A new year

It will soon be 2012.  I don’t know what the new year will bring.  You don’t know what the new year will bring, either.  It is a leap year, a little longer than most years.

It is hard to believe that four years have passed since 2008.  A lot of the people who were my friends four years ago aren’t my friends anymore.

I have given away just about all the clothes I had four years ago to charity.  Or I threw them out.

I don’t live in the same location.

Prices have gone up.  At least that’s something that isn’t surprising.

I have fewer teeth.

In a week, I’ll be 54 years old.  I may or may not have mentioned this, but I’d like to spend all of 54 out of the loony bin.  It’s a lofty goal.  A year is a long, long time when they say you’re supposed to take things one day at a time.

To tell you the truth, I’ll be totally relieved when 53 is over and done with.  Right now, I feel like I’m tiptoeing around very, very scared, still very much in 53.  I am trying not to count the days.  Counting is kinda dumb.  I’m really that my birthday falls on a Sunday, so I get to be in church that day.

Tomorrow, I get to light the chalice at church, to bring in the New Year.  I get to do this because nobody had signed up for it.  So I signed my name in the blank.  Julie Greene.  That’s me.

I will be reading the Epilogue from Kenny Fries’ book, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory.  I get to read from a book that has a long title because 2012 is leap year, a longer year than most.

I guess here on the East Coast in a half hour it will be 2012.  Happy New Year, East Coast.

 

Advertisement

Flashing lights

You know, I feel fairly decent today.  It is near the end of the year.  Already, the days are getting longer.  The difference is only a couple of minutes, but it seemed very noticeable to me.  Puzzle and I celebrated this difference during our late afternoon walk.  I had my headphones turned up loud.

We walked down Main Street where a cop car had stopped a speeder.  It is a place where this often occurs.  I didn’t want Puzzle to linger too long under the flashing lights.   For some reason, the lights reminded me of those strobe lights they had at my junior high dances.  The music was sickeningly loud there.  I had never heard music so loud.  I ended up dancing with Charlie I think, but I don’t quite remember.  Then he introduced me to Jeff.  I already knew Jeff but I guess it was our formal introduction.  And then we were going out, me and Jeff.  We kept it secret.  We wrote letters in the summer and wrote our initials backwards so our parents wouldn’t know who it was.  My parents guessed anyway.  Then he broke up with me and told everyone that he hated me.  I was in the eighth grade and I didn’t really care.  We never spoke again.

Puzzle and I came home, and I fed her.  Dog food is so simple.  You just put it in a bowl and the dog eats it.

It is around 6pm.  So far, I have made it through the day.  You can never be sure.  I am blessed.

I am not going to spend my 54th birthday locked up in a nuthouse

It’s damn cold out.  I know cuz I was just out there.  I went grocery shopping.  I didn’t take the shortcut to the grocery store.  I went the long route both ways.  Luckily, I changed into my boots beforehand.  It was a good idea to check weather dot com before heading out.  There was a “strong wind warning” and a statement about potential resulting power outages.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t get clobbered by a tree while out walking, or clobbered by anything else.   You never know what you might run into when it’s only ten days before your 54th birthday.

It’s been the Year of Hell.  I could write a book about this year.  Maybe I shouldn’t say that, cuz it’s not over yet.  Anything can happen in the next ten days.  I wouldn’t wish this year on anyone.  I keep on thinking of exceptions to this, people, really, really bad people that I might actually want to experience what I’ve been through at age 53.  My mother?  Nope.  Too old.  It would be pointless to put her through this torture.  She would not understand the meaning of it and would not feel the depth, or feel the turn of the knife.  It’s hard to explain to a stranger what I mean.  (Please don’t call me a sinner for saying what I’ve just said.  You don’t know me and you don’t know her and you didn’t grow up in my shoes.)

It was kind of weird Skyping with my T.  She wanted to know stuff, and I didn’t know where to begin, so I began with the Cable Guy.  It was hard to tell the story.  She “got it” right away.  Then, right then and there, it was simply unnecessary to tell her anything else.

I know what I have to do.  I am an adult.  I am ten days shy of 54.  On my 54th birthday, I do not need to be in a dining room full of fourteen-year-olds playing “Twenty Questions” while eating a “therapeutic meal,” carefully watched over by two well-trained staff counselors.  I have no desire to spend my 54th birthday with a tube in my nose.   I have ten more days of 53, and during none of these days do I plan to be in any nuthouse, or in an ambulance, or escorted anywhere by police.

I used my food stamps card for the food items, but for the coffee filters (which were on sale) I handed the cashier a ten dollar bill.  She rang up a one hundred dollar bill.  The cash register, and my sales slip, reads $98.14 change.  She handed me $8.14, apologizing for the error.  I’m just trying to sort this out.  She’s going to get into a bit of trouble I think.  I have never seen her before.  Maybe I will never see her again.

