CONTINUITY

...summer at its end.  the nights are significantly cooler, cold for the past week, minus a night.  on the east, a hurricane prepares to land ashore, likely bringing in the fall season prematurely.  it always comes with a storm now; look back through the past 15 or so years, you'll see it for yourself. 

i am up, i've done my stretches and crunches.  i have to get new shoes for walking; i have destroyed a pair through the walking i was doing.  i'm surprised to find that i'm not done with trying to get healthier; i'm realistic about ruining my few belongings.  proper shoes are a must now. 

it's Thursday.  i am remembering things because people are giving me clues and cues, by God's grace.  i am going to my parent's house today.  i'm going to look up getting a direct service provider for my mom through Social Security, through Medicare.  i remember when i started with PCS, that was one of the things we had to study, what is a DSP and what do they do?  so i'm going to look into it.  my mom is not doing well, and the medical system gives not one true fuck about it. 

i don't hear from my brother any longer.  i don't know if that's purposeful or incidental.  i know he is still moving along as best he can.  i know that he is still hurting badly on a daily basis.  but i don't know any more than that. 

i am feeling okay about today.  i don't know why.  i have put soup aside for my mother, my father won't eat it.  i've got some left for myself, but likely i won't eat any tonight.  i've eaten on it for days.  no problem with it, just in the mood for something else. 

i feel spiritually okay.  going to copy my W2 from last year and send off this document tomorrow, Saturday at the latest.  i'm done with it after that.  i've got an interview on Tuesday and i go to the Cleveland Clinic to the pre-anesthetic, or whatever.  i go the following Wednesday for the procedure.  yes, i'm nervous as fuck, but i've done nervous before.  at least i know i am in Jehovah's hands. 

i miss my grandson.  i miss the time when my children were small.  they were important days, they were good times of making something out of practically nothing most days.  that makes them worth missing; now i know only the edge of having something, the fear of losing it all stupidly, and the struggle to maintain faith in a rabid, stupid world.

thank you, Father, for a good start to the day.

Exhaustion, of ANY Kind...

i am tired.  again.  and it's an almost constant situation.  is it emotional? i've got a lot going on...or would that shit be considered mental?  emotional as well, i guess.  then, the physical is slipping, but i'm not eating a bunch of shit.  it's not deliberate, i swear...i wake up and it's all i can do to get to work. 

i'm so hard on myself, i forgot that my doctor told me i'm anemic, and that probably has something to do with it.  a friend suggested it could be the weather changing as well, getting colder again.  that's possible, but if that's the case i got to fight through that.  the season is changing, loss in the memory banks, and i just can't get my mind around some of the tomorrows that are on the verge...

today i went to my parent's house.  my mom sits in her chair, asleep.  she can't really get to the bathroom, so a lot of her sitting in her chair has to do with incontinence.  but there's nothing i can do, nothing i can really say.  i made dinner for her and my father.  i did some culinary repair on some things my sister cooked on Sunday that my mom was complaining about as well, but i didn't make a big fuss about it.  nothing to fuss about, to be honest...

my dad just goes.  he seems to not notice what is happening to his wife, but i know better.  it's fucked up that often you have to see the actions away from something to know the impact that something is having on an individual.  i have said in the past you know the truth by what the shadow looks like, regardless of what's standing in the light.  my dad runs because he can't do anything about what's to come.  its enough to make me feel sorry for him, in a way.  but it's also enough to make me angry.  though, we (or my mother) did create the foundation for this scenario, long long ago...

i feel i'm going to lay it down in a few.  i'm tired, really tired.  i was nodding the whole afternoon ride.  i can't keep going like that.  but is it the SS disability thing?  the sadness of my mother's condition?  the anger with sibs who are unresponsive?  the mixed emotions about my dad's continued silent denial?  the secrets i'm forced to keep?  the anxiety and fear and the heaviness of the season that is coming?  will this be a November of depression and woe?  i would love if that didn't happen.  but i have no say over what i have to survive. 

i miss my sponsor.  i miss my brother.  i wish i had company.  i wish i wasn't so tired all the time.  i wish...fuck wishing. 

thank you, Father.  i've gotten through the day, and that's all the promise i needed to come true. 

