The Social Conundrum

Photo by Spencer Sembrat on Unsplash

A week ago I posted this to an FB widows group:

 "So here's a core issue for me and I'm wondering if anyone else is feeling this: I am terribly lonely AND I don't like most people very much. So I'm kinda stuck between "I'm so sad and alone" and "gosh, these people are boring." 

Some women wrote "ditto," "same," or "every day."

Others mentioned experiences they had in which they had been invited someplace and just wanted to leave once they got there. One lady says that after her daughter invited her to a gathering which proved unhappy, "I find most people annoying." Another notes that she thinks she "should socialize but I don't want to."  And another, "I feel so alone but I don’t want people around I just want the one person that can’t be here."  And another, "Thank you for this post! Thanks also for all of you who have agreed! I thought it was just me! Now I feel one less thing to wonder how odd I am about."

I got over 40 comments on this, all of them saying that they are in the same place,  so I later added this 

"EDIT: I've turned off commenting so this post doesn't get too long. Thanks to all of you who helped me feel not so alone in my stuckness." 

 And there ya go.  I'm not special.  My misery loves finding out others feel the same way I do so I can stop adding, "I'm worse than everybody else" to my sad thoughtstack.

Jesus tells me to love everyone. To me, love means treating people with respect and caring when one is confronted with them.  Of course, Jesus  also wants me to go out and find people to love and I don't have the energy to do that at this point in time and if my current introversion adds to my time in purgatory, so be it.

I had a dream when I was in fifth or sixth grade that god talked to me and told me that after I died I would spend time in purgatory.   It felt like a relief to learn that.

Church pictures

 

FB Post and Responses

 I've been having trouble "getting anywhere" so I posted this note to the Widows FB group I follow:

 3 1/2 years in and I'm having trouble getting going again. I'm very lucky to be financially secure so I don't work. But I don't know what I care about. I used to do art and write but without my spouse there to show drafts and pictures to, I don't anymore. I'm very "other directed" and have no "others" that I care about enough to show stuff to so I don't make stuff. There's nothing productive that I want to do just for myself. All I do when I'm not traveling, is smoke weed, watch TV, and walk my dogs. I can't write except for blog posts. I can't do art anymore. I see other people to talk to for about 5 hours each week and the rest of the time I'm by myself. Having read "Let Them", I now know what it takes to have friends as an adult and I think that someday I'll have the energy to make friends again but right now it looks like too much work. I have a grief therapist who says it goes as it goes and to experience what I'm experiencing. Does anyone have any idea how to care about being productive again when there's not a financial incentive? 

 I got great responses including from women who have been grieving for longer than I and are having the same problem. The primary idea is that I need to "make myself" and "push myself" to get out of the house and I realize that that's right. It doesn't come naturally. I largely just don't want to do stuff and the only way to get stuff done is to give myself a stern talking to and get off my but and do it. I was gratified to note that a couple of women said that even when they push themselves to go out they don't feel connected and whole anymore.  Misery lovesa da company.

Tomorrow, maybe. I think Allan Sherman had a song about doing things tomorrow because "tomorrow never comes."

Coming in to The Haven is helpful. It reminds me that at times I've cared about being a writer, about creating things and maybe I will again.

I've been working, a sentence or bullet point at a time, on a memoir of our marriage. Are we still married? For time and eternity? He is in the house, or his spirit is, but Matthew's Jesus is very clear that there is no "giving in marriage" in the afterlife. Were we together in a past life and will we be together in the next? I wonder about these things.

Will I understand our life if I write about it?

Will I understand myself if I write about it? 

 

That Gosh Darn Rage

I am now going to The Haven in the afternoon, hoping that the free beer will make up for not being here in the early morning. I look at the river full of boaters and feel anger.  I drive through town and see all the new buildings and feel anger. I forget things and feel anger. My computer doesn't work right and I feel anger. 

And the inner violence since September.  That's been interesting. 

The world is a terrible beautiful place. I feel so much sadness for Texas and Gaza and Ukraine. All this horror in the world.  I'm am lucky to be safe.  Then why am I so sad and angry so much of the time?  Because I'm a crazy asshole.

I'm just as sad and angry and violent as any MAGA -- but I'm not stupid, so I guess that's the difference.  

