"All That Sparkles..."

I Got Married

This is my husband S (I am)  and I in Hawaii October 2022. He took me. It felt like it was the best two weeks of my life. Last summer we got married after two years of living together, at the courthouse. We just celebrated the third anniversary of our first date. We're going to have an actual wedding with reception this summer. More pictures to come. 

I'm reviving the blog

A lot has happened in the last year. A lot. I'm different. More mature, settled, thoughtful, and happy. 

Just a few.highlights I'll be writing about, eventually.

I'm going to Hawaii in two days.

 

Briefly, and in list form:

I finished my MFA

Got a job

I ditched the toxic man from my life completely

Moved

Dated a lot

Met someone new in March, different from anyone I've ever met.

Lost 30 lbs

Went to San Francisco to see my nieces graduate from high school

Had Covid

Did a lot of soul searching within and without therapy. Always striving to be better.

So that's it for now. I'll be posting pics from Hawaii.

How are you?

 

Ya know how people post stuff on facebook or instagra "Reach out if you need someone. I will be there for you."

It's a lie. It's a fucking lie. A lot of people cannot deal with the reality of someone who is so sick that they want to die. It's a lot for a person to handle. I get it. But that BS meme that's going around about "You'll always have a place with me blah blah blah"? They don't really understand what that means. Another person's life might literally be in their hands. And that is a heavy weight. 

And I'm that person.

I'm kinda over this whole "living" BS. I'm almost 60. I've done and seen and loved and experienced a lot. I kind of feel, other than seeing Italy, Iceland, and the Arctic, I've done everything I've ever wanted to do. Really. I would like to see my nieces one more time. :-(  I haven't seen them in almost 3 years. They're probably taller than me by now. 

Fuck. 

Now or Never

'I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:

 

"I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.

 

"Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever.

 

"Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.''

 

Brene Brown 

We're Texting

We started a few weeks ago. So far we haven't gone 24 hours without texting. Sometimes we text all day long, others we just text a bit late at night. I figured "why not?" because I was sad and crying regardless of whether we were in contact or not. I don't feel the need to detail what we've texted about here, but it's mostly just day-to-day stuff like, what he ate for dinner and who has the best frozen pizza. It makes me feel less lonely to do this.

About 10 days ago, I quit texting him, waited for him to text me. And he started texting me late at night, like after 10 or 11, usually while drunk. I've been drinking a lot myself. I finally asked him the other night why he thought he might be drinking so much, and he told me that the lesion they found on his liver back in Feb or March (I don't remember. I even forgot he had a lesion on his liver.) had doubled in sized. I said had he had a scan? He said yes, late last month--so May--so the night I made him bring my car back, he knew. 

So I started Googling. It's very, very, very probably that he has liver cancer. This is not metastatic prostate cancer, as his prostate cancer is new and grows very slowly--at least that I know of.

I did not tell him what I found.

I asked what happens now. He said he needs a liver biopsy, but he hasn't scheduled it yet. I said I'd want to know WTF that is. He said he does. But he hasn't scheduled the biopsy. I Googled that, that looks like a horrible procedure. I said I would go with him if he needs support, and they'll probably want someone to drive him home anyway. I hope he insists on twilight sedation; I would not have it awake, oh fuck no. 

He said, "It's almost getting to be too much."

He's kind of a dick, so maybe a lot of a dick, but he's had a horrific life. It started with SEVERE childhood abuse by a stepfather while his mother stood by and did nothing. I mean...the stuff of nightmares. And I'm sure it's shaped his life and his choices and decision-making since. I know mine has, but mine was mostly psychological abuse; his was psych and physical, sometimes together. Sigh.

I pity him, I really do.

So he's reaching out to me, perhaps the most non-judgmental person he may know. I even texted "Hey, you wanna get together for a drink tonight and talk? I'm a good listener. And I care."

He did not reply.

My next text from him was something about work or whatever.

