For Reals.

Dear Hearts,

How did it get to be one in the afternoon? Maybe ‘cuz I was in bed till 11 a.m.?

As a little kid, I would get up at like 5 a.m. to watch the original Dating Show. Now, anything before 8 a.m. is not cool. 9 a.m. is better. 10 a.m. is best. Am I lazy? I dunno. If you listen to T. and Asshole I am, but then I stay up till about 1 a.m. Why am I even thinking of them?

Tomorrow is April 1. April Fool’s Day. In 2001, I started my teaching career at Catholic High School on April 1^st. What a horrible year and a half. Maybe I shoulda taken the hint.

I am tired. I just want to curl up on the couch and sleep.

As of tomorrow, I am officially sucking off the government teat. I start Medicare and SSD is my only income. So much to be proud of.

G-Pa and Dr. Swede are going to the Café today for pie. I will stop by to get my free pie and coffee. I also need to bring some pie and milk (the pie is a surprise) to Gram 2, whose arthritis is really causing her leg pain.

“Do you feel like you’re getting sick or need to see a doctor?”

“Oh, no, they can’t do anything.”

“I worry about you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I am ready to go.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need to end up in the hospital.”

“Or a nursing home. That’s why I am going to die right here. “

Gram 2 chuckles.

“Okay. Well, if you do die tonight you will have milk!”

“Great!”

Why am I so tired? Because, I think I am starting to live again.

I did training at Burning Bed this week twice and then worked the Front Desk all of yesterday.

I enjoy the front desk really. I am not in the schools with kids, writing curriculum, dealing with one-on-one counseling…I do get Abuse Hotline calls…but at 4 p.m. I leave and I do not take anything home with me.

I think I would rather work the front desk than do Prevention Education. Going back into the schools—that would be tough. Maybe more than I could handle right now. But, I like the Front Desk stuff. I fill out some forms, take messages, sign people in, talk with clients...I am the first point of contact for someone coming into Burning Bed.

Heather, who is the Head of the Shelter, wants me to come in on Monday. She has a proposition for me. We’ll see.

First I have to pack up my life in New York. I need to leave New York. Pennsylvania will always be my home—that’s where I grew up. But, I never wanted to be a New Yorker.

Leaving New York…

Dee-Dee from Burning Bed called this morning while I was still in bed and asked me to transport a client to a doctor’s appointment. I lied. I said I had promised G-Pa I would do some stuff for him. Which I did. But, he’s forgotten that conversation. I think he is snoozing in the backroom waiting for Dr. Swede to pick him up for pie.

Unless Burning Bed is gonna pay me—I am not getting into the car with strangers. And I certainly ain’t taking them to MD appointments. Eww.

Heather said “she loves me and I’m such a good time…” Also, one of her referrals that called and got me on the phone regarding counseling told Heather how friendly and nice I was.  She says I am doing a great job. Except when my knee hits the button to lock the shelter off from the rest of the building. The button is right under the front desk and I have long legs! Eh, I know where the key is now. At least I don’t press the SWAT button accidentally. And, there really is a SWAT Team button.

I can see myself in these women—the clients who live there and those who work there.

Janice, with the pink folder even though she hates pink, has four kids and one on the way and is a few years younger than I. She has a nice wedding ring on her finger—but she is being asked to leave because…well, a lot of things. Ashley…

I just committed myself to a Star thing tomorrow afternoon. I think it’ll be good for me to go…left to my own devices I isolate.

Ashley can’t pay her car repair bill, but she has a $40 manicure. Sandy, who just moved from Arizona, is barely literate and just comes up to the Front Desk for companionship.

I don’t know all their circumstances. But I have been them. Abused, beaten down, scared, broken. I think I still am a lot of those things. Yeah, I bought a Buffy the Vampire Slayer coloring book for ten bucks this week.

Some of these women who are just associated with Burning Bed—not clients—I don’t know how are why they are still alive.

We all have choices.

