Stille Nacht

No tree to light, no gifts to give, no cards to send, no rest, no joy, no peace.  There wouldn’t be a meal but for being invited elsewhere.  Just another day, in another year, the same as each have been over the past few.  No confidence to be shared, it’s no one else’s burden to bear.  Little wonder I’ve learned to hate these days.  Little wonder I long for when they’ve gone past.  Play Manheim Steamroller’s Stille Nacht, sad, lonely, and desolate.  That’s my Christmas.  Still hiding… 

Friends

A lot has been going on in my life lately but I've told few exactly what it's been that's kept me quiet.  Earlier today a friend of mine caught me at a time when I felt like talking.  Of course he also made it easy by being so understanding.  There are a few things that we share in our individual life right now so perhaps that's why I was more open to talking to him about it.  We are only friends, no overtones of anything else to cloud or pollute this entirely honest & very revealing conversation.  I thought it was important to post this not only as a way of letting others who care about me know what is going on but also because its a true piece of reality that we all can relate to.  Haven't we all thought or even shared these very things, especially those of us in long term relationships.  If you ever want to know why things go astray, read the hearts of two on the edges of their own turning points...

Friend

I want to live somewhere warm!

Friend:

You ok mo?

♥Mo♥:

Just tired Friend, how are you?

Friend:

Ok thanks mo

Worst month of the year

And it's dragging

lol

♥Mo♥:

Amen Friend, I could sure use some sun therapy!

Friend:

Yes, a ll seems better when under the sun eh mo

♥Mo♥:

See, know I would be better able to deal with life if I lived where I had plenty of sun & heat. Must be a tropical person inside, don't do well in colder climate. Sorta like a plant I guess

Friend:

i am the same mo, i am really a positive person, but in winter, January mainly, my whole outlook is different, everything seems so damned pointless hehe

sun sun sun!!

♥Mo♥:

I think it's that during the winter there's just no release Friend, no way to escape all the bs like in the summer

Friend:

Agreed

♥Mo♥:

In the winter you're boxed in with it all, too close for comfort

No diversions

Dangerous place to be, alone with your thoughts too much

Friend:

Yes darlin, and i think people that feel and think a lot, can think themselves into darkness

♥Mo♥:

It’s always there Friend, perhaps those of us who live with it lurking crave the light even more

Friend:

yes mo, you are right, the trouble with me is, i promise myself I am going to do something about the misery of january, but then the sun arrives, and i forget how miserable i was,,until it's gone again, hehe.

but February is a short month mo,,,then spring is in the air

♥Mo♥:

Oh but Friend, think of what it must be like to live where the dark days of winter never really exist!

Wouldn’t that be awesome!

Friend:

Mo,, i would love it, and i would love it for you too

In Cyprus the sun shines nearly every day all year

♥Mo♥:

At this point though, think I might like doing that living thing on my own, that would be a new set of trials but that would have to be better than what I have right now

In New Mexico they say they have over 279 days of sun per year... oh how I'd love that

Friend:

Yes, and the water in the gulf is warm even in January, you would thrive mo

♥Mo♥:

Not Mexico Friend, New Mexico, the state next to Arizona, not quite as desserty in NM

I prefer to avoid hurricanes that hit in the gulf

Friend:

How far is that from where you are now mo?

lol, yes, hurricanes are BAD news

♥Mo♥:

Somewhere around 1500+ miles I think

Friend:

Wow! that's a trek

♥Mo♥:

Yes, it's in the SW portion of the US where as where I am now is NE

Friend:

So things aren't any better for you at home mo? you are not alone, lol.

♥Mo♥:

So it'd be a bishop move, nice diagonal

Friend:

lol!

♥Mo♥:

No Friend, not better at home & the man I've grown fond of is very busy with his job so I don't have that comfort either. Not that I'd ask

Have friends telling me I need to write about it, vent, but there are times when words just aren't the healing a soul needs you know

Friend:

Yes, i agree, words are powerful, but it has to lead to eventual actions, otherwise they become empty

Sometimes one needs something warm and real to cling to

♥Mo♥:

Its also bad when those that are there offer no comfort, only more emptiness

Friend:

It is, it feels like a type of punishment doesn't it mo

♥Mo♥:

Yes it does

Makes you question your choices as to why you remain
Friend:

Yes, i have those thoughts every day

It’s not living, more like existing at the moment

♥Mo♥:

Or trying to trudge through it... Not good when most feels like a struggle with little to no reward

We start to lose momentum

Friend:

Yes, and then get lost, and sink.

♥Mo♥:

Somehow Friend, we keep moving though, don't know why we keep hoping for more but somehow we do. Think we'll ever find it?

Friend:

Well, my friend is coming over March 17th mo, i will tell you how that goes when it happens, i am tired of going without affection, it ruins me.

Friend:

i am not sex mad by any standards, but there has to be some degree of physical contact and passion, life is empty without it

♥Mo♥:

I understand entirely & I hope it brings you what you need

I do hope that your path gets better lighting

Friend:

lol

lol!

♥Mo♥:

Just be prepared Friend, you risk a lot. I think that's why we both chose people at a distance, they were safer

but if they get close, we know where it must go and what we might lose

Friend:

I know, you are right, and i am worried

♥Mo♥:

You’d be insane not to be as well as a fool. I don't think you're either but I know your dilemma, I've thought of it too

Friend:

She has said to me she has no expectations other than to meet me, and be shown around and have fun

But who knows

Could be the worst, or best thing i have ever done

♥Mo♥:

Well, we're human Friend, not perfect. Never know what life is meant to bring us, all we can do is hope we get it right most of the time & learn when we get it wrong

Friend:

that’s about it mo, i cant help but wonder though, should we always settle for being discontent, just to avoid hurting others, should pursuit of ones own happiness always be last, i don't know.

♥Mo♥:

My special friend asked me the same question Friend. How often do we sacrifice our own happiness on behalf of others? When should we not & dare to think of ourselves. As I told him, that feels like the question I live asking myself every moment of my life & I've yet to come up with the answer but I still struggle with it

Friend:

I know that if i get to 80 years old, and I stay in the situating I am in right now until that day, I will be very sad and empty

♥Mo♥:

Then you're choice is already made Friend. The question is then how you walk away from that relationship.

♥Mo♥:

If you can truly say there is no chance that anything can be done to make it better then be done with it in more than just thought. That's where I am now. Working out how to move on if that is what I am going to do

As it stands is not acceptable

Friend:

that’s how i feel mo, but it is difficult isn't it

♥Mo♥:

Yes it is. very much so

♥Mo♥:

But then we weren't the ones who moved out of the relationship first were we

We just aren't content to live half a life

Friend:

That is exactly it mo x

Friend:

It was bearable going without contact for a long time, until I stopped trying myself, then something in me died

My mind is elsewhere now

I feel terrible that I have given up trying

But we can only all put so much in can't we mo

♥Mo♥:

Very true Friend, when all the effort is being made only on one side it wears us down

Friend:

Yes, and constant rejection, for whatever reason damned hurts, lol.

Then resentment sets in

♥Mo♥:

Yes, the rift grows till you only exist rather than living

Friend:

yes, you know mo as well, I’m the type that wants to be needed in a physical way, i am not interested in sex for self gratification just for the sake of it, if sex is offered out of duty, or it seems to be a chore, don't bother.

I work hard to be wanted, and I am all out, I am sure you know what I mean

♥Mo♥:

Yep, have shown hubby vids, dressed to be wanted, behaved to be wanted, shown him erotica & written it as well. Tried to get him involved where he could bring his own creativity but he is stuck in routine

Friend:

life sux mo,,lol,,i would so spoil and look after a woman like you, you would have everything i had to give, why on earth does this type of thing happen, why is my wife as cold as ice? why is your husband numb to what he has in you? I really want to know what it's all about, lol.

