Dear Hearts,
Holy shit! I just posted a link to my blog—this very fucking blog online. You know…I have this friend…and this is her blog. Christ on a cracker! I can’t believe I did that and I am not sure how I feel about it.
Okay, I’m back. It was time for my first cigarette and coffee of the day. The anticipation of that first cigarette is always more appealing than the actual cigarette itself.
I am Home.
“Where do you live?”
“Um…”
I don’t know. I live in The Holy City. I will always live in My Home Town. I don’t live in My House. I lived in Albany.
I am here on the East Coast to deal with doctors, accountants, social security, HUD, finances, and to visit my family.
Martha wanted my next post to be about the future. Fuck you, Martha. (Affectionately.) I’m doing it!
It’s hard to think about the future in my childhood bedroom.
We’re having Christmas tonight. I didn’t open many of the gifts my parents got me for Christmas. The tree is still up here as Dad is the King of Christmas. Seriously. Hallmark calls him. They have a special room for him to sort his items and everything. Dad LOVES Christmas. Mom and Dad froze a piece of Dad’s birthday cake for me. So, tonight I will see Gaia, Johnny, open gifts, and have birthday cake.
I’d rather be in The Holy City. This is it. I have decisions to make.
Okay—here it is…my guts…
I can maybe get mortgage help from the government because I’m on disability. That would be leaning more toward keeping the house. Or, I sell. Let’s see how that feels.
I am going to sell My House.
I am tuning into my body for my intuitive feeling on that statement. Gimme a minute.
NO ONE CAN HOLD ME TO THIS
I think that is the right—no fuck RIGHT—I think that is what I—what God—wants me to do. My future is not in My House. That makes me sad. But, it’s not. My House is isolated. I don’t have any warm feelings toward The Town—the one ten minutes away. I actually rather despise it’s Occupy-Wallstreet-Organic-We-Are-So-Cool attitude.
My House is big. Six bedrooms. Whenever I would talk about My House I would always throw in the six bedrooms, almost five acres, 1850s barn, and two-story, two-car garage. I was proud of that. I owned a big house.
When I was in college, I actually fucking thought that I was going to be a famous writer! I fucking believed that shit! Really! I was so fucking deluded. I got that “delusions of grandeur” from my father who believed he was going to be a famous actor. He is a 30+ year retired special ed. teacher.
In my way of thinking—more, bigger, grander, brighter, shinier—the better.
Where has that philosophy gotten me? Here.
I found this selection of the eulogy I gave for Gram:
“I recently read an article about the Quiet Plains of Happiness. I wish I could tell you that I read about this idea in a philosophical text by Des Cartes or Hume, but I didn’t. I read about it in the Oprah Magazine while I was having lunch in between classes at school. Gram turned me on to Oprah’s magazine and I have given her a subscription for the last few years. So I felt it was fitting to use something out of this magazine and when I read about the Quiet Plains of Happiness, the idea reminded me of Gram.
The Quiet Plains of Happiness is the idea that people in our modern society strive to define happiness by big “wow” moments—that we only look for happiness in big events—like getting a new gadget or being stimulated to the point of ecstasy, but really that’s not true and lasting happiness. True happiness is quiet and unassuming—like enjoying a really scrumptious piece of chocolate or visiting with dear friends and family. I am by nature not a “happy” person. I am a worrier. I get that from my mother and father. The article encourages us to look for moments in our life that are quietly happy. I come from the mountains, so being in the Mid-West terrain is very different to me—to see the vast prairie land is rather foreign to me. In my life, I suppose I do look for happiness in the form of mountains—huge summits worthy of Mt. Everest. But, genuine happiness is more like a prairie—level, fertile, and unassuming.
So, I asked myself where am I the happiest in a quiet sustained way. I realized it is in Illinois at my grandparents’ house. For the last twelve or more summers my mother and I have driven out to Illinois and spent two weeks with Gram and G-Pa. Here, on the prairie I am free of my home responsibilities—I am a granddaughter and daughter, not a wife or teacher. Gram and G-Pa take care of me and all we have is fun: shopping, sight-seeing, talking, tea, and shopping. Being with Gram and G-Pa, away from all the worries of my mundane life, I can be happy. Being in Illinois with Gram and G-Pa are my Quiet Plains of Happiness.
This eulogy, which by definition is not just a speech given at a funeral, but a celebratory speech in praise of someone, is not about me. This eulogy, this tribute is about Gram. She lived the Quiet Plains of Happiness. She embodied them… I know this too shall pass—because in the last conversation I had with Gram she said to me, “This too shall pass.” This conversation was while my mother was here in March. I was having a bad situation at home and I talked briefly with Gram about it—she said I was a strong person and this too shall pass.”
I have not read that since April of 2012 when we buried Gram.
I can drink Iced-Coffee. And, I do in the winter, because for so long I couldn’t. For years, my stomach was disturbed and I ended up on such a strict diet after my colitis diagnosis in 2012. But, then I went to the Nut House in 2014…I’m not sure when I started to eat regular food again…I was very careful in the Nut House…I must have started eating regular food again when I was having ECT. I DO NOT REMEMBER when I started, but that must have been when, because by the time I met T. (a month after my 12 ECT “treatments,” I was eating real food.) I digress.
Iced-Coffee. So fucking simple. But, it gives me great happiness. Great joy! Iced Coffee from Pie Café in The Holy City and a cigarette—fucking Heaven. Fresh ground coffee beans, naturally flavored vanilla cream, and ice cubes from tap water.
That is not big or shiny or fancy.
But that brings me happiness. Sitting on the couch in G-Pa’s house drawing brings me happiness. Smoking in G-Pa’s basement with the space heater Dad bought me (I love how it warms my ass!) makes me happy.
{TIME OUT: let’s qualify happiness. I don’t know what word to use for the feeling. I am in the fight for my life with CD—I don’t feel happy. But there are things I look forward to doing—that making living bearable. I am not being all hyperbolic and overly-dramatic—just honest. People with CD don’t “feel happy,” they just feel not like killing themselves}
I just took two Xanax, because I can feel the tinglings of an episode starting. That’s what it feels like—tingling and twitching. I want another cigarette.
Best Christmas present I ever got? A little purple “Worry Bear” with a magenta bow around his neck and a heart necklace that broke a long time ago.
I didn’t want a Jaguar from Asshole for Christmas that year. I wanted a pink-poodle Build-A-Bear.
What if my future lies not in a six-bedroom house full of a lot of bad memories in the middle of East-Bum-Fuck New York—I hate New York. I digress.
What if my future lies in a small house in The Holy City on not even an acre of land—but filled with love and handmade work of my grandparents?
What bigger and more is not better? What if I strive for the gentle rolling plains instead of the jagged mountains?
I am not proofreading this one.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Hemingway
Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless
In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.
PS: OMG! I really put my blog out there on line! Like I gave random people a link to it! Fuck!—as in Whoa! I haven’t landed on it being good or not.
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