Should I congratulate myself for not having kids, getting into such a financial hole that I can’t afford a Buffy coloring book, and being well-educated?

At training this week—SA (Sexual Assault Program Director) said something revelatory.

“People always ask, ‘Why does she stay? Why does she put up with the abuse? Why was she out at midnight?’ But what they should be asking is ‘Why did he choose to rape her? Why does he verbally abuse her? Why does he hit her? Why does he lie about everything to maintain his alcoholism?”

Huh. Why did T. treat me like shit? Why didn’t Asshole get a job sooner?

I had for a minute considered (and actually downloaded the forms) being an Addiction Counselor. To work with suicidal people, you need six years of specific schooling. To be an Addiction Counselor you need to have been an addict and/or be able to pass a test. That folder went in the trash.

I am not an Addiction Counselor. I can have compassion for Janice and Ashley when I am at Burning Bed. But I don’t approve of their choices. But, they didn’t have the family I have. That is the difference. My family is why I am alive and not dead. My family is why I am not broke or living in a shelter (And my own good sense?)

OMG, DON’T GIVE YOURSELF A LAUREL, KATE!

Alcoholism. Heroin Addiction. The Opioid Epidemic. Those are choices. I choose to smoke four cigarettes a day. T. chose to drink Listerine. I don’t have the compassion for those people. The lies I believed from T…

“Yeah, I was at Ground Zero when Bush spoke into the bullhorn.”

Fuck you. You worked for the Budget Department. You weren’t in NYC on 9/11 any more than you were on stage during that Taylor Swift concert your daughter doesn’t remember.

These domestically abused women who are clients and staff at Burning Bed…the psych nurse who was hospitalized…the debutante who experienced idiopathic paralysis spells…

To get yourself into those situations like I did with T. and Asshole—something was broken in me a long time before I met them. And, I left them. I LEFT THEM.

Alcohol doesn’t promise to love, marry, and take care of you. Opioids don’t tell you how amazingly special and desirable you are. Yeah, yeah, they can make you feel good. My cigarettes don’t LOVE me. They just have never betrayed me. They can’t.

The insidious thing about an abusive relationship: LOVE. Another living, breathing human promises you and says all the right things…until he doesn’t.

Isn’t that all everybody wants? At the risk of sounding like a hippie…We just wanna love and be loved?

*****

I am really doing it. I am really moving here. For reals.

Martha says it’s normal to be scared and anxious. I am so tired of feeling that way. I am so tired of being tired.

I am really doing this. I am moving to The Holy City.

Holy fucking shit cocksucker, motherfucker!

“Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’” Stephen King.

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: Trust in the Lord with all Your Heart. Really, truly, do that.

PPS: Dee-Dee's Proposition. God, I Trust in You...

Grateful For:

Café Pie

Angel

Buffy

Family

Health

The Holy City

Faith

Dear Gram

Dear Gram,

Five years ago you left us.

Your watch is still on the dresser where you left it as is the makeup in the bathroom vanity. Your unfinished article from Time about Cuba is still open to the same page.

I don’t really feel like reflecting on the last five years—although I do not understand how it has been five years.

I am sitting in your chair right now. I am leaving the House in Henry. Who knows? I may even become an Illinois resident. I can’t see what my future holds. At all.

I didn’t go to the Graveyard today, because it wasn’t a very nice day and you are here, in your chair, more so than in the ground.

I am trying to take care of G-Pa. I don’t clean or cook as well as you did at all! Thank God for Aunt Faerie.

I am officially moving in. I have changed your sewing room into “My Room” and plan on bringing some furniture back from the East.

I miss you every day. “This too shall pass,” you told me. The last thing I remember your saying. In reference to my crumbling marriage.

If you were still alive, I wouldn’t be here taking care of G-Pa. If I had bucked up and gone back to teaching and not had a full on nervous breakdown, I would not be here. If I were not on disability, I would not be here.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and Mother Mary—please have A Master Plan.

