Serendipity

When I made my decision to move to Wisconsin to be with my boyfriend, the biggest obstacle  I had in front of me was telling each one of my (adult) children.  I was truthfully fearful of their reaction...not all sure HOW they would react.  Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. I told my youngest first, to gauge how the other two might react.  He was shocked at first, then admitted that he thought it was a good thing, and since he could come spend a week or two on a visit...he was fine!  That was almost three weeks ago. Last Friday, I had the opportunity to talk things out with my oldest son, and I was shocked that he suggested that I do move!  The reality here is that I have lived with my daughter for most of what will be 10 years this coming November, I am quickly approaching my 53rd birthday, and have not had a life to call my own, since I am a caregiver to 3 grandchildren as well as living with them.  He told me it was way past time for me to ...

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why. A couple in  Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream. The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor. His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and calle...

Right from the beginning, Shawn's arrest and then sentencing has been a hard pill for me to swallow. No mother wishes to see a child in prison, but when it happens...what then? For me, it couldn't have come at a worst time.  I was still deep in the grip of my breakdown, still not able to function mentally and emotionally...and I know that I wept a lot during this time.  I couldn't believe that my son, a big, huggable teddy bear that everyone loved, could do something so terrible.  It just didn't fit. Shawn's case was high profile, this was a big deal in a county that is one of the biggest in New York, and as much as I wanted to be there for my son...I couldn't.  I couldn't make myself go to the court hearings, I didn't want to be seen by the public or in the media...as I said, I was having a very hard time coping. A war raged inside of me then too...unending questions, uncertainties, blaming myself, even though I did my best to bring my son  up righ...

I have always believed that as we go through rough periods in our lives and as we reach the end of them, we begin a new chapter in our lives because we have grown intellectually, mentally and emotionally.  This last chapter of my life has lasted a very long time...9-1/2 years to be exact...and I am now beginning a new chapter in my life. This chapter will be titled: "Rebirth". All that know me well, know that I hold little to no regard for internet dating sites or chat rooms...I've seen them be the beginning of someone else's misery...meaning destroyed families and marriages.  I've tried one dating site, but was soon disgusted...and cancelled my membership after the first 24 hours.  To me...dating sites are akin to walking dark streets in a shady neighborhood at midnight...where you know that you are risking your life at the hands of criminals that you can't quite see.  I had resigned myself to the fact that I was probably always going to remain single,...

When I had my breakdown in the Winter of 2001, it was a shattering of my entire being...physically, mentally and emotionally.  Like the shattered mirror...that's how I viewed myself...I could no longer see myself clearly as a person.  Every bit of me felt disconnected. I truly believed that I would never see the day ahead of  me where I was once again whole...and I may never see myself as whole...but I've found a beginning point over the last few days. It wasn't until just recently, when discussing things with someone that I had just met and while describing the things that had happened to me in the past, he told me that "whatever it is you are looking for isn't in the past".   That had to be the most profound thing I've ever heard...and made more sense to me than anything I've done or tried.  It's like I was given a key to the lock that has kept me from moving forward with my self and my life. I have been trying so hard to piece myself ...

A skewed reality When I had my nervous breakdown in 2001, a few things happened that were unsettling to me...the worst being my inability to easily adapt to change.  Maybe it's something that was always there but became more noticeable to me...I don't know. On my first few trips to a therapist at mental health, I was then diagnosed as having Dysthymia ...something that although true...was a foreign word to me.  I seriously had to do some real digging...and realized too that I've always had a problem with anxiety.  Maybe these two things go hand in hand. I've always had a rough time being amongst a crowd of people that the noise level was extremely loud and there were multiple conversations going on around me.  The best way I can describe how it feels is that it is akin to vertigo...I seem to lose my sense of balance, making me feel light-headed and confused.  It's not a nice feeling at all. After I moved into another county and had to restart my therap...

The Chapel in the Glen, Watkins Glen, NY Today I went to church...for the first time in nearly 36 years.  My daughter has been nearly begging me for a couple of years to go and I always declined, feeling that I would be the very kind of hypocrite I despise: being a non-Christian acting like I was a Christian.  It's just wrong to pretend to be someone you are not, you know? A little history: I come from parents who were of two different religions:  Protestant and Catholic.  My mom felt it was necessary as I went through my childhood to know and understand both religions, so that when the time came, I could chose the religion that was right for me.  On Tuesdays, I went to a Baptist church school for an hour or so in the afternoon as a time-release from my regular schooling.  Then, on Saturdays, I went to a Catholic church school for a couple of hours in the morning.  At about age 8, I received my first communion. After my mom died when I was 16...

Despite the fact that we knew we would be moving and pretty much had a target date in mind, things did not pan out the way we'd planned.   Our intention was to rent a Uhaul and make the move in one fell swoop, which would--in theory--save us money .   However, when it came time to price the Uhaul...the price had gone up $100 and was something we now could not afford...since we had paid a security deposit plus rent, as well as having to pay to have the electric turned on...there was just barely enough money to do anything more than 'borrow' some vehicles and pay for the gas for those vehicles to make a single trip.  (My daughter's mother-in-law volunteered to make a second to get the remaining things.) So--in the style of the Beverly Hillbillies--we loaded up and moved on out...2 pickups and an SUV.  What lay ahead of us was almost a 2 hour trip to our new home. For Alisha's mother-in-law and I...we were looking at a mere 8 hours road time that day......

I am having a really hard time understanding how two women who have paid their rent on time, bothered no one--with no attempts to befriend the neighbors, and who have minded their own business can be reduced to a state of paranoia over the past few weeks. Since the whole episode happened with the trailer having (supposedly) been sold , the ordeal with the dogs that I described in my earlier post,  Evil People, dog tales and moving my daughter and I have come to expect the unexpected, listening for unusual noises at night and been very worried that something will occur that will throw us into another tail spin and grow the anxiety and fear even more. It's not the legality of the situation that is causing the problem...it's the "illegalities" that I am concerned with.  What I mean is that we would not put it past anyone here to do something to my daughter's car, like scratch the paint or flatten tires...just for spite. In the past 3 weeks or so we have he...