Moving On

Today Mike and I officially and for always broke up. It is time to move on. How?

This has not been a good month for my family. My youngest daughter is fighting for custody of her oldest son. She is fighting a man who has not been in my grandson's life for twelve and one-half years. My grandson just turned thirteen. She is fighting a man that spent seven years in prison for statutory rape of a thirteen year-old girl. My daughter was fourteen when she got pregnant. She is beside herself with grief and fear that this man, this registered sex offender, will get partial custody or visitation with her son. At the same time her second son, ten years old, has just been diagnosed with scoliosis; her five year old daughter has an appointment with a cardiologist; the four year old has severe food allergies; and the baby, six months old, has craniosynostosis, a condition in which the soft spot closes too early. Her older sister, my second child, just found out that her husband of fourteen years has been "inappropriate" with two of her three daughters. He was arrested a week ago and will have his preliminary court hearing next week. Lives disrupted, innocence cheated, dreams shattered. Then there is my oldest daughter's half sister (from a different mother) who is twenty-eight and has just been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Reality bites and bites hard. But, life goes on. You do what you can to make it through each day, to maintain a sense of the positive and to forge ahead despite the urge to pull the covers over you head and sleep the pain away. My daughters are strong women, stronger than they know, and they will come out of these trials stronger, and they will protect and love their children through whatever comes.

Friends

I have just realized that I have no friends. I have my grown children; but no friends. In my past, I would go out for a drink after work with one or two work associates or with one of my sisters-in-law, but, no friends. How can it be that I have lived fifty-five years and I am friendless. Oh, on her birthday and at Christmas I send a card to the woman that was my best friend in high school and a few years thereafter;but, that is it and we do not talk or email the rest of the year. I would like a friend. Someone to chat with, to tell things to; someone I don't have to fear will repeat my tails of splendor and woe. Someone to take long walks with on a sunny day or go to a movie with. The last movie I saw in a theatre was "Julie and Julia," and that was with my son, and it was at least five years ago. Are there others like me who wish for a friend and don't know the first thing about obtaining one, let alone keeping one?

Last weekend was spent in the nation's capital, Washington DC. Driving into DC, seeing the Washington Monument come into view, and knowing that I would soon see the seat of our government and all the wonders of such places as the Smithsonian and the National Mall I was nauseous and at the same time overjoyed with anticipation and expectation. These are but a few of the photos from the day. What a glorious city, what a colored history, full of triumph and defeat, honor and shame. God Bless America.

