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