Road trips!

Getting away from things is vital to keeping one's sanity, at least those are my feelings. No need to go far, no need to spend huge amounts of money, periodically just get in a car, drive to a small town you have never been to and be a tourist for a while. Nothing fancy, no great expenditure and little or no real pressure. Just go somewhere, have a couple of meals somewhere and relax some.

That was how I did things before I met "Earl" and early in our relationship I had thought we had reached a meeting of minds on the value of little trips like these. He had other ideas, and short trips like this never fit his world view, he could not understood going somewhere for a couple of days. Mind you on a small number of occasions we did things my way and he DID relax and unwind.

I am taking my life back, and high on my list of things to do is actually get away from it every so often. How can anyone appreciate what they have, or are working toward, if they do not get away periodically? Why not go somewhere out of your normal time and space and have a timeless moment or two? Sit where earth, sky and sea come together and feel powerful natural energy, live a moment and meditate right there where Cass calls the "Zero point" soaking up energy and relaxing!

I love children . . .

. . . I just have to be whole enough to even think about having any in my life fulltime. Quite honestly there is a time for growing, at time for healing and never the twain shall meet. The height of irisponsibility would be to rush out after nine years with an Eight year old like "Earl" find someone and have children because (and this is a visual some so forgive me) my biological clock is (pounding foot on floor) ticking away madly!

If that didn't quite make sense, see "My Cousin Vinny" there is a scene where Marisa Tomei is standing on the porch talking about her biological clock ticking away while pounding her foot for emphasis! Mad funny, but also serious scene, trust me! It also happens to be a wonderful movie and in my humble opinion, Marisa (as Mona Lisa Vito) steals the show repeatedly! Mind you I'm not alone in my thinking, in 1993 Marisa won "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" for her poinent portrayal of Ms. Mona Lisa Vito!

Speaking of biological clocks am I the only woman offended by men "siring" children well into their seventies (Tony Randall) and then dropping dead?!?! Why is it we have reasonably, natural limitations and they can go on "sowing" their oats right up until they die? Come on already! I say we need some reasonable limitations here, stop trying to take away my right to decide what I want to do with my body and take some responsibility for your own guys! Rape should be a capital offense, and YES I say take them out of the gene pool, since forced sex changes would be considered "Cruel and unusual" punishment.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but isn't RAPE a "cruel and unusual" punishment for being born female? How many of us get off so easy for an offense that isn't a crime? Prision for a while? Come on who makes up "punishments" for crimes anyway?!?! Oh that's right, the very same scum sucking, bottom feeding, life taking, animals who just happen to look like they hold a similar space in earths genetic history as we do, MEN!!!!!!!

So getting back to my point, there is without question a time and place for children! They can enrich life beyond measure and for as much work as they are, the rewards, well you just have to experience that yourself. Trust me, I know, as painful a trip as it is, it is still worth every moment! However, it is a journey not for those faint of heart, or those who are very young and still growing, let alone healing themselves.

I have to finish healing before I can think of children or pets, and if my "clock" runs out so to speak, there are quite litteraly hundreds of thousands of children world wide dying for a loving, supportive and safe home! Adoption is a wonderful way of having children, and a simply spendid way of sharing your love with the universe!

Reality bites, other people, and thier pets . . .

I've never been one to rant (much) about my own issues and problems, but then again, I'm not the person I used to be. In an ideal world I'm going to have great success climbing out the nasty hole I'm in, but this is NOT an ideal world. Realistically I'm working hard on doing the best I can with the "hand I've been dealt" but there's no way I'm going to do what I've been doing my whole life and just giving in to everyone elses needs and demands at the expense of my health and happiness.

This goes three fold for the demands, desires and care of other people, or thier pets. I'm in a place I'd never planned, it's all new territory and I have to focus on my health and putting one foot in front of the other making a little bit of progress everyday. I cannot, and will not, take on the responsibilities of other people or thier pets just to be accomidating or helpful. Unless or until I'm out of harms way, and I've healed and grown more, I have to be selfish for the first time in my life.

When Earl and I met, he had a pyschotic cat named Nico. He and Nico had an interesting relationship, and it was a fairly new one at that, in the interests of harmony and being welcome I took Nico into my heart and made room in my life for both of them. I have issues with male energy, I'm not going to lie to anyone about that, and where I am now it's only been worsened by Earl's treatment of me. Long story short, I wound up being completely responsible for Nico AND Earl, and quite honestly I'm certain in my heart that part of where things went with Earl and I is due to Nico. I could not handle being a housewife, doctor, nurse, bread winner, therapist, and wife, let alone having to deal with Nico and his attitude problems. So, long story short, Nico lives with one of my Sisters now, is very happy and doing much better than he had been.