I'm angry in part because I'm sober right now.  I really should get off weed because it's super bad for my health but really, who cares?  I just hope the heart attack that takes me out does it quickly and completely.  I hope I don't stroke out. But I've got enough $$ to pay people to take care of me since I don't have children or a young wife. I've fixed my will so that Lilli Ann will get some money and take control of the animals when I go.  It cost me $380 to change one name to another name in my will. Fuck lawyers.

Dear Will:

Do you remember when we joked about this Shakespearean sonnet? 

We're all cracked!

Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,

And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will

One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.

   Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

   Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

 You were sexy smart when we first got together. I wonder how much of my own rage you carried for me in your crankiness?

I think about you every time I'm at the dog park and a pup comes over for one of my dog's treats and I say to them, "Is yo name Miss Sequel?" I remember you quoting Louise Beavers' line from Holiday Inn ("Is yo name Miss Linda?") to the kitties when they were complaining. So I quote her and think of you.

I feel like the famous joke, 

    "Dr., after my hand surgery, will I be able to play the violin?"
     "Why, of course" 
    "That's funny, I never could before."

I wasn't mentally healthy before you died, there's no reason to assume I'm going to be mentally healthy in the future, no matter how much therapy I get.  It's just not something I ever was. As you know.

Thanks for playing with the light again. Thanks for continuing to care about me.

You know, as I work on my memoir, I'm reminded that it might have saved both of us from a lot of pain if you'd ever told me that I was attractive to you or that you were in love with me.

But, that's blood under the bridge.

Miss you terribly,

Kake 

 

 

And Yet Another Forgotten Poem

 Your Mouth A Cave

 

 

I fell and fell and fell

for one year, black

the bouldered walls 

the circle of stone

in that one episode

you know the one

where the British detective

is always too late to prevent

the second murder, the body

in the well.

                        The first

murder is without metaphor.

 

But I was falling down that

well, that cave, it’s stony

circle glittering with stars

green cities drowning in

the half-green moon below.

 

I kept it’s image on my phone.

 

In midst of two thousand

shots of friends and flowers

and dogs, our dogs, and San

Francisco, New York, Seattle,

 

there in the middle of things,

in medias res, is your

 

dead face, mouth agape.

 

For one year I kept

that image with me near

that other one of our dead dog

remembering that curly hair

against my face

after the death chemical

coursed through her.

 

Birdy about to receive the needle.

Another Forgotten Poem

Miró's Femme et Oiseau dans la Nuit, 1947,

In España

 

 

Our first time in Europe

Miro was everywhere in Madrid.

 

Oh Ghost, do you remember?

The gallery, the museum, the

 

posters on the busses, how the

wild squiggles and balls commanded

 

walls around the city. How

we found the little restaurant

 

Rick Steves recommended,

before he was Ricksteves.com,

 

there beside the railroad bridge

that bore a Miro-like graffito.

 

How the tiny fried fish were

so delicious, bones and all.

 

And now you’re in the earth,

bones and all, but not this

 

presence. This unpredictable

presence. How like you it is.

 

How like this strange and beautiful

symbology of black, white, blue,

and red, the spiders and sperm,

the bodiless hands, and sweet

notes the memory of you

arising like a Miro unrolling

on an early, pre-intel laptop screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

kakehuck (c) 2023 

 

 

Back at The Haven

 After letting a couple thousand dollars of unused time slip away from me I am finally back at the Haven, looking out the window at the boarders on the river.  It would be fun to be out there if I had someone to go with.  Someday.  

I've decided to start coming in at 3 pm for a beer and some time at the computer.  Mid-afternoon and early evening is a lousy time to be at home or with the dogs anyway. So Sequel and Winston are inside.   I don't know where Miss Poppy is but she'll show up when I go back home.

Dear Will:

I thought of you last week when I spent $7 on a handful of apricots. I remembered the fourth Salt Lake residence, the polygamous house, with the giant ancient apricot tree in the neighbors' yard.  I remembered getting up on the roof and bagging pounds and pounds of cots. You made jam that we froze and ate the rest of the year.

Missing you,

Love, Kake

As I review the writing I'm going to be putting together at The Haven this month, I ran into this poem, written since Will died but I don't know when.

