Moving On...For Certain...

I am starting a new life...and leaving this old one behind. I don't know what it will bring. I still have nothing, but I am going to step out of the comfort zone...

To go with a new life, I will have a new blog.. I will let a select few know what the new address is, and the rest who visit may be the new friends...and I would hope a significant other someday...and behind me will be those who have not been (or are now not) healthy in my life-and I want completely separated from me....

I have a new email address. Facebook and MySpace are coming down today.

 Time to say goodbye.

 And hello.

I can still feel something...

She is yet to be named...but I can tell you that her name isn't Laverne...

sorry Krispi.

Thank you for what you did....

I have taken the first step to performing again, thanks to Tress...I played at Center Stage, and lived (no one threw anything at me)...and now I am going to play at Ken's...next Wednesday night...

I have been rehearsing nightly, and Dwayne's World (he is letting me stay with he and his wife until I figure out what the hell...) is a good guitarist, and very enthusiastic about guitar  and songwriting. We have been playing a lot, have even had guests over to play....it has been my current bright spot-and I'm on it!
Thank you Tress, for the push...it felt great...I never even played when with Coley,..and I am on the right track.

Come visit at Ken's  Tavern Wednesday evening! Bring tomatoes! And earplugs, just in case....

Pretty Colors

Back off ladies....I know. Pretty hot...

It really is healing.

It's kind of pretty, in an odd, colorful way.

Nice work, Sam.

...and this is the side he DIDN'T hit me on.

I did make a police report, had two witnesses, and they offered to go arrest him after taking their own pictures.

I declined, because it wasn't about revenge. I made the report in case anything else were to happen.

I miss my friend, and I don't know what became of him...

Chicken Kitty

My saving grace at times.

 He leaps tall buildings in a single bound! (Usually when something has frightened him and he jumps straight up into the air, clinging to the ceiling...like a bat...)

He's faster than a speeding bullet (usually when he is running from something frightening him, like air molecules, or his water bowl...)

 More powerful than a locomotive! (Usually after he has used his littler box. He's a smelly cat, oh smelly cat...)

 Its....CHICKEN KITTY!

Nightmare: The Worst Time of My Life is Coming to a Close...

Sometimes people can be a little bit too nice, ommitting things out of a fear of hurting feelings..Most of the time I would appreciate that. Recently one of my closest friends-someone who went out of her way to help me, risking herself in the process-was a bit brutal with me.

I was hurt.

She told me she was sick of hearing about "poor Jo..."

I felt indignant, wounded, as if she had no empathy for me.

Then I got on my blog....and I read....the once cheerful posts have been replaced by an ongoing diary of what's been "off" in my life...

Everything that I have blogged about has been true, and it has been very hard, and I have been scared, feeling alone and abandoned, and in an emotional state that I can best describe as one of relentless pain ...

...much do to circumstances beyond my control, but certainly not even close to all of it has happened without my participation...and even for the things that have been visited upon me, surely there have been other things happening that I can express gratitude about. I am, after all, more fortunate than many. My cancer scare is negative, I am in good health, I have a truck that runns well, I ahve a handful of good friends, have some knowledge and skills to work with, I have an awesome kitty cat who thinks I am the bomb-and at least for now I am not living in my truck....and I am finally sleeping through the night some of the time now.

I am going to try to take a different view, try a new perspective on the same old problems. Yes, I have lost my wife, pride, parents, home and job-as well as discovered that some of my friends weren't really friends (which can be viewed as a good thing....better to know than to not...).

 I still am in love with my wife....ex-wife...and just wait for time to relieve it. I am not sure how to proceed with my daughter given her other mother's poisonous approach with me, and alignment with my parents. I still just got slammed and utterly abandoned and discarded by a longtime friend (the first one I dared trust since Coley).. My parents are still rigidly holding to their "if you do this we will do that" kind of offers for help, and have now taken to diagnosing me with various mental disorders in addition to making accusations of terrible character and drug addiction. All of the logistical problems are still there..and this is my big hoorah before embarking on a conscious attempt to tyrn this ship around....

This has undoubtedly been the WORST and MOST PAINFUL six months of my life. It is etched on my face, and my heart is scarred-I'm not sure I even CAN feel love like I once did. I trust NOBODY.  I am angry as hell. I am devastatewd inside. I cry every day missing my partner, and my friend. I mourn the life that was altered in a single day...the innocence and feeling of safety and security (even in a storm) that I had with my wife...I ache for her and would give anything to be able to rewind to when we just started losing us-to take it seriously and do something completely different than I did... am going to miss my friend(s).... I grieve their loss too...and I just remember how my life seems to be divided into BC, CD, and PC (Before , during, and after Coley)....crying for literally HOURS, countless nights on the floor, holding HER picture....then Krispi...

I have admittedly made things worse, at times reaching for things to quicken or induce numbness...a drink here, an "other" there...knowing that the relief I feel for a moment will only come back sharper once the quick fix is over. A dangerous cycle to get into, and one I have been in before... (and why my parents are acting like they watched an "After-School Special" or "'Reefer Madness") I post the most shocking pictures becasue secrets really aren't my style (Holy Hell, ask anyone-I'm a bit overboard with disclosures)-and I don't even recognize myself in some shots. No makeup here, no acting. I was actually trying to NOT have that expression....Krispi had just changed everything...