So, jail is and isn't like what you see on television or in the movies. In 2006, I had the pleasure of being locked up in South Lake Tahoe, El Dorado County, California and the displeasure of being locked up in Yerington, Lyons County, Nevada. In the Tahoe jail I made friends and worked in the laundry. There was a sense of camaraderie I didn't expect but came to appreciate and was grateful for. Having never been in trouble before and certainly never in jail before I did not know what to expect and was frightful going in. But, I soon lost my fear and became integrated into the life of the women's pod. I must give a shout out to the COs (correctional officers) of El Dorado County because though they took their jobs seriously they did not treat the inmates with contempt or disrespect. I applied for and was given a job in the laundry which made my five months there fly by. I worked from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm six days a week. With a job there are privileges, such as, a private cell, an extra mattress, pillow, and blanket, and regular coffee while working. We were also given food stuff and sundries without having to purchase them and we were able to watch television and listen to the radio. Of course, jail meant orange suits, cavity searches, and hand and ankle cuffs but these were tolerable in El Dorado County. Lyon County Jail was a different story. From the minute the transport officer arrived till the time I was released there was nothing redeeming about Lyon County Jail. The cavity search was demeaning and black and white uniform, three sizes too big and raggedy, made one feel like a member of a chain gang. The COs were verbally abusive. The female pod was small and packed with inmates sleeping in the day room on pads once the bunks were full. An inmate was not allowed to speak until spoken too and had to face the wall when a CO was in the pod. The COs were all men and sexually harrassed the female inmates. One day an inmate asked if it were snowing outside and the CO said "no, but it can snow inside." Then he, and two other COs, brought in cans of Comet Cleanser and covered everything, and I mean everything, with a thick layer of white cleanser. We then had to clean it up. It took hours to clean and in that time we were not allowed to rest or have anything to eat or drink. The women incarcerated with me in Lyon County were not the same temperament that I had met in El Dorado County. They were harder and less apt to accept a new person into the fold. I stayed in my cell the majority of the time and read. Though I spent only two months in Lyon County it seemed longer than my time in El Dorado. It was during my time in jail that Mike relapsed for the first time and so I didn't see him or talk to him often. My only visitor, other than Mike, in El Dorado was my second daughter who visited once. In Lyon County I had no visitors and the only person I talked to was my son. I did correspond by mail to my family outside and am grateful for all the support I received. Though I am regretful of my actions that led to my incarceration I am grateful for the experience and for the psychiatric help I received inside. I was put back on meds and my mania was managed. It was inside El Dorado Jail that I made my first contact with the therapist that I would see for the next six months and she was wonderful in helping me to come to terms with what had happen. I was put on probation and part of probation was participating in the Behavior Health Court program. This program was designed for offenders with mental health issues and monitors the progress of those in the program as they transition back into their regular lives. My time in the program was invaluable as I came out of jail without a job, close to losing my apartment, and into a relationship with Mike who was fully in his meth and alcohol addiction. The time since then has been filled with ups and downs and I am still trying to find a way to be at peace with myself. This is what this blog is about, my finding peace with myself again, my forgiving myself, and my finding a place to call home.

