IN TIMES OF WAR

No, I'm not talking about war on the battlefield, I'm talking about war that disrupts your life, the war you must fight to continue on.

Today, with all my babies taking a nap = Darby Doodle, Toot, Emma, Penny, Pete, Linus, Lucy Belle and Charlie Brown = I struggle with today and tomorrow, never knowing what to expect with this torturous life and uncertain future.

But, Fate stepped in and dealt me another blow = my beloved baby girl Pete was diagnosed with an incurable health problem and since yesterday I'm fighting an internal war to hang on to my sanity. I brought her home and received a lot of prayers. Whatever God has in store, I have to deal with that later, but I believe in prayers, because prayers brought her to me.

Lost my beloved BabyDoo last July - had to make room for that internal war of dealing with that loss and it's been almost a year and I'm still here, more fragile and vulnerable than I have ever been. I know life gets thrown at you and you deal with it the best you can. Me = I've been crying and grieving a lot over Pete's situation and Boo's death and I can't hold it in and I don't think it's good to hold that grief in. You have to talk about it, let it out and try to heal your soul.

So, on this beautiful summer day, all the babies are resting, but a cloud is hanging over my head. The war continues and I don't know if I will make it out of this one in one piece, but I've been blessed with another year after a near-fatal bout of pneumonia, but the war for survival is not over, having suffered a stroke 24 days ago, learning to talk again and trying to make my left side stronger = want to give up, it seems too much to overcome, don't know how I keep going, don't know where that inner strength comes from.

In times of war, I pray for inner strength and God's grace = really need it today, faltering with each step I take, I'm afraid I'll fall on my face and not be able to get up again.

I'm praying for my beloved baby girl Pete with all the faith I have and I'm praying for a friend's mother, who is very ill = may God reach down and heal these two souls who need all your prayers right now. Friends comfort me without knowing it = just being there is a comfort and it makes my dark cloud go away for just a few minutes. 

Time doesn't heal, it just passes by and makes us older and the war inside me rages on.

The Movement of a Butterfly's Wings

With a month to go before I celebrate ?? another birthday, I have become one of those elderly people who is "set in his ways" = that would be an accurate analysis of my daily life = I have created my own little world with my own daily routines that work for me = I'm not really open to changes of any kind in my life unless I have control over them = it's been almost a year since I almost died from a bout of pneumonia and when I almost lost my home and my babies as a result = seems like the elderly have become a statistic to the Social Services agencies who portray themselves as "do-gooders" but really show their fangs and claws and want people like me to disappear and go to a nursing home, where I would become a statistic, a room number and an anonymous being who has nothing to live for.

I'm not saying life isn't hard, it is and all of you are familiar with my stories = but I plug along, not ready to be "put out to pasture" or become "someone who used to be".

My life is like "the movement of a butterfly's wings" because I never know how my day will turn out until I wake up in the morning or where my wings will guide me or where I will land = the last two weeks have been an uphill battle for me = severe depression and a lack of motivation to move forward, but somehow I make it happen = deep down in the core of my soul, I want to believe God is guiding me and helping me when I fall, but I do have my doubts about that spiritual belief that things will be better "after" = something I struggle with.

When I told my immediate family = my sister and her children = about my final wishes and arrangements, I was asked by her, "Can I tell them you have been saved and believe in God?" = I said  "Yes, if that will make them feel better" = but in the back of my mind, I questioned that question = still struggling as to "if and when" I will bring up that subject in a conversation with my family again. Because frankly I don't care what they believe about me and I have nothing to prove to any of them anymore, but if it makes their life better, so be it, but from here on out, my life and my final arrangements are going to be "kept close to my vest" = it's my life, after all, not to be questioned by "religious" fanatics who only have one agenda on their mind = everyone must be saved and confess all their sins before they are welcomed into Heaven. I do care about my sister and her family, but I don't believe "love" is part of that equation.

I happen to disagree with my family on a lot of issues, but am not going to argue the points any further = my life is like the "movement of a butterfly's wings" = I never know where my wings are going to take me, but I now know how to guide them while they search for the perfect place to touch down.

My life is centered around my well-being and taking care of my babies = Darby Doodle, Emma, Toot, Pete, Penny, Linus, Charlie Brown and Lucy Belle = took Doodle to the vet about a week ago and he had to have dental surgery, with a local anesthesia = it was on the 8-month anniversary of BabyDoo's death and I went into a panic mode.