♥Mo♥:

Me too Friend, since I've been working my ass off to try & get ahead while my husband is content to do next to nothing. Just as I get something growing along comes some trouble to wipe it & me out. Literally! Example. I've been grabbing all the hours I can in a job that plays hell on my body & my eyes. My husband barely works 6 hours a week maybe. His pension covers just the basics

♥Mo♥:

He’s not motivated to do more & I can't live where everything is literally falling down around my head & be happy about it, especially when some is getting to be a hazard

♥Mo♥:

Just put a nice fat deposit in the bank & suddenly yesterday the truck needs a new battery cable, this morning the pilots are out on my furnace & water heater so I don't know what the hell is going on there....

it never ends & it really does feel like I'm being punished for living

Friend:

Baby,,,you deserve better, but you know that, you are being taken for granted, and it's very unfair.

♥Mo♥:

Life isn't fair Friend but it shouldn't be this damned hard either

♥Mo♥:

And it shouldn't be made harder by those who are supposed to love you

Friend:

Totally agree mo, the age we are now, it should be easier not harder than when we were younger, and in truth, that is part of my life that is ok, it makes it harder to leave for sure lol.

But to stay for a comfortable life isn't everything either I suppose, I don't know.

But what you have seems a bad deal all around mo

♥Mo♥:

Maybe I stay because somewhere I don't believe I deserve better. Maybe I haven't grown much from the child I was after all

Friend:

mo, what you deserve at the very least, is someone that puts you above all else, money comes and goes, we all know that, but if hubby has no work sometimes, then your home should be perfect and comfortable for you, that’s what i do, when i don’t earn, i work in the house, it's only right

♥Mo♥:

It may be what’s right Friend but it's not what I'm experiencing

Friend:

And to think you were still prepared to show love, even whilst struggling in other ways, you are an angel mo, i am sorry you are having things so hard

♥Mo♥:

Somewhere I guess I got this stupid idea that if you put out good things they come back to you... guess I forgot the one about bad things happening to good people none the less...

All I know is this is crushing me

Friend:

I can see why you feel crushed, you are being pushed and pulled in all ways, physically and emotionally you are not being looked after, and financially and comfort wise you are not being looked after, you are having to put far too much in, and getting very little out.

♥Mo♥:

& with my vision as it is, I can't even escape whether for a little bit or for good. So I feel caged with it

Little wonder I don't write about it, just another way of reliving what I don't want to be living in the first place

Friend:

yes, it's only therapy writing about something if it's behind you, certainly not whilst still living it.

♥Mo♥:

Besides, never cared for those who wrote to piss & moan, don't care to wallow in the negativity when all I want is a positive way to cope

Friend:

I agree, and your writing is always filled with optimism, you are a joy person really, just not experiencing much joy yourself at the moment.

♥Mo♥:

I definitely agree with that! You've been a dear, let me bend your ear for so long & cry on your shoulder. I do truly appreciate it more than you know

Friend:

i have told you before mo, anytime, you are welcome, drop me an e mail, and i will find you.

And you help me too, don't forget that

You are a voice of reason to me

♥Mo♥:

LOL, wish I was as good at being so with my own life hon. Funny how that works isn't it

Friend:

Yes, it is, lol.

♥Mo♥:

Well you are a blessed friend Friend, if I can help in any way I am more than happy to be there for you

Friend:

same mo, I had better go get some firewood before it's pitch dark, take care, and see you soon mo x x

♥Mo♥:

hugs & kisses back Friend, take care!

Friend:

xx

*EEB - Struggling (04-08-2009)

Dreams are the vacant delusions in which I try to escape the harsh ugliness of life. I find no solice there any longer. They are painful reminders of all that is missing. Hopes are nothing more than sadistic tormentors that disappear like deceptively bright clouds ripped to shreds by the cruel winds of reality when I get too near. Don’t tell me it could probably be worse, I’m learning to expect it soon will be.

*EEB - Life Synops - Part Two (12-16-2008)

Before we'd moved from Grandma's house I'd started high school. I was so painfully shy and introverted then… (Yes, hard to believe huh... *wink*) I had a few friends who quite honestly if it weren't for them I don't know how I would have made it through that time in my life. It's probably why those who I choose to call my friends are so valuable to me to this day. But still I had no self worth so I'd often ask them why they were my friends because I saw no value in myself. How much could you have if your parent is always telling you how worthless you are or how I was a waste of time and effort. It was during this time that I had a wonderful teacher who found that I had a knack for writing and encouraged me to do so. He also made me smile and took great pleasure in making me blush so I'd turn that lovely magenta shade a few may have seen on occasion. (Yes, I still blush rather easily – comes from being a born redhead I think.) It was also during this time that I met Rodney. He was two years ahead of me and flirted with me outrageously. Something that took me by great surprise because I just didn't get that kind of attention from guys ever! Looking back I can also see that I was so incredibly vulnerable; that I was starved for any positive attention. We became very good friends and we were strictly that for the first five years that we knew each other. Ah but he was a huge bone of contention between me and my mother… She'd been sadly influenced by her father, my grandfather, who had been an official card carrying member of the KKK. But even through my own lack of self worth I started to recognize that my mother wasn't the ultimate authority on all things right and wrong despite her attitude to the contrary. I think we all start our own evolution when we begin to question those who've had authority in our life. There are also times when we realize that those same people are somehow stunted in their development and we recognize when we have surpassed all they are able to be. There's a sense of freedom in that knowledge, that somehow we've cut at least one of the major invisible threads that tethers us to the burden of their limitations...

We moved to the small isolated town of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />New Carlisle. Did you know that Carlisle means city within walls? Well it sure felt like that to me to be sure! I felt imprisoned there. Not only because it was so small but because now I didn't have that circle of supportive friends. As I said, I was expected and did give up my teen age years to raise my brother and sister while mom worked. She was a master manipulator and made me feel guilty for wanting more than what I had in my "duty to the family." (Another ideal that was engrained into me that I can't manage to extricate myself from to this day) My escape was writing and I filled volumes with my journals. Writing was my reasoning tool, my exorcist, my sanity and my best friend. Through it I tore myself to pieces and restructured myself, finding not only value but real worth and I'll also admit to a bit of arrogance in my own ability for tolerance. For all that I was discovering about myself I still had a long way to go… Even now, decades later, I find that sometimes when I'm feeling out of control and vulnerable I feel like that same lost girl, doubting myself all over again. But in understanding myself I became even more intuitive to others. Some said that I had an uncanny ability to know what was going on in others minds, which was why they came to me when they wanted advice or were trying to understand a situation and to make sense of the actions of others.
With time I made friends, both male and female, (I've always had friends of both sexes, believe they can be such and actually prefer male friends to female, I just seem to be able to relate to them more easily) But I was always the one they came to with their troubles. I wanted my friends to be happy so I did my best to be there for them. I look back now though and see how one sided some of those tended to be but I really don't mind. I only have my self to answer for in life ultimately so as long as I am being the person I feel I need to be then that's all I can do but it did teach me another lesson on people, not everyone defines things the same as you might. What I considered was my role as a friend may not be the same as what someone else sees it as being. That was a concept that took some adjusting to as well and I think we all struggle with it even more as we get older and less tolerant of differences. But anyway… the guys only saw me as a friend, (I didn't mature in my attitude or my physical appearance until more recent years. Oh my breasts were always there, wore a size 36C in as early as fifth grade, but it was a bit annoying to me then that guys seemed to be so attracted to only that aspect of me so I dressed to cover that up and was very plain in my appearance) This left me always on the outside of the social interactions of teen life. Again, that might not be a very bad thing since it meant that I wasn't out doing the things my other friends were doing and finding themselves in trouble for because they weren't making the best choices for their life at that time. Please don't think though that I'm under any delusion that I was immune to making bad choices. I had my share although a vast majority of them were squeezed into my 'late rebellion.' More on that later… Anyway, not being overly social gave me more of a chance to watch and study the interactions of my friends and others. So with my own mistakes and paying close attention to others I learned that ultimately the best way to learn a lesson in what choices not to make is to see those who have chosen wrong and are living with the consequences. Ah, and yes there was the RP… I can look on it now and see that it probably kept me from doing some of the more foolish things that my friends did and most likely kept me safer because I wasn't able to be out running around like they could. It also isolated me even more. Well, there was that and my mom keeping me under a leash to my 'obligations.' But the RP also made me again choose friends that I could literally put my life in their hands and trust to look out for me. My visual fields were pretty normal then but I've always been night-blind so I never drove at night, though my night vision then wasn't nearly as bad as now, but I did have to have friends who didn't mind looking out for me, guiding me around if I needed it.