Standing on the Verge...

there is so much beauty in the world, despite all the abhorrent ugliness that proliferates these days.  i mean, that's a Saturday morning sunrise sky, there.  those pastels just swatched across the eastern sky...it was gorgeous.  picture does it no justice.  and it was a good day, all the way around.  i got things done on my to-do list, and spent some time with a friend to end the day. 

but like that sunrise sky was the beginning of a cold, cold morning, i have been living with a kernel of bitterness that i'm trying my best to keep in perspective.  i may as well write about it now, as it is where it is, out in the open, and there's no hiding from it at this point.

i don't announce my business to everyone. that's because everyone don't really give a damn about me.  and therefore, speaking to people who don't care about me has become, at 51, a waste of words, breath and time.  none of which do i have in abundance anymore.  so the fact of me being on disability is not a broadcast fact, but it is not an unknown thing either.  when i first came down with congestive heart failure, i was hospitalized, could not breathe, could barely walk and thought i was going to die.  i lost my job behind that episode, well, because my employers at that time were assholes, honestly.  but job gone, regardless.  and i got into the system and waited for disability to approve me.  it is a wait, it is a process.  after turning me down and filing an appeal, they approved me.  i can't remember exactly when that was, it was a while ago though.  and as always happens in a while, life goes on, changes, becomes something else and you have to deal with it.

in my life, life became my daughter growing up, half of what was needed to live from month to month being gone because half of the money was hers (until she decided not to go to college, anyway...) and i didn't want to keep it from her since i wasn't the one taking care of her anymore.  at which point, i got back to my job searching, because what i was getting wasn't enough.  shortening this tale a tad, i went through a couple jobs that didn't work out and ended up at the one i'm at now, which did. and for the past almost 2 years, i've been doing my thing.  and life has been good with it.  but i never thought time wouldn't catch up to me, and it has.

Social Security has come knocking, wanting an accounting, and mostly wanting me and themselves to part ways, i believe.  so i have to fill out their questionnaire and send it back to them, and then they will render their decision about me. 

and i am scared, to an extent. 

one, because that would essentially remove half of what i get by on from month to month.  almost exactly.  and that's kind of sad.  two, because it will probably also eliminate Medicare, which means i will have to get insurance coverage at an outrageous cost or not have coverage for my meds and other things.  and that will be bad.  no getting around it.

BUT...

faith is the blessed assurance of things not yet beheld.

i believe that i am in Good Hands.

i believe that Jehovah will make a way for me, regardless of what human things transpire. 

I believe, in my heart of hearts, that I'm going to be okay.

I believe, and that is the truth.  I'm not writing this as a whistling in the dark. 

BUT...

you learn that people are stupid, or they are trite and like to oversimplify things sometimes.  faith and fear can exist in the same space.  it is possible.  it is happening to me.  and my faith keeps me moving forward, but it doesn't eliminate my fear.  and i've been here before.  this is recent growth.

because once upon a time, this would have been enough for me to do drastic things, to try to find some kind of understanding or some kind of hiding place.  now, i just want to send this off, find out what they're going to do with my life, and then turn the rest of this over to my God for him to do what He is going to do, which will be the good that is to come.

I do believe this.

so, i have to keep moving.  have to keep working, keep paying my stuff, keep being good for my word, keep talking about what i feel and keep listening to the feedback that i'm getting. 

i have to keep living.

and i am grateful to Jehovah for the knowledge that was not bullshit from so long ago...

"when you don't know what to do, do what you know is right."

hasn't failed me yet. 

better days than these are coming.

Stand Down

Well, Kevin was shopworn but seemed okay. The stove is hooked up. Burners work; oven does not. Life goes on...

CAUTIONARY TALE...