I was a nervous wreck until the surgery was over and I brought Doodle home = with a 10-day regimen of an antibiotic. Today is the last day for the medicine, because it has been a struggle to give him the medicine = he does not want to take it and I have to be aggressive in giving him the dose = which I don't like to do = but afterwards, he is fine and so am I.

It was a near-normal day for me and I took advantage of it by going to town to pick up a few groceries and to pick up a Rx. I ran into someone at the grocery store = I used to help with her rescues = but left when we butted heads on the way she was treating the strays. In fact, Emma became one of my babies when I refused to take her to this person for foster care. My better judgment told me to take Emma home with me and she is now one of my beautiful babies. When I saw this person today, she looked very old and tired with the weight of the world on her shoulders and my negativity about her dissipated. She had become one of those elderly souls who was struggling to get through life = seems like the "movement of a butterfly's wings" had landed her in the midst of a hard life.

Heaven weeps today, splattering water on narrow Spring Hollow Road = which means I don't have to, Heaven did it for me = took me a while to get used to living here, but it is "home" to me and my babies now = this is where our final memories will be etched until eight more butterflies and me will use our wings to ascend into an eternal life, far away from this "mortal coil" of the Earth = hopefully taking me and my babies to be with my other babies who have gone before me = a land where "we'll never grow old".

Darby Doodle
Toot
Emma
Pete

Penny

Linus

Lucy Belle

Charlie Brown

Me

BabyDoo And My Other Babies Waiting For Us

Caterpillar in the tree, 

How you wonder who you'll be

Wish you may and wish you might

Don't you worry, hold on tight

I promise you there'll come a day

That the butterfly will fly away.

Here I go again, back in the game, so to speak = haven't blogged for a while, because I didn't know if my ongoing themes of doom and gloom was something people wanted to read about again, but here I go again anyway.

You readers should know by now that people who write down their thoughts write down what they have lived through and experienced, you know, the way a person's mind works.

A lot of my thoughts come from something I have read or something I have seen on TV or on a cable movie. Such as the case with this current blog.

In Reader's Digest there is a story called "When the Water Runs Cold" = it's about the relationship between a grandson and his aging grandfather, who is 91-years-old.

The grandson asks the old man what it's like to live to be as old as he is and the grandfather replies = 'Well, when you're young and you take a shower, the water is hot and refreshing, stimulating = when you get, say, in your 50s, the water is lukewarm and when you get as old as I am, the water always runs cold" =

My reaction was intense = first of all, my emotions run deep, deep into my soul and I cried at the story. How profound that story was to me! Life and Death= two inevitable events in your life.

I remembered how my sister Marie suffered for nine years in a nursing home before she blessedly passed away, free of all that pain, physical and emotional, for all those years, becoming a shell of the vibrant, fun-loving person she used to be.

I remembered how my brother Sonny passed away three months later, having survived a horrific car wreck and an agonizing surgery on his back, only to be killed by his wife and her boyfriend. My family and I finally figured out what happened to him and I filed a police report last fall with the Kentucky State Police. They agreed his death was probably caused by someone else, but they said without an autopsy report, they couldn't pursue it, but at least they agreed with all of our suspicions.

I remembered how my sister Betty passed away in December 1996 from colon cancer and how I had rushed to her bedside at St. Claire Hospital in Morehead from Atlanta, Georgia, to be by her bedside in her final days. 

She had spent her last Thanksgiving with her family, knowing her time on this Earth was short. When I reached her bedside, she was awake and she recognized me. I hugged her and told her, "I'm here" = she looked up at me, hugged me and tears streamed down her face. Shortly after that, she was placed on life support, a machine breathing for her. Over the next several days, the waiting room was filled with people who loved her and cared for her, but we all were just waiting, wanting to be there when she crossed to the Other Side. 

I made numerous trips to the chapel at the other end of the hospital, but felt like God had somehow abandoned me and her. After all we had been through as children, God chose to take her now. She passed away after several days and we all left the hospital = it was snowing and somehow the hearse carrying her body to the funeral home was right in front of my car. Ironic, because I had not been able to save her when we were children, but here I was, close to her, somehow keeping her safe.

I don't believe  God answers everyone's prayers.

