My Holiday Blues

To all my family and friends, I realize that since the Thanksgiving holidays I have not answered phone calls nor been in touch except occasionally on face book.  The reason is at once very simple yet complex. For most of that time, I couldn’t even figure out what was wrong, just that I had no desire to connect with anyone.  As the holiday season draws to a close and the new year is quickly approaching, I know what is wrong.  I am in deep mourning for what I have lost and have no idea of how to find the hope and joy that where once such a big part of my life.

The grieving started when I returned to Kalamazoo for Thanksgiving.  It was then that I realized all that ever was, had ceased to be and that all that had been hoped for was gone.

Here is the obit:

The heart and soul of what was Carol Elgie passed into oblivion today, Dec  28^th 2010 at 2:00pm.  This followed a yearlong battle with grief and despair.  After returning to her home town over the Thanksgiving holidays, Carol’s heart and soul realized that there was nothing to return home to.  The joy that always dwelt in her heart and the hope that better things were yet to come evaporated.  Without joy and without hope a soul cannot survive, neither can a heart.  During the Christmas holidays there was a brief resurrection of both but as Christmas faded and the New Year began to dawn, both hope and joy slowly slipped away.  What was once Carol Elgie has simply ceased to be. 

I know when asked, I always smiled and said everything was fine.  That I loved Atlanta, that taking care of my two grandchildren was absolutely marvelous and I had left Kalamazoo at the right time.  All that may be true but my heart and soul did not believe a word of what my brain said.  Not one word.

So I lived my life in Atlanta, did and said everything that was expected of me.  I talked the talk and walked the walk so those around me did not know that everyday my heart and soul were slipping away.  Heck, I didn’t even know they were slipping away until I went home for Thanksgiving.  I saw friends and family, I got a proposal of marriage that would if accepted help me return to Kalamazoo, I saw that my beloved home, and extension of myself, was in good hands, hands better able to give it the loving care it  deserved.  After returning to Atlanta from a trip that should have (words that mean re energized) me, I came back empty.

What was wrong?  A close friend said that he loved and wanted to marry me, wanted me to return to Kalamazoo to be his wife.  I told him I would give him and answer by the first of the year.  My two kids still in Michigan were both doing well so what went wrong?  Why was I so overwhelmed with sadness? why was my soul so barren.  It took the emerging of the Christmas holidays, the quiet rocking of my grandchildren and a small book on Zen to show me what was missing.

Yes Zen tells you to let go of everything, but in the meditations of letting go it also says that if your mind keeps coming back to something it means it needs to be dealt with before it can be let go.  As I rocked Ashely Woo, as I watched her laugh with joy, a joy that came from her very heart over anything and everything, I realized what was wrong.  My joy was gone. 

The joy that had lived in my heart from the first time I walked into my 409 Woodward was gone.  Yes, I know it was just a house but that house was an extension of my heart.  It was an extension of my soul, cluttered with the love of my family, the laughter of children, the barking of dogs, of trees planted small now grown to bear good fruit, the memories of a life well lived, full of the hopes and dreams of a future.  Like the warm light from a candle, the joy was gone, leaving only cold melted wax in its place.  With it went all the hopes and dreams I had had for the future.  In their place was just a small dark hollow.  Like a black hole, any light that was devoured by the nothingness within. 

What was left, hopelessness, sadness, anger.  At who? Why at everyone: myself, my family, all of them, my friends, my God, the Universe.  Why, why, why?

So how did I get from a joyful happy woman sitting on my sofa with my wonderful pets crocheting slipper socks to almost except by the grace of God and my oldest daughter homeless?  Well as the saying goes, “It’s a long story” and it is.  At least five years in the making probably more.  This is because like the characters in the old Aesop’s fable “The Grasshopper and the Ant”, I am the grasshopper.

yatta yatta yatta…

The vision I had for my life:

work at Bronson Methodist Hospital until I retired and then continue to live my quiet life until I was 100 or so surrounded by loving children, grand and great grand kids

Here’s how that went.

Having problems at work, went and saw dr.  diagnosed with AADD, (a long story in itself), told not to return to work-not fired-mind you-just don’t return to work. 