...and I get a glimpse of me at eighty...and I keep these pictures (and share them) because it is a great reminder of what I don't want, and what could continue happening to me.


I emotionally spent and generally numb again....

I am completely unsure what the future holds-but instead of with dread and catastrophic thinking, I will consider it opportunity for change, and new direction. Although these pictures do depict periods of despair over the past few months-I did feel joy again for a moment in Oklahoma. I know it is in there. All is not lost yet. But it is an UPHILL climb to be certain.

So instead of complaining about the climb, I will try to focus on the top, recognize the steps, think about the route to take, and enjoy the view along the way as well as at the top. And KNOW that there is blue sky above the clouds, and my smile is not gone forever.

It is under the couch with the missing socks, lighters, and my spare change.

I'm looking!

two favorites...

finding things to make me smile...

Alone and unsupervised with a camera...

I discovered cell phone cameras.

It gets much, much worse.

We won't play it again, Sam..

It is very disheartening, to fight with someone you care about. When the fight seems to be the end of the road for any kind of trust that once existed, it is so sad.

Things just seem to continue to escalate, with Sam pulling other friends into the mix-and the drama continues to build, at about the same rate as my calf was swelling. The same day I was recieving nasty voicemails and texts from several misinformed mutual  'friends', I had to finally buckle and go to the emergency room at Krispi's urging.

They x-rayed me, took two vials of blood, gave me an ultrasound to check for DVT, and gave me a tetanus booster. I have a nasty hematoma, along with a pretty good infection in my leg. Three prescriptions later I have decided to go ahead and make a police report. NOT because I am desiring revenge...but because I am concerned that there will be further problems and escalations, and I want to have made the report so there is a paer trail to the truth.

What he did does qualify as assault, and it may be that they arrest him. I found out he had done a similar thing with a former female roommate, when they had a dispute about him drinking all of her beer. 

I know...it's beginning to sound like a country song, eh?

Today I went back to the E.R to follow up, and it appears to be healing. I haven't been able to wear my 501's and I am having withdrawals...

You can see the outline of the board in this photo. He really swung like he meant it.

I had no idea how much swollen my left leg was in comparison to my right until my friend took a picture of what it looked like from the rear. It feels generally icky...but they gave me Vicodin, so I'm sure I will pull through and they won't have to amputate.

Dogs Drool. GO COUGS!

I may be a lone Coug now (In the Washington State University sense..not the dating twenty-somethings sense). Coley was a Cougar too, and we both had our share of Cougar Gear...enough to make a solid point when confronted with a bunch of Duck Quackers.

Although "Sam" has nearly broken my leg, and caused me a lot of irritating pain and inflammation, along with several trips to the E.R.....I can almost forgive him because I have  Cougar Canopy now.


That's right all you sorry Oregon Ducks, Beavers, And Univesrsity of Washington Huskies...

I can drive right onto your campuses and camp in my Cougar Canopy right on your 50 yard line.

That's right.

Swing batter, batter!

One of my best friends in the world took a two by four to me yesterday morning, hitting me in the leg so hard it tore my skin through a pair of jeans, has swollen to at least twice it's size, and is so painful I can hardly walk on it...and he did it in front of two witnesses, one of which he didn't even know was in the back of my truck under the canopy...

How could a friend do that, you might ask?

Over money, of course.

There is an oak rolltop desk that had been abandoned by a previous tenant at the oceanview home I rented. Our property management place had stated that it was not on the lease, and basically up for grabs.

My closest friend here, (I will call him Sam-because he tried to once tell us that Sam Donaldson was his brother) had seen the desk-and realized it was a very nice piece of furniture. When we were moving he had gone and retrieved it, brought it to his apartment garage, and we had kept it there. Our plan was to sell it at some point, and split the money between us.

In February Sam was having difficulty paying his rent, and he was also struggling with several painful conditions that kept him unable to do any side work to make up the deficit. My parents offered to purchase the rolltop desk for $300.00 in an effort to help him while sparing his pride-and also to help
 me -as I was staying in Sam's second bedroom...according to Spam they did not even want the desk.

A little over a week ago Sam and I had a verbal altercation in the parking lot (over my intention to move the desk to my storage unit), and he had threatened to kill my cat. He was heading upstairs, extremely angry, and I panicked...going to the police station to ask for help getting chicken kitty out. I had already been staying with my friend, Avon Lady, after he had tossed me out the week prior-and Steph n stuff,  her wife, and two of their kids were staying in the room I had rented with Krispi's help). 

I got my possession s out with the help of the police-with the exception of the rolltop desk. With no income, and no steady source on the immediate horizon, $200.00 from a desk sale was pretty important.  Sam had already told me he had no intention of giving me half from a sale, but I intended to do that for him...