Now onto that late rebellion… I was about 19 when it happened and Lord knows how I managed to make it through in one piece! It began when mom finally got her way and Rodney caved to the pressure… We had started seeing each other more seriously, by then I was 18 but she was still determined to protect me from the ills of facing the wrath of society by being entangled with a black man. (Right, like that was the only reason I ever heard…) Rodney called for me one night and mom took the call, explaining to him that if he didn't stop seeing me she would disown me and put me out on the street. He knew that she'd been threatening to put me out for one reason or another most of my life as a means of controlling me so I knew that it had just been easier for him to cut all ties than keep dealing with her drama. Gee, that made me feel great knowing I'd not been worth fighting for with him. But it was not bloody likely she was ever going to follow through since I was keeping her home intact but Rodney wasn't as steadfast in our relationship as I was so he bailed. Oh I remember that night, the night my mother dug the knife so deep I thought I'd never stop bleeding from the pain of it. Rebellion exploded in me as I told her how much I hated her and walked out the door to die inside. The sad part is that I was tied to my family, I couldn't leave. My absolute knowledge of what my mother truly was made me stay for the sake of my brother and sister. I stayed because as I saw it I was all they had even if I didn't believe that was much, it was still more than mom could be for them. I still looked out for my brother and sister; we had realized that we only had each other to rely on so we'd grown together for the most part. Anyway, I started running around more with friends, sneaking out to run around in fast cars, spending as much time as I could away from home, hiking around state parks where I couldn't see an inch in front of my face at night trusting friends not to get me killed, partying and generally making up for lost time. As I said, I was very lucky. A particular incident comes to mind… Including one night where I'd gone out with a couple of my guy 'friends' who picked up more guy friends and bought a bunch of alcohol... Beer and early male testosterone brain lock doesn't improve any situation. After a bit they thought I was to be their treat for the night. That idea was squashed right quick when I forcefully informed them that the first idiot willing to risk his life was going to get a beer bottle smashed upside his head and the rest I would beat the hell out of if they tried to touch me. Thankfully this all occurred while we were all still sitting in the car so none of them had any leverage and I was in the middle of the front seat so I had a definite advantage. They were to take me home and never darken my step again. There is a definite advantage to not being a small woman. They knew I was serious so they took me home and the next time I saw any of them they apologized. Just the same I put distance between myself and them. Make no mistake, it scared the hell out of me and I never made the mistake of allowing myself to get into a similar situation again.
Oh and driving… One of my all time favorite freedoms… It ranked right up there with water and sun for me. And baby was I ever a lead foot! One of my best claims to fame was that Scott had gone to a vocational high school where he'd taken auto mechanics. (He had a natural talent with anything mechanical and fast) So most of his friends were big motor heads. He would brag that his sister, me, could outdrive any of them anytime and I could too! I loved driving and I loved driving fast! (I did slow down a bit when I flipped and rolled one car into a 6 foot ditch off the side of a country road and managed to walk away with nothing more than some very nasty bruises and minor stitches. Those kinds of things happen pretty easily when you're driving a Vega wagon with may pops and you hit fresh tar and gravel on a country road doing almost 70mph and the front right tire blows! Nose in first, flipped it back over front and then rolled it sideways three times. No seat belt and during one roll my head went out the side passenger window into the only damned mud puddle in the ditch but bounced back in before the roof of the car rolled down to crush my head… Yes, life wasn't ready to let me go just yet…
) The partying was limited. I never acquired a taste for beer or the hard stuff, though I did get quit wasted a couple times on it, made me horribly sick but five cent whiskey and cokes, even if they are weak, will do that after about 14 of them... YUCK! What a horrid night and whole next day that had been! My saving grace was since I'd never been able to see of drive at night I always had someone else who had to be the designated driver! It's still that way today. I found that I was allergic to pot, never really liked the feeling anyway. (It was a control thing I guess, I always have to be aware of what's going on around me and be able to remember it the next day) Discovered wine and dancing the night away at clubs. My friends and I had a system for letting me know, since I could see very little in those dark clubs, who I should and shouldn't dance with when they asked. (Can you even imagine the hilarity of it to have a guy walk up and tell you that he's noticed you watching him during the evening when you're in a place where every one just looks like a black silhouette against the neon beer signs and you'd be lucky just to see your own hand in front of your face because it's so dark and you're night blind as it is?) I also added to my sexual partner list, another area I didn't go overboard on because quite frankly I wouldn't have known what the hell to do with them. For all the information I thought I had I was naïve about sex and still not confident enough to embrace the education or the lessons… (Gee how time has changed me! Now my issue is my deep desire to expand my horizons and not having a partner with the imagination or ability to do so. Life can be so damned cruel!) Besides, I was still gun shy. I'd already been hurt once and I wasn't willing to jump in too deep again. Funny how important something or someone becomes to others when they no longer have it. Apparently that's what happened to Rodney. It took him a couple years but he decided I was what he wanted in his life. Oh and I was not going to be an easy catch. He'd hurt me deeply and that hadn't healed. I couldn't trust him as completely as I had before. As beneficial as I can see that break up was after the fact, in that it broke that illusion of the untarnished first love, even once we got back together I still withheld a part of myself from him. Self preservation I'm sure… (He's since had other occasions to make me reserve myself as well over our life.) He'd been laid off from where he'd worked during the great Reagan military build up and went into the Army. Not long after joining he asked me to marry him. I did love him and I saw it as finally having someone in my life that would be there for me and love me back so I said yes. At that time I was still living at home, my brother and sister were old enough to take care of themselves and that time around I never let mom know that I was seeing Rodney again. It was my life and I'd be damned if I was going to allow her to dictate the rest of it for me. About two years after he'd joined the Army he came home one weekend and we got married… ok, eloped. No big wedding, just me, him, the minister (a former air force chaplain that we found via the same air force base where I'd been born who could do it on the spur of the moment), and his wife in the tiny white country church out in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say our families were very surprised. We were married June 1 1984 and he was gone back to his base June 2 1984. We spent all of thirty days together that first year and they weren't consecutive… See, he was based at Fort Jackson, SC and all his 'friends' kept telling him that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to bring me down there being the kind of couple that we were and again, I wasn't his top priority, I waited and begged for a year for him to bring me there before he actually did. Of course mom took every opportunity to add her poisoned two cents. "Well if he really loved you then he'd want to have you with him no matter what…" And in the back of my mind I was sad that I had to agree to a point. (Another tell tale I should have seen for what it was but didn't) Eventually he did find us a place, with my doing most of the searching from Ohio, (before the internet I might add), and he came back to get me. Now, a very funny thing happened between me and my mother when I was actually leaving. She said, "You're not really going to leave us to go with him are you?" I told her that yes, he was my husband and I was finally going to be where he was. She was actually upset with me for leaving when she'd done nothing my whole life but threaten to make me go… First she threatened the children's home when I was younger, the juvenile home as I got older and then the streets when I got to be 18 and over. At the time leaving home was hard because it had been all I knew but I was ready to go, ready for something new – my own life.