Truth

In 2006, I spent five months in jail. Flashback to 2003, my mother in the hospital in Carson City and me living in Belmont, California with my husband and working at a job, as an alcohol and drug counselor, that I loved. But, I loved my mother more. I quit my job, took a job in South Lake Tahoe for much less money in order to be close to my mother. My husband stayed behind to ready the house for sale. Just as things began to come together to make the transition easy my mother passed on. My beloved mother, my hero, died. My husband was still in Belmont. I was in Carson City staying with my sister, a late stage alcoholic who my husband had lately spent a month helping out because she had fallen and broken a hip. Now I was staying with her. Not easy. In the next couple of months I would take her to the hospital to detox twice and try without success to get her into rehab. My husband finished the house and put it on the market then joined me in Carson City. We found our own place and for several weeks things seemed to be going in the right direction. Then the bottom fell out when I discovered that he has relapsed. I found myself intimately involved with two active alcoholics, both of whom were abusive--my sister emotionally and verbally, my husband emotionally, verbally, and physically. So much had been happening in my life, so many changes and losses and I had began to cycle manically. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar II several years before but with my life running semi-smoothly I had stopped my medications and now without them I found myself either running higher than a kite or falling into hopeless depression. The cycling was erratic and cruel and after a failed suicide attempt I left my husband and without options went to stay with my sister again. From the frying pan into the fire is how things went. My sister was drinking more than ever and arriving home from work after a day of treating alcoholics and drug addicts I would then have to deal with her. Twice I had to take her into the hospital to detox and the one time that I managed to convince her to enter a rehab she spent one night there and then left because they wouldn't let her keep her makeup. When I couldn't handle the situation anymore I found a weekly motel in South Lake Tahoe and eventually an apartment. It made more sense to be on my own and closer to work. But my sister's condition only declined and no one else was willing to help her. I made welfare checks by telephone on a daily basis and went over the hill once a week to make sure she was alive and well. Then the day came when I arrived at her home to find the police and an ambulance there. She had gotten drunk and was running naked around her backyard. The neighbors called the police and the police called an ambulance. She went into the hospital, into intensive care, where they detoxed her. She was in ICU for a week. She refused another inpatient rehab so I offered to help her find an outpatient clinic. She stayed sober two weeks before I got a call from her that she had fallen again. She didn't think it was serious but I drove over the hill to check on her and found her lying on the floor in her own waste unable to move. Again I called an ambulance. She had dislocated her shoulder and broken her hip again and once more she needed to be medically detoxed. For me things were going from bad to worse. I began traveling back and forth from South Lake Tahoe to Carson City twice a day to maintain her house and her pets during the six week period she spent in first the hospital then the rehabilitation clinic. Once she left the clinic I would take her to physical therapy three days a week before going to work. At this same time my youngest daughter lost a baby and spent a week in the hospital with a blood infection undergoing several blood transfusions. These were long days and trying times for me and I entered a prolonged manic phase. I couldn't sleep or eat. I lost thirty pounds in six weeks. And got myself into trouble. She had given me her gas card for traveling, her check book for household bills, and her credit card for household and pet supplies. In my manic state I began to shop during the night buying all kinds of things that I don't remember buying. I certainly don't have storerooms full of items purchased. My daughter tells me I would show up at odd times with groceries and household supplies. I bought tires for my sister's SUV just to buy them. I shopped at Walmart and bought ridiculous things I didn't need and didn't keep. I was spending $50.00 a day on gas traveling back and forth from South Lake Tahoe and Carson City. Then one day I crashed. I entered a depression that wouldn't go away. I wrote a note to my sister telling her what I had done, I drove to the Sheriff's department and told them what I did. I quit my counseling job and took a room service job in a Tahoe casino-hotel because I didn't feel worthy of my work anymore. And I waited for the s**t to hit the fan. Police showed up at my door, handcuffed me, and took me to jail. I was bailed out later that night but the snowball was rolling and nothing would be the same again. The day before I was to go to court I rented a hotel room and attempted to asphyxiate myself. I had been researching suicide for weeks and was sure it would work. It didn't and so I took the stockpile of pills I had acquired and alcohol and went off to try again. I did not want to live. I did not want my children to look at me with disgust and disappointment. I had never been in trouble of any kind before and I didn't know how I would handle it. I just wanted to die, to leave before I could inflict anymore damage on those I loved. The pills and the alcohol didn't work. I woke up covered in my own vomit in my truck that was under three feet of snow. I gave up. Again. I drove into town and to my daughter's house. From there I called the police who picked me up and took me to the hospital. I was then transported to the county psychiatric hospital, where I stayed for two weeks, then off to jail (Later I will write about my jail experience). I am now a convicted felon. I have finished my probation and paid my restitution. I hold myself fully accountable for my actions and for the consequences of those actions. My life will never be the same. I can no longer do the work I once loved. My oldest daughter doesn't talk to me. I no longer associate with my siblings, or should I say they no longer associate with me. In fact, I just found out a few months ago that my sister died in 2008. I can understand why no one let me know but not why they didn't let my children know. Today I am trying to put my life back together. While I was in jail I saw a psychiatrist and went back on my meds. When I got out I began what would be three years of therapy. I am still on my meds. I still think about dying every day but I won't act on those thoughts again. I saw the sadness, the heartbreak, my suicide attempts caused my children and I can't bear to cause them any more pain. My life is not where I want it to be but life is a process I am willing to work on. Writing this down is part of that process. I haven't told anyone outside my children and my therapist my story. I don't know what tomorrow will bring but it can't be any worse than yesterday and someday I will find my way home. Someday I will be able to hold my head up again. Someday I will like myself again.