WILL AND HIS GRACE

(c) kake huck 2023

You were happy
when that poem about 
us fucking on the side
of an almost empty highway
in the middle of Nevada
made it into an anthology

but not so joyful
when I performed
my money-making,
award winning
poem about the woman
artist I delighted in
New Mexico ...
it displayed my naked
pirate heart.

Nevertheless, when
I asked how you managed
living with those poems
with those confessions,
(by which I meant, of course,
with me)

you said, with your gangly,
earthy, angelic grace, "It's
just a life in the arts, I guess."

And put your arm around
my shoulders.

 

So this is a thing . . .

 I wrote this last Sunday

Watching digitized 1992 Will

On Friday I was in the bedroom and asked Alexa to play OPB on TuneIn while I was changing clothes. I hated the news as soon as it came on so said, "Alexa Stop!" and she did.  Then I asked her to play a particular song from Amazon music ...  Statler Bros., maybe.  I finished dressing before the song was over and asked her to turn off.  She did.  Then as I was leaving the room she popped back on playing something.  I told her, "Alexa stop" and she didn't.  I told her again.  She didn't.  So I stood there listening to the words, "Hard times come again no more ..."  The piece, by some camerata, ended and an announcer came on and said that the song was from Ken Burns Civil War. When I told Alexa to stop once more, she did.

Will loved this song.  He loved Americana and played the Ken Burns' Civil War soundtrack often for a few years after we watched it.  I know he would not like or does not like how sad I remain. Perhaps this technical difficulty was him speaking to me once more. That's how I felt when I heard it.

 

 

Moving In Mind

 Dear Will:

We didn’t move in 2014 because you had developed dementia and it would have further damaged you.

I haven’t had the energy to move since you died. I may never have the energy, as much as I dislike Bend and don’t like to think about dying there.  So I’ve been on a trip looking at the valley, thinking about whether or not I want to move over here. I made half assed preparations for this trip and have had a bit of a half-assed time, but I for sure figured out that I don’t want to move to Corvallis.

Three Ladies from The Magic Flute

Right now I’m sitting in the Magic Flute room at McMenamins Grand Lodge. Since this Hotel is constructed in the reframed old people’s Masonic Grand Lodge, it’s very appropriate to have Mozart playing 24/7 in this room.  It may even be the opera itself.  At this moment in time it IS the overture playing.

My grief is much more manageable, though I’ve been crying at odd times. When I dropped in on Steve and Kate I cried on the way up their gravel driveway because you were with me the last time I saw them.

I still get frustrated too quickly and get angry and irritated when things don’t go my way.  I need to work harder on chilling out.

Love you always,

Kake

Visiting Marion

 Dear Will --

Our friend Marion is sure that she's going to be visiting spirits with our friend Lorna soon.  Lorna is for sure dying and Marion feels it as her Parkinsons is getting more difficult to manage.

On Sunday I brought a collections of pictures of you to share with her.  It was good talking about you with the only other person here who really knew you, at least as far as it was possible to know the Cat Who Walked By Himself (and all people and places were alike to him.) 

I still miss you every day but the grief is lighter, softer, and not quite so physical.

Love, 

Kake 

 

 

A Toddlin' Town!

 Dear Will --

from abc news

The new Pope was born in Chicago the same year you were going to school there!  Ish.  Within a year. (I forget your exact years - just remember you got to Poky in 1957.)  He's just two years younger than I.  He's spent most of his life outside of the US, most of it in Peru.

Anyway, that's pretty interesting to me, the pope born in Chicago.  I know you had in life a bit of a bias against "popery". 

I hope he keeps the late Francis' commitment to social justice and love.

I must admit I love the drama and pageantry of the catholic tradition.  I also love the postmodern touch of bishops wearing their long, black cassocks in the courtyards, looking at their phones. I had my eyes on the live feed during the book club discussion this morning.