*EEB - Life Synops - Part One (12-09-2008)

I have a friend who has been writing fantastic blogs for a while now, most of it is off the wall stuff that makes you laugh your ass off but then there are others where he lets you have a peek into his life and you realize that there’s actually something pretty amazing going on inside that hard sun baked Aussie head of his. He’s let me/us see the building blocks of what has made him the man he is and I’ve always felt that knowing those beginning steps that people have taken are the very best way to know a person and in turn learn something about the rest of the world. So because of you my dear friend Addy, I open a vein and bleed my own life onto the pages for those who care to take the time to really get to know me for outside fantasyland… Hugs B! (Ah, and also by his inspiration since this is a long tale to tell I’ll break it up in parts, plus I don’t have it all written yet – hey, I’m still living my life, don’t have freakin forever to sit down all the time and write about it! LOL)....
.. ..
Frame of reference - Date: 1897 ....
1: an arbitrary set of axes with reference to which the position or motion of something is described or physical laws are formulated ....
2: a set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something will be approached, perceived, or understood.....
.. ..
I was first made aware of this concept via a teacher I’d had in elementary school as early as the second grade. The teacher explained that everything we experienced, every person, place; event that touched our life would mold the person that we came to be. I remember being fascinated with the premise that the things around me, both externally and internally, would have such an impact of who and what I was to become. I think this is where I first started looking at people as puzzles, ones that’s had to be solved in reverse. You couldn’t really know them till you could take them apart and find out what it had been that had created who they were. The phrase and concept has stayed with me and served me for four decades since I first heard it used. Of course my understanding of it has greatly expanded over that time period. It has helped me to understand not only those around me but in turn it has given me insight into myself that I might not have otherwise had. Isn’t it funny how relevant terms that speak specifically to our own self truth can stick with us even before we’re fully aware of their impact. Another that I heard that relates to the previous defined term is ‘there is no such thing as reality, there is only perception.’ Another connective light bulb moment. There is no truth, no fact, no concrete anything because we will always place our own frame of reference filter over the lens of how we perceive all that is around us. That truly is the very best analogy of what we are – a camera looking at life through a lens that has a multitude of colored filters and those filters enhance or distort what imprints on the film of who and what we are. No two people will have an exact frame of reference; they can be similar but never exact. We often make the assumption that if someone is similar to us that they should think as we do, process life as we do, conclude as we do but when they don’t we have a hard time understanding why. The simple fact is that they aren’t us and quite frankly, they don’t have to be. Here’s a ponderer for you - what is the ratio balance of how you are perceived by others; how much is dependent on what you put out there by comparison to how others perceive you through those filters I mentioned earlier? What responsibility do we hold in how others see us and at what point is it beyond our control and in the conception or misconception of others?....

I have found that we are fanatic story tellers. We see something and from our own frame of reference we fill in the facts as we believe they exist. Now this doesn’t make it accurate or inaccurate. Our experience and judgment does count for something. How many times have we met someone and thought them to be of a character that perhaps they don’t turn out to be in the long run. Does this mean we were entirely wrong about them? Perhaps not. It may instead have been that we perceive them to be what they ‘could’ be rather than what they actually are. This doesn’t make us wrong but perhaps they can’t see their own potential as we do. Or perhaps we close our eyes to the whole person so as to serve the purpose of making them less than they are. Reducing them in our eyes so as to justify our negativity regarding them. The problem comes when we make the choice to believe ONLY those areas that we’ve filled in without probing further for what might not be so easily seen. Sadly we too often take our fleshing out of the unknown as fact/reality. We are all guilty of it to some extent though there are some who absolutely swear that they ‘know’ all there is to know about a situation or person and that’s all they need to know after having done nothing more than make a world of assumptions. They’ve told themselves a story to explain why things are the way they are and no matter how fantastic or fabricated the story is they are so self absorbed that they believe if they think it then it has to be true when it may not even be on the same planet as the truth. Sometimes the story isn’t interesting enough for us to want to create or probe for more so we ignore it and go on our way. Other times we crave to probe, to learn more, to fill the blanks with the other person’s truths but that person shuts us out so we’re left with a sort of emptiness and longing that make us feel vulnerable and we’re afraid to speculate why the information isn’t forthcoming. We shy away from the snub because not to do so means that the other person sees us as one of those uninteresting ones that they’ve ignored and moved away from. We’ve all been on either side of that scenario at one time or another haven’t we? Wanting to know someone desperately or knowing that there is someone who wants to know us desperately. Neither are comfortable places to be yet we still place ourselves and others in that situation knowing what it feels like to be there. A rather Sadistic/masochistic coin is it not?....

It has long been my perception that if someone wants to know me then they’ll ask. I’ve never been a big volunteer of information about myself. I told myself that if someone REALLY cared they’d want to know more and therefore would ask. Well, this idea has gotten me a life with few people who know me at all because most people don’t ask. They again assume that their perception is fact and that’s all they need to know. I’ve decided to take back the power of my own story, my life by offering it up. Now talk about vulnerable! To write is to open a vein and bleed on the paper, at least when writing about one’s self. Perhaps that’s why I never before gave up the information readily, to do so was to give a part of myself that I protected from the outside. So why do it now. Because I want to. I want to make that connection with those who are open to it and the only way we can do that is to share our thoughts and experiences. This won’t be for everyone, it doesn’t have to be; but for those who can muster empathy, even compassion, then a door that once had been unseen is now open, a connection is made. To allow you entrance and to pave that path I must prepare the way by working at becoming more exhibitionistic about my life and my thoughts.....
.. ..
The best place to begin is the beginning… Pre-me… My mother, ‘Jean’, 16 year old high school girl in love with 18 year old Kenny… They were tragic lovers on the scale of Romeo and Juliet… Or at least they thought they were. As passionate about this brand new thing love that no one had ever experienced as they had. Well, they maneuvered themselves into somehow getting married at such young ages - thinking that playing house would be like some romance novel rather than the reality it was. She quit school, he went into the Army after he got out of high school, was stationed away from his young bride who went through most of her honeymoon induced pregnancy with the support of her mother, my wonderful grandmother (known as Katie to her friends). I was born 10 days before my mother’s 17th birthday. She was no more ready to be a mother than she had been to be a wife or an adult but she had my grandma, which was my salvation, at least for the short 13 years that I had her in my life. My father soon went his own way; due I’m told in great part, to the influence of his mother who never wanted the two together in the first place, not long after I was born. The last I remember seeing him was when I was 5 years old at his father’s funeral where he picked me up and cried. He still made the choice to step out of my life all the same. I don’t know where he may be or even if he still is alive. There are times when I wonder what my life might have been like if he’d been there, wondered if my battles with my mother might have been lessened and my life might have been happier. I wondered if he ever thought of me, remembered my birthday, wished he were a part of my life or even wished me well in my life without him. But then I may be better off for his being absent. I’ll never know and you can’t truly miss what you’ve never had can you… At least not entirely. ....