mike

Mike and I were together seven years. There were some very good times in the beginning and scattered through the not so good times but in the end the not so good times won. It is so like the song "When Love Goes Wrong" sung by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Here is a link to that song: http://www.metrolyrics.com/when-love-goes-wrong-lyrics-marilyn-monroe.html The blues, they hit you hard when love doesn't go right and you wonder which direction you should take. Do you continue on the way you are going in an atmosphere of ever increasing tension waiting for love to turn to hate or do you decide to go you own way, to leave your lover behind and perhaps preserving at least in memory the love you once shared?
Mike and I had different priorities at the end. His was with his father in Idaho, spending some time with a father he hasn't known for the past twenty years. Good for him. I would give anything for another day with my parents. My priorities are also rooted in family but they are also rooted in self. I would like to find a way back to myself. At the start of this blog I wrote that I was in search of a home and this is still true. The difference today is that I am in search of a home that I have realized is within and now I need to find a way to define that home within. I do want to find a physical home as well but finding my spiritual home is even more important and is one that I must navigate myself. My family, my children and grandchildren, may serve as buoys along the way but it is my boat to keep afloat.

west virginia

I arrived in West Virginia two nights ago. I am here visiting my son and his family. My two granddaughters here are as gorgeous and delightful as ever and my daughter-in-law is ravishing. The flight out here from Reno, Nevada was not without its trials and tribulations but I made it and for that I am grateful. I am here for a month and then will return to Reno for my oldest grandson's thirteen birthday.
While I am here I hope to see more of West Virginia then in previous visits. Madison, where my son lives, is a small town but not without it's splendor. I hope to visit the town hall and the library. I love libraries, large and small. I am an avid reader and just love the smell of books, old and new, and the welcoming sound of a turning page. No Kindle for me, I want to feel the page and hear the crackle of paper. My son will be taking a week off from work so that we can take a weekend trip to tour the New River Gorge Bridge.
In the past I haven't posted as often as I would have liked but I hope to be consistent this time. I do hope I have a reader or two out there. I am hoping for some feedback.

Introducing

Willow Eliana Odean D. came home today. She entered this world on Fri., April 15, 2011 at 9.2 pounds and 19 1/2 inches. She is gorgeous.

Happy Birthday Bret

Today is my brother Bret's birthday. He would have been 53 years old today. He has been gone since 1995 and not a day goes by that I don't think of him and wish he were here still. My brother Bret and I were everything for each other for so very long. Nobody knew us like we knew each other. We were best friends, kindred spirits. Now he is gone and I wish so many times that if one of us had to go and leave the other I would be the one to go. He was a much finer person than I could ever hope to be. I miss him every day.

Moving In

Five days in our new place now. No furniture yet; will rent a truck and empty storage next week. Three bedrooms, two baths. Not huge but big enough for now. Carson City, Nevada is where we will call home for at least the next year. It is my hope that my daughter and her family stay here, in Carson City, while the kids attend school. These kids have been uprooted enough.
Today we got library cards and stocked up on books to read while the weather is still rather cool. Tomorrow we shop for some needed household items and go for haircuts. Then perhaps a drive up to Tahoe.

Today

It has been a month now since I returned from West Virginia. I miss my son and his family. I miss the smell of the sweet baby. I miss taking Mags, a beautiful 3year old Golden Retriever, out for her snowy romps. It has been raining off and on here since I returned. It is that time of year where winter is transitioning into spring. The days are warm enough to go without a coat but the early mornings still call for an extra blanket.

I am not sleeping well. I go into read about 10:00 pm then say my prayers before I doze off. But, I am awake again by 2:00 am and watch the clock turn till it is a decent time to get up and start coffee. I then sit quietly in a chair and read waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. I sleep on the floor in a room with my three oldest grandsons who also sleep on the floor. My back aches and I have a constant crick in my neck. It isn’t ideal by any means but there is a roof over our heads and a lock on the door. I am grateful for this right now.

Mike is in Marin still, living in the RV on someone’s land. He calls when he knows my check has come. Then when he gets his he stops calling. The ties are loose and almost severed and soon we won’t talk at all. My daughter and her husband drove to Tahoe to pick up my cat and to look for a place to live. The man that Mike left Kohl with said he got out soon after Mike left him and he didn’t bother looking for him because he didn’t think anyone would come for him. When I talked to Mike about it he was unconcerned. Koln is three and one-half years old and my cat and I love him and he is gone. So now I grieve for not only all I have lost materially in the past few years but for my cat as well. He was under our protection and to Mike he was expendable. Not to me.