Filed with EEOC-investigator found that I was discriminated agains and fired in retaliation but EEOC declined to follow up with formal charges-thanks then pres. bush.  Attorney I hired was gung ho at the beginning but pulled back so case went in toilet.  Another long story in itself.

unable to work in kalamazoo after that, filing with the EEOC will pretty much blow you out of the water with local employers

thank good ness my brother Donald stepped in and hired me as a consultant to do research binders for his company in AZ.  That gig lasted five years, I think.

Then came the car accident.  I think it was the worst thing that ever happened to me but three of us made it out alive but not poor Rene’.  Still miss her.  The closed head injury has left a few quirks that I think will never really go away.  They have just become the “normal” me.

2009 Xmas time.  Larry’s working in Tampa, Cindy is expecting baby number two, so I think hey, Cindy needs the help, I really don’t need such a big house anymore, I will just do Don’s work in Atlanta and give her a hand with the kids.  The idea was to live with her until I could find an apartment of my own. Not a bad idea.  Once larry and cindy started working in the same city, I could decide whether to move to where ever they were or move somewhere else like LA or Phoenix-to be closer to Pops.

Next comes the selling of donald’s business and my lack of employment.  That is when the shit hit the fan.  No money in the bank, no job, with nothing on the horizon.  December 2009 life was good. Jan 2010, someone flushed the toilet, it was that fast.  Kinda mad a Bill R my brother in law.  Kinda think he knew something about it, or had already replaced me as work had started to really slow down.  Kinda wished he had maybe said “hey we are going to start doing things a little differently around here or hey we have found out that if we use someone elses formula, we can just copy their research binders.  at least it would have given me a little heads up.  I know employers want to keep you working until they don’t need you anymore but hey we are family right?  I guess not.

So now I am begging Rachael to buy my house, no go.  Not something she wants to get into at the moment.  Same goes for Sammie (who now by the way wants me to marry him and move back to Kalamazoo after my house has been sold for 50,000).  He won’t even take care of blade until I can come back, clean out my house and bring blade to Atlanta.  Thanks to my sister Cindy who stepped in and gave Blade a good home.

Cindy out of the goodness of her heart and the objections of her husband, opens her home to me.  I watch the grands, help with the housework and dinner.  She even pays me.

So here I am in Atlanta, depending on my daughter’s charity.  I have no hope, no joy, no plans, no future.  A woman who has worked all her life, raised 4 kids who turned out really well inspite of all my short comings.

how do you begin again when you have no plan?  How to you see the future if when you look there is nothing?  When I look into the future, I don’t see a life, I don’t see my life, I see just mist and fog.  What happened to my path, I am lost and can’t find myself.

I need to make a few decisions.  One I have been avoiding since Thanksgiving.  Sammie wants me to marry him.  Once I left kazoo, I never even called him back to say that I had landed safely.  I can’t marry him.  He is fun for a couple of days but then it becomes very clear that I could not interact with him for much longer than that.  And here are a couple of things I have realized.

If he really loved me he would have tried to help me save my house and he would have for sure watched blade for me-wouldn’t he?  He keeps saying things like he would put me on his health insurance, he’s going to make me beneficery of his life insureance and his house.  He wants to travel when he retires but I know how much he will be getting in SS and he won’t be able to travel on that.  When he lived with me he thought it was my job to provide for him, me thinks he still thinks that way.  So do I just tell him out right or set a trap.  Say that if he gets me a diamond ring, and comes to Atlanta several times over the next year that I will marry him?  I don’t think that is the way to go.  Oh and he told Jackie that he bought me a ring.  Yeah right.  the ring he gave me was a piece of costume jewelery and it wasn’t even new.  He either found it, someone left it at his house or he bought it for a couple of bucks at the resale shop.  He is going frantic and do you really know, I really don’t care.  there I said it, I really don’t care.  hey were is the Carol that feels she has to tell everyone yes or at least the answer they want to hear? 

That is the one thing that I want to work on, speaking my mind and being truthful.  Not hurtful on purpose but if the truth might hurt, tell it anyway.