In the nine years together I grew emotionally attached to that pesky little brat I affectionatly called Bubba. Earl would lift a finger to help himself, let alone Bubba cat, and I'm a bitch for having to find Bubba a new home? Come on, please, someone give me a break already?!?!? So it's not just hard enough that I had to part with Bubba in the first place, but to have that held against me?

So for the time being, and I have honestly no idea how long that's going to be, I take care of me! Yes I'll help out when and where I can, but I must draw the line at dealing with other peoples problems and pets. I cannot have children at this point, and after nine years with Earl I'm not even close to being ready to consider building a family with anyone, and honestly have made my peace with that. I have plenty of Nieces and Nephews to keep me busy for the forseable future and the best thing about them is that when I've had enough I can give them back! I cannot get involved with people who cannot (or worse) will not, take care of themselves, let alone thier pets.

Pets are a huge responsibility, they are like children who will NEVER grow up, and if you cannot commit yourself to being depended on 100% by these little cratures, you should not have them. Case in point Earl! I would rather not have to worry about getting a road trip together to spend a week visiting distant family only to have the whole thing come apart because of pets. I cannot support myself at this exact second in time and when I can, I'm not going to take on extra responsibility and expenses unless or until I have the room. Room in my heart, my life, my home, my schedule, my budget for pets.

Right now it looks like I'm going to be moving in with my Sister-in-law (whom I love dearly, and without whom I might not be here to write this right now) who has a dog and FIVE cats. I cannot help her with them, I do not want to have to help her with them, I'm having enough trouble helping myself right now and think I should focus on getting my life in order before I take on the extra responsibility of pets. On the one hand its nice to be able to move in and help her out some, since my brother died life hasn't exactly been easy for her, and in this economy it isn't easy for anyone. By the same token I cannot be expected to come in and take over my brothers place either. Yes, Jon and I have much in common, and I miss him almost as much as I know my Sister-in-law does but I'm NOT my Brother.

As men go, he's always been one of the exceptional ones, and as an older brother he was a saint. Was he perfect? Hell no, but then again neither have I been "Wonder Woman" in all things to do with life. Was he the best older brother a girl could have, without question! Would I give up years of my life to have him back, so that BA could have him back? Also without question! However I have some very real limitations I have to deal with right now, and so does BA. We both need to be very serious about them, and take each day a step at a time. Are my Sister-in-law close, yes, very! Are we twins? Nope, not even close and while we share more than just a man, or at least the fond memories of one we both hope to see again one day in the Summerland, we are in some respects as different as Felix and Oscar. Can two grown (or mostly grown) women live together without tearing each other apart? Stay tuned dear readers, time will tell!

Not taking stuff...

Got over needing to take prescription meds a while back thanks to some serious hypnotherapy, but I still take a bunch of vitamins and some natural estrogen replacement on a daily basis to keep me going. You know, if I don't take them I feel less than myself, slightly down (melancholy) but not depressed. If I let it go however I could get there... So, I think I'll go take everything I forgot to this morning...

Avoiding Hypomanic or worse episodes . . .

Today was interesting, got honestly a frightening amount of work done in so little time, and when presented with one more opportunity to get something else cool done I decided to call it a day. I had this sudden flash of doing too much in a single day, getting too wound up, and the inevitable crash that would follow. Wisdom being the better part of valor I thought maybe NOT going that one step further would be smart, call it a day and miss the crash waiting.

I found myself responding to a "trigger" and taking preventive measures almost as an automatic thing. What's odd about this all is that I have memories of things I don't know that I ever experienced, deep feelings, that reasonate so strongly I have to wonder about what I've "erased" from my own past. So in any case, here I am having these feelings, and taking steps to prevent getting myself in trouble so to speak as if I spent years learning to deal with something that I didn't know I had.

Talk about circular logic . . . I find it interesting as a Hypno and Behavioral Therapist that I have all sorts of "programmed responces" and memories of a condition I have no direct knowledge of having had. Worse yet, based on the memories I do have access to, and the time frames involved there's no way it could have been diagnosed at the time. Yet here I sit, finding myself taking corrective measures to prevent problems I shouldn't have in the first place.

Typically, such "embeded" behavior is a result of finding triggers and "planting" alternative behavior such that when the trigger fires, the alternative behavior is the result. Very much the way the brain normally learns, however this is operator controlled programming. Really in a nutshell, the related disciplines are used together to achieve a desired result.