I've been listening to a book called Let Them -- recommended to me by two folks at church.  It doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know but that I have forgotten during dementia-care and widowhood. It's a mix of stoicism, zen, and pop psychology.  The author tells a story early on that convict me -- about getting upset at friends not connecting with her and being driven crazy by seeing social media posts of a friend group on a trip "without me."  At the time she was very sad.  But later, when she wrote the book, after applying what she calls the "let them theory," she sees the role she plays in her own unhappiness.  The greatest unhappiness comes from wanting life to be different than it is.  The Buddha would say suffering is a result of desire.  End desire, especially the desire for things to be different than they are, and you end unhappiness.  That's the concept, anyway.  And the book is all about that  -- letting people do and be who they are.  I knew all this when I taught and I was very able to be quite detached from what students thought of me.

Your decline and death, however, kind of broke my ability to manage my emotions, even though I taught for 30 years about managing emotions.  Sigh.

But things are getting better.  The book is a good reminder for me.  And I'm getting more skilled at getting along in the world without needing to control everything around me. 

The book is helpful with new-to-me info on adult friendships -- which I really didn't think much about until I retired. And then I let my focus first on my "new work" - as a celebrant - and then my focus on you captured my limited ability to hang with people. Also it's what every fucking therapist has told me - that I need to "rescue myself" (with God's help, I always add).

You've told me through mediums to choose to be happy.  It's been hard until recently.  I still miss you. I still grieve.  But I'm also getting better at being happy around other people.

As long as there aren't too many of them all at once.

Love,

Kake

In the Midst of Life

 we are in death.  "A truer word was never said," continues Sabina, who I'll always see as Adrianne Davidson, who performed the role of the Eternal Other Woman in our high school production of The Skin of Our Teeth, a much shortened version of the too-long original play by Thornton Wilder. Although Wikipedia has forced me to pause for a moment as I fantasize about the 1942 Broadway version with Miss Tallulah Bankhead as Sabina, Frederick March as George Antrobus, and Montgomery Clift as Henry.

I quoted this line from the Book of Common Prayer (service for the dead) during our 8am zoomy sermon discussion group.  These folks are such a saving grace for me. Anyway, we're all old.  I'm second youngest. We had a great discussion circling around Gaye Lawson's sermon on fear and hope (bouncing off the Gospel reading, John 19-31). Part of the discussion was around death as we talked about a group member's learning that his senior living facility refuses to put information about clients' deaths in their in-house bulletin. 

Mainstream American culture deals so poorly with death. 

Anyway, this thoughts rose up again yesterday when I got this email notification:

 

Last year around May 4th was the last time I saw Kathy.  She was very calm about her approaching demise, one that she herself controlled. As my friend Lorna is.

I will take hope and inspiration from them.

Thank you

 Dear Will. --

Thank you for showing up again to turn off the lights without the help of Alexa.

Love you,

Kake 

PS: My friend David thinks I'm a bit delulu because he's such a strict materialist -- but his beloved wife is LDS so he's comfortable with loving someone who just believes.

Another Friend Transitioning

 Dear Will -- 

Another of our friends, more my friend, is transitioning soon - in a month or so.  Maybe your souls will run into each other.

Another couple of friends have experienced a less permanent but more wrenching transition as the husband has had to enter memory care.

 I didn't know when I worked on The Skin of Our Teeth in high school that Sabina was quoting a medieval chant, Media vita in morte sumus , when she says, "In the midst of life we are in death.  A truer word was never said." I have quoted Sabina since then, combining this statement with her famous, "Eat your ice cream while it's on your plate, that's my philosophy."

I cried in church on Sunday during the beautiful sermon. I contributed money to the flowers this year and dedicated some to you.  

Sometimes I want to stop missing you.  But then I worry that I will lose our relationship.  Three years ago Sarah told me that grief is now our relationship.  If this pain is what it takes to keep our relationship, I'm still willing to feel it.

As if I had a choice.

love always

kake

Interesting Times

 While I feel very blessed to have investments that should cover my commitment to memory care some years from now, I am kinda pissed off to have lost forty grand over the past couple of weeks. 

It cost me $1900 to have my taxes done, another mark that I'm well-to-do, as was the $295 charge to change a single name in my last will.

Note to MAGA: I just wish George Soros had paid me to be in the protest on Saturday.