We may be moving into a place in Carson City, Nevada toward the end of this month. I so hope everything works in our favor and we will have our own place again. I am tired. I don’t know how much more I can manage. My mind is clouded. My emotions at the surface. I am tired. I have tried to get an appointment with a doctor for some new meds, antidepressants, but am still waiting for a call back.

juggling act

Co-dependents define themselves in terms of their relationships. “Family secrets. Guilt. Shame. Repressed anger. Low self-esteem. Compromising your own values to avoid another person's rejection or anger. Those are just a few red flags of codependence (Jeanie Davis, Goodhouskeeping.com/health).” I have lived in, through, and around co-dependent relationships for as long as I can remember. It takes so much energy, so much thought.

I am tired today. I am in Madison, West Virginia today visiting my son and his family. I am flying back to San Francisco tomorrow where a bevy of issues will confront me as soon as I land. My daughter, whom I love immensely, is pregnant with her seventh child. That’s right, I said seventh. How do I respond? It is not just her precarious health but their even more precarious financial situation. We are, after all, technically homeless. Then there is Mike. He called two days ago to tell me that the RV’s differential went out and he is stuck in Marin. Marin, where he didn’t need to be in the first place. So, what is it really? Is it the differential or is he coming down off a drug weekend or is it a bit of both? He called this morning. He wants to sell the RV before he has to spend more money; he is tired of the lifestyle. I don’t blame him for that I am too. It was much more fun in the beginning. Now it just means more loss. Financially, mentally, and emotionally. It is just another way of being homeless.

My son wants me to stay, to miss my flight on purpose. I don’t know what it is I want. Not today. But that isn’t altogether true. I want a place to call home. I want a place to put my books on a shelf, to cook my own food, to watch a Law & Order marathon and not feel guilty, to have my cat and my dog, and to plant a garden. I want to know that my children and their families are healthy, happy, and safe. I want the same for myself. And for Mike. I don’t know if I want to be with Mike as a couple but I do care about him.

I have looked at houses here around Charleston, West Virginia. I have even found several that I wouldn’t mind living in and that could actually be affordable for me. I will take the list with me and keep an eye on them and on my credit. And once I figure out the mess in California maybe I will be back. I have a bed here if I want it. I just don’t know how it would be for my son and his family. Having me here for a visit is one thing but having me stay on until I find a place of my own is another. I wouldn’t be visiting, but I wouldn’t be living here either.

Life is up in the air. My life is floating around me, a juggling act that I must learn to control rather than have it control me.

Snow

Today is a snow day for the children in Madison, West Virginia, and the neighboring cities and towns. There is an inch or possibly two on the ground outside. The calls announcing a snow day began soon after the first flakes began to fall last evening. Incredible. Having raised children in south Lake Tahoe, California where a snow day is called only if there were blizzard conditions during the night and there is at least a foot of snow still on the roads after the plows have gone through this Madison snow day is rather humorous. My son tells me that the snow will turn to ice in the bitter cold that accompanies it and then more snow will fall and that too will turn to ice. This causes many accidents. My humor dissolved remembering that last year my son was driving after a snowfall here and was in an accident. He didn’t anticipate the layer of ice that lay beneath the innocent looking layer of snow.

Madison, West Virginia is a small city of 2,500-3,000 people. For such a small town it has an impressive court house. That is where my son and his wife were married a year ago yesterday. Last night we went to dinner at the Peking Chinese restaurant in town, though really I think it was in Danville, the next town over. A small restaurant, we were one of two tables being served. The food was good, not excellent, but good and the company better. After dinner we left the restaurant, where outside it had started to rain, a rain that would turn into snow by the time we got back to the house. Outside the restaurant a border collie was wandering frantically around looking for his people. A young dog, with a collar, looking lost and confused, he was skittish around the few people who tried to reach him to read his tag and find him a way home. He reminded me of all the people out there in the cold weather, lost and confused, looking for a place to call home for the night.

