that may be possible. I hope so.

So, yeah. One toe at a time, this process. I don't want to let go of this blog and that's a good thing, I think. I want to clean my house on a regular schedule and that's a good thing. I want to take better care of myself and get out more and gather up those relationships I've let slide and that's a good thing.

Consider this a dip of the toe. Total immersion of the toe might take awhile, but I figure the foot will soon follow.

Or I'll lose the toe to frostbite. It could go either way, man.

TAP TAP TAP

wonder if this thing still works?

i don't know, it's awfully dusty in here.

i'm coming back.

it's time to get my house and my blog in order.

famous last words?

JOKERS TO THE LEFT OF ME, CLOWNS TO THE RIGHT

****okay, I wrote this around 5am when I couldn't sleep and all this came spewing out. I didn't post it then, just saved it. However, after reading it through tonight, I realize this really is how I feel so I decided to go ahead and post. All I can say is,, at least I "act" nicer in public.****

Hello, anyone out there? Ha, I just realized if I had typed "is there anybody out there?" I would have had two lines from two different song lyrics. Oh well, it was interesting to me.

So, yeah, I'm still here. Thanks for all of your messages and emails. I have not blogged in so long because I just haven't felt like it. The urge to write (type?) wasn't there and when it was I wanted to write about Chad and yet I don't always want to be writing about Chad and doing the whole "woe is me and I miss Chad so much, boo hoo hoo" bit. It gets old, I know. I live it, I know it, trust me.

Having said that, woe IS me, I do STILL miss Chad so much all the time I ache from it and I CONTINUE to do my fair share of boo hooing. So here it is, over 6 months later and nope, it's not any easier. I find it hard to comprehend how time continues without him. This is not helped by the insurance company insistence on fucking me at every turn by refusing to cover the anti-depressants my doctor prescribed. Any of them. They did, however, have helpful suggestions on the ones they would like me to try. Apparently, without me realizing it, they have actually met me, listened to me and feel completely comfortable with diagnosing and prescribing medicines for me. Perhaps this is possible; as spawns of Satan, they may have some special power that enables them to do this. I grew weary of that fight and now just take a twice daily dose of fuckitall. Seems to work about the same.

My health is horrible. From stroke eminent blood pressure (despite four, FOUR! medications) to teeth problems to skin issues to sleep disturbance (cause I can't) to intensified pains and aches to...well, you get the picture. Yes, I do hear that tiny violin playing and thank you, I believe I will have some cheese with my whine.

I find myself becoming increasingly more irritable. You know, the I want to really slap the shit out of people irritable. With that in mind, I'd like to give a shout out to the following:
*to the woman SITTING in the aisle at Wal-mart: really???
*to the parent in front of me at the store: you are an idiot. you are trying to REASON with a 3, 4, 5 year old CHILD. you seem to take their increased shrieking and howling as affirmation they understand you. you are wrong. i want to run over your head with your own grocery cart and give your kid the spanking he/she deserves. yes, a spanking. this kid is beyond the point of negotiating and is ready to learn about consequences.
*to the sullen bank teller: maybe there's a reason why you give me such attitude. i don't know nor do i care. whatever shit story of life you've got brewing, i'm pretty sure i can top it. please increase your speed from sloth to turtle.
*to myself: why are you watching shows like "i'm a celebrity, get me out of here!"? these people are not celebrities, they are train wrecks of humanity. turn the tv off and walk away. now.
*to my next door neighbor's mom: i can not believe you continued to put poisonous insecticide on your daughter's plants after i told you my dog has to walk right by there. the outlook is not good for the plants.

So, that's what's going on here. I keep on keeping on. I've been spending more time on Facebook because I find it easier to write a one line status "report" than a blog post. (Also, it's easier to pretend on there.) I still read my regular blogs (but rarely comment, sorry). I am toying with the idea of starting a new blog, where I review books I've read - just for me, not for pay although that would be cool.

I expect I'll get around to posting more sometime. Perhaps when I'm less irritable, hmm?

CONNECT THE DOTS

I have an old friend, Glinda.

I met Glinda when she was the girlfriend of one of my brothers and he brought her home to meet us. Although both he and Glinda lived in the south at that time, it turned out Glinda was born and raised in this general area. Connect One.

We got along well during that visit, Glinda and I, so when several months later I moved south (the beginning of the period I refer to AS THE TIME I RESIDED IN ANOTHER STATE), Glinda and I became roommates.

During our time as roommates, we learned that her stepfather had lived one street over from me while I was growing up. Connect Two. I knew both of his sons well and in fact, his youngest son could conceivably be called my first "boyfriend" as we liked to sneak off on our bikes to the dam and practice kissing. Connect Three.

I also learned her stepbrother from her father's remarriage was a good friend of mine from school. Connect Four. And his brother had married the sister of my best friend from childhood. Connect Five.

She had an aunt who lived behind the house we moved to when I was fourteen. Connect Six. The aunt's daughter, Glinda's cousin, came to visit us and I discovered through a conversation with her, I knew her uncle Roy - although I knew him as "Moose". Moose's house is where I ended up, drunk and puking, after leaving my high school graduation party. Connect Seven.

I found out her dad was from an area of Kentucky where one of my (many) aunts & uncles lived and one cousin still resides there.
Connect Eight.