Your home is my Home now. G-Pa has been very generous with my Barbie allotment and my “Sprawl.”

What advice would you give me? What comforting words?

I lost a Grandmother (no suitable adjectives), but gained an Angel in Heaven.

Apparently, all those people in Heaven are Saints. But, most people spend time in Purgatory after they die. You are in Heaven. This I know. With Pop.

I wanted it to be an early spring—and the weather is warmish, but no daffodils or flowers.

Your life was not easy—you had much sorrow and struggle. But, I think you had a lot of good too. I want that, too. Did you ever feel the way I do? 

I know why, perhaps, you didn’t go to Church after this past Mass I attended. Being with you and praying in the Graveyard in more sacred than any Mass.

I’m sorry for all the things I have done to let you down and I’m sorry for all the times I’ve let G-Pa down.

I’m so scared about This Next Step. But, you’re with me. Here in My Home.

Huh, I never called Henry, My Home, it was My House.

This house, where you lived for fifty years plus, is My Home.

Help me. Give me strength. Help Guide me.

I was gonna save the Amish Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Aunt Faerie bought me yesterday—but maybe I will eat that in your honor tonight.

If I can survive the loss of you, Pop, my marriage—I can survive leaving The House…I hope.

I can still remember how to smelled and your warmth as I kissed you goodnight.

“Goodnight, Grammy. I love you. It’s good to be here.”

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.

Grateful For:

Health

Angel

E-cigarettes

My Home

Faith

shhh...i'm scared

shhh...i'm scared.

it all feels like too much to bear.

i just want to hid away.

knowing that i am leaving the House is like someone is punching me in the heart.

i want to go to bed and not wake up. i don't want to train or work at burning bed this week. i just want to take all my things and Angel and go back there...

Leaving Mass...

Dear Hearts,

In Bar Harbor, a man’s wife went out on the ocean and did not come back. Two days later the Harbor Masters arrived at the man’s door.

He knew something must have gone terribly wrong if the Harbor Masters came to his house.

“We have bad news, good news, and great news.”

The man, fearing the worst, asked for the bad news first.

“We have found your wife’s body in the bay.”

“Oh, Jesus, help me!” The man cried in grief. “What good news could you possibly bring me?”

“Well, when we pulled her out of the Harbor she had 12 of the biggest Lobsters attached to her. We haven’t seen lobsters that size since the 1960s! And we figure we out to share at least half of the catch with you.”

“What could possibly be great news?”

“We will pull her body up again tomorrow.”

The congregation laughed. They did. I heard it. I don’t know if anyone heard me say, “That’s not funny at all.”

The priest at Mass last night thought we would all be “steeped” in seafood so a seafood joke would in good fun.

Shortly thereafter I had a massive panic attack—the kind where my mind is going full tilt around the hamster wheel.

“Danger! Danger! You’re going crazy! That old lady keeps opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water gasping for air. That man next to me looks dirty and he’s gonna want to touch me during the “Peace” sharing! You can’t take communion from this guy.”

The shaking had begun in earnest. This was a bad one despite the two Xanax I took before Mass. I dug around in my purse for two more. I must be going crazy. Everyone else was acting so normal.

“GET OUT! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! GET OUT NOW! BEFORE SOMEONE ASKS YOU WHAT IS WRONG! GET OUT NOW!”

“Let us offer a sign of peace.”

I pulled myself up from genuflection and ran out the side door. I didn’t want to stay in the parking lot, because then people would ask me questions and want to touch me.

“Are you okay?”

They would touch me. They’d want to help me.

Thanks be to God there was a graveyard nearby. With my rosary in one hand and the seat belt sign dinging, I drove far enough into the graveyard where no one could obviously see me from the church.

“I’m crazy. I am going crazy. I am over-reacting. I am crazy.”

But from the moment that substitute priest walked in—I just had a bad feeling. His whole attitude and demeanor seemed so perfunctory and irreverent. He didn’t even read the right Creed.