My friend Carol had an idea of how to deal with all my friendship losses, including those from a quarter century ago that my grief therapist says I carry around like a big rock in my backpack.   Carol suggested a ritual and I think that's a terrific idea -- a ritual to release myself from caring about the people who don't care about me anymore. A ritual to remind myself that if people don't want to spend time with me, that's about them, not about me. I get to stop thinking about what a terrible, horrible, very bad person I am. And just laugh when someone who has told me they don't have time for me expresses concerns for my health to another person.  So I've been working out what would be a good series of actions and words to tell myself that if people don't want to hang with me it's okay and their loss, not mine.  Illegitimi non carborundum.

On the home front, I finally received the Vietnamese crocheted Will doll.  Sadly, it has black hair which I didn't notice when I reviewed the doll so I've had to paint the hair threads silver. Now this doll will help me watch new movies and old film noir without feeling so alone.

Bad Wednesday

So the day after I felt so good I went into a deep decline. Wednesday was terrible. After my workout I started crying and cried off and on for about an hour and I had a repeat of that later in the day, crying for a few hours.  

About what?

Missing my best friend.  Missing having anyone willing to check in on me regularly. Very narcissistic pains. Feeling alone in the world. Believing that I'm going to die alone and unwept in a city I despise.

I'd started off the morning thinking I would write about one of the great friendships I'd seen, admired, and envied.  A friendship I thought I'd be able to copy someday but never have.  The friendship of Bruce Loebs and Bob Swanson at ISU.  They had coffee together at Elmers most mornings through at least 30 years. 

Whatever it is inside a person that makes that kind of friendship possible, I've never had it, though I've hungered for it. 

Because I was thinking about him I looked up Bruce and found out that he died in 2022 and that his son Blake, a person I remember as a beautiful young man but hadn't seen since the early 80s, had preceded him in death. Bruce was a great boss and helped me get out of Pocatello. When I was first in the theatre department there, I was part of a group that teased Bruce by being noisy outside his office and making him run out and shush-yell at us. Then in my masters program, when I turned from Theatre (with its awful teachers) to speech, he became my thesis director and boss of my first teaching gig.  When I became a teacher,   I turned into the person who ran out of my office to shush people. 

And that's the kind of humorous insight I can have this morning. On Wednesday the mental pain was so severe that I could do little else but cry and walk the dogs. The mental pain was physical in that I couldn't stop crying -- the sobs came from my gut and wouldn't quit. But I didn't call anyone and I wasn't suicidal nor did I think about cutting myself. And even in those times when I have been self harming, I haven't really wanted to die or hurt -- I've just wanted the interior pain to stop.

On the plus side this week, I had coffee with another widow, got a nice note from one of my nephews, and had a good videochat with my friend Diana.  

I also decided to unfriend the folks on Facebook who didn't have time for me and not think of them as my friends anymore.  Both of them gave me nice presents in the past that I'm now going to take to the Humane Society because they just mean sorrow to me now.  One of the presents actually frees up wall space so I need to buy another picture of a Scottish loch.

Sage Advice Today

 I've been having a lot of sadness for the past couple of months ... lots of tears through February.  Sarah and I decided to go back to a once a week schedule. Today she gave me a lot of good advice some of which I could hear through my sobbing.  

Monty Python Pictures Ltd.

1. She reminded me that many others who grieve have the same problem with loss of friends.  It's true that misery loves company but that's mostly because the pain of ongoing depression and grief in a world which wants everyone to be happy all the fucking time makes one feel like an outsider.  I have felt like a truly terrible person because of my experience with friends not wanting to be friends with me anymore.  If I were a likeable person, wouldn't people want to be with me? I told Sarah about dead Kathy's advice to be amiable Sarah talked about advice she'd given other grievers whose friends no longer want to be friends with them.  "You are not terrible people.  But you [ed: and the pain you carry] ARE terrifying to people."

2. She said, "Decision-fatigue is a thing." I have gone from making decisions only in a few select areas to making decisions about all the things (like a normal person) and I get tired of having to be the one in charge of my life when there used to be someone else carrying the weight with me.  And I know that Jesus says "My yoke is easy and my burden in light" but I am actually finding being Christian these days is also challenging.  Thanks, Dan McLellan.

3. She told me to get rest but easier said than done. I've been getting along on a broken sleep of about 6 hours when it's not 5 -- waking up most nights at 2:30 or 3.