What is it with people who revisit their childhood every time they feel left out or they get their feathers ruffled? Why does a 45-year-old man persist in arguing with three and four year olds? Or expect that the way that he was raised to be the final word in child rearing simply because it is the way he was raised when in fact he is always whining about the harsh way in which his mother raised him? He was made to salute, to tow the line, to be seen and not heard, and when he acted out the consequence was corporal punishment. Resentment and jealously fuel him in this regard. And frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn for his attitude, his behavior, in this matter.

Yes, Mike is back. He came back to the Bay last week from Tahoe. I am not sure how I feel about it at all. I don’t want to be in a “relationship” with him at this moment but I do care about him and wish him well. He does not have a family to go to; his mother is an unrelentingly cruel and uncaring bitch, and his father, the polar opposite of his mother, lives in the northern most part of Idaho and the weather makes the roads inhospitable for RV driving. Mike used to be such a patient and controlled man. Somewhere inside he still might be. But at the moment he is not. He is impatient, intolerant, irritable, angry, and bitter. I used to like being around him, he had a calming effect on me. But now I can only take so much then I want him to take a time out, sit in a corner, practice silence, and think about his actions. He doesn’t do this of course and so I am left with the desire for him to just go. There is too much anxiety, tension, stress, and worry in this group already without adding his stuff to the mix. But, he came to help drive the kids to school and pick them up in the afternoons while I am gone and if he can manage to do that and keep his head about him then he is welcome to stay. He loves the kids, would do anything for them, and has and does, and he saves his bad behavior for me, so hopefully all will go well in my absence.

I leave this post now with a hope and a prayer in my heart.

Leavin' on a jet plane

On Thursday, January 13, 2011, I am leaving for Madison, West Virginia to visit my son and his family and to welcome the birth of my new granddaughter. The baby, Noelle Olivia, is due January 26. The weather in Madison is frightful, cold, dry, harsh. Today the temperature is expected to reach 26 degrees. Since all of my winter clothes and boots are still in storage in Sacramento, I needed to find a few warm pieces of clothing to take with me and hoped that I could find a coat and a pair of boots. Toward this end, I went shopping at Ross, Macy's, and the thrift store. I found some jeans, a blouse, and a sweater-shawl at Ross; boots, a sweater, and slacks at Macy's; and a pair of slacks-with the tag still on-at the thrift store. I wasn't having much luck with a jacket until we spied a garage sale yesterday afternoon and found a down jacket, Jones New York, and talked the fellow down to $3. I could use a pair of gloves and possibly a hat but can do without them if I have to. I am ready to go.

2011

My wish on this New Year's day is to find a place to call home. Being homeless is hard, it is a constant struggle, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. As long as I was with Mike in the RV I felt safe, traveling from place to place, living in the moment. But then he relapsed and I was no longer safe and I we parted ways. Now, I am here with my daughter, her husband, and their six kids, sleeping on the floor of a friends house, trying in vain to be positive, checking rental lists everyday hoping to find something we can afford. As hard as I find it for myself it is so much harder for my daughter and her family. Her husband goes to work everyday hoping to make enough to pay for his transportation and to be able to put some away. The weather has made work harder to schedule but he keeps trying and taking whatever he can schedule. We drive the kids to school each morning and pick them up each afternoon because there is no school bus service in this district. I am flying to West Virginia in eleven days to visit my son and his family and to welcome the birth of his first child. I worry about when I am away from my daughter. I don't have a lot to offer her financially but I do try to support her and love her in any way I can. I pray every night that something happens to turn this around. 2010 was a year of struggles and I pray that in 2011 we can find a way to put those struggles behind us.