For example, I treated someone for a horrible condition that made eating with them a chore, and could without warning make them pysically ill if certain conditions were met. In simpler terms, anytime a metal utensil touched another piece of metal, ceramics, or even teeth, this person would wind up mildly to significantly ill. Wouldn't even be something you or I could hear or sense, for this person however something happening at another table in a resturant could and would set them off. Meals became a chore, and quite often this person would leave the table meal unfinsihed. Those of us around this perosn would suffer constant warnings, and then the guilt if we missed and something touched something else that shouldn't. Try eating someday without the metal touching anything but the food some day and you'll see how hard it is.

Since I knew what the triggers were, and the resulting behavoir if they "fired" it was a farily simple matter to write a session that would take those triggers on turn them inward, to a positive result each time they fired. The result, after a five minute hypnotherapy session nearly 40 years of pain and suffering came to a sudden almost anticlimactic end for a whole bunch of people!

So, knowing this can be the case as I do, I find it interesting to come across obvious "programming" like this in my own life. When I was a child, allopathic medicine was nothing compared to what it is now, and quite honestly it's nothing to write home about now. Yes, huge strides forward have been made, but there is still so much that cannot be dealt with, or there's no money available to work on given conditions. People go on suffering because they do not get taken seriously. Yet here I am with advanced "programming/learned behavoir" for something I don't recall having . . .

Depression is something I have huge amounts of experience with, and at times in the past has had me seriously considering checking out to simply stop the pain. You know it cannot be good as a child to go to bed thinking "I'll be better off if I just don't wake up" and when you do anyway, trying to come up with the best possible way to "leave." People who attempt suicide more often than not do not really want to die, but know of no other way to ask for help.

People who kill themselves on the other hand have burned up all hope, and just want the pain to stop! I know, I've been there time and again in the past and it is NOT weekness, quite the opposite it takes great strength and determination to take your own life. After years or even decades of trying to get someone to take you seriously and give you a hand, taking one's own life is FINALLY someone doing something. It's making the best you can with what you have to work with. Deprived of help, communications (real communications, not some dope talking down to you saying that it's going to be all right in time and you just have to wait.) or any meaningful support or control, this last great step is a persons way of saying ENOUGH!!! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!! You will not help make this stop, relieve in some meaningful fashion, the pain I am in! So, I WILL make it all stop in the only way I know how!

So I've been depressed, and it's lasted for weeks, once even several months at a time. However I've always somehow managed to make it, or on a nuber of occasions get thelp, real help from folks I could and did trust... More to follow... Okay, so this got really long in a hurry, but I was tired, afterall it was nearly 3 in the morning and I'd just finished playing five games of backgammon and I somehow managed to win four of them... Go figure!

So try as I might I just can't seem to think like a man...

Simply because I feel it would give me an edge in understanding them better, I've often tried to think like a man. I've attempted to apply this different view to a number of automated, online tests that claim to be able to tell you Gender without fail everytime. Well, I've never had one come out wrong, without fail these things always say I'm female. Kind of reassuring to have a machine confirm it, but the part that's interesting is when I try to lie to the machine so well.

My sister Bethann on the otherhand has no such trouble, deciding to see if she could accomplish what I couldn't

Talk about twisted reality!

For the better part of my life up to this point I've had to have so much explained to me that many where certain I was born on another planet. Sarcasm, subtlety, tact, and so much more were as alien to me as to Spock of Vulcan. I just didn't get them, they passed over my head like so much gibberish!

Recently, having been given no choice but to "start over" in so many ways, I've been growing in fits and starts. Most interesting in this part of my journey is that I'm finding great gifts I left myself 34 years ago when I took extreme steps to protect myself. There's a great deal of back-story there I'll get to at another point, for the moment however I find in quite literally the blink of an eye not only getting and using the aforementioned tools, but explaining them to other people.

I'm a big fan of Stargate SG1 and now Atlantis as well, and in the Season Finally of SG1 the very end of the episode Gen Jack O'Neill had a great line, rife with sarcasm that I needed to explain to my Sister. . . Mind you for quite a while She's been the one explaining sarcasm to me, time and again when something went flying over my head! Quite a difference, quite a twist even, for someone who took the clue out of clueless. For those who missed it:

The scene is in the gateroom, the gate back where it belongs, SG1 on the ramp facing the blast doors, and Gen O'Neill (That's with 2 l's as he holds up three fingers) having been rescued from the "Trust" Alkesch before it jumped to hyperspace and Daniel says to Jack:

Daniel: "In retrospect maybe you should have destroyed
the ship when you had the chance"

Jack (Deadpans): "Yeah . . ." Looks at the SGC's flagship team, and his friends, who would have been destroyed with the Alkesch and says sarcastically: "Tough Choice." as he walks off.