I do remember much of those very early years as being happy and being loved by the only person who at that time mattered most in my world, not my mother, but my grandmother. She was one of those rare souls who had the wisdom of ages, a heart that was open to all who needed it and extraordinary ability to make me feel that I was the most precious thing to ever set foot on this earth. My childhood in her home was like living in the Garden of Eden. Everything she ever touched flourished. My favorite place was the backyard. All along the fences there were peonies, small roses, poppies, morning glories and of course my snowball bush that I’d lay under when the tiny petals fell off so that I’d be covered in their soft snowy flakes. There had once been a small wading pool near the garage that was shaped as a giant’s foot with a small bridge built into the sidewalk at the arch of the foot. By the time I was growing up there it had been filled with dirt and in the larger side every year my grandmother planted it full of multi colored marigolds. In the heal side was one of the two apple trees in the back yard. The idea of ....Eden.... continued in that there were not only the two apple trees but there were also two different kinds of cherry trees, rhubarb and a very large grape arbor that formed an awning over the sidewalk before getting to the giant’s foot bridge. It truly felt magical. Her pride and glory though were her roses. There was a huge red rambler that grew beside the porch as well as on the other side against the house. Behind the porch which contained the swing that was always in use was her peace rose. They were gorgeous huge buttery yellow blossoms that were the envy of any who saw them. I remember when the roots from the rambler connected to those of the peace rose and caused the most amazing red streak through the yellow petals, as if they’d been smeared with blood but they were still beautiful. At the front of the house was the large porch where I spent so many hours on a hot summer afternoon. Oh and when it would rain there was nothing more peaceful for me than to go to sleep on the glider as the rain sheeted off the roof like curtains of water or thrill as the lightening split the sky and thunder shook the ground. Those days are why I still love rain storms so much, why they relax me so when they are downpours and excite me so when they create such a ruckus. It’s little wonder with this entire sensory stimulus that I grew up to so wholly appreciate the wonders of the sensuality of all the ways we take in the world around us. There was nothing my grandmother couldn’t do. I grew up watching her paint her own house, plant gardens every year, process most of our food for the winter, do her own carpentry, work on her own car, roof her own garage. She had a heart of gold. Every morning that I would get up while she was able I would walk into the kitchen where she was always sitting on her stool in the corner with her coffee and smokes. She’d immediately get up to hug me and ask how her girl was doing today. There was never a question I couldn’t ask her that she didn’t have an answer for. No mistake that I could make that would ever make her love me less. She did discipline me, even made me cut my own switch off one of those fruit trees if she deemed it to be my punishment but unlike my mother, who would actually laugh at my panicked pleading when she would spank me, my grandmother truly hated the deed. I also don’t believe that I was an unusually bad child but I specifically remember one time digging in the heel of the giants foot with Grandma and proudly piping up that I hadn’t been spanked that day to which my grandmother with a smile reminded me that the day wasn’t over yet! Most often I was trying to help. Looking back I’d say that it was the adults who got me in trouble most, not being clear or careful about what was being said around children. One prime example of that is when my uncle, who had his own room in the basement of grandma’s house, bought a Thunderbird but said that he didn’t like the color so he wanted to get it painted. I was all of four at this time and because I loved my uncle and wanted to help I proceeded to go out to the garage, find an old house painting brush, some white house paint and yes, did the deed all over the one side of the car I could reach. I proudly walked back to the house, covered in the paint myself and when they asked what I’d been doing to get paint all over me I told them I’d did his car for him! I then remember him tearing out the door and of course my getting into trouble yet again… *grins* Another of the multitude of tales that followed me through my life was that of when I was very small and I first noticed that there were people of different colors and asked her why. *smiles* Her answer to me remains with me to this day as an example of the kind of heart she held - “God made people like cookies ..Vicki.., some he just left in the oven a bit longer than others.” That’s just how she was; fair, open minded and generous with herself and her life. I can only hope that I am in some way a fraction of the woman she was… ....

This isn’t to say that I didn’t love my mother or want her attention and approval; it just wasn’t mine to ever have. I suppose I was a tangible reminder of her bad choices as well as the life she’d given up in favor of a tragic fairy tale. My mother had the gift of an amazing voice and might have easily had a career as an opera singer if she’d have followed the guidance of her vocal teacher but of course she was hell bent to do what she wanted because the young simply aren’t able to properly predict the outcome of their choices. She had my sister almost 4 years after I was born during a brief reconciliation with my father, my sister’s name is Debbie. Then mom married Bill, a man who had no interest in the two daughters that preceded the birth of his son, my brother Scott, five years younger than me. That marriage didn’t end any better or last any longer than her first had. Bill was equally as involved with Scott after the divorce as my father had been, not at all. Mom was great at always choosing the wrong men but at least Bill was the last one she actually married. So, except for a few months here and there we lived at my grandmother’s for the first 15 years of my life. ....

Mom had a natural talent for retail. She was fortunate in that she had mentors in the field who trained and guided her into a career that made her happy as a retail manager but it was more her life than we were. She spent long and varied hours working. I remember before I’d turned ten I strongly felt the need of her attention but she was never home and even when she was she wasn’t a maternal figure ever. I was such a sad lonely child where she was concerned. I remember being so desperate for her attention that I wrote her letters, put them in our mailbox because I was too afraid to approach her directly and just hoped that she’d talk to me about them. I’d see her bring them in, look at them but she never said a word, never even acknowledged they existed or I suppose that I did either. Needless to say my self value as an older child and teenager was non-existent. Hell, if the one person in my life who should value me didn’t then no one else could… For all the help my grandmother was to my mother I think mom was often jealous of the relationship that my grandmother and I had. They would get into arguments and mom would drag us out for one of those torturous rides in the car where she’d blow off steam by regaling us kids as to what her life could have been had she not had us. Mercifully my brother and sister were too young for these trips to stick in their memory but they were carved painfully deep into mine. The ride would always end the same, mom would drive by the children’s home, point it out and say, ‘That’s where you kids would be if it weren’t for your grandmother…’ Gee, can’t make a kid feel any less wanted could she? Yes, she was emotionally and verbally abusive and for me that was just the way she was. She was poisonously negative and seemed to feel better about her misery if she could make others/me in particular, just as unhappy as she always seemed to be. Mom gave my sister and brother hell as they got older too but in different ways. She drove my sister to be perfect and was damned cruel if Debbie didn’t measure up. Sadly my sister holds herself and others to that standard on her own today. My brother was forced to be the ‘man of the family’ which meant mom was up his ass and always in his business to the point where it was just un-natural and my brother HATED it. I often wonder if perhaps that had a hand in his being gay even though I do believe someone is born that way. I’m sure it didn’t help him to view women any better at any rate. Of course after living with her all those years after the fact I found it was little wonder our fathers had escaped and not looked back. We had no choice but to live with her, no one who could choose would have stayed. I was never really close to my sister but my brother is still my best friend even to this day. Whenever there were family fights it always paired off to myself and Scott against Mom and Debbie. My sister has grown to be much like her and even though she’d piss and moan about Mom behind her back as we were growing up she now sees her as some sort of saint. I think its guilt. Mom was fantastic at laying loads of that out on all of us. My brother left the state to join the air force to get away from her attention and control right after high school and has only come back to visit.....Got sidetracked – back to where I’d left off… The situation didn’t improve when my dear grandmother first had a heart attack while I was with her at the store when I was 12 or died when I was with her alone but for my brother and sister when I was 13… I can’t begin to tell you how hard that part of my life was. To see someone die is hard on anyone. To see the person you love most in your life die when you’re so young is just scarring. It’s still a painful memory… I can be pretty dispassionate in relating the other instances in my life, way too much heartache and tears spent on them already, but never about her. Grandma had come from a family of 13 and she’d had 7 of her own children so when she’d been alive there was always family nearby, cousins, aunts, uncles. But when she died the divisions that I’d not even had any idea existed were exposed so not only was she gone but the rest of the structure of my life crumbled along with her. The only light that ever shone in my life was then gone and I really was lost. I look back on it all now and as sad as it was I realize that none of us are promised some utopian existence. As a matter of fact from what I’ve learned from others there are very, very few who have something even close to what is portrayed as being ‘normal’ childhoods. We do what we can to take what we’re given and make sense with it. Hopefully we learn along the way and make better choices, or at least adjust our attitude to make it as pleasant or as unpleasant as we think we deserve. When Grandma died it became my responsibility at age 13 to do all that a mother would have done in our home for my brother and sister and our home while mom continued to escape life in the one place she found it easy to succeed. I had no choice in the matter, it had to be done, I was there and no one else was going to do it. Eventually the family sold Grandma’s house, much to my heartbreak, and we moved to a small town, the first time my mother had ever really been out on her own alone… Well, she really wasn’t because instead of grandma she now had me taking care of all the things she couldn’t bother with…....