I was texting him while he was at work yesterday afternoon about getting a cortisone shot in my right hand for trigger finger, and then a tetanus booster in my left arm (for university, sigh.), and how it was unbalanced lol. As for my trigger finger, he said that's what I get for flipping off all those cars in LA (my middle finger. LOL). I said that makes total sense. LOL Then nothing since.

I'm not texting him. I don't need him. If he needs me, I'll try to be there, but he has to reach out. I'm done reaching.

This morning I woke up to the hushed sound of tires swooshing through rain, and I felt relaxed, peaceful even, and I started meditating: Compassion in through the nose, kindness out through the mouth. Then I started a new meditation, let me get over him in through the nose, let me have peace out through the mouth. And it did help.

But check this out, and I've told a few people including my therapist.

While we were in California in April, Rob and I, while he was standing at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, waves lapping his ankles and feet, breeze tickling his hair-sprayed balding head, his face turned toward the horizon, just looking out, taking it all in the awe an majesty of the great ocean, a thought popped into my head totally unbidden, from literally nowhere:

He'll be dead in a year.

I am not exagerrating. It just popped into my conscious thoughts.

And now it looks like he just might, particularly since he is so lax in taking action on his healthcare of any kind. Maybe he's committing some kind of passive suicide like my mother did (although not to this extent). He has only had brief moments of joy and happiness in his life. It has genuinely been hard. His spirit was broken, and he does not have the emotional quotient to handle even the simplest of life problems. He never learned how. It's a vicious cycle.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

I pray for peace for him, that he not suffer or experience inordinate pain, and that whatever happens with him, he'll know that he is loved. By me, his kids, maybe one ex-girlfriend, some friends, his mother. But he definitely was loved while he was here on this planet, despite it all. 

Damn. 

I wish I was dead

You know those memes that go around on Facebook? "Just reach out...I'm here....' Lies. All Lies. People can't cope with suicide and suicideal people. I've called the suicide hotline. You know what I get? Teenagers who have no clue what I'm talking about. And it's a lot to ask of a person.

It's been 10 days since Rob and I broke up and last spoke, and honestly the pain is overwhelming. I don't know how I'm going to get over him. I've been crying every day. Drinking and eating too much. Sleeping a lot. I don't know what the fuck my life is supposed to be. WTF am I doing in Wisconsin? OMG.

FUCK.

I Got Taken to the Financial Cleaners, Again

By Rob.

I added everything up yesterday that I spent on him since January: $3,147.00. I'm such a fool. Then I saw this and it makes total sense. This is me. 

I'm Miserable

Even more miserable than when we were a couple. 

I can't stop crying.

I keep picking up the phone to text him. We used to text all day long. We were friends, too.

I miss him.

Shit.

Lord help me. 

Give me strength.

If only love could've been enough

Last Lost Love

There’s a time of day in northeastern Wisconsin, between fall and winter, when the afternoon turns toward twilight but…not quite, and the glow of the sun filters through sideways and colors everything in a warm, golden light. Buildings and houses seem to be magical castles floating in the light; even bare-limbed trees look warm and welcoming instead of sad and menacing.  Green Bay and environs is north of the 44^th parallel, northern even than Toronto. It’s known for its snow-bundled football fans, cheese, and it’s hardy, but kind, compassionate citizens.

But that light. It warmed me through my ribcage, passed the muscles and the sinew into the bone—heat, safety, love.                          

We don’t see that in Southern California.

In Southern California, the light, in every season but especially around Beltane and Samhain, is bright and sharp; you could cut steak with that light. You can’t look directly at it, it’s too razor-edged; to look at it feels like you could lose your sight. To Paraphrase Emily Dickinson,  “you have to look at it slant.”

The people in Southern California are like that, too. The men all want stunning, flawless Barbie dolls; the women all want wealthy directors, actors, or lawyers.  There seems to be a surplus of sharp-edged, soulless people. The real people are hard to find. It’s all about seeing and being seen; everything is a façade. There is no golden light illuminating the beauty in simplicity, in realness. Only klieg lights, and neon lights, and gelled lights, to disguise the truth. Don’t look straight into the light, it’ll blind you, leaving you a dry husk inside.