The people after me were in a hurry.  They scooted past me while I was filling my knapsack with my groceries.  They looked at me like I was crazy.  They were a mother and daughter.  The cashier noticed that they had forgotten their half-gallon jug of apple juice.  She called after them.  “Ma’am!” she called.  They heard her and came running back.  The daughter grabbed the apple juice and flew back to her mother.  They disappeared out of the store.

I took my time.  I wasn’t carrying much.  I adjusted my MP3 player and changed the music.  It was going to be a cold, cold walk home.  I was glad to be wearing boots, and that I had checked weather dot com before leaving home.

I am sick

I am sick.  I went to get water in the night and just about fainted.  Somehow, I got back into bed and lay down before I collapsed.  I felt the same way when I awoke this morning.  I feel rather crappy and have not felt well at all today.  I am seriously beginning to doubt my ability to heal myself on my own.  I have avoided getting medical care because turning to professionals may lead to a trip to a psychiatric unit.

It is just not working.

So why did I press the panic button and call 911 on Friday?  I guess it was because my malnutritioned brain was not working right.  I felt shitty.  Of course I needed medical care.  Anyway, after that, I vowed I would not call 911 again.  What a waste.

I got Puzzle out this morning.  Took a shower.  Trying to hydrate myself, etc.  I will speak to my T at 1pm.  One look at my face and she will know.  We are going to be Skyping.  I cannot hide it.

The DMH person called while I was out with Puzzle.  I looked on my caller ID and saw that he had called and hung up without leaving a message.  Very weird.

Well, two more hours and my T will be calling me on Skype.  Might as well be doing something useful between now and then.  Take out the trash or something.

Thanks, cable guy

All I want is to be loved and wanted and cared for.

I drank two tablespoons of carrot juice and two tablespoons of fruit juice and some water.

I contacted my T and we are going to Skype tomorrow at 1pm Eastern time.  That’s 10am on the West Coast, where she is vacationing.

I wrote in my journal quite a number of hours ago that if life meant a life of hospitalization then I did not want it.  I wrote something like that…I don’t recall the exact wording.  That was only one of the things I wrote.

How to work this out.

A knock on the door

There was a knock on the door.  Puzzle barked.  I opened the door and no one was there.  Then I heard a call.  A male voice said, “Wait a minute!  I’m coming!”  A guy appeared.  He said he was the cable guy.  He gave me a card, saying, “If you want three months free, call me.”

A bunch of feelings came into my head just then.  What did I expect when I opened the door?  Santa Claus?  Did I think it was the police coming to take me away…yet another time?  What did I want?  What was I dreading?  What was I hoping for from this visitor?  Do I want to be loved and wanted and cared for?

Spots came in front of my eyes, the kind of spots you get when you are dizzy from getting up too fast.  I went into the kitchen.  Puzzle followed me.  I got myself a little water.  I came to the computer.

Earlier, my therapist wrote to me and said she needed to cancel our Thursday appointment.  She is extending her vacation.  I will be seeing her next Monday.  She said if I wanted to talk to her on the phone that could be arranged.  I think it was about four hours ago that I wrote back and said that everything was okay and that I hope she was having a happy vacation.

At some point, I don’t recall when, I wrote some in my journal.  I don’t want to go back and read what I wrote.

I realize now that I just want to be loved and wanted and cared for.  Like everyone else I guess.

Thanks, cable guy.

 

It must be Tuesday, at around noon

I slept for a long time.  I woke up.  I have a headache.  I took a couple of aspirin and drank some filtered water out of the refrigerator.  I am having herbal tea, but I really want to go back to bed now.

I don’t know, really, what I want and don’t want anymore.  It’s a tough call.

Tuesday morning

I awoke early and my blood pressure was 70/41.  After a bit of a debate I gave in and consumed a tiny bit of juice.  I recorded the calories.  I slept some.  I still feel kind of lousy and my blood pressure is still low but not quite as low as before.  I’ve had some water.  I’m half dressed.

Need to pay the rent.  Get a few things done.

I have to get Puzzle out but I’m too sick.  Scared.  Need to figure this out.  Just sit here.  Think a bit.

Monday night

I see my therapist Thursday.  I kind of dread it.  She is not stupid.  She will ask me right away.  Whether she has heard about my ridiculous ER adventure or not she will ask about those dreaded topics of eating and weight.

I don’t know how many pounds I’m going to drop tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday night.  On Thursday I don’t know what I’ll weigh.  You just can’t predict these things.  She’s been away on vacation and I haven’t seen her since the 19th, a week ago.  I am four pounds less than I was then.

It feels so glorious.

Recently, I dropped four pounds overnight.  Then two more the next night.  I just didn’t want to be fat.

This is scary and I am losing my mind.

 

Good morning

I wrote a document this morning that I decided I don’t want to make public right away, so I posted it so that it will appear in a month.

I have less than two weeks to go till I’m 54 years old.  Less than two more weeks of this hell.

At the moment, I don’t feel well.

I want to talk to my minister today, but I don’t know if he’s in.

Losing track of time and getting sidetracked.  The body prioritizes.  I have so many documents.  Sometimes, I am not in my right mind.