Two Year Old has Already Read The Book

HOW NOT TO PEE IN THE POTTY.  This kid has a twenty gallon bladder and nerves of steel.  He can sit thru an entire viewing of Avitar including several glasses of "ocolate" milk all the while sitting on the potty.  Or he can take a two mile hike to the park and back, drink all MY water arrive home dry as the Arizona desert, scream and cry because he is too tired to think and not dribble a drop until the diaper is on and he is sound asleep.Go figure.  The song "Your Not the Boss of Me" from Malcolm in the Middle keeps running thru my head at these times.

and damn it, I can't find my camera, again.

To Do List is

well, half done.  I have the upstairs pretty well straightened out.  Now there is just the down stairs to do.  Living room is okay but could use a swiffer plus a damp mop on a couple of sticky spots.  Kitchen has dishes and counter wipe down but the stuff from up stairs that needs to go to the basement has kinda piled up in the family room.  But not to worry.  By tomorrow all will be well.

I find it hard to believe that I have actually knocked off quite a bit from my list.  It is not like me to be so productive.  Need to continue to take my supplements as maybe that has helped keep me energized.  Or maybe I am just in my manic phase.  Who knows anymore, I sure don't. 

Need to keep track of the days to see how long it takes me to get settled into a new routine.  I need to find some way to adjust to the heat of Georgia.  Other people are out walking even during the heat of the day and many people have outside jobs that require working all day outside.  I think I would collapse of heat exhaustion if I was required to do any heavy work outside.  How does a body adjust to a new climate?  I want to work outside in the yard, take Xavier to the park but when I go out, even in the am, I sweat like Niagara Falls and need to drink a gallon of water on a short walk.  Cindy walked to the park with Xavier, was gone two hours with no water, I would have dried up and blown away.  Is it old age?  Somehow I don't think of myself as old but then maybe old people never do.

Now it's time to get the laundry into dry, take my crocheting downstairs, put in a movie and see if I can't get Ashley's afghan done before she turns 21.

Funny, I am much happier here by myself.  I am just not used to having people around all the time.  I will have to change or I will be miserable.  Looked into churches today.  My dilemma is do I stay with the SA, a church I have attended for at least 15 years or do I try Rachael's new church, First Congregational, a more open minded church?  Both are close, the UNC sounds interesting I may see if Cindy will take me and drop me off in a couple of Sundays.  Wonder if they offer transportation?

Cockroach Research

Spent some time researching cockroaches on the internet.  While unpacking things that had been stored until we could get all moved in, saw the biggest cockroach I have seen since I lived in Florida many years ago.  We were hopping it was just a carry in from Tampa but I have seen a few dead ones and a couple of babies scurrying around.  I haven't told Cindy yet because she will freak out and want to bomb.  Not a good idea with babies about.  Think it is either and an American Cockroach or a Wood roach.  The first reproduces very slowly and the second can't survive long with out the great outdoors.  Once I get everything cleaned up and put away, I will have a better idea.  Borax and silica gel are good non-toxic repellents.  Need to get a couple of roach motels to get an idea of the hidden population.

I am turning

into a hermit.  I don't know how to be part of a family anymore.  Here I am alone for the weekend and I am happy as a clam.  During the week with my delightful grandchildren, I am stressed and disoriented.  I have a lot of adjusting to do!  Tell me, why would I prefer to be alone with my 3 cats and a dog to my daughter and grandchildren?  I don't have the answer but I am searching.  My goal is to become integrated into an extended family.  Maybe it just takes practice.  I have just forgotten how.  Lets give it 30 days, the time it takes for anything to become a habit.  Like the South Beach diet.

It's funny, not eating carbs and fast food  has become the way I eat normally.  The cravings for starch have all but disappeared.  So has my sweet tooth.  I actually look forward to a good salad and vegetables.  Haven't had fast food in ages and I don't even miss it now.  Steadily losing weight.  My knees and hips hardly hurt at all.  Now getting my muscles up to walking to the park and increasing my tolerance to the Georgia heat are next on my to do list

Thought for the day

"Be numbered among the searchers, won't you? Live with an ear for the
trumpet and an eye for the clouds. And when he calls your name, be
ready."- Max lucado

When a 2 year old has a bad day, EVERY ONE HAS A BAD ONE!!!!
SB diet going well until I re introduced cinnimon swirl bread.  Sweet tooth has gone into hyperdrive.  Book is right about how one sweet leads to another.  Well, it is off for a bowl of honey nut cereal