But in Wisconsin. There was a man. A wonderful, warm man.

When I looked at him, and he looked at me, it was like having that beautiful amber light shine on me, the breadth of his grin warming me from my interior, right behind my chest, and moving swiftly through my veins to every bit of my body in a balmy, no, a sultry simmer of heat. I smiled in response to his smile, and I felt enveloped in smoldering optimism, and a happiness that turned me a shade of rosy pink.

How strange it was to be bathed in that lovely glowing light as my own twilight closed in on me. It made it feel that much more rare and precious, and everything came quickly then, as if there were no time to waste. Turns out, there wasn’t. First everything’s were being undertaken rapidly because we felt so much time had been wasted, but we were basked in the warm glow of the golden light of, dare I say it? Love. We did, we fell in love.

Here I am in the not-quite-yet, neither twilight nor dusk, of my life, and I was touched by the golden light of love, maybe for the last time. My last love. I’d hoped it would’ve lasted til the end of my lifetime, which I still hope is a long, long time away. But his warmth and realness made me so very happy. I would walk as far as it took to keep him next to me, to keep that golden light behind the smile, warming me from the inside. Anything.

And I did everything I knew how to, to try and keep you. But light cannot be captured in our hands.

Instead, after the rush of love and firsts, he faltered, then fell, and could not get up, and wasted my time, so much of my short time left instead, afraid, immobilized, paralyzed with a brain that would not function completely, telling him lies and deceptions as he sat, and sat, and sat, and I waited, and waited, and waited. I waited for that golden smile, the light behind his pale, pure Yellowstone-pool blue eyes to turn toward me, the fullness of his love for me to spark on within him, for his smile to echo soul-deep: but it never did. Here and there, for a brief moment, enough to keep me hanging on, waiting for it to happen again, maybe next time, one more month, one more week, one more day, one more hour…maybe longer next time, maybe, but it never did. It never did.

I should be devastated, now that we’re over, but truthfully, as I waited, my hope, the light, the sultry heat emanating from my heart, faded and cooled, and when it finally ended, all I felt was relief. I was exhausted holding him up, hoping for one more smile, one more moment of electricity, one more “I miss you” or “Honey” or “I love you”, but they never came. Ever.

I feel nothing. I’ve tried to cry, and I teared up, but there was no grief, no gut-wrenching pain from the loss of him. Because he had already been gone for a long, long time.

I’ll miss you, my late fall November light. I’ll miss you. Until my last day.

I hope you find it again someday. You deserve that much. If you only knew how much.

And now I turn away, to late spring and early summer, hoping a cloud-filled royal blue sky will bring me something, anything, some hope, to be loved. One. Last. Time.

Ah, and now they come. The tears. Here they are at last.

The Blue Screen of Death

On the morning of April 3, 2021 I slept late, 10 am, then went for a three mile walk, my usual, down by the Fox River. I came home, showered, fixed my hair, got dressed, and went to a wedding and reception in Egg Harbor, WI in beautiful Door County. The wedding was small, the reception was limited to 25 people. It was lovely. The bride was beautiful and glowing, the groom was handsome and happy. The reception had good food—appetizers—some beer made from their farm (I worked in the cherry orchard last summer), I didn’t care for it, it was very bitter. Rob was texting me intermittently. His depression had reared its ugly head again and he was refusing to get help. Again. It was pissing me off. Greatly. I stayed a couple of hours then left. The couple didn’t register anywhere, the bride asked for something shiny from St. Vincent’s, the local thrift stores. When I went up to Sturgeon Bay to get my latest tattoo (did I post a pic? I will.), there was a thrift store that S and I went into. I found a darling, vintage sugar and creamer set with gold rims—I actually have that set that I use every day for my coffee—and I had a cute little pressed glass plate to set it on. I wrapped it up, put it in a big wedding gift bag with tissue paper and a card, and left it on a side table and drove home.

