I started PT today for me knee and I am hopeful for the first time in s long time that I could be able to walk every day again. Dr. Jay explained everything very clearly and then explained what he plans to do. The ball joints in my knees are roughened and scraping when I move. He wants to train the muscles around them to do more of the work when I move to stress the ball joints less. Maybe.
Maybe this will work.
The girls are in Lincoln for a few days, I believe to help them move. The house feels STILL with them gone. With Dave and Jami sleeping days it feels like is just Jess and me here but, weird, the house doesn't feel empty so much as Still. Like it's holding it's breath waiting for them to come back.
I will like Not having to chauffeur then around. I don't mind Jazz so much but Kira, with her "it's your OBLIGATION to drive me to work" BS is just insane. So Much of this generation has no clue what gratitude is!!! Or obligation for that matter. I will be relieved to be thru with them but then I will also probably be dead, no time left to live my own life. It was always going to happen Some Day. I used to pray every night to live until my daughters were 18. Just let me live to raise them!! and extra time to do some things that I couldn't do while raising children would just be a cherry on top. Then I chose to help raise the grandchildren. I actually had some idea that if I could just get Jessalynn thru both school and college it would at least show the younger ones the way and maybe she would even help them. (I'm a comedian) Then I adopted Kira and took guardianship of Jasmine. Choices I made, don't regret! but that cherry on top was pushed back so far I can't see it. I NEVER expected to make it this long!, was always making Plan B plans for if I died before they were raised. And whadya know, her I am greedily hoping to at least see the beginning of Eliot's life!! But, Oh!! Those days sister-in-law Judy and I used to talk about, when we would just be sitting on our porch in our rocking chair passing a joint!! But not only am I allergic to THC but Judy is dead and I will see her soon. I wonder if she made it to her porch before she died?? I'm pretty sure I won't. I could have Elliot and my porch if I live long enough. At least I (dear God) won't be raising my great grandson.
But I have to keep on for Jazz and Kira right now. They should at least be driving by next fall. If they don't have cars they can have mine. Thankful for delivery services!! Jeanette and Jenise will get the boys through.
Jazz and Kira, please. Maybe my rocking chair. My cherry on top.
Maybe.
I worry the world will go to shit before the grandchildren's lives are over. War, the grid going down, things I have tried to plan for in my head but absolutely won't be here to guide them thru. They will survive or they will join me in whatever comes next. I'll be outa here.
I've been in the garden all day except I took Jazz to work at 5. It's been a 90 degree day and I sure am feeling it! I cut out the little trees trying to go thru the fence and pulled the weeds there, too. Dug out around the big maple tree. Then I've been hauling dirt and filling the walkway thru the middle of the garden so I can fence it and still get at everything. I scraped the caterpillar eggs off of every leaf on my plants and killed any little ones that had hatched when I first got out here. So glad I didn't have that surgery and give up my close up sight!! I take a break whenever I feel like I'm going to break. Just ten minutes gets the pain under control most of the time. Taking one now. It will be dark soon so I have to hurry. I want to plant a few things before it rains again. Ok. Here I go.
I have to get another round of seeds in the ground today and put up my fence. And putting up the fence means making the "walkway" I'm pouring in safe to walk in. I have big flat (Sort of) chunks of cement that I dug up as ' stepping stones' but they are uneven, unsteady, and I fall a LOT trying to walk on them. I am very excited that I actually got this started early enough this year!! I'm off and sick in the spring I think because I have so many different allergies. I know I couldn't even get out of bed in the spring most of the time when we lived on the farm. New paragraph well that didn't work so well. Jamie taught me how to use speech to text on this phone and I am trying it right now since I evidently have a million typos for each sentence and not all of them are funny. New paragraph how the hell do I get it to do a new paragraph that might drive me crazy. End of paragraph okay that didn't work either.!
I worked until 3pm ignoring the heat and pain and got a lot done in my garden but not nearly as much as I hoped. I'm excited that the girls will be in Lincoln next Tuesday and Wednesday and i will get a break from chauffeuring then around. I REALLY HATE IT. And Kira's attitude makes it so very much worse. Absolutely No Gratitude because she believes that driving them is my OBLIGATION. Unbelievable. She should be taking a bus with that attitude. I KNOW the bus runs to the mall and probably to the zoo or near it.
Anyway, I will have 2 uninterrupted days but, just my luck, it is forecast to rain on those days, I just hope they at wrong a they so often are!!