Kayso, i got a guy coming by here to get this stove that Marc gave me up & running. It dawns on me I know nothing about this guy, and he knows a thing or 2 about me. So, if I fall out of my service loop, the shop is Indianola Furniture, on the south side by Adams. The guy's number (don't have his name yet) is 3307164176. White dude, rural inflection, apparently has a wife. I'll post again in the morning if stove don't work, tonight if it does. Stay tuned...
(...quick update: his name is Kevin)

Happy Enough

Wednesday morning.  i am done taking my medicines and reading my scriptures.  my blood sugar is wonderful at the moment, it was 116 today, average of 124 for the past 2 weeks.  i feel good, i feel positive, and i have some hope.  i can complain about none of these things.

i have been dealing with my parents, i have my sisters working on things as far as information gathering, as to the attaining of home health care.  sometimes, it can be problematic, as i see what is likely a liability in the older sister's helping out.  i am not going to judge her, because i am not perfect and don't do everything right either.  but i know that her greatest interest is in her using my mother's car, and that she is not really doing this out of a spirit of love for her parents, not directly, anyway.  and does that matter?  when you need something done, when something needs to happen, that it happens is more important than the WHY of it happening, at least at first.  and, i could be wrong, and am glad that at least she is plugged in more than she usually is.

i have an addition to my route, and it is going to complicate my life to an extent.  i don't mind so much, but the fact that it is almost impossible for me to work out the details of this addition without every single individual being inconvenienced is a pain in the ass, somewhat.  but a resolution will present itself.

i have a guy coming by to do the stove, hopefully this evening.  gonna cost me a bit of money, but i don't mind that.  i need a stove.  it's incredible, to consider living life without a major appliance.  how would i live without a fridge?  and the thing that makes it so hard is really how used to a thing you become. like my washer; i want a new one.  i am used to going downstairs and washing my clothes.  but i am okay with going to the laundromat and doing it as well.  but a stove?  going to someone else's house to cook?  incomprehensible.  so i am going to pay to get this one working. and i'm going to see my son this weekend, Jehovah willing.  and I'm going to get dressed now, get to work, get to my meeting this afternoon and do a day on the basis of the blessing of life.  which is exactly what this is.  i am happy enough; what else is there?

thank you, Father, for showing me i can be happy.

Saturday Things

quick update before i get back to my cleaning.

it's saturday, finally.  i can say that because this has been the longest fucking week, and next week promises to be even longer.  nothing to be done about the one past, and worrying won't change the one coming, so we do what we do.

i'm trying to get things together in my house.  i have been fighting with this stove for a week, and the fight continues.  the adaptor i got doesn't fit.  i have what amounts to an issue and i'm not really sure what to do about it, but i'm going to go back to Home Depot in a bit and ask.  there can't be two wrong sizes, one too big and one too small, when its a system of fixed sizes to choose from.  but there is an area on the tip of the stove's intake nipple that seems to be thinner and stripped, so the adaptor goes easy over that, and then doesn't thread onto the larger part. so i need to get a larger adaptor, or an extender. we'll see.

i have clothes to wash, i have to mop my kitchen and bath as i've already cleaned them.  i want to get a couple of supplies.  i made my car payment and paid the credit bill on the AC i bought.  i have a bit of money until the next come out comes out.  i stay on alert, which isn't the worst thing as i needed to be more responsible.  but it is stressful, any sustained condition of being on alert. 

i'm feeling the end of the summer season.  the days are growing shorter.  the nights are cool enough for easy sleeping again.  i have to make some decisions; what to do about the Grand Marquis, time to get it gone.  have to get a sink and bathtub for my downstairs bathroom.  did no yard sailing at all, and i could have used a replacement microwave.  Rachel's been sick, she's usually my yard/garage sale buddy, but that's not really it.  i'm just letting her do her thing and learning from what the casual distance is teaching me about myself. not just from her distance, but from my own as well.  things have changed, no doubt about that.  but at least my mom has someone to help her with some cleaning things.

i am going to finish up, still have to walk today, have to keep moving in a positive direction.  it's why i need that stove to work; all this fucking dining out/fast food excuse bullshit has to stop.  period. 

i feel good today.  i am grateful to Jehovah for allowing me to get this started with prayer and surrender, and i'm going to continue on in that spirit.  later.