4. One aspect of my sadness is my inability to know who I am and what I want and yet knowing that living in a place I hate so deeply isn't it.  Sarah came up with this visual metaphor.  She waved her hand in the air saying that "this is inside" scattered and amorphous. And then she dropped her hand like locking something down and said, "Yet you are imprisoned in Bend."  And that's it.  I feel stuck here.  imprisoned.  There is nothing for me here except a few people, my house, and a beautiful church.  But I can serve in any church. I have too much freedom in my head and not enough freedom in my life (because of my own fear).

5. She also reminded me, yet again, that I have been much more functional than I am right now and I probably will be again (whether or not I believe it).

6. She reminded me again that now that much of the initial feelings of loss have subsided, what I'm feeling is the requirement that I learn to live in the world on my own and that just still feels overwhelming to me and, after 50 years of bonding with another person until they became my ground of being, that's not so surprising.  "This is the first time you've been a widow." It's very hard for me to project further into the future than my next altar guild job.

 7. She also checked in to ask if I'd thought about cutting myself and I haven't had those thoughts. 

8. She also said that raising a dog, let alone taking care of two dogs on one's own is a challenge.  I had confessed that I don't love Sequel yet. I am caring for her but she hasn't been making herself lovable. She threatened me last week - teeth bared and everything. She is definitely not my baybe. But I am her pack leader and I made a commitment to her. But I know she would much rather be in a houseful of other puppies. Nevertheless, I don't want to send her away to dog sleep-away camp and won't give her up.

9. Sarah agreed that living in America during the crumbling of empire is exhausting all by itself.

Mental Breakdown

 I had a breakdown at the end of the service Sunday.

I made a mistake and read the wrong reading - totally my own fault. I practiced the right reading but the Liturgy was marked incorrectly (I'd marked it -- and somehow found the wrong reading in Exodus - totally sober). Then I apologized and had to decide whether to back up and chose the correct reading or go on with the psalm and I went on with the psalm which I got through correctly.

I sat down and was so embarrassed and started to feel like god was telling me to step down. I started hating on myself and missing Will and I fell into that deep well which usually only the people I feel closest to see and I was hiccup crying. My friend from the Tuesday group, Barbara,  came to me and told me that people care about me and "love" me but I don't feel the love of "people"  though I'm glad Barbara considers me a friend.  Then Susan and Nancy, her Mom, and Elizabeth the priest came over where I was picking up stuff to do my altar guild thing and they assured me that everyone makes mistakes. They finally calmed me down. Susan talked about her own therapist and her struggle with low self esteem.

Nancy gave me a hug and said not to believe "the enemy."  My friend Rev. Noah also uses that term.  Maybe it would be helpful to think of that force of self hatred as "the enemy." Maybe I'd be more interested in fighting it if it were outside of me.

I've been feeling really scared and hopeless about the world.  I keep thinking about buying a bigger, more dangerous gun.

Oh well. Protest against the Grifter this afternoon.  I hope that cheers me up. 

Missed Connections

 Dear Will:

A few events I wish I could tell you about, though I'm just as happy you're not alive to experience the era of the Grifter-in-Chief.  You were so scared when we came back to all the yellow ribbons in December, 2001. The McCarthy era gave you a bone deep fear of fascists.

The death of a lovely woman who was a terrible poet that you made fun of for years because I'd forced you to sit through a reading we shared. When one of my book group friends told me about her passing, I instantly felt a connection to you.

The final days of Marty's store. I remember when we joked for months about the billboard on Revere with her and her son in boxing gloves because they had the two different stores. And how delighted you were to get gossip about the son from Nancy W.

And in a happy circumstance, Sequel and I were walking the loop at Riverbend Park and near the metal draw horses we ran into an old friend of Birdy's! Not the dog ... he had gone over the rainbow bridge, but the female primate recognized me as Birdy's packleader.  She was also a long ago former student.  She understood Sequel's name immediately!

 And finally, I was thinking about Jim A.'s tomato comments and how much we laughed at them for years after the meeting in Chicago.

I'm more often able to miss you now without crying.

Love always,

kake

 

BLECH Taxes

When I took in a folder of 1099s and other documents to my accountant today, I joshed with Dan, the administrative assistant.  He said the banks were slow getting the 1099s out and I said "Who knows if there's going to be a government in April or even if we'll have to pay taxes ever again."  Jk.