He's probably busy, you know, taking care of other things. As I have said before, I am a spiritual person, not a religious one and I have been saved, I have confessed all my past sins out loud and God has answered some of my prayers, but there is a nagging feeling buried deep in my mind that comes to the surface when all the lights are turned out except for the one above the kitchen sink, the babies are asleep, the TV is turned off and doubts swirl through my mind like a raging storm. I'm not able to shut out those thoughts, wish I could, but I can't.

So, you see, dear readers, I live in my own world, it's plain to see, not unaware of what is happening around me, but I have also grown old and the water in the shower feels cold to me and I wonder why I am even doing this = taking a shower when my body is going to be cremated eventually, it doesn't have to be spotlessly clean, I've earned all the dirt on me and don't want to wash it completely away . . . . . . . . . 

It reminds me of having to bathe myself in a big old tin tub behind the wood-burning pot-bellied stove, in front of anyone who happened to be sitting near the stove = that marked me, because one of the ones sitting around the stove was my abuser, who was constantly feeding wood into the stove, because he said, "to keep the boy warm" = but I still had to bathe myself, because I was told if I was clean and well-groomed with clean clothes when I went to school the next day, no one would ever be the wiser of how I really had to live.

Sitting on my couch this afternoon, after making a quick trip to Save-A-Lot for a few groceries, I was somehow eerily calm, watching Judge Judy, drinking my taboo small coffee I bought at McD's, eating my fish sandwich and eating my taboo French fries. Coping with a MS flareup caused by the change in the weather, the coffee relaxed me and for a moment, I was at peace, just for a moment, though, just for a moment.

I finished my coffee, turned the TV off and combed Darby Doodle's thick fur = he loved the stroking of his back, his head and his neck. I flashed back to the night I rescued him = that was almost eight years ago = I couldn't believe how fast time had gone by. I talked to him, told him how much I loved him, how much he means to me and he looked at me with that beautiful face and I knew he understood.

Maybe, just maybe, God answers the prayers he wants you to cherish and Darby Doodle was one of those prayers answered that I completely cherish. The deep, deep love I have for all my babies goes to the core of my soul and I feel that feeling every day they are here with me, so they are prayers that did not go unanswered.

. . . And this day, too, shall pass
Like the fading blade of summer grass.
It will not again come this way.
It will create the dawning of another day.

= H. Patrick

2=16=17

This past Sunday was a day of "pulling myself together" before I got too deep in my rabbit hole. I used various methods to get me through the day that day and they usually work, but when those methods were said and done, about two hours later, the rabbit hole re-appeared. My method for surviving in my own little world did not work.

You see, underneath, right beneath the surface of my controlled life, lies a layer of sadness, it's always been there, ready to pounce on me at any moment. Sunday was no exception.

Sweeps over me like a bitter wind and I looked around me to see if anything triggered it that I could put my finger on, but could not detect anything that was the culprit, that wind just continued to blow.

I talked to my cousin recently and said when I turned 70, I felt like a light switch had been turned on and made my life a surreal existence. I believe time passes by unnoticed, invisible to the naked eye and sneaks up on us through old age when we are not looking.

By researching a question my nephew asked me, I traced my family on Ancestry.Com and found out my Grandpa, on my mother's side, had been married to two different women at the same time. Having doubts about who my own father was, this was a shock to me, adding a layer to the lies and deceptions I have been subjected to all my life. That part of the deception and lies doesn't surprise me, but the other information does. No one ever talked about it, none of us ever knew. And I found out my mother had been married once upon a time, when she was in her early twenties and her husband had been killed in the war. Their daughter died a year later.

So, what is real?

Don't know, but in times like this, I question some serious beliefs, like = will I really get to see my babies again, will I really be able to hold them again, or was it the final goodbye I shared with them when they crossed The Rainbow Bridge? 

Glad I am free, but living this long makes you aware of your own mortality and I'm not sure I'm ready to face the final curtain even though I have been saved and am sure I know where I am going, but, like I said, will I be able to see my babies again.

One day I will be gone and one day my babies will be gone, this trailer sitting by this narrow country road will be empty, full of memories of me and my babies and of many days when tears seemed to be my only release from the emotional pain I was in.

. . . and this day, too, shall pass . . .

. . . and one day I will be completely alone . . .

