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.