I got up and started working in the garden and then remembered that Jess wanted to go to the laundromat today. I told her I wanted to just go alone and do her laundry because I didn't wasn't to stress if she was ok or worried about Nova at home. It took some convincing but she let me do it. Jenise showed up as I was getting ready to leave so I asked her to follow me there and we could hang out while the laundry washed. It was great having her company!! She is very obviously pregnant now!! 🙃🫠😀 I didn't let her carry anything - I won't risk this baby for Anything!! We loaded the washer and went across to Pepperjax and got lunch. Jenise had to go shortly after I moved the laundry to the dryers 🙁 and then I found out what was hard for me to do - folding. I forgot that my use of my arms is very limited without severe pain. I had to stop several times and try to meditate beyond the pain! I almost gave up and just bundled it all and went home but then i pictured Jess having to finish and I got it done. Jess did have to unload the van, it was time to admit I needed help! I took Gabriella out and piddles in the garden a little until it was time to get Kira. Then I went back to my garden until it was too dark to see what I was doing and then I drilled our what was going to be my compost bin. Jami had come out and kept me company while I worked, which was really nice! but then she went in and cut watermelon for us and we stood in the kitchen wolfing down the sweetest watermelon until Jess came in and reminded me I had to pick up Jasmine. Jami rode with me and I tore out of here praying Jazz wouldn't get off on time so I wouldn't be late and she was 10 minutes late so we were good. I hope I'm never late to get her again!! She doesn't get mad at me like Kira does, she's smart, she is just so disappointed in me that I feel terribly.
What a long day! I hope i don't pay for it tomorrow.
Jess really outdid herself yesterday!! I knew there was some kind of plan for my BD. Jess has asked if i was ok with going somewhere Saturday morning and then Jenise knew something and said that she might go, too, and that i shouldn't worry, my mother approved. Jenise said she probably couldn't go but then yesterday morning when she and Phillip walked in the house i knew it was ON and it was going to be great. Phillip drove, (the only person on earth whose driving i trust) and Jess said we could bring the dogs so I figured we were headed for the park. Wrong. We went to the Old Market and I saw the stalls set up and asked "Is that the Farmers Market? I've always wanted to go to that!" And we did!! It felt like being at the Renaissance Fair or a Texas flea market!! I was happy with that but then Jess said, "We have to take the dogs home for the next part" so there was more!! Next we pulled up at the Joslyn Art Museum!!!! and there was a sign saying there was a Japanese water display inside!!!! One thing I had stressed about all week was worrying what they were going to spend but these things were Free!! It was Brilliant!! Then Dave and Jami picked Kira up from work and did the shopping for Jess and Jazz didn't work so I didn't have to do Anything. Jess made my new favorite, gnocci, I ate a big plate, then amazing chocolate cake, and knocked out.
I got other gifts, too, and I hear there are more to come. Nett had to work 😕 so I haven't seen her yet. Kira gave me a water bottle like hers. I filled it with ice water right away and it still had ice in it this morning!!!!
Ok. I guess I don't mind surviving until this birthday but I really hope I'm not starting another 22 year punishment phase!!
I came home last night to balloons on the mail box and the house decorated. Why do we feel embarrassed when someone does something like that???? I wish I was still asleep but had to take Kira to work so my day has begun.