Incremental Betterness (for my son, who lost his uncle this week(

i hate hurt for people that i love.  i don't know if that's natural or not, anymore.  this world is a very, very stupid place.  and stupidity seems to be sub-dividing and terra-forming to make the inhabited earth a place for it to completely thrive.  but you mean to tell me you don't see the dumbing and dumbing of society? 

it's hard to get through a day without being angry now.  as a driver, you encounter the absolute dumbing down of most people you encounter.  and i know, this sounds like what it is; an old man rant about a new generation.  thing is, what i learned when i was young, i learned from the previous generations.  so who the fuck is teaching these idiots what they THINK they know?

digression. my son lost his uncle this week.  his blood uncle; his blood father's twin brother.  it is a hurting thing for him, and i commiserate with him and empathize, as this seems to be very much a season of loss.  and it seems to be without ending. perhaps that is the real truth of getting older.  as i watched television today, there was an ad giving people the web address of where they can go to read the obituaries now that the Vindicator is shutting down.  not job-seekers, not folks looking for a home...not those who want to know what to do on the weekend.  i guess the internet already had all those covered.  but where to see who died...isn't that almost a singularly old people thing?  again, digression.  i can't offer my son any true comfort, because there isn't any.  you have to keep breathing, despite how the breath seems to hitch in your chest and the exhalation is hard as fuck.  you have to keep moving, though you feel as if you've been breathing nerve gas for days and it's finally catching up to you.  and you have to be THERE, because it's how things are done once you're grown...you can't skip the gathering, can't skip the funeral, can't skip any of it.

and of course, the worst part is knowing that, one day soon enough, it will be you.

so i just check on him, make sure he's okay.  i stay out of the way, because that's the right distance, and i text because if he doesn't want to talk he doesn't have to, but he'll know i'm thinking of him.

i saw Syd and my grandson today, took her to the store.  glad she's able to get some things. 

my mom is in great pain and they won't do anything about it except give her pain meds that, while addictive, won't take her pain away.  for the next two weeks, that's all they will do for her.  i have to start thinking about options for her. 

my dad is still pretty far removed from it all, though not as far as he would like us to believe.  if you are blind and dumb, you might believe his act.  even if it's just willfully blind and dumb.

okay, this ain't a good write.  but it's how i'm feeling right now.  i'm going to say thank you to Jehovah, for looking after me, and i'm going to finish up this night. 

Time Keeps on Slippin...

it can get away from you.  it's easy to let happen.  and when it does, and you realize it has been quite a while, you wonder if you're actually living your own life, or if you're actually real.  i've created so many fictions for myself, for my art, for my performance and my plans, that it can be confusing sometimes.  but then i come back here, realize it's the 12th, that it's been 9 days since my last entry, and though i keep an inventory every day, 10th step style, i may be closing my eyes to some painful parts of this Journey that I've been on.

so it's monday morning.  i have to get up and get dressed soon, get my meds in, get my day started.  that's not a problem.  i slept pretty good; the heat is gone, the nights are much cooler.  makes me wonder about the whole 'gotta get an AC' thing. my motivation.  someone else?  to have a space for companionship, in limited capacity, once again?  but it was needed.  like the car.  and like the car, i have to finish paying it off.  money out.  i am changing habits, not spending as recklessly as i had been.  have to make sure i can make the payments i have to make.  discipline, a new level of order. 

my mom is getting worse.  seems to be, anyway.  i don't like talking about it.  she is in pain most of the time.  she is incontinent much of the time.  she doesn't seem to track very well, memory-wise.  my brother pointed out that when an ex-wife of my eldest brother stopped by to visit her, she seemed pretty cognizant.  i agreed that she probably would, but also that she doesn't let people know how bad things are for her, she performs because she doesn't want anyone to see her at her worst.  we're all kind of that way.  but when did i become the reasonable one?  some things that i see her doing, some ways I see her picking up, remind me of things Lonnie told me about his dad.  i don't put any kind of dying onus on my mom.  i just know she is worse now than she was before my brother Rob died.  it could still all be grief-related. but people die of grief as well.

my brother Jerry is getting worse also.  he is very slow now, he limps and he forces his body to move.  it is painful to see.  after his strokes, after his rehabilitation, he did so much to keep moving as close to normal as he could.  i don't know if he's even drawing any longer.  seems that is death in this world; taking the talent of those imaginative and bright and brilliant souls and trapping them in increasingly useless forms.  very Grecian, very Aesop-ian.