*EEB - August Sucked! (09-04-2008)

I'm not a pisser and moaner and I hate those people who can't seem to do more than that with their lives. Negativity breeds the negative and I'm so often the cheerleader whenever things get down. I mean of course things could be worse and I tell myself that all the time to get myself through but sometimes it's a basic requirement to lance the infection and bleed it out when the pressure gets to be too much.The month of August has truly sucked! Our truck got hit by a hit and run driver who caused over $3000 worth of damage. The positive is that we have insurance and even though the truck is 13 years old they fixed it rather than deny or total out the claim. It did cost us the deductible which I know we'll never recover. Oh yes, we had to make a deductible out of money that we had to borrow to cover our bills and expenses for the month of August because my husband finally filled out his paperwork to go from pre-retirement under Delphi to full retirement under GM but the promised 'smooth transition' crashed and burned when we found for the month of August we wouldn't be getting any money from either at all! GM would send us two checks at the beginning of September, we're waiting to see if that happens even now, but for August we were just S.O.L. The same for our insurance coverage - our coverage under Delphi was retro deactivated back to July 31 and coverage under GM was to begin August 1… Sure! We went to the doc for a sinus infection for my son, my husband had annual blood work done and it wasn't until we went to get the RX's for my son that we found that the insurance company doesn't have any of us as having coverage at all! The union rep has told us that any billing we get we are to bring to them and they will see that they are taken care of. I have little peace from this because I saw how fast the union worked at getting mishandled medical bills taken care of when my husband had a workers comp injury two years ago. Something is very wrong with a system that jeopardizes your credit because a company's ability to work sufficiently and in due time is about as fast as growing hair. Hell, going gray because of their insufficiency is faster than they accomplish anything! My biggest concern is that my son's RX for his Synthroid be honored

*EEB - Bad Eye Day (03-02-2008)

"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn in whatever state I am in, therein to be content."..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
~Helen Keller
It would be nice if everyday could be full of fantasy and erotica but the truth is that is but a fraction of my life. Occasionally reality steps in and reminds me that there are things not quite as pleasant.
This has been for me what I call a 'bad eye' week. Sometimes I struggle even with my glasses to read what I find on the computer screen. Thank you ever so much Web 2.0! All those nice subtle shades on top of a white background… And what happened to the concept of making the internet disability friendly? I think the problem is that people make the error in thinking that you either see or you don't, like there's no place in between. Well let me tell you – there is in between.
First, for those who may not know, I have a hereditary eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. It's a degenerative disease that I was diagnosed with at the age of nine so this is something I've known about all my life. Although knowing about it and now experiencing it's much increased progression now that I am older is a lot different than I thought it was going to be. I am legally blind by definition that my peripheral vision is less than 20°. Some may not understand what that means so I'll explain. The average person has a visual radius of 180°, so that even when you're looking straight ahead you are able to see a wide view of what's around you without looking directly at it. Also that area where the fields overlap between the eyes gives you your three dimensional vision and your depth perception. Now, try to imagine going through your world without that. Try looking through two paper towel tubes and you'll get the basic idea of what it might be to see how I see. Ah but it doesn't end there! The central vision is affected too! I still have corrected vision of 20/40-50 but now put a sort of sunglass filter at the end of those tubes because the rod and cone in my eyes that process light are dying so when it's dark for me it's REALLY dark and when it's light it's not as light or depending on the type of light – its glaringly bright! (The glare isn't as bad now that I've had cataract surgery in both eyes as it once had been) There are times, such as this, when the central vision is affected. My vision goes between clear to blurry and back again. The harder I try to focus the worse it gets and if I work to hard to get my eyes to work I end up straining them to the point where I can find it even harder to see for days. My doc says this is due to a side condition called Cystic Macular Edema. In other words, being female whenever my body decides to retain fluids my eyes pay the price for it too. I do have drops and those help but they sting a great deal and I have to use them consistently for a couple days before I anticipate this issue to occur to reduce the problem.
Over the years I have been lucky that it progressed very slowly. My family first suspected there was a problem when I would run into things in the house at night. One of the first signs of the disease is night blindness. From the beginning it set me apart from my peers. I couldn't see the stars as easily at night, people who didn't know about my condition just thought I was clumsy because people always believe their own assumptions rather than seeking the truth. It's kept me from participating in many of the normal social activities that most teens engage in. It showed me who were not my friends were when they couldn't be bothered to include me because I was work to assist. It kept me from having the complete freedom that driving affords, it's kept me from doing many things that others without it take for granted. Now, let me tell you what it's given me. It's given me time to be more thoughtful about myself, my life and others. It kept me from going out and engaging in some, not all, of the dangerous behavior that my peers threw them selves into. It made me appreciate the absolute glory of the things around me. It made me choose better friends because often when being out with them I literally had to entrust them with my life by allowing them to guide me. (*grins* Tramping around in state parks, climbing up and down hills, walking over narrow high bridges all in the dead of night seeing only blackness and feeling only the warmth of the hand or arm beside me… Funny how brave you can be when you don't see the dangers surrounding you) There have been disadvantages as well as advantages. A couple good points - I've never had to be the designated driver. I get to use a sort of hands on approach to seeing things in my world – people included. The bad - I have to rely on others to get me where I need to go so I don't have a personal escape other than inside my own head. And worst is the knowledge that my son not only inherited my quick cutting wit, my stubborn streak but also this damned disease.
When I was younger it was easy to know I was going to lose my vision because I had no concept of what that entails. At the time it just meant that I got a lot more attention from my eye doctors and maybe felt a little outside my peers but I was that way with or without the RP. For the longest time I was very lucky in that it didn't progress that rapidly. That has changed. Sometimes I wonder where to find the strength and heart to go blind with grace and dignity. I think that having known so young does give me the advantage of having had the ability to learn to adapt more readily than one might who is stricken suddenly. But there's this limbo that I exist in now. Seeing and not seeing enough to be confusing and even dangerous. I've often said that I had RP, it didn't have me. Is certainly isn't who I am although it has had an impact. It's no different that any other struggle that any of us might face. It won't kill me, at least not directly, although it does sometimes make me feel frighteningly vulnerable. It's a specific ambiguity, if such a thing can be said, which at least means it's something I can focus on overcoming. Time will tell whether I do it well or not. But I take inspiration from Helen Keller's quote above. My interpretation of it is that the beauty in life doesn't end simply because the eyes are no longer able to behold them. We are conduits through which our life passes; it is either minimized or amplified via the lens of our being. Today isn't a day it'll burden my heart – tomorrow is tomorrow, I'll see what that brings as it comes. As with my eyes, some days are easier than others.

