Talking Jibberish Until Meaning Arrives

 

 

**DISCLAIMER-Herein lies some mumbo jumbo contorted in ways I don’t fully understand. I didn’t until the end. Perfect example of how writing can help you therapeutically.

 

 

Have you ever had a song start at just the very moment that you didn’t need (NEEDED) to hear it? I know that we have touched on this before, at least as far as spirits are concerned, but this is life speaking. The universe smacking you in the face because you can’t (WON’T) see something that you have to in order to put everything right. I cry a lot, I do. Maybe it’s my passion or my over emotional nature. Maybe it’s because I see and feel everything that the people around me do. I absorb. Then when the time comes for me to deal with my shit, I am so stuck trying to wade through everyone else’s emotion that I have taken on, that I can’t find my own and it just brims over. Music speaks to me. I can’t play a chord but damned if it doesn’t. I pulled up Pandora before starting this and since doing so have heard 2 songs that I associate with people who are no longer with us and one of the songs that very much throws me into tears about myself. They have only played 4 songs so far. Oh look, #5 and it fits in, LOLz. Sometimes I feel crazy but I am not. Crazy people don’t think they are crazy. I have a gift. A gift that allows me to know that I have people I love with me right now, just hanging around. Presumably because of the surgery I just had and I wasn’t doing well with it. Without me saying anything to anyone, I have had at least 2 of these spirits confirmed by others who have been here to stay with me.

I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
And can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh oh I don’t know, oh I don’t know 

One of these spirits was with me this last weekend at my mom’s house. I saw and felt her there. I figured it was because of other people in the house and not me, but she came home with me. Maybe it is all entwined so that one gets lost in the other. Maybe they are all just waiting for my shit to be straight because they still worry. Grandma was always a bit of a worrier anyways and the day she lay in the hospital, physically with us but gone to grandpa already, I told her that I was okay. That she could go without worry. I was young, had just been hired permanently where I worked, had just bought my 1^st car and had just received my 1^st real credit card in the mail the day before. I was going to be okay so she need not worry anymore. I have proven anything but since. I am the black sheep, the dog chasing her tail until she decides to stop and focus. The brilliant slacker. The poor choice maker. The “it will all work out in my fairytale” skeptic. That is me. I often say that I am a human oxymoron. The “day-dreaming realist”, the “can’t trust anyone romantic”. I have completely veered off subject on this post. Doesn’t surprise me, it has been too long since I wrote anything here. Let’s try to get back on track a bit shall we? I am thinking after I get done ranting on this off course cruise ship that there should be a part 2 since the purpose of all this needs to stand alone, at least I feel it does.

The purpose of all this nonsense I suppose is to scream admission that I do not handle emotion well. Over absorbing from others, maybe, or maybe just lacking the ability to handle some of my own. I know that most of you have already noticed this but prefer to humor me that I am some strong all capable woman who carries everything so well. That is funny as hell…just saying. So to end my avoidance, let’s get down to business. The rest of this and part 2 shall be like walking a tightrope that I am not even sure I should be walking so the parts that need be shall be brief and needed as a part of my story. MY STORY. I do not wish to bring anyone else in to my story that need not be so please forgive me if I over step some boundary that you have laid out.

I spent last weekend at my mom’s house. I needed to take the boys there to see my stepdad (further referred to as my dad) because he is not well and nobody knows the “when” of when he will be “better”. The better of course refers to when he will no longer be in pain. His own kind of pain, which I do not know how physically painful it is but knowing him, the mental part is devastating. It was a long trip considering how short of a time frame it was and frustrating because I was thinking of my surgery when I got back. He is the reason that I thought I saw grandma there. I am not dealing well with all of this and I like to believe that it is because I am not there to bear witness to most of these things happening.  I know I am most likely wrong. I accept that if only internally. I wish many things like…I wish my boys knew more of his early life. I wish he didn’t have to be in pain or confused. I wish that I was but I am not ready to let go.  I wish that I could let you all in to help me but I can’t. Not even you mom and I don’t know why. I wish I knew why the bathroom light is now turned off when I specifically left it on so I wouldn’t be freaked out in the hallway…

My admission is this, the biggie that I just now realized and maybe it’s a break through. When grandpa left us, grandma followed…what if it happens again?

 

So lately, been wondering
Who will be there to take my place
When I’m gone, you’ll need love
To light the shadows on your face

If a greater wave shall fall
And fall upon us all
And between the sand and stone
Could you make it on your own?

