The Monkey's Journey; the next passage

Something inside me has been impelling me to come back here and write, despite my perception that writing in a realm other than pen and paper seems to be much more dangerous in these times.

I have so many thoughts rolling around in my head, thoughts on the world, my beloved country and her painful condition, aging (Oh so much on aging), parenting, inequity in the world, my spiritual beliefs and how my fellow believers appear to be abandoning the actual Word of God for the world of political power.

I still struggle with the same issues as before, although I also still make progress.

Unfinished. That’s me, unfinished.

I have no idea why it is easier for me to think through things when writing in an electronic format than it is to write in my beloved paper journal, but it is. Writing here helps with staying in the moment so I don’t lose myself to the strong currents flowing through our world these days.

I am much more protective of myself now.

***10 minutes later/ I reread this just now and it is truth https://redkelly.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/begin-again/

No, not the U.S. government, although that wouldn’t be a lie.

My DIL is a terrible parent. She savages the second son all the time.He’s neurodivergent (as is my son, her partner) and annoys her greatly. When she is annoyed she is mean.

When she is calm and thoughtful she has great parenting ideas. She is rarely calm and thoughtful, mostly irritated and angry.

Everyone lives together in my house because you can’t buy a house in a good neighborhood here for below a million dollars. None of us can afford that. I bought my house 40 years ago when the world was different.

I am so frustrated. She won’t listen to anyone. If I object I am confident she will isolate all the kids from me. She has completely cut her own parents out of the kids life. Granted, it was justified where her father was concerned, but I know she will justify cutting us out too. It’s what she does.

I’m a wimp when it comes to confrontation, I’ll admit it. I grew up in a household where battle was the norm. I’m scarred by it. All the yelling re-traumatizes me. I hate it. If I go to battle over this, her mean-ness, she will burn everything down. She’s an all-or-nothing kind of girl.

I hate the way she treats her kids and I hate myself for not standing up to her.

I had the weirdest experience just now. Sitting alone in my room, getting distracted from the things I wanted to accomplish by picking up a new book instead, I felt a gentle hand on my back. Very distinctly. No doubt in my mind.

My initial startled thought was it was my grandson, who likes to sneak up on me. In the split second it took me to whip around in my seat I remembered that the boys are gone today, Sea Kayaking with family members.

There was no one there.

It was my mother. I don’t know how I know, I just do.

I went online and paid my bills then came here to say this aloud in the only place I can say something like this.

Now I’m going to do my laundry and move on to the rest of my list. The idea is to get all the unfun stuff done so I can rest tomorrow, really rest. I needed that gentle (but really spooky) reminder.

Oh, and a P.S. Today is my 13th Anniversary with WordPress.

and I don’t have an outlet for it.

Someone made a huge mistake and cost my employer about $6000 bucks. It looks like it was me but I am still trying to figure out everything. Damn order of operations.

She was very gracious and blamed herself because she hadn’t been checking my work. She wasn’t even going to tell me but the issue came up in a team meeting and she had to tell me.

I’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately, and now the added stress of knowing I screwed up this badly has completely tanked my mood, confidence, and mental capacity. I haven’t been this anxious since my rape in the early 70’s. I’m even having trouble eating. My inner dialog is hideous and I can’t seem to stop it.

I am making too many mistakes. I know I am on her last nerve. I am frankly, surprised I haven’t been fired. I keep waiting for it. I’ve never been fired before.

I don’t have anywhere else to express this.

My youngest child is gender fluid. They have been keeping their thoughts on this to themselves since junior high. They did tell me while in high school that they thought they were bi, then gay, then bi, then never mind, then gay, then bi, then maybe trans. I knew all along that they were not cis het standard. I just didn’t know where on the spectrum they would fall. They were very, very much on the down-low. Did NOT want me to let their siblings or father know. Not because anyone would reject them, just because they are so private (why I’m writing here).