i have removed my stove from the house, and Lonnie and his son and nephews came to help me get it down to the driveway from the porch, and i helped my brother get it onto his truck.  i swept and mopped the area, which was packed with mouse refuse and grease.  i have a stove coming today, so i haven't put things back, because it must come in on the same path the other stove went out.  thing is, i did the whole shebang.  unhooked the gas line after turning off the gas to the line.  getting the stove on the dolly i borrowed, getting it to the porch.  minimal fuss.  i also got clothes washed, fixed my parents breakfast and my mother dinner, did my meeting and got my mile walked.  did my crunches and stretches.  took a shower and groomed.  on Saturday, i did nothing.  bored and lonely.  one day to the next, radical changes.

maybe that's part of the recent silences.  things i don't want to say, because they are painful.  my mom.  Rachel and my growing distance.  i mean mentally, emotionally.  my brother's increasing symptoms of his stroke manifesting.  i told my brothers and sister out of town about how things are here, that they need to know and respond as best as they can.  it makes my brother angry that they aren't doing more, or anything.  but some leave.  some stay to watch the things fall apart.  hell, i get mad because my father doesn't seem to care, but he never seems to care and he always does. 

well, i have to get up, get ready for work.  i wanted to leave something because i know some will worry if they don't read anything at all.  i guess i worry when i don't write anything at all, so it all works out.  time for prayer. 

SOLITUDE

been a few days.  i've been kind of quiet, because i'm kind of quietly dealing with this pain in my knee.  i'm not sure what it is, exactly, but i suspect the arthritis is getting worse.  it's hot to the touch, swollen, doesn't allow me to put weight on it directly and there is sort of a knot that is discernible to the touch that is not present on my other knee.  then again, when i fell in November, this is the knee that got twisted, so it could be some kind of tendinitis. (cool stuff; looked up 'tendinitis' on Google, and what i'm going through seems more likely to be that according to the Mayo clinic's website info.  i love the internet!)
okay, anyway.  life lately has been more meditative, more introspective than previously, though in some aspects it is very much active and moving constantly.  i like the combination of realities.  i like having to keep this shit moving, having to keep walking, having to keep pushing to get to wherever it is that this new reality is taking me.  at the same time, the things in the perimeter of my daily life - the people, the places, the situations and circumstances - make me wonder just how much of this new reality is 'real' at all.

the job is going well, but i am still more or less looked at askance from most of my co-workers, and my mind is getting to the point of asking itself, 'who the fuck is this particular individual to simply judge me without the benefit of even asking me anything?'  and that's totally facetious, because i don't know that anyone is judging me as a FACT.  it's just the sense i get.  as well, i tend to keep it moving.  no reason to sit, no reason to linger.  there's nothing that goes on there any more that is like ACCESSIBLE socializing. not to me.  i make coffee; i don't bother with soup.  that kind of sums it up nicely, to be honest.

i'm trying to get some stuff done today.  nothing major.  i was going to go to the laundrymat and wash some clothes, but i'll likely do that tomorrow morning.  i'm cleaning my kitchen after i finish this, and my bathroom.  i'm going to go get my supplies early, get that out of the way.  my house bills are paid and i need to help Syd with a couple dollars til whatever she's still getting from CS comes through.

i had a day this week, as i do from time to time, when i didn't do my 'good morning' texts.  i do that sometimes, because when i feel more isolated I like to see if people will reach in to me, as i try to stay connected to them.  as usual, only the offspring's mother reached out.  it makes me hate social media platforms and the invention of text messaging. human contact is so fucking important, and we are allowing ourselves to be whittled away to practically nothing, like a huge, majestic oak tree being hacked and burned away in order to produce a single toothpick.  so i know a part of this journey is remembering solitude, and refining the parameters of my solitude rather than dwelling on the dark side of that, which is isolation.  i am not lonely; i have an abundance of people in my life and a good relationship with God.  i am not friendless; I have a few people who care completely and unreservedly about my well being, and i have a few more who are there as much as they can be, and I have family nearby.  i am not wrong for feeling; i have a right to everything I feel, i am responsible, however, for any actions that might arise from those feelings and so i should be aware of what they are so i remain aware of what actions could be manifesting without my conscious knowledge.  i am okay at this moment, and this moment is all that exists in the known universe.  so...I thank Jehovah my Father and God for the blessing of life today, the resources to take care of myself and the peace that i feel in my flesh at this time.