*EEB - Addendum (05-09-2007

Earlier Entry Blog***

I had to post this as a sort of follow up on my last post. (yes folks, I like my euphemisms and analogies so bare with me here… It's the way I think so it's the way I write) There are many facets to our life and there are times when one may get more focus than all the others. There are inclusions within that jewel but that adds to its very distinctiveness; what makes it unique and rare and solely individual to us. There's a sentiment expressed by one of the characters in Memoirs of a Geisha that has stayed with me since I heard it. It's a concept that I'd pondered myself before and since but I'll give you their version because they express it beautifully. "We're not promised happiness in life no matter how much we think we deserve it so when it happens it's an unexpected gift to be cherished." (Not an exact quote but the gist is there) I still have crisis in my life but it's far from being all that my life is about. I'm rather a pragmatic. I don't see the glass as half full or half empty. It's simply half a glass of water. If you're thirsty you're going to drink it and be grateful, if you ignore because it's not full then you simply weren't really thirsty enough. Sometimes we all need help just finding the glass. For all the bad there is still so much that is good in my life and it's because of that which makes me continue to fight so hard to preserve it. Its easy to immerse ourselves in what is causing us pain because pain is one of those sensations we feel more acutely than some others, one that can make us feel isolated, persecuted and helpless. It's also very easy to get so entrenched in it that we end up wallowing in it, feeling it more intensely than it needs to be felt. We only need to submerge ourselves far enough in it that it causes us to act to change the condition, nothing more. Although, there are times that depth isn't always up to our control and sometimes it is -- that's difficult to gauge as well as to remember… Our best hope is to gain strengths from our struggles. I know I have, that I am better able to deal with what life throws in my path because of it than I might have been otherwise. But it also colors, and sometimes that filter is flawed, how we perceive or absorb what's around us. There are also times when we have gifts in our life and we have to be reminded to look away from the pains and see what's positive around us and who is standing beside us...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Not everyone can be all things to a person at all times. Whether that be our significant others, our family, our friends or even ourselves. When I got married I went into it with the principle that this was the family I was choosing for the rest of my life. I had to deal with him as I would that of my first family. If I had an issue or a problem with one that was there by blood I couldn't simply negate their tie to me because of it any more than I could with my husband. Fancy words aside, an example would be that if my sister pissed me off I either had to fix it or live with it because she was always going to be my sister and that was a connection that was special and specific to her, there is no divorcing yourself from your family. (Distancing yes but divorcing no) I went into my marriage with the same philosophy. Besides, I'm not a huge arguer. I just don't think that many of the things that people fight over are worth the time, energy and ill feelings that linger far too long. In all the 23 years that we've been married we've had less than a handful of what would be considered 'fights' (arguments because neither of us would ever be physical in a negative way with each other) and I can tell you what every one of them was about. Of course there are deal breakers and those were laid out from the very start and none of those have ever been broken. One of the gifts that is between us is that even if we may not always be able to supply it, we always want the one we love to be happy. Unfortunately there are times when we just aren't equipped to provide that to the other and there are also times when it's not really up to us to give it – that it may be something that the other has to define and find for themselves and it may simply be our role to let them. Regardless, we want it for each other enough to sometime make the sacrifice. Sometimes it's fruitless but other times it brings tremendous rewards. An example here is that for the longest time in my life I was introverted, had little confidence and little self worth. The building blocks were always inside me to be more and it was because I had his love and the assurance of his support that I grew into who I am now. Again, I'm not perfect, would really hate to be or even think I were but I really do like myself. For all that I've lived in my life, the good and the bad, I can say that I don't think I'd change a single thing about it because I'd don't want to upset the balance of the person I've become. Changing now and the future – now that's an entirely different story!In reading the last post please remember that I may have been the writer of the letter but I'm not the only one involved nor is any one person solely responsible for the difficulties we as a family are facing nor is this affecting just my life. It's a cumulative effect of many people and many choices. I'm a tenacious person, sometimes to my betterment and other times to my regret, but it's just against my grain to give up. I'm also an incurable cheerleader so it's also against my grain not to look for the silver lining. Even above the thickest clouds and the most torrential rain the sun still exists. I may be financially poor but I've never been incredibly materialistic and there are other more valuable currencies in life that I have a wealth of. I may not live in a home out of Home Beautiful but I have a roof, a bed and even if I didn't I have those I've always felt my home was in my husband's arms. My family may not be all I hope them to be but neither am I (nor is anyone else) yet we are all here, healthy and still able to learn. It's almost summer and for those who know me you know it doesn't get any better than that for my tranquility and peace of mind. *grin* And I have friends – I truly am most blessed…

*EEB - Life Lately (04-26-2007

Earlier Entry Blog***

I'm about to very publically let you all into a very private part of myself… My real life. At least for a short time because I don't plan on leaving this posted indefinitely. Some have shown concern for my lack of being around much, even though I'm not on often as it is I've been absent even more so than usual, and I really do appreciate your concern. I'm generally a very private person when it comes to my every day life but it's because of what is going on there that I've been spending less time online. Sometimes reality bites which is why I enjoy going into the chat room to escape it from time to time and why when the conflicts break out there I'm so fast to cut and run. I'm facing a time in my life that is very difficult and I'm having an incredibly hard time dealing with it. It's for that reason that sharing this letter with you that I've written to someone else requesting help. Regardless of whether or not you agree with my method in getting it this my best means of letting those who care know what's been going on with me. I'm not looking for pity, though I'm sure it'll be there, I'm just letting you know that I'm human, that I have problems like the rest of the world but that I'm finally learning to ask for help in the best way I know how, which is amazingly difficult for me. I just know that I can't do this on my own as it is anymore...