During the Covid lockdown, they talked to a doctor about transitioning and what it would entail. I very strongly suggested that they do more exploring first, talk to people who have transitioned, talk to other gender fluid people, to pansexual people, to gay people, plug into a community, TALK TO ACTUAL PEOPLE first. My darling, reserved introvert took my advice.

They do not refer to themselves as they. They are keeping their birth name. For now. And their body which is male. For now. But they are experimenting. They have sported a beard and mustache for a few years.

Today they walked into my room to show me the new look after shaving and MY GOD! They are beautiful. I was almost stunned speechless but made the effort to be intelligible because stunned silence from your parent when you first come out is a bad thing.

Sassy, sandy blonde wig, subtle eye make-up, bright peony lipstick. Absolutely beautiful. They were so happy and I am so happy for them.

Still alive. Still trying to figure it all out. Wondering why if I haven’t posted in forever people are still hitting the follow button? Maybe looking for abandoned blogs to hijack? Not here baby, go away.

We are isolating as much as possible. I feel terribly isolated from my family even. We are all being avoidant because all of us are not doing well. I am having real trouble with memory, focus, and motivation.

I am one of the lucky ones, I have my job. I’ve come to hate my job. The people I work for know the virus is real, because a family member has died but they attribute that to his being older and sedentary. They are nose out mask wearers who think the mask mandates are a government conspiracy to get us use to being controlled. Insist masks don’t work. Any real information I offer is dismissed as an untrustworthy source. They think the Chinese created the virus on purpose and unleashed it as a weapon to kill us. According to them the low death count China is reporting is not under reporting but proof of the conspiracy. I try not to get into a position where I discuss any of these things with any of them but on occasion I can’t be silent. I have felt their respect for me diminishing over the past 6 months. The feeling is mutual. My own personal hell.

I feel like I am split in two.

My sister in law has covid. She started getting sick last week and tested positive on Monday. My brother, the one with emphysema, has so far tested negative. They are isolating as much as possible but they were the caretaker for her parents, both of whom died in these past two weeks.They had advanced alzheimers and so there were round the clock hospice nurses in the house and multiple trips to doctors over the last few weeks. They could have picked it up anywhere. Now they are gone, within a week of each other, and the rest of that branch of the family is all sick including two of my sister in laws siblings and their spouses.

I feel guilty for being grateful that none of us here are sick.

It’s terribly difficult to make any plans for the future. What’s the point?

To write here anymore.

I’ve been racking up drafts, and then not posting, because why?

The world has gone to hell and my little corner of it is trying it’s best to do the right things and stay safe. My problems seem so small in comparison to what is happening in the world. My voice isn’t particularly insightful or inspiring.

Kinda done with the blogging thing.

A little covid crazy, but holding at an acceptable level.

Let me state I believe in science. If you believe fact is not factual and science is a sliding scale subject to your personal views, just go away. I do not have the time or energy for you.

My governor has done a good job. He has never been my personal favorite, mainly because he was a closet alcoholic and a publicity hound, but he’s done right by us. He has the public good in mind. I appreciate his leadership.

I live right on the county divide. Just over the county line next to where a bunch of idiots have decided this is all a joke and they have drunk the “personal freedom” koolaid and gone frickin insane. Half the cringeworthy twitter and instagram threads circulating nationally are from my area.

I can’t even enjoy the coming schadenfreude because it is so close to home.

Actually I am honestly past the schadenfreude stage. The horror of this has surpassed my ability to want to be petty and right. To enjoy even a little of the I told you so.

My dil lost her Uncle. Yes, to covid 19. Ten days on a ventilator, no underlying conditions, and he was gone. Her Aunt had it, made it through.

My doctor friend that I have written about so many times over the years? The one that saved our families’ collective health so many times? He’s gone too.

My boss wanted me to stay at work every day, not work from home. It would have made things much harder for the company if I was not there to be the customer service face of the company. So I stayed. I resented it.

You all know I have mental health issues. I have never hidden that from anyone.  I wanted to be home, safe, like everyone else. Also, the tech guy, doesn’t believe this is really as bad as it is. He goes out.