If I could, then I would
I’ll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low
I’ll go wherever you will go

And maybe I’ll find out
A way to make it back someday
To watch you, to guide you
Through the darkest of your days

I know now, just quite how
My life and love might still go on
In your heart, in your mind
I’ll stay with you for all of time

**Insert intermission muzak here**

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LIFE IS WHAT YOU DO WHILE WAITING FOR DEATH

Waiting for the burn. Not any kind of “fun” burn but the burn as in “crash and burn”. You sit and wait. You feel it, really it has been here all along but you have managed to push it away over and over like pushing away someone trying to overpower you. This is different because there are no balls to kick, no throat to punch and no eyes to jab. It is what it is at that moment when you finally realize that you are an irritable bitch not because you are tired but because tired and bitch go together when the world crashes.  Your mind spins and races while nothing gets done. I believe they call this a “mixed state”. If you have never been here, on a regular basis, then you can’t understand, ever. I can’t even try to explain it to you as it is unfathomable in the “real” world. It is the middle meeting ground of mental illness. The place that makes you realize that death is real and near. Events as of late have helped to exacerbate the swing more than I know, at least that is what I think the head shrinker was trying to say in her lovable accent. I thought, really believed, that 2013 was it. It would be my year. A published story, a man that I was in love with that supposedly loved in return, the prospect of a life that has eluded me in recent years. Instead, I struggle to stay on task. Even the dishes have become my worst enemy in the last couple of days. I have been working on a painting. All work has ceased as of late, I realized today that I had been waiting for this moment of darkness to finish it. I sometimes wonder who, if anyone, in my family shares these genetics. I have a feeling some do but are afraid of what admission means to the genius that is them. I am a surprise, even to myself. A surprise wrapped up in a pretty bow.

Well Ain’t That a CoInky Dink?

What exactly is coincidence to you? Is it when you run in to that HOT guy that you have been thinking about all day? Not just run in to him but **BOOM** there he is, suddenly standing next to you in the most unlikely place. An all lesbian AA meeting perhaps? I mean, think about it- what are the odds? As a matter of fact, why are you here? You like men and drinks and having drinks with men and you are NOT about to give either up!

I don’t think that I believe in coincidence. Sometimes I question it all but for the most part I truly believe that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We just don’t understand the “whys” at the time. Lessons, good and bad must come to all of us and that karma bus just keeps driving around waiting for the next poor soul to jump under it. None of us mere humans know why the universe is going to throw these things our way and I think that so many of us just brush these things under the rug. I also love when we get to say fun stuff like, “oh, it’s just that new medication I am on, must be side effects” or “I am so tired that I am seeing and hearing things”. We all crave proof of something, anything, but we are too blind to see when it’s happening.

I hung out with an old friend tonight and we “wined” about her mom passing away last night. There were tears and lots of laughs, memories, wisdom, fear exposed and who knows what else because my exhausted brain can’t remember. I do know though that it was good shit and I wouldn’t change it for the world, just her and I hanging out for the most part. I miss her and don’t see her enough.

So would it be “coincidence” that on the way to see her, a song I hadn’t heard in ages came on the radio and with the greatest of ease, I said hi to her mom and mentally thanked her for coming along. I had only been half paying attention and really didn’t even realize what the song was until I said it. I thought it was odd because it didn’t seem to fit anywhere. During my visit, I learned of a dream she had had the night before, the night her mom passed and to me it was clear why I would feel and say that to that particular song. I don’t know if she feels it too but I don’t want to push.

Have you ever been thinking about someone you loved that died, maybe having a conversation, even questions and it seemed like everything that happened or you heard fit exactly in to that? I have many, many times. Even on New Year’s eve, it happened in the day and again at night, right before midnight. Then at midnight I received a text message from a woman who is very tied in with that person too. Almost creepy but I am coming to embrace it. It’s almost fun now. I mean who knows if it’s true but damn it is nice to think so sometimes. To feel like “the other side” is reaching out to you as much as you want to them.

I know that there are many things that we don’t understand and are curious about. I believe most people have faith in what they choose to believe but there has to be a small piece of doubt somewhere, right? Finding the truth is an individual journey that can lead you straight to crazy if you let it, but wouldn’t it be so worth the straight jacket if you KNEW in the end? I have had way too many “coincidences” happen to me and I have denied them, I don’t anymore and I can see people look at me with concern sometimes! Haha.

I love trying to grasp the supernatural and it’s coincidences. Now it’s more the regular life coincidence that throws me off! 

We Will Always Be the Angry Pumpkins Out of Control

Sis on (L) Stef on (R) and me in front. Probably about 1986.

Here I sit, FINALLY, ready to blog you out. I want to be fun; I am fun 2/3 of the time. When I am fun, I am funny. I have not been too much fun lately. I wanted to write fun, and then I wanted to write real. What you hopefully are going to get is understanding. I am Dorothy; I live on the outskirts of Kansas with my little pug Eyeore because I never made it back home after that tornado hit.

Last year, I thought I had come home but this year it is apparent to me that I haven’t yet. Maybe a bit closer but not quite there. Many of you know the story I shall tell but how many actually realize how much it affects me? I was just talking with a good friend and it seems we may be in agreement as to the how and whys. I am not searching for your sympathy, I am searching for a way to release my soul and writing it once instead of verbalizing it may be the way. This is the story of my October.