Dear Dr. Phil,
I can't possibly put in a single letter all the experiences that have brought me to this point but hopefully I can write as much as I can to let you know how sincere I am in asking/praying for your help. I'm not looking for fifteen minutes of fame. It doesn't matter to me whether I'm on your show or not but I do know you and the people that you've gathered are my very best point of reference for support in taking control of my life and turning it around. You and those with you have done such miraculous things to help others help themselves and I so desperately need that in my life.
I feel like I'm about to bleed to death and I don't know how to stop it… If the draining of my life were coming from one wound then I'd know how to bandage or tourniquet it to save my life but it doesn't feel that simple to me. I feel like I'm cut everywhere, small cuts of varying depths that are festering and no one sees but my life is running out from me all the same. I think what frightens me the most is this silent but terrifying desperate sense of panic and despair that clutches at my heart and makes me feel like I'm just barely hanging on by my fingernails. There's no drug use in my life, no affair, no catastrophic event that's paralyzing me. (At least its not one single thing) I don't wish those on anyone no less on me but if that were the case at least then I'd have some single thing to focus on that I could work to fix. Maybe in writing you I'm asking for miracles in my life but that's just what I need so I'm praying that God will allow this plea to capture your attention. I never really learned to ask for help, often thought I didn't deserved it, could force myself to be stronger if I faced troubles on my own, or by example through most of my life that I just wouldn't get it but I know now that I do deserve it and I just have to ask the right people in the right way. I already know I don't have the means or resources to find it for myself. I'd like to think I'm intelligent enough that if it were within my reach I'd of at least found a strand of the rope I need to pull myself out of this with… But then I am aren't I? I am writing to you. This change has to be supplemented from somewhere outside myself because I'm not finding it in whom and what I know. My family and friends are unable, unaware or unwilling to help me. So many are caught up in dealing with the issues in their own life to give much concern these days to others. At least that seems to be the trend in those in my realm. In understanding that, I've done what I can not to burden them. Unfortunately I've now realized that I solve nothing by shouldering this on my own when it would be easier to involve others in helping to disperse my burdens in the same ways I've tried to do so for others when they had their own troubles. I've yet to understand fully why I can so easily offer to others that which I seem to have so much difficulty in asking or expecting for myself. I need a sponsor, a patron, a mentor, a friend and I'm asking with all that I am that this process continue with you since it's begun with me. I will work so hard to do all that I need to do to move my life successfully along any track that I need to with the guidance of you and whomever else you gift to me in knowing.
The problem is that I've allowed my life to jump track so many times that I find myself going backward but then I'm not sure that I ever really knew how to direct it properly to begin with. I'm going blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa, which I was diagnosed with at the age of nine. Actually, I am already legally blind by the standards of reduced peripheral vision set by the federal government. I'm married to a good man and have a good son who is now 20 although he has both learning disabilities and visual problems as well. I spent the years after my son was born raising him and seeing him through many difficult years at school due to his learning disabilities. I am proud of what my son has accomplished. He has gone from a child who I was told would never learn past a certain age level to a young man who was mainstreamed into regular classes with just minor assistance. I'm sure I could have done a better job and used better methods in his upbringing but I felt a driving need to not allow others the power to define the boundaries of my son's life, only he could do that, so I fought the schools as well as him sometimes to make him reach for more. I know he bears the scars of that as well as the benefits. When he was about to leave high school I knew if was time to help contribute to our meager family income as best as I could. I contacted my state Bureau of Services for the Visually Impaired to assist me in returning to the work force with a disability for myself. (As well as enlisting them to help plan for the future of my son) I was assessed and although I showed aptitude in many areas where an advanced education was required I was informed that I would not be assisted by that agency in obtaining any degree nor would they or could they direct me to another who might assist me. My goal was still to advance my education so I followed the recommendation of my then counselor and took business skills training which was to validate and enhance what I had already taught myself at home on the computer, which at the time I had no idea that there was no valid certification earned, so that I could get an entry level position. It was both exciting and frightening to take on that endeavor. I faced a world that was difficult to see, where people don't understand that there are differing levels of vision and they pass uninformed judgments but I saw it as a means to an end and one that I desired greatly. I worked very hard and received the highest grades of all who had at that time gone through the program. I trusted that having worked with the visually impaired that they were directing me into a field that I could make a long term career. I was naïve and it was only after the experiences that I had in the workplace that I realized how illogical it was to have directed a woman who was losing her sight into a field that was often so visually intensive. My goal remained to advance my own education so I worked very hard at getting a position at a local university because tuition is reduced for employees. Oh I got the job… I have known quite a variety of hells in my life but it was two and a half years of one like I had never known and one I will never repeat. In an effort to prove myself I endured dehumanizing and demoralizing behavior from individuals whose job it was to be care givers. I learned then that the example of a 'target patient' in a dysfunctional family could also be applied to a work environment as well. I was never allowed to feel secure in my position so I feared beginning classes that I wouldn't be able to pay for so out of fear and intimidation I didn't pursue the education that I'd planned and longed for. The lessons I got were those I would have gladly avoided. I gave up a job that I struggled so hard to get and then do in a horribly toxic environment and that experience has burned my psychological skin severely but I know it was my own peace of mind and salvation that I bought when I finally left. I'm looking for other work but know my lack of training and diminishing vision hinder my prospects. With 74% of blind or visually impaired persons being unemployed or underemployed I know that I'm fighting against the odds but I'm still fighting all the same. So now, not only are my employment options limited but I'm having even more difficulty doing the normal things at home for my family that others take for granted. I'd reopened my case with the Rehabilitation Services again but my assigned counselor seemed to be happy to forget I existed. I'd met with her only once and talked to her on the phone approximately 6 times in the past year and she was notorious for not returning my calls. During that year I worked with a job placement specialist in search of other employment but although I don't doubt that her intentions were good she didn't listen to what I was telling her I wanted and needed in a new job. She was forever directing me towards positions that entailed the same tasks that I had had so much difficulty doing at my previous job. I'd tell her that if I could have done that then I would have stayed where I was. She had no grasp of my disability or the things I needed to be able to succeed. I have recently contacted the agency to demand a new counselor be assigned to me because the service I had been receiving was unacceptable. So even those whose job it is to assist me adjust have not been able to completely assist me. There's a military adage about the speed and efficiency of government agencies in that the common philosophy is 'hurry up and wait'. With my vision failing and after an all too close call with dangerous conditions of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism that literally brought me to a hairs width of ending my life last November after a minor laser procedure to correct reflux in a vein in my leg I hope you can understand my sense of urgency.
I'm married to a good man who I love and who loves me. He does a lot to show me so in his own fashion but he doesn't love me enough to move outside his comfort level. I often feel like I'm in this relationship alone when it comes to initiative. I've been the one who's been responsible for making all the major decisions in all areas; from decisions about our son, ourselves, our home, our life to taking care of the finances. When I felt overwhelmed or that things were out of hand and I asked for his help his response was no response. We had to file bankruptcy to try and gain some control and he had no interest and still doesn't. He recently was forced to take an early retirement because the company he worked for had filed bankruptcy. He had known that our income would be vastly reduced but didn't bother to begin looking for other work until I forced him to see that we couldn't pay the bills that we had on the reduced income of his pre-retirement agreement. I'd been telling him that before his previous job ended but since he doesn't manage the money I don't think he understood the degree of urgency. We're into month three now of my trying to manipulate the money to pay the bills and I've been doing more job searching for him than he's done. He worked for his previous company for twenty nine years and this is supposed to be his 'pre-retirement' so I understand his need to take some time to himself but our financial needs don't end because his job did. I know that in a lot of ways he justifies his actions by saying to himself that he lets me make all the choices and run the family so that I'm happy but I'm so not happy. When I've asked for his help or begged him to see how stressed I am over all that is going on around us he looks at me blankly like a deer caught in headlights and does little or nothing to ease my burden. Even adds to in fact. I'm trapped in a neighborhood that gets more violent each day in a home that is falling down around my ears and is literally dangerous to me in that with my lack of vision I'm more prone to accidents, especially falling on things I don't see. Now I know our finances have hindered us and he's no handyman but he knows other men who do have the knowledge to correct the issues and all he has to do is ask for their guidance but he won't. Neither he or my son seem to respect that since I can't see very well anymore that things have to be kept in particular places so I can find them. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to need something and not find it where it ought to be because one of them has put it somewhere else. It just emphasizes my feeling of inadequacy in my own home. Since my son has the same eye disease that I do, though not as advanced yet, I've asked, begged, accused and tried to quilt my husband into teaching him how to drive ever since he was 16. He will very likely be very limited in the amount of time that he'll be afforded this particular freedom but my husband won't commit to doing it for more than a couple weeks at a time before it's then forgotten. That's common behavior for him with most of what I ask him to do or he himself sets out to do. If the same sex parent is the biggest influence in a child's life then my son has no hope of making an independent life for himself. We haven't always been this way. When I was able to do more I did and perhaps because I was able to do it I wasn't as bothered by the fact that my husband didn't do it but now I need to rely on him more and I feel like I'm being set adrift. It's caused a strain between us that threatens what we've tried to build over the last 23 years that we've been married and the friendship that began over 32 years ago. We've got so much invested in our life together that I must fight to fix it. I can't seem to love him enough to inspire the things I need from him, I can't yell, or manipulate or quilt him into it either so I feel myself pulling away. He's also dealing with ED issues and in my efforts to be supportive, understanding and protective of his sensitive ego I keep my own feelings of rejection, frustration and disappointment to myself which does nothing but add even more to that distance. The more complacent he becomes the more pronounced my feeling of desperation in so many areas becomes. I'm not someone who easily argues over things, I can name all the arguments we've had in all the years we've been together on one hand and tell you what each one was about. Most often I have a very good perspective over what is worth that kind of energy and what isn't but at other times there are things that I simply turn in on myself which is now having a more pronounced physical effect on me with stress and anxiety.
Is it entirely his fault, absolutely not! I believe that not only do we teach others how to treat us but we choose those people in our life who will allow us to behave in the manner that suits our self created reality. Just as I know that sometimes we do our best, sometimes we go above and beyond and sometimes we just do what's easiest to get by. I sometimes allow myself to be easily distracted when it comes to doing what I really don't like to do. That also makes it hard to stay focused, to put all I have into doing what I should be doing. Other times, when I've really worked hard and things have not gone as I've hoped I feel like a miserable failure even when I have made an extreme effort but feel that it wasn't enough or came too late. Dr. Phil, I've worked so hard to try to make my life something better than what I was told I deserved but somehow my efforts aren't bearing much good fruit. As hard as I've fought, as far as I've come with all that is or isn't going on around me I can't help but hear the past echoing in my head, a voice I thought I'd drowned out. My mother telling me that I wasn't worth the powder to blow my ass up with, the woman who drove past the children's orphanage telling us that if it weren't for your grandmother that's where you'd be, or the woman who laughed at my anxiety before she'd spank me, the woman who threatened me with juvenile hall when I was under 18 and the streets when I became 18, the woman who I could never please no matter how hard I tried and from whom I only found peace once she'd died. I had no self esteem, used to ask my friends why they were my friends because I just couldn't see any value in myself then. I did everything she required of me including helping to raise my brother and sister, taking care of the house, managing the bills and anything else that needed doing from the time I was 13 when my grandmother died till I moved away from home at 24. (At which point she actually was upset and told me I was a abandoning her when I left to go live with my husband who was then in the military after years of being threatened to be thrown out) What else could I have done, I was there and it had to be done. Somehow through writing and keeping a journal I found value in myself. I've tried so hard to build onto that foundation. Right now I feel like I'm working on shifting sands…It's time I got some new blueprints and I hope that you can be the architect. Please Dr. Phil. I need your help.