Without a mask.

Because apparently a mask infringes on his personal freedom.

I asked to go on furlough and was denied, which means I’d have had to quit which seemed foolish. So I took a week off.

It took four days to stop having panic attacks. I did things at home that gave me a sense of control.

Ephemeral sense, but it helped.

Anyway, I took an online course in being kind to myself. I needed it. It helped, bunches.

While I’ve been lax at eating right , and drinking too much alcohol, I have been really good about meditation. It’s help a ton as well. I’m personally okay right now.

My kids, not so much.

That doctor friend? Was also their client.

Yesterday they were informed by their last big client that they got a better (cheaper, not more skilled, but you get what you pay for) rate for the same service. We know it’s not going to be the same level of service, because my kids are elite. I’m not saying that because they are my kids, I’m saying that because they are that good.

The client seems to recognize that too, because one of the first things they asked after making the statement and not getting a discount was, “Can we come back if it doesn’t work out?”

So, most of the income stream is gone too.

I don’t know how we are going to manage.

We will manage, but have yet to figure it out.

I must say I heartily resent the entitled individuals that have no worries deeper than where they can get a haircut and when they can go to the gym again. It’s not about their health it’s all about making the service workers put themselves in danger.

Fuck you you entitled clueless bastards.

Oh, does that make me partisan? Oh well.

Makes you like me less? Again, oh fucking well, go away and don’t read my blog.

Now I’m not sure.

I know I am drinking too much. I’m also eating the wrong things. Not exercising nearly enough.

Having always needed a retreat into alone time, I am finding that with everyone stuck in house, all eight of us, there is no alone time and no where to retreat.

I feel like a cat whose fur has been stroked against the grain. I am all kinds of irritated.

Things that do not normally register on my “Oh God I can’t deal with this” scale are racking up some big numbers. This is an almost comforting expression of my neurosis. Comforting as in familiar, where as nothing else in this dystopian landscape we call Spring 2020 is familiar any more.

I’m not dead. I’m not sick. I’m still working (p.s. I need a new job so if you’re hiring you could do way worse than me). We have toilet paper and yeast, not because I’m a hoarder but because I am a mini -prepper and a baker. I have consistently had three months worth of the things we need on hand since my personal 2008 economic crash debacle where I wasn’t sure I could feed my kids and I had to use salt to brush my teeth with (not sure that this particular reinforcement of that particular neurosis (scarcity thinking) was a good idea on the part of the universe, but there it is). I should be all kinds of grateful, and I am, but I’m also more uncomfortable and off kilter emotionally than I have been since my mother died.

No one in my immediate family is sick.  Three family friends are sick but not deathly so. My brother with an underlying condition had it and seems well on the road to recovery. My DIL’s uncle with no known underlying conditions spent a week and a half on a ventilator then died of Covid 19. On Easter morning.

I’m the lone believer in a house full of atheists and one lapsed Baptist. I was the only one invested in celebrating to begin with. I bought the candy. I bought the egg dye and Easter grass. Because there is no school holidays aren’t top of mind in our house. I wanted to celebrate.  I didn’t even do that right. I missed the online service. We did have an egg hunt for the little ones. I cooked a traditional dinner, but no mention of the spiritual in any of it.  The pall of death hung over the adults in the house.

I thought I have been handling  everything really well. I realized on my way to work Monday morning that I was having some serious memory issues. It’s a stress thing. I’m sitting here typing away at this and suddenly I want to rage and cry. I want to run away. I want to hide from all my responsibilities. I want this to go away. I want to be strong and disciplined enough that I take proper care of myself, and it’s not happening. I even put on a mask and gloves and braved the supermarket to get a bottle of wine. AFTER I told myself I would not. I got a Reese’s peanut butter cup too. The whole trip was stupid on so many levels.

I want to be able to look back and say, “I did my best and weathered the crisis well”. Instead I seem to be giving myself a pass for some of my worst behavioral traits. I feel like I’m lost.