Maybe sitting on a bench overlooking the sunset and maybe it will be too much to handle, being completely alone, maybe it will be time for me to go, by my own way, in my own time, my way, when I pull the final curtain down on my life.

Maybe thinking about that trailer sitting by that old country road where my babies and I used to live and where they used to play, but is silent now, like my life. Maybe that will be my time to say good-bye. Maybe God will forgive me and lead me Home anyway.

Maybe He will . . . maybe He will . . .

Some Truths Do Not Comfort Me

The new year has started off the way it ended = a mass killing by a dysfunctional person with mental problems = I'm not sure I buy that excuse anymore, because it sounds like an excuse to me = I've been mentally ill for 71 years and I never took it out on anyone like that.

And hear come the hot-air politicians and the do-gooders who can sum up their life in an 140-word Twitter posting and tell you how the killings should stop and here come the talkers from behind the anonymity of their computer screen telling you what you should do about these killings.

I've had my moments when I've stepped over the line and I do regret that = that truth is painful to me, but I've never taken it to the "point of no return".

Some truths do not comfort me . . .

The fact of the matter is this = I own my mentality, my sexuality, my illnesses, my blindness, my truths, my decisions = not a pleasant scenario, by any means, but it is what it is.

And those truths do not comfort me, but knowing what the stakes are in my life does give me a certain peace of mind, to have a name attached to my problems.

Wish it could be better for me, but it is not, it is what it is.

There has always been a darkness surrounding me and as much as I try to push it away, it always come back to overshadow my daily life. My mind feels like it is in free-fall, spinning around in a loop of things that don't make any sense. I wish that would go away, but like I said, it is what it is.

For the most part, my close friends understand me, but most of my relatives dismiss my feelings, my emotions, my state of affairs, my illnesses, me as a human being = I've always been there for them when they wanted to talk, but when I talk to them, they tell me a story that is meant to "top" mine in dramatic sequences. No validation for me.

I recently received my hospital bill from July from Morehead Hospital and it spelled out in no uncertain terms how close to dying I was that Saturday night, July 9th. When I told my sister this today, she proceeded to tell me the story of her son who had just had a heart attack (and I wish him well, don't get me wrong), but she kept emphasizing the fact that he "barely got there" in time to the hospital and he was one "lucky" individual. I don't doubt that, he was lucky he survived, but I don't like the comparison she is always making between me and one of her kids, because when they were little and I was around them, they would call me names to my face, but when my brother died in October 2011, all her kids told me I had to be the strong one and be there for her if she needed me.

Okay, I heard that, but when is it my turn?

That truth does not comfort me . . .

The truth of the matter is . . . I don't know which end is up or where I'm going sometimes, but it works itself out, in its own bizarre way, it works itself out and a momentary peace of mind comes over me, but doesn't last. Wish it would last for a while, but it does not. 

I struggle, I breathe, I live, I count to 10, I have a taboo cup of coffee, I work the New York Times Crossword in ink, I have my favorite Subway sandwich, I struggle, I breathe, I live another day, hoping God is there to catch me if I stumble and fall, waiting for the spinning room to catch up with me, ride a rollercoaster, cry uncontrollably = that's the way I have to live my life = those truths don't comfort me, but they are mine, I own them.

99% imagination and 1% truth

. . . and yes, I post messages on Facebook and put them there to be read by people who understand the difference between the truth and delusion.

Am I a hypocrite = I don't know, but I do know the difference between delusion and the truth. Don't let my mental illness fool you = I see things very clearly, too clearly sometimes = I can tell when someone is lying and making stuff up = you know, the ones who post sayings that are often full of typos and "daring you to share it and post it"! Do you believe in God = click on "yes" if you do.

OMG!

I've posted a lot of truths abut myself over the years, but some I will keep to myself and carry with me until the end.

Those truths do not comfort me =

I don't overlook my faults, I share them.

This is one truth that does not comfort me = but one of these days, I must accept it = me and my last baby, keeping each other company until the end =

Because I know if I live to see that day when my last baby is gone, 

the next heart break will be my last.

BabyDoo, gentle soul, loving friend, save all of us a place.

Playing Dominoes

Actually I don't know how to play dominoes. It always looked and felt hard to understand, so it was not one of the games I learned how to play, but dominoes, in theory, play a big part in the way I live my daily life.

This is what my mind looks like on any given day = jumbled and in disarray.