Glinda and I parted ways as roommates but continued our friendship until I left the south and returned here to hell - err, Ohio.

I got in touch with her a few years later when her young and only son was killed in a car wreck caused by a drunk teenager. I'm sorry to say we lost touch again after that although I thought of her often. Many times I tried to locate her via the internet with no luck.

Fast forward twelve years to last week. I had been thinking about Glinda a lot. Seriously, A LOT. I tried the internet again and again, no success. Since I couldn't find anything on her, I began looking under her husband's name and finally found something on them.

It was her husband's obitiuary. He died last October 4th. My heart broke for her.

I managed through the information in the obitiuary to locate one of her nephews on Facebook (they don't call me Nancy Drew for nothing) and sent him a message asking for help getting in touch with Glinda. He very promptly replied with the information.

We spent over 4 hours on the phone Saturday night, Glinda and I.
Glinda had looked for me on the internet and had actually called me in early November on my home phone. Connect Nine. Unfortunately, my phone was answered by Chad, who pretended to not hear her and then, when she persisted, hung up on her. I had instructed him in this behavior since I don't use my home phone and let's just say, I figure anyone calling that number for me is probably no one I want to talk to. He may have carried it a little too far, in hindsight.

It was wonderful to talk with her again. Since she had recently and suddenly lost her husband of many years (her soulmate) and I had recently and suddenly lost Chad (my soulmate), Connect Ten, we were able to talk with each other about things NO ONE else can relate to. It helped us both, in ways you can't imagine.

I also found out the home I recently purchased is one cul de sac away from the home she lived in with her father many years ago after her parents divorce. Connect Eleven.

She and her husband, after their son's death, became foster parents to 119 children. How awesome is that?? They also adopted four of those children, two of which live still live at home. How wonderful is that? And just so Glinda; she was born to be a mom.

When Glinda asked what I did for a living and I explained I work as job coach for people with mental retardation/developmental disabilities (MR/DD); she told me that many of her foster children were special needs kids, including some of her adopted children. Connect Twelve.

While we were talking about how strong the feelings were for me to find her last week, she told me it had been a really bad week for her - paying off her husband's funeral, ordering the headstone, taking care of financial things she had been putting off. We both think this is why I felt the need to find her. Connect Thirteen.

It was good, good, good to talk with her again. We both laughed more than either had in months (since the death of her husband for her and the death of Chad for me). I really feel we will keep in touch this time, through phone calls, emails and such. In fact, I am hoping to visit her soon, since she now lives about 3 hours away....in Kentucky. Connect Fourteen.

Six degrees has nothing on us - take that, Kevin Bacon!

**sometimes, we forget. what a small world it really is and how interwined our lives are with so many others. i think it's wonderful, really. i'd love to hear other stories of connections like this - if you have one, share!***

THREE OF HEARTS

For the most part, I am a somewhat cynical person. I like to think of it as just being really, really realistic - but some days even I am hard pressed to deny the cynic in me. Still, the world is not black and white and for every cynic there must be a believer.

Sometimes, they are one and the same.

Awhile back, I had a post where I mentioned finding a heart shaped rock at the cemetery where Chad is interred in a small outside building (his mother couldn't bear to bury him in the ground). Long story short, I had asked for a sign, looked down and found this heart shaped stone. I took it home.






I believed it meant...something; but I didn't go looking for another on any visits since then.

Until yesterday. It was nice and warm (for a change) and Chad had been filling my mind the last few days, so out to the cemetery I went. I carried a birthday card (wrapped in a plastic baggie) to leave with him since I wasn't able to go on his actual birthday. I talked to him for awhile (as I do) and cried for awhile (as I do) and talked and cried some more. I felt close to him out there yesterday, often I don't. But I was feeling Chad and so I sat in front of him for awhile, thinking and remembering.

At some point, I said out loud, so, do you have a heart for me today? I was half joking, but I looked down at the rocks beneath him. I didn't see any heart shaped rocks, but one rock caught my eye. I picked it up and said this is pretty but it's not a heart. Then I looked down and underneath the rock I picked up was this one.







And you know, something happened. I could see his face clearly in my mind and he was smiling. I smiled back and said well, it's a kind of tiny, but I suppose there's a heart shape to it - I guess I'll take it. In my mind, he rolled his eyes at me and I said, don't you roll your eyes at me and I smiled again.

There had been a few wind gusts while I was sitting and talking to him and right then came another, stronger one so I got up off the ground. (There is straw all over the surrounding ground area around his building and the next one; each time the wind gusted, it would blow all over me). I got up and turned around and this is what I saw.







My mouth literally dropped open and I turned around to look at where he is. Again, I got a flash of him in my head and he was smiling and laughing. I couldn't help it - I laughed too. I said, okay baby, now that one works!

Love is a wondrous thing.

Is it any wonder I love and miss this man so much?




(by the way, i am sure this heart shape was not there minutes earlier, since I had stood right there looking out at the little pond in front of him and commented on what a desolate spot it is (it is!! i will never understand why his mom likes it there) because i am cheerful and positive like that. also, i walked right next to that area to check on a wind chime i had put in a little tree on the left the last time i was out.)

I don't know that I feel peace, exactly. But I feel LOVE, I feel Chad's love and I can still "see" his smile and hear his laugh and I've been smiling too.

I hope his next trick involves helping me fall asleep at night. I have been up for 18 1/2 hours.