The Tribute Money by Peter Paul Rubens

 Back in the day, pre-2012, when Will did our taxes, every year was a struggle because until I actually did the taxes myself, I didn't really understand the process.  In the two years I was actually in charge of personally doing the taxes, I made mistakes each year, once in the government's favor, once in ours.  Now, because of the complexity of my finances (those two trusts), I have an accounting firm.

Nevertheless, I still need to collect the data of all my donations (sometimes given when I'm high) so I actually need to roll through my four main email accounts and my Paypal. (Used to be going through my checkbooks.) I no longer keep track of mileage to the doctor and Costco, however.  That's just a bit too much detail.

Looks like I've got good medical deductions this year since I no longer have dental insurance and had three major dental events. My donations were under 17 grand I think, though I'm not completely finished figuring them out.

This year my accountant's business has a new online program to help folks work through what they need to think about.  There are a lot of questions, some of which I have to leave up to the Ed Jones folks to answer as most of what goes on in my investments happens while I'm not watching.  For example, I know I have foreign investments but I don't know what they are or what they're doing (unless I actually read my portfolio). I trust the people who watch out for me.

Other questions focused on all the various things that might count as deductions. I found out that I hadn't paid two of my estimated taxes (I thought I had but the online machinery I used didn't work).  So paid those late. There was also a question about "gifts" and I found out that while no gifts under eighteen grand are counted, the IRS was interested in any amount of forgiven debt. I forgave an eight thousand dollar debt this year so I reported that but I'm not sure, from reading the rules, whether or not the forgivee will have to pay taxes on it. I don't think there are any tax associated implications for me.

I still have a few more documents to get in before Thursday, my deadline.  And then, if I've behaved as I have in the past, there will still be a few things missing and Chelsea will have to email me a list. 

I wouldn't be quite so annoyed by the whole business IF MY STREET WERE SNOWPLOWED. I know -- has nothing to do with the feds or the state but still, it's my most annoying relationship with any government agency.

Oh well. "Whose picture is on the coin?" Caesar's. So send all your fucking coins back to the dude.

I used to have a friend who protested government actions by not paying his taxes. I'd like to think I'd never do that but who knows what the future holds as our empire crumbles. Sometimes I think the Grifter in Chief is just chickens coming home to roost for a country that spent a century destabilizing other countries. I'm happy well Will isn't here to see what's happening but he'd be proud of me for continuing to take care of my few responsibilities.

 

Snow Business

 Dear Will:

You would have been amused at Sequel yesterday. She saw the snow monster and started barking at it!  You liked to point out the snow monster, both when you were you and when you had the dementia.

What I am missing about you today is our shared jokes, shared life references.  “Ebow.” “Puttin on the Ritz” “Hey hey, my my …” one of our earliest. The places we traveled and returned to in food and conversation. The year after visiting New Orleans when you made a habit of cooking some meals with “three peppers for the whole mouth treatment.” The year after England when we had tea.

But I lost you before I lost you. Before you lost the connections to our shared life, you sometimes asked, “Where have we traveled?” Or “What countries have we traveled to?” And I would list them and you would try to remember and you would remember fewer and fewer as time rivered our shared life to its finale.

But here in the present in multiple ways you are still with me. As when Sequel saw the same thing you did and barked. So she has a connection to you. You share a pareidolia.

And sadly, her bark also means I need to work harder on her being so talkative. I have the "no bark" tool. I need to remember to carry it.

I don’t know if you would like Sequel. She’s very alpha, unlike sweet Princess Birdy. She will not allow me to lie on her or hold tight to her to assert my dominance. So we’re working out our pack relationship with my using a lot more treating than I did with the princess.

Oh, and last weekend. The three shiny pennies right where I would see them - one beside my parking space at Newport, one in the house, one at the mailbox.  I’ve never given much weight to this particular superstition but I’ve known about it for decades (mostly from the occasional letter to Dear Abby. And last weekend I had a horrible embarrassment:  a brain fart and awhile reading the psalm. Ack!  So I need help from above after my horrible mistake … thanks you if you were responsible for my copper finds.