You see, with a mental illness, I have to control, or try to control, certain aspects of my life, in order for me to carry on with my life. I have a way I do that = it's a secret, not going to divulge it, but it works for me = I call it "lining up all the dominoes" =

or "putting all my ducks in a row" =

. . . and it works, for a while . . .

then the feeling of peace gradually starts to fade away and I'm left back at Square One, but I can't start over, not today, anyway, not right now. I have to wait until a light switch goes on in my head and you see, I'll be ready, again, to put the dominoes in a row. But those times are few and far between.

But, when it happens, it's like working a puzzle, jigsaw or crossword, because I have to find "what goes with what". . . what should I do first ?

You know, connectivity =

There is an old Chinese philosophy of "yin and yang", two dual personalities working inside one mind, which is constantly what is going on in my head and it has been said that around holidays, the feelings that my mental illness triggers, starts working overtime. 

I know the meaning of Christmas very clearly and I respect that every December 25th, but I don't decorate my house anymore like I used to a long time ago. I don't like the commercialism of Christmas, the gifts, the money spent, sending cards, or decorating. 

FYI = the yin and yang are playing ping-pong in my head right now, making it hard for me to put the right words down that make sense to me and to whoever reads this. 

What was I saying? Oh yeah, this is what I'm thinking anyway = 

"I'm a spiritual person, not a religious one, which I have said many times over the years. A lot of people don't understand this concept, especially the ones who quote Bible verses to make a point or answer you back with a Bible quote, when all you want is a simple answer to a simple question= they're too organized, religion is too organized. That kind of organization, I do not need. Just tell me what time it is = I don't want to know how the watch or clock is actually put together."

Call me a non-believer, if you will, but I'm not.

On this cold Christmas Eve 2016, there is sadness in the air, for me anyway, even though lining up the dominoes and getting all the ducks in a row, worked, for a while, but that feeling is beginning to wear off and my mind is restless now, jumping from one thought to another, thinking of words that just pop into my head, but at some time later in the night, I will hear that word or see that word somewhere. My abuser's face, his name and his whispering voice, jump into my head, playing games with my sanity, throwing me off balance, way off balance. 

My brain seems to pick up on "something" = just something, I don't know what it is, just something out there in the universe that is determined to be part of my thought process right now and it certainly was not invited, it just showed up.

Last night, when my heart started beating funny and I thought I was going to have to call "911", is the same time that someone in the news had a heart attack. Not sure if that is connected, but it gives me a very weird feeling, sets me apart from everyone around me, because no matter what you believe, I believe I am alone in what I feel, think, express or demonstrate. It is what is, whatever "it" is . . .

Right now, I feel like I'm on a boat at sea, drifting slowly along, completely alone, with the red sky at sunset as my companion . . .

. . . and sometimes I feel like I'm this person in this picture posted below = 15 years old, sitting in the grass with my nephew, maybe I'm 16, because it looks like I'm showing off my class ring, which the school principal paid for = not really sure who I am, not sure of where I'm going, but keenly aware of what people think of me, keenly aware of what people are calling me, knowing the abuse I have suffered as a child will somehow shape the rest of my life, but no one seems to pay attention to me in that respect, you know, someone who needs help sorting out the details of their life thus far, a person who needs guidance, a person who needs a father's guiding words and hands, from a father who has always been absent from my life. 

People still make fun of me, but they try to frame it in a point of reference to something they've read or seen on TV, about a gay person, thinking I will relate to it, but the comment still comes across like it did 55 years ago, with a hearty dose of laughter at the end of the comment, as if the person is saying, "it's a joke, get it" = no, I don't get it.

But, really look at that hand gesture, with the skinny arm, that would make you automatically think something of me, wouldn't it ? = I don't know, you tell me . . . but something like that was always the frame of reference when someone made me the butt of their joke.

Going completely off track = it is said that when you cross over to the Other Side, you are completely alone, no matter who is sitting by your bedside, because they won't go with you, they will stay put and you will go to your Forever Home by yourself. I am not afraid of Death, but I am afraid of that exact moment when you cross over to the Other Side, I am afraid of that moment.

But, that is another kind of aloneness, the one that is your own, the one you have to acknowledge =

There is no one there who can help you, no one there who can say the "right" word that will make your exit any easier, so I will probably leave this world just like I entered it = a spirit lingering in a physical body until it is time for God to set it free =