Finding Nobody!

It struck me with some sadness this morning just exactly what was involved in finding Nobody, for I first had to find enough of myself and I was much further away than I'd ever thought. It is only upon looking back, that we can truly appreciate the distances we have traveled and for once in my life I'm perfectly normal in this regard.

Since October 19, 1996 I've been lost not only to Nobody but several other near and dear friends including myself. Today while writing to Nobody it became apparent just how bad off I'd been. Why 19, October 1996? Everything seemed to be right, it was a brilliant, warm sunny southern Colorado day during what passes for Fall out there. Cool, dry, clean air, warm sun on my face as I walked into Colorado Springs Airport to board a flight to Newark and my new life as part of a couple.

What I didn't realize as I bid a fond farewell to Tony in the parking lot was I would be leaving my abundant self confidence, self respect, and self esteem right there in Colorado.

Out of our past, came Nobody's words today, remarking on how nice bottling and selling just a small amount of my many interesting attributes would be for the rest of the world. High on her list was just a little bit of my self confidence, something I took far more for granted than I should have but that she could so clearly see. Through her eyes, a morning like many others brought a view of the past that made clear just how much trouble I've been in, and what has been lost or at least misplaced for the moment.

When one spends as much time as I being oppressed and abused, the very fabric of your being is chipped away, bit by bit, day by day. Stockholm Syndrome is at best case a defensive tool any such afflicted people can use to try and cope with impossible situations, but taken too far it can result in mental and emotional death that eventually leads to an ugly physical death. Trust me, I know of what I speak here, for up until March I was awful close to an ugly physical death.

Once in a land henceforth I shall fondly refer to as Nowhere, in honor of Nobody, I was well on my way to being a pretty decent human being. Colorado [Nowhere] was really good to me and more importantly, FOR me. Mentally and emotionally I'd grown and was moving in a healthy track toward being a decent human being. I'd spent a great deal of time there discovering who I really was, and lacking in many of the negative influences of the mad east, I was flourishing.

I owe a great deal to Nobody, actually in some respects my life, for in the great deal of time we spent wandering Nowhere eating cheese fries and singing Viking songs to heathens I was able to finally, actually live and breath for the first time in my life. Nobody allowed me to be me, never judging, pushing, or demanding, simply happy to be my friend. Right there in Nowhere, a real true foundation for my soul was built, one that was stable enough with the help of others, enabled me to survive almost a decade of mental, emotiona and sexual abuse that should have, in fact would have killed me and very nearly did.

Thank you Nobody, I'm sending you a giant telepathic hug and warm fuzzy!

So, what you may ask does all this dribble have to do with finding Nobody?!?! Simply this; I've been able to find people who don't want to be found, find people who are lost simply because they'd moved so many times and been through their own living hell that the trail was more than cold, but Nobody was quite literally right where I'd left her, still in the phone book listed the same way she was the last time I'd talked to her.

I however was lost not only to Nobody, but a bunch of other lovely people I've mistreated over the last decade, and mostly lost to myself. Nobody is the kind of friend everyone should have, a real Girlfriend (see "Girlfriends") through and through. Had I found her when I was in such a horrible state, she might have turned over Nowhere trying to mount a rescue mission to come and get me. Bad as the situation I've been in was, "Earl" (Dixie Chick's "Earl had to die") just couldn't die on our watch, and while she may be smallish in stature, I'd rather Nobody at my side in battle than a thousand Imperial Storm Troopers!

So it is perfect clear to me today, six months after my soon to be Wusband left me to move in with his folks, that I had to heal enough to prevent further disaster. Justice is a funny thing, while "Earl" and his folks may need and certainly deserve a real taste of what they put me through, I would never risk something horrid happening to someone I love while they were trying to help me. Nobody's already remarked recently that had she known she'd have beat "Earl" into the ground with her shoe, I just couldn't see her getting into the kind of trouble that would involve, but I'll love her forever thinking of it!

No one told the evil spirits what was going on!

Mind you I said no-one, had she been there Nobody would have tried! What started under a Chuppa one October day in the late '90s ends here today, in this back water storage locker! (see pics below) This locker will for a time inter the remains of my marriage, as my soon to be Wusband and I sell our souls to the firm of "That's mine this is yours" [See Billy Crystal in "When Harry met Sally"] trying to sunder what G-d brought together...

The breaking of the glass is symbolic of warning away the evil spirits and thus bless the new couple... I guess it's like a mirror in some ways maybe? To keep the evil spirits away you have to break one every seven years or something?