I started writing when I was 8. It started with a little journal that I started writing poetry in. Then I wrote short stories, then long poems that were stories. In Junior High I won my first writing contest for writing "How I Escaped From the Savage Natives on a South Pacific Island", a sci-fi, fantasy, action comedy that hung in a glass case for years at Beverly Hills Intermediate. In 9th grade I wrote and performed in a rhyming play a la Shakespeare for Health Class that the teacher sent to Weightwtchers Anonymous who asked for permission to use and perform it. EVERYONE, including me! said I would end up being a Great Writer. Well, my father changed his mind and said that I would have to give it up someday because he was sure I would be a mathematician or engineer, but that's a different story. My first side hustle was selling poetry to student in my high school for their poetry class. During my teen years I would go to parties and sit in the corner and write poems for people to give to their girlfriends, boyfriend, etc. I loved having people tell me what they wanted to say and then making it into a poem for them. I wrote a poem for Jim Cooper that was his final wishes. Funny, almost 50 years ago and I can still see Jim sitting up on a console stereo while I sat below him scribbling frantically to keep up 🙂. I have a poetry page in here somewhere that has a scattering of my poetry but it is only what I could still remember 10 years or so ago, just a tiny fraction of what I wrote, but at least some of the best, including Jim's will, which wasn't nearly one of my best! just one that stuck in my head. I wrote and performed in another poetry play about dentistry while working for Dental Health Alliance at Sitel telemarketing. I had an extra muse then, author/artist/actor Rodger Gerberding, whose admiration pulled capability out of me that I've seldom experienced, thank you, Rodger❣️ I was in my thirties then. Still thinking I would eventually start writing the novels everyone expected from me. Then I sadly wrote a couple of eulogies, the one for Jackie Lynn and the one for my mothet are also in the poetry page here. After the one for Mom I started feeling like I was struggling to write and I have written very little since then. I think it started with looking back and deciding that 90% of what I had written was actually pure crap. Then it felt like my muse was slipping away. Not Rodger, but the muse I believed had been writing for me all my life. 10 years ago while we were living in the Yellow House I started writing again on my Fire tablet and I wrote my last "good" story poem about a runaway slave traveling north to escape bondage. I felt my muse Hugely. I knew really nothing about the subject, it was one of those that seemed to come from beyond me. I broke that tablet in a fight with Jeremy and lost all of my writing on it. And haven't been able to write Anything since. I am old now, when I was sure I would be writing my novels, if I survived this long! but I have nothing. No muse, no brilliance. NOTHING. I have a lot of brain damage but my muse left long before brain bleeds and White Matter Disease. It could be partly that I don't have half the confidence. Is that even the right word?? I no longer feel like I have anything worthwhile to offer and that feeling compounds and grows daily. Maybe it's looking at the mess of the lives I have influenced and how few people actually look up to or even have any respect for me. Being in your 60's and realizing you have been/are a huge fuck up can destroy you!! And also my Old Age is nothing like I hoped it would be if I made it here. If I saw old age, I saw no longer having responsibilities for kids etc. and time to do whatever I pleased. That hasn't happened!! I have 2 daughters who will always need some kind of help and I am still raising their children. Driving kids to school and work Every Day and trying to run a household with 6 people on less than$2000 a month. True, if I really was going to Do It I have hours between driving kids most days that I could be writing ?? but again, no muse and nothing to offer. I'm a jet circling the tower waiting for permission to land, in a holding pattern, and I know now that the end is a crash. If by some miracle I am still alive when the last grandchildren leave home and I have figured out how to sustain Jami and Jess I Could Have that "free" time. But again. No muse. Nothing to offer. If I went totally mute no one would miss my voice, Kira would rejoice! and that's just the honest truth. I'm not feeling any self pity there. I don't exactly know how/why but I Know it is my own fault even if it was never my intention. It's more than just no longer being relevant. I'm looking every minute for the explanation, how did I fuck it all so badly? but the answer to that is somewhere beyond me still. Self realization is so difficult!! and there is that fear that I actually know the answer but somehow can't bring it forth because I can't bear it. Self destructive self preservation. Involuntary protective delusion. I don't know. Anything.
That must be correct?? Almost there. My friend Fred days he eats steak and eggs and works out twice a day to keep in shape. I had no real reply to that message. I just happen to still be here!! Brain aneurysm, 3 big brain bleeds, microbleeds all over my brain supposed to be killing me. And here I am. Pack a day. Literally wasting away they say. And here I am. Some people actually say "You are supposed to be here!" like they know something. Maybe Jeanette knows. She days this life is actually a punishment. When she said it is thought/ hoped she mentioned that the torture is run in 22 year cycles because I was done with them. I was 66. If I live 3 days more I will be 67.
I'm sure I have experienced Joy. I know i have even if I don't remember. Isn't it always tinged?? It's a beautiful new baby! 😀😃😄 that you will worry about, fear for, and dread the day they are gone. Tinge. It's the whole silver lining thing seen realistically. The cloud doesn't always come first. Not in punitive life!
3 days.
when I am 99% sure this life just isn't worth anything. I always have some anxiety and maybe depression when my heart is "acting up". Usually you aren't even aware of your heart functioning. It just does it's job. Efficiently. Quietly. Then days like this when it feels like it is shaking around in your chest and you are pretty sure that it will just stop beating during one of these kind of days. Not pain. Not even really discomfort. Just knowing it's not working right and then the awareness that everything will stop working when it gets too tired. Too old. Too abused to keep beating. Then awareness that it doesn't really matter all that much. That grip of panic that Jess, some others, will have a hard time surviving without me, it gets less. Maybe it just diminishes in the eventual inevitably. I think, I'm So Tired.