I had asked one of the women upstairs to enter the garage and leave it open-so that I and several of my friends could retrieve the desk (which everyone clearly identified as not belonging to him). At 3am we started inching it out of the garage, and it took nearly two hours to quietly remove the drawers and slide it towards the parking area. In the final seconds, right after we had it fully loaded into the truck and the tailgate clossed, Sam grabbed me by the neck of my shirt and shook me. Our male friend was trapped behind the desk in the truck bed, and was unable to get out to assist. We had propped the canopy door open with a two by four-which Sam grabbed and first hit the desk with, breaking off a piece of wood-and then he swung at me with great force. I had turned to the side at the last minute, and caught the blow on the side of my leg. My calf took the brunt of the force..and I literally saw stars for a moment...blood appeared on my leg through my jeans where my calf was cut, and I had also somehow sliced my finger open in a scuffle, trying to grab the piece of wood away from him.

He had hit me so hard that the top of my foot had gone numb, and I couldn't bear weight on it.  I went home and iced it for a while, and took some pain meds (which deceptively removed a good part of the pain)...

It is extremely painful today, swollen huge...again can't put much weight on it..and I may need to go in to the clinic today for a tetnus shot, and just to be sure there isn't anything serious with the injury. It is swelling up behind my knee as well, and because my calf muscle took the blow-any contraction or flexing of the muscle is excruciating.


I think the biggest loss of all is of my friend Sam. All that we have gone through in friendship lost over a few hundred dollars....and never in a million years did I imagine he would do that..the same guy who had stood over me to make sure I ate and drank fluids when severaly depressed, who had fixed my canopy, spent hours working on my truck, helped Coley and I move twice...had now tried to break my leg with a two by four.

I am really going to miss him...

Wherever we may be...

Trying to surface, find my way over and above all of this...I lost my spouse, MANY friends turned out to be much less than that, I lost my home, my trust, my job, my financial well being, nearly my health, my feeling of trust and safety with my parents, my relationship with my daughter's other parent, my self esteem, and at times....I think I lost my mind.

Well, I am actually certain I did for a time.

BUT...I also gained a lot of things.

And one of the things I think I am starting to understand is that, for the most part, everyone is doing the very best they can at any given moment with what they have.

 There is no benefit in trying to hold onto someone who does not want to be with you. You have to let them go.

Knowing that someone is NOT your friend is a valuable thing.

Knowing that you do have friends who are loyal and true, and there for you, is a wonderful thing.

When you say something hurtful, you cannot "unsay" it. There is no rewind. Be careful and responsible with words that can be weapons. They can haunt for a lifetime.

Forgiveness is such a relief...harboring anger, resentment, rage, hurt, and fear are exhausting. Setting those things down feels so good...

Forgiving ourselves for our failures is imperative. The key is learning from them and taking the time to really own and think about them.

It is okay to love someone but also stay away from them...even close family members when dynamics don't help but harm...it doesn't mean you don't love them...

Real love is not conditional, and does not come and go quickly and carelessly without consequence to the oneswho love.

Apathy will kill a relationship. To thrive a relationship must be fed with time, energy, communication, love, and a desire to try. There will be times that are not so fun or rewarding...but love can come back around if given the chance, and if it was real to begin with...

Choosing not to choose is a choice. It is then possible to desire something while at the same time either denying it, or not owning responsibility for  the consequences...

People can lie and look you directly in the eyeswhile doing it...and it is possible to be completely and utterly fooled. Some of the ones who can do this may be the ones we trust with out lives...

Vengeance doesn't feel as good as it should. Forgiveness is better. AND HARDER! SOMETIMES, NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE.

Being numb and cold may protect a heart from pain. But it also closes the heart to the most important things in life.

We can spend so much time wondering about missed opportunities, or wondering what "might have been" that we forget to appreciate what really is...blind to what is right in front of us. It's not getting what you want...it's wanting what you've got...spend so much time looking behind that we forget to move forward...as we wonder again and again...what might have been?

It can be very easy to get caught up in lamenting losses and wanting to revisit old wounds again and again and again. We can again become so caught up in thinking about what will never be again, what we miss, what hurts may never resolve completely, that we forget to look at who and what DOES work. I miss my life, my job, my family, my spouse, my friends, and the safety and security of knowing I can trust my wife...and feeling that I am loved and desired. I miss our boyz, and our home, and our little habits together. Charlieface and Paperchase,Tripod Kitty, Gong Gong, The Angels Won't Have It...Zola's Pizza and the Sopranos,...Ross, and socks, and "why Jo?", and stories from our past lives before each other, great conversations on the back deck...lost friends, damaged family, people who pass through our lives for one reason or another ...

 

 

 I have lost a lot, but by just appreciating all of the good things I have...I realize that I am truly blessed. And it helps to remember that when everything else is gone, the things that really matter are ONLY the people who we love, and who love us too.

...and I do. So much and oh so much...I will rebuild. I will recapture the fun I had in living.

Making people's lives better by my presence...and taking care not to make them harder or hurtful is a continuing goal that doesn't have a finish line...and I'm not always successful. But life should be love, and laughter, and feeling secure and worthwhile...

I am trying to find me again! I am in here somewhere!

 

...and I want out!