I don't even really want a divorce, I want the love of my life back... Or at least the person I THOUGHT was the love of my life! I'm sorry but I wouldn't treat a DOG the way he's treated me, oh wait, neither would he come to think of it, he at least had his Dog put to sleep when he was done with her...

Okay, I think that's more than enough bitter root for the day and Pesach is still a ways off...

Looks remarkably empty, alone, and unwanted... Soon enough it will be filled to the brim with all the JUNK that nine years together produces for a couple to fight over. Frankly he can have it all, but unless I'm willing to walk away with the clothes on my body, I have to fight over it... Sad really, for I truly loved him, still do however he is dead to me...

Here is the final resting place, or nearly final, of my eight year marriage.

The "V" word!

While one might think I'm talking about my vagina, really I'm not! I'm talking about another word that has become of late almost as near and dear to my heart as my own lovely, hidden "couchi snortcher" [Thank you Eve Ensler!] and that word is...

VOTE!!!

Mind you, I don't care WHO you vote for, just as long as you do! This country is being marginalized and victimized at every turn by a population too disenfranchised to vote. This year I will vote, for the very first time because I finally found something to vote for, MY RIGHT to do so!

Sure it may be a function of picking one scoundrel over another, or settling for less than what I might want in a President but I've come to realize that I cannot sit on the side and complain about how bad the system is, I have to do at lesat a little something to help make change.

The only way you are heard, and the only way to make your voice count even a little, is to use the hard won RIGHT to vote. Change CAN happen but it takes time and the ONLY way right now it will is if you stand up and vote, even if it is only to protect the right to do so!

We need to get out in force at the polls this year, a force like NEVER before seen in history and let the grumpy old crooks, liars and thieves that we have had enough and we are watching!

I'm going to [I hope] vote for a candidate that I HOPE will help me protect the things I believe in, the things, the issues, near and dear to my heart! You should do the same! I've never voted before because the system IS so flawed, and the corruption IS so rampant and so on, but the whole time I was missing the point!

If you do nothing else, VOTE for the RIGHT to VOTE, for not to is to risk giving it up forever!

Thank Nobody for this, really she inspired me to take this step!

So for several years now at least two for certain, more like three or four however, I've been looking for Nobody. Mind you she wasn't hiding, more like I was missing from the land of the living, and thankfully we both still reside there. Last night at 22:15 EST while continuing to search for her, I found her, pretty much right where I left her in Colorado.

Many might, and HAVE asked how or why it would or could take a computer wonk SO long to find Nobody? Well it is not so much the who, how, or why as much as the WHEN! I've been a mess, a beaten, abused, periodically suicidal, taken for granted mess who was honestly not in good enough shape to find Nobody!

Now however I'm mostly standing again, wobbly, terrified, and horribly weak, yet like all victimised women who manage to survive, working hard to climb out of my own grave. Sounds dark doesn't it? Well this is not a place for the faint of heart, and will with time become I assure you a brighter, friendlier place to be!

My primary motivation is healing and growth! This "blog" [What a funny word 'blog' is it not?] is as much for me, as people I care about and who care about me! I'm writing this because Nobody's frank, and powerful prose about some of her own deamons and history reasonated so strongly in so many ways, that I thought I'd be truly blessed if I could get close to something like it. I also think that letting it out, getting it out, is to my mental health what opening the windows when Spring rolls into ones neck of the woods after a longer dark winter!

So, my deepest and most heartful thanks to Nobody for her own truly unique way of bringing life and sunshine into the last dregs of my winter of discontent! For those who've not been blessed with the pleasure of her company, or wanting that, my stories of same, Nobody is an actual real live person. Nobody once wished to buy a large enough piece of land to create her very own town of Nowhere because it would amuse her! Why Nobody? Who would so hate a child as to name her Nobody you ask? No-one, She simply prefers it to her given name simply because she is the living breathing personification of "Nobody could possibly be that lucky!" and such other comments we've all heard.

Case in point: Nobody once wished to win tickets for a concert, called me up at the last moment and asked me to win them for her! Which I promptly did. The how and why is unimportant, it's all energy and quantum physics that would bore you to death, TRUST me, Heisenberg's "Uncertainy Principle" alone will put you into a coma [Forgive me?!?] what's important however is she called someone to make it happen! Hence "Nobody could possibly be that lucky!" Well, I appreciate that concert at Red Rocks now significantly more than I appeared to at the time. She could have taken anyone but choose me, and I did and do appreciate having been asked to go even if at the time I was still a bit too "messed up" to really enjoy it with her properly.

Find out more about the lovely, talented and awesome Nobody for yourself!

It's now 1:46 EST and I have to drive to New Jersey tomorrow so I'd best try for some sleep! More to follow as time, energy and heart permits!