 

When I got home, I started text arguing with Rob. I started drinking Mike’s cranberry Hard Lemonade. I shouldn’t drink that. It literally makes me crazy. As the day went on, the arguing got uglier and worse, horrible things were said back and forth, then Rxx started texting me and that got ugly and angry (he was going to cat sit for me while I was in Tucson working for my dad, planned since last October), he called and I got angry and hung up on him. Then I went in the bathroom and started pulling these plastic boxes with snap-on lids I’d gotten from Malwart for my move. I had a bunch of old medicine in there, including some tramadol, synthetic morphine, that had belonged to my mother. I kept it because it’s great for toothache pain and it had her name on the bottle—it made her a real person to me. And I started swallowing them. With a 2^nd, 16 ounce Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Then I ate a whole bag of gummies. Pot gummies. I think there were ten in the bag for 100 mg of THC. I got them on a recent trip to Marquette on Lake Superior. I’d gone up there to get away, relax, and think, be around people, go for walks, eat good food. Taking the pills, eating the gummites, it was not a plan, I just felt so much emotional pain, I wanted it to stop. I started texting R and R goodbye, I posted “I’m sorry” on Facebook, I emailed my therapist that it wasn’t her fault; I’d just had enough. I took maybe…I don’t know, a handful, two at a time with a Mike’s, I walked into the bathroom and, swallowing Mike’s, and sobbing my heard out, RSD triggered, the first box was just nail stuff, and I had thrown it on the floor where everything scattered because it wasn't the drug box. I felt as if I had been stabbed in the heart and punched in the gut. It felt like real physical pain. I suddenly heard a voice calling me. For a brief hopeful moment, I thought it was Rob. It wasn't. It was the police. Rxx called.

I think there were around six or seven cops. I told them they could come in. Outside I could see flashing blue and red lights. Later I would discover it was ambulance and cop cars. Also a crowd gathered. I asked if one of them was “Kyle?”

“Why? Do you know a Kyle?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Kyle Sxxxxxxxr.”

“Oh yeah. We know him. How do you know him?”

“I used to work with his mom.”

Anyway. This “kid” cop started talking to me, “You have cats, huh. How many? Let’s go over here and sit down. What did you take today, Julie?” I told them, another cop found the bottle on my bed and asked me who Karen Johnson is? I said “My mom.” He asked where she is, I replied, “She’s dead.” The first cop was still calm-talking to me as I cried. I was in my navy blue lawn ankle-length nightgown and a pair of underpants, that was it. He asked what slip-on shoes he could put on me, and I pointed to my black slip-on Sketchers with memory foam that I had gotten for work at Kohl’s last summer. He put them on me. Another cop grabbed my purse and keys, I must have guided him where they were and what to get because he got everything, my big purse and my “small purse” that is a small crossbody wallet. They didn’t get my glasses. I was high as a kite by this time. Fucked up in a phrase. Several cops walked in front of me, several behind me, and one had me by the arm. We walked down the death-steps of my apartment. He kept talking to me softly and I kept answering between sobs. They got me down the stairs, out the door, someone locked it behind us, down the porch, across the walk, and into an ambulance. I was sobbing and blind without my glasses the whole time. My landlord, thank god, wasn’t home. I don’t know if he saw it on the driveway camera or not, but he didn’t ask me about it. If anyone does, we’re telling people I had a “bowel blockage”.

They asked me where I wanted to go, I told them based on a recommendation by my therapist, and it was just down the street maybe a mile. S’s husband worked there. It was the hospital he’d come to Green Bay to work for, and how we all ended up there. (He no longer does, but that’s irrelevant.) I was wheeled into a room that was round in shape with an ante-bathroom off to one side. It had no windows. It looked like the bottom of a submarine, light blue in color. Two cops stuck around to watch me, I guess. I don’t know how long I was there, but it was several hours. I sobbed the entire time. I was ugly crying. I took a picture of it, not sure why.