“Was He the Devil? Was he really bad? Who am I to judge? I was just inspired by this amazing Bible study I am taking about how the Mass is a connection—a direct line—between Earth and Heaven. I could opt of communion…but I had to get out. I am going crazy. They will lock me up.”

(The only solace to be had when I think I’m going crazy, is that I know that crazy people do not question their own sanity.)

Despite my best efforts I called Mom and Dad. I was beginning to hyperventilate.

I remember what the nurse told me when Pop died and I started hyperventilating.

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth…repeat…”

I tried. I knew I couldn’t drive.

I hate having to call my parents because I am having a panic attack and can’t deal. They shouldn’t have to deal with that when I am 39.

Before Mass, I prayed with Mother Mary. I looked the Leaving of The House directly in the face.

I would be at the House packing and I would be having a cigarette in the Spring Room or on the couch. I would sleep in my bed in the bedroom Mom and I painted. It’s like making love knowing that this will be the last time. I remember my last kiss with T. I don’t remember the last time we made love. I don’t remember either with Asshole.

I do not want to fall apart when I go Home. I do not want to fall apart and have Mom and Dad picking up the pieces. I need to do what I need to do and then I can fall apart. If I start facing the worst of the Loss, Sorrow, and Pain right now, then I can be prepared when I get there…

That’s not working so well.

The Sunday Gospel was about Christ, with spit and clay, giving the blind man his sight.

Did I see something in that priest that others didn’t? His fucking homily was about a boy being lost in the woods during a storm and using the lightning to find his way home. The plausibility of this I doubt.

But, I know storms. And I haven’t given up on the Light yet. Even that pinprick has tethered me to Life.

Look for God in the ordinary. No fucking duh, asshole.

I know a boy who drowned years ago when I was in junior high. I doubt his family would have found that joke funny. My dear Gram died fives years ago tomorrow. I don’t find that joke funny. Mom, Dad, Aunt Faerie, and G-Pa did not find that joke funny. And, I can have a black sense of humor.

Maybe I am expecting too much from myself. Aunt Faerie says when I get back, she'll check in with me (on the House subject) and she suspects I will feel better. She said that I used to not even be able to refer to leaving the House, I could only write X. 

“You can’t do anything until you get there,” she said.

I just don’t want this whole overwhelming packing thing to be my parents’ responsibility. But…but…I can’t do it alone. I don’t think I can or should stay overnight in the House alone. I can’t do this on my own.

From the beginning of all of this, I have always maintained, “if I lose the House I will kill myself.”

I am not losing The House. I am leaving The House. But, it still hurts a lot. So much.

I can’t do it alone and I’m so sorry Mommy and Daddy. I can’t do this alone. I want to, but I can’t. I want all my precious things packed before my 40^th birthday in July. That doesn’t mean the house has to be empty—but I want MY THINGS that I care so deeply about out of the House.

That’s my goal.

But, I can’t do it by myself. I can’t. I admit it.

I woke up this morning teaching The Crucible to Angel. I was talking out-loud and teaching answering a question.

“Miss? Why do we read more plays in class than books? How do you know we’re even paying attention?”

I was giving my answer.

I actually think I woke up twice teaching the play.

Research papers. That’s what I’d be doing right now with the seniors…with the juniors maybe Raisin in the Sun.

“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

When he had said this, he spat on the ground

and made clay with the saliva,

and smeared the clay on his eyes,

and said to him,

"Go wash in the Pool of Siloam" —which means Sent—.

So he went and washed, and came back able to see.” John 9

I want to See. I want to See with His Light. The Light.

Amazing Grace…

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: I am going to email the regular Priest and ask for a time to meet with Him and confess. But, I also want him to know that what that guy said yesterday in God’s House…Not funny. Not okay. Jesus would have been like, “WTF?” and bitch-slapped him.

PPS: I will not ignore my intuition about people. My first impression sense...Thank you, for it, God.

PPPS: God, Mother Mary, Christ—help me get through this week.