October has always been a bit of a full month in my family as we have many birthdays…aunts, uncles, cousins but a couple of decades ago it turned from all joy to sorrow. At the end of September 1992, nine days after their 50th wedding anniversary, my grandfather, Frank, died from cancer. Four weeks to the day later, on the night of my mother’s birthday, my grandmother, Pearl, was pronounced brain dead from an aneurysm. They say that you can’t die from a broken heart, they are wrong. I was extremely close to my grandparents, we were friends. They were life in many ways. I was 20 years old. I have missed them more than I could ever describe to you. I look at my oldest son and I can see my grandfather. The eyebrows, the eyes, the shape of his face. Life goes on and it has become easier over the years to just live day to day without wallowing in it. This year marks 20 years that they have been gone, I miss them but I thought I would feel a greater sadness, instead I got together with a couple of cousins and my aunt and we laughed and remembered at the cemetery, it was the first time I hadn’t cried there and it was nice. I think I realized that my grandparents know how much I love them, I was able to say these things to them prior to their passing and they were able to say them back to me, I will hold on to those words forever. They are a part of my memories.

So why do I sit here on the morning of October 20th, feeling like I do? Tears streaming down my face, snot sniffling in my nose? It goes back to the year before my grandparents died, to the reason I believe I was able to make it through what happened with them. It goes back to my friend Stef.

Shortly after midnight on October 20, 1991, the young woman that had been my best friend, soul mate like, died in a car accident on a road with virtually no lighting or houses, on the corner of 2 cross streets where there still lies a field of nothing. Nothing except the thought of what happened that night. The thought of the sounds and lights, the aftermath, the stories from those who came across the scene. When she died, we were just starting to bounce back from a little trip to outsville because of untruths told by someone else, but whatever, teenagers are stupid right? How could this be? She was beautiful, intelligent, funny, and sociable; everyone loved her, I LOVED HER. We had fun; we were virtually inseparable for years. We would do stupid things like write letters to each other and then pass them across the room to read them, just because we didn’t feel like talking at the time. I still have one, the only one I saved and funny enough, the date on it is October 20th, probably 4 years before she died. I have lots of things still, I have the newspaper article, the obituary, the leaflet from her viewing, the dress of hers that I wore to the 8th grade dance, I have Harry the hand puppet that at one point we took everywhere with us (please don’t ask why). I have so many memories and so many things I can’t remember (again, don’t ask why, LOL).

What I don’t have is any closure. I thought I had obtained it last year when I started therapy on the 20th anniversary of her death. I felt weights lifted and I still do a little. For two decades I would literally have anxiety attacks when people I loved left my side be it in a car, vacation, walking, didn’t matter. I couldn’t breathe, I would cry uncontrollably. I just knew that they were never coming back, I would never get to say goodbye or I love you. I sometimes still do with my kids but it’s much milder now but still, here I sit, feeling like this. Why? I don’t want to. It doesn’t feel nice, I certainly don’t need more drama in my life but I can’t seem to let it go. I feel like a crazy lady, I feel stupid, repressed. Cuz J and I went to talk to a medium that our friend knows, back in February of this year. I am a believer and Cuz J is a skeptic. Most of the session was jumbled together until the very end when we were wrapping it up and Stef stepped forward. Now you can believe or not believe but I am here to tell you that IT WAS Stef, I guarantee it and I think even Cuz J was amazed by it. This woman told me things that nobody could have known and if I could transcribe it here for you, I would, maybe I will someday because I do have it on CD. She told me she was happy and okay and that she loved me and was with me (the condensed version) and she did offer up a few things to validate that it was indeed her, including the pumpkins, which is where my name stems from. When we were much younger, Stef, Cuz J, his bestie RJ-my pseudo hubby and I went out on the town. We ended up hanging out at Mira Lynn Park and back in those days they had a big Cinderella pumpkin carriage that rocked like you were riding in it. We decided (for whatever reason) that we were forming a band and even did a photo shoot (fake of course, no camera phones back then) for our album cover. Our band was christened “ANGRY PUMPKINS OUT OF CONTROL” and that is who we remain. Stef brought that up the night of the medium (RJ was there but not in the room with us). I suppose it was her way of saying that she knew we were all together in that one place.

I have been to visit that place many times over the years. Sometimes just to look from the car but the last few times to actually wander the field. I have been 3 times this week for different reasons and took pictures each time. Today we met a woman that lives on the corner where it happened. She was having a small yard sale. We asked how long she had been there and about the many accidents that have taken place there. She moved in to her home in October 1991, presumably just days after the accident because it was one she couldn’t remember. She was selling a glass ornament, which I bought. It is a dove holding a small olive branch. I have tried everything else, maybe a dove of peace from the place where this all happened is exactly what I need.

Bottom line is this. Everyone makes it sound so simple “to move on”, “you have to let go”. I can’t figure out how. I don’t want to do this every year for the rest of my life. I thought the therapy was closure, and then I thought the medium was closure but apparently I have been wrong.
I have a deck of self -care cards and one of them somehow got from where I keep them to a drawer in the kitchen where I just found it yesterday. The picture on the front is an old set of broken stairs and it is the “ACTION” card. The quote on the back is this, “Take action. The journey to find your lost self begins with one step”. Someone please tell me what that step is, one that I haven’t tried. One that will allow Dorothy to find her way home.