I had to give a urine sample for testing to figure out how to treat me. Once it came back, they gave me a potassium tablet as it was low and so was my heart rate. Then the nurse gave me a Dixie cup full of black activated charcoal to swallow. It had a straw in it. I asked if it would make me puke. The nurse said no. That was a lie. She said if I didn’t drink it, they were going to put an NG tube down my throat while I was awake and pump out my stomach I drank it in three nasty gulps. I chased it with a glass of water. I was also on an IV of saline to flush my system and keep me stable. Not too long after, the cops took me over to “the crisis center.” In Wisconsin, this center, not your doctor(s) decides where you go. They wheeled me out of the hospital then I got into a cop car, backseat, in my navy blue nightgown, my slip on Skechers and no glasses.

Rxx called them based on a text I sent him. He was in Chicago at the time. I’m glad he did even though the next five days were gonna really, really suck. Like, a lot.

I have no idea where this center was. I had a plastic bag with a ring on one end to hold up to my face. I was puking in the cop car. The crisis center didn’t have an elevator, and they had to walk me down the stairs. I was so high/stoned/loaded/lit up that I could barely walk let alone to stairs. A very nice cop person had a-hold of me by one arm and walked me down. As we got to the 2^nd-to-last step, I went forward and would have fallen right on my face if he didn’t have a good hold on me. Unfortunately knew it left a bruise on my arm. I still have it. I’ll put up a pic.

Anyways.

The crisis center decided after five minutes of questions, that I needed to go to the locked psych ward. Off she went and the cops came back. They also asked me about which keys to give Rxx because he was locked out and my cats needed tending. I told him, and he gave them to Rxx. I started puking again. The cops waited for me as I sat on a bench and puked. In between barf sessions, I said to the cops “sorry fellas.” They said not to worry about it. The cops would be the nicest part of this whole nightmarish adventures. Really. Maybe because I knew “Kyle” who had just been promoted to field training Sergeant. Dunno.

So I get a puke break, we go back upstairs, and they hand me off to a new cop who isn’t aware that I am a “fall risk.” I have benign proximal vertigo on a good day, and I was lit up like Fourth of July and I could barely stand. I almost fell standing still while next to the new even younger cop, who finally took hold of my arm. They put me in the back of the cop SUV and I puked some more on the way to the psych ward. I told him I wouldn’t puke on his car, he seemed worried about it. I did piss myself, however. I had a Poise pad on as since I hit menopause I can’t hold it sometimes. Sometimes a lot sneaks out. Poise. Recommend. Anyway, I overflowed the "extra long" Poise pad. >eyeroll<

So I did piss in the cop car.

At the psych ward, they strip you of everything: watch, phone, shoes, clothes. I told them I needed some paper underwear because I had pissed myself and my nightgown. They gave me some Depend undies and some scrubs to put on. I told them L was too small; I needed an XL. They were itchy and uncomfortable. I wore them the next four days. I wore the same Depend undies for two days. I finally quit puking.

You don’t ever want to be in a psych ward in Wisconsin on a weekend. Your 3-day hold? It doesn’t start until Monday.

By the time they wrist-banded me—name and personal info--, fall risk, allergies, so a white, yellow, and red band, got me assessed, why I did it, what I took, etc. it was around 4 am. I fell into bed. I didn’t wake up until 10 am when they came to check my heart rate and take some labs.

The next four days were a nightmare of me sleeping, keeping my big mouth shut, not freaking out, keeping away from the other inmates, trying not to pester the nurses who didn’t want to or forgot that you had asked for something. And how I ended up with the same Depends underwear for three days.

Rxx came to visit every day, at 1pm for 90 minutes, and at 5 pm for 90 minutes. He brought underwear, eye drops (a whole other story) and my glasses. The glasses were fine, the underwear were a teeny red lace pair I wore about 30 pounds ago. No good.

More to come.

Not a good look. In the ER.