PPPPS: THANK YOU SAINT ANTHONY FOR MY GLASSES! I GET THE MESSAGE!

Grateful For:

Health

Pizza

Angel

Saturday night movies

Being Here

Family

Drawing

The Tears Won't Come

Dear Hearts,

It’s been decided. I am leaving, yes, I am leaving, not letting go of, not getting rid of, LEAVING My House, henceforth known as House. It hasn’t been My House in a very long time.

I am not at peace with the decision.

 There is still are still voices in me that is screaming: “KEEP IT! KEEP IT! DON’T LET IT GO! YOU FOUGHT FOR IT! YOU LOVE IT!”

But I think that voice is maybe the demons. I think those words maybe lies.

I was very struck by the description of House that I had written of House in 2007—not even in 2005, in the midst of Asshole’s psychotic break, but two years later.

Excerpt

“Asshole wasn’t home.  I was thankful.  I sat in my car and looked at it: crouching, looming, waiting to consume me, waiting for it to suck me into its depths and crush me to death.  My new house was daring me to enter.

Some days I would give up all we have now—a six bedroom house with 4.7 acres, a small pond, a nineteenth-century barn, four car garage—to go back to our charming little renter and my blissful ignorance that my marriage was perfect.

           

I did not want to get out of the car.  I wanted to drive home to my parents’ house.  I turned around in the driver’s seat and looked at the two trailers occupying a few acres across the very close road.  I would never walk out this front door naked.

           

I looked back at the looming demon that I was parked in front of.  I felt betrayed.  I married a man who never yelled out me, tolerated my every eccentricity, lack of domestic skills, and preoccupation with work.  Since the house search had begun the man I married was a stranger.  I used to pull up our rented driveway hoping to see his truck; now I pulled up our mortgaged driveway hoping to not see his truck…

…I turned my attention back to the yellow-brown monstrosity in front of me.  I thought about Albatross and wondered how we ever thought that we would live in such a cramped space and afford all the repairs and additions.  But, I also looked at the six-bedroom house that had my name on the deed, and wondered what had possessed me to say, “Yes, I want to mortgage my life for this house.”  I fucking hated it.  I fucking hated the neighbors.  I fucking hated what my marriage had become.  I fucking hated myself.

…Nothing was right here.”

Excerpt Stop

I forgot that I was that unhappy. 2007…now that I look back…yes, things were so bad for so long. 

This isn’t about my marriage—well it is—but I am leaving House.

I was unhappy there. Always, or at least the majority of the time, I think.

I am going to backslide. I will become suicidal again. I will end up at the bottom of the well. No, I am not assuming, Mom, at least if I anticipate it, then it won’t surprise me.

When I go back East after Easter I am going to pack up House. I will take all my precious things from there. I am not waiting. My car (Thanks be to St. Jude) will tow a U-Haul trailer. I have to leave “or something sacred is gonna die.”

I put Marcia’s picture back up. She is not my Suicide-Heroine. She was smart, beautiful, talented, had the best treatment in the country, but she still fell to CD. Keeping her picture up reminds me that I am not a total fucking loser—that other “intelligent, good, accomplished” people fall to CD.

None of it seems real. I have to do it. I will have to disseminate all my precious things and furniture among here, Mom and Dad’s House, and a storage unit. Some—or a lot—I will have to let go. Not my Barbies or books.

I want to cry, but the tears won’t come.

I feel like a fuck up for having waited until House caused me to be in financial crisis mode. I really did my best…

I need to stop praying for peace to come to me with my decision and instead pray for the strength to do it. It’s on me. Not Mom, Dad, Gaia, Johnny. It’s on me.

I just keep having to say it…I am going to do it and this spring I will return to The Holy City with a U-Haul trailer and Here I Stay.

God?...Maybe...Mother Mary...Saint Jude...

Happy 40^th. Good job.

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.

Grateful For:

Chocolate, chocolate chip pie

Angel

Health

Family

Faith.

I AM SO SORRY MOMMY AND DADDY