I miss you each day and yet I am entering my fourth year of your absence with Snake Energy. This will be a more functional year for me. Even Brezsny says so.

 

Love you always,

 

Kake

Better With God's Help

Yesterday I had brief interactions with two old friends (separately) who let me know they don't have any time for me anymore. 

It didn't break me.  (confetti toss, trumpet voluntary)

I did wind up crying for a couple of hours, off and on, but my chest didn't tighten and I didn't seek to harm myself.  I still want to tell each of them how sad they "make" me but I know it's only me making me sad. So I won't tell them. I'll write about it here because I know neither of them reads this. 

my mom used to climb these little hills

Not having my chest tighten was probably the result of the praying I've been doing. I've asked God to soften my heart.  I no longer have any anger at people who don't want to be with me. I understand it.

People want to be around someone who is cheerful and amiable. That's what dead Kathy told me.

Also, young people don't want to be around an old person, and other old people don't want to be around a sad old person.

So I'm doing my best to construct someone likable and happy go lucky.  It's not easy, especially when the tears are ready, especially when seeing people I love who don't love me back and are smiling at me and hugging me and then walking away as if the hug wasn't just like a slap.  But I understand that I'm sad and crazy and difficult and accept that people don't want to be around that. Also, when I do feel good, so many of the jokes that pop into my head are NSFW so I shut the fuck up rather than sharing.  This choice, while respectful, also reminds me that I don't fit in with the people I spend most of my time with.

Kathy would tell me it doesn't matter.  Just suck it up.  Accept the crumbs and call them a meal. That's what loving Jesus is supposed to do -- turn all the emotional love crumbs into a satisfying lunch. I've been praying on that, too. If God wants me to stay alive, I pray, "give me energy and tell me what the actual fuck I'm supposed to be doing."

I know that most everyone on earth has it worse than I.  I am very lucky and privileged to have warmth and food and safety and two poodles. And a cat.  It helps to remind myself of that. It's my narcissism that makes me want people who love me for myself.

Thank God for Diana (hi!). When I was broken on January 3 when I saw what I saw on FB and wanted so much just for the hurting to stop and the only way I knew to do that was to hurt myself, she called me and showed me that there was one person who liked me as I am and that I don't have to build someone to be with her.  I told her how most of my life I have prayed to be somebody different and she told me not to make such a prayer.  She told me I wasn't terrible.  Thank you, Diana.  And thank you again for the wonderful cup that expresses our friendship.

Diana rescued me, which is something broken EType4s seek.  And I recognize that right now I am not healthy.*

The problem is, of course, that I have to want to rescue myself, as I've been told over and over (and over and over and over and over). I need to grow a pair.  But where do I get the energy to want to do that?  I have money, so no need to do anything to get money.  There is no one who needs or depends on me except my animals and today I'll contact my lawyer to make sure to change the care person to my friend Lilli Ann -- she grew up with poodles and I trust her to know how to place one, should I die before them.  

"Now you have all the time to do what you love.  Just do what you love."

And what is that? What do I love to do besides get high and take hot baths like the captain of the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B? In the past I've done art and written.

But what good is a collage if I can't show it to Will? What good is a poem if I can't read it to Will?  

Nevertheless, I keep trying to do things.  I keep taking classes. I keep blogging. I keep trying to surface.

But here's the Catch22 -- I have to be healthy enough to have the energy to rescue myself from my lack of health. How do I get the energy to rescue myself when I need to be rescued? I'll pray on it.

So, as the title says, I'm better.  Lots, lots better.  I'm not angry all the time.  I have had weeks during which I didn't cry (not lately but it's winter so wadayagonnado). I will get through this next month (the anniversaries of the rape and the family tragedy) by remaining in my addiction and then maybe, when spring comes, I'll try again to become mentally healthy and get off the pipe. We'll see. According to my previous calculations, I still have a year and a half for serious grief.

One thing I've learned during this grief journey is that it's not wise to make predictions.  And that's okay. What will be will be.  If God wants me to be more functional, the Good Lord will provide ways for that to happen.

You can't hurry God.  "He may not come when you want Him but he's right on time."

 

 

 

 

* From the Enneagram website

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.

Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.

Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.

when what I want to be is healthy:

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.

Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the “search for self,” aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate.

Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, “true to self.” Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.