March 9, 2014

I was angry for a long time; angry and frustrated at what had happened to me, at the men who caused my injury, at doctors and other medical professionals, at people at my job, and at myself. I have changed into someone I don’t recognize. My whole life has changed into one I don’t know how to live. Working with limitations has sent me into fits of rage and periods of deep depression. Five years after I stopped working and did little more than rest almost constantly, I am accepting myself where I am now. Fortunately my health has improved significantly although I have a way to go to be myself again and who knows for sure if that will ever happen? One challenge is memory or the lack of memory. Others are doing math without a calculator and trying to manage my checking account (Although that has improved. I haven’t overdrawn my account for a couple years.) It took a while but I can manage my medication. For a while I mixed up the pills or would take the morning ones at night. The day passes more smoothly. Then comes a day like today when I forgot to turn off the burner under a pot again. Nothing happened as I caught it in time. And I wonder why I eat frozen dinners. I just need to keep working on remembering. One more challenge.

May 2009

REALIZATION The realization has hit me that I have no income. I am afraid. Still I continue to pack the house, separating what I am keeping from what is to be sold and what is to be donated. This is an overwhelming process, downsizing from a four bedroom house to a 21 foot RV; compounded by my sizeable collections of teacups and pots, dolls, and figurines. Then there is the “stuff,” things that fit into no category. Having little to do here and few friends, my home was my project. Every corner and space was covered with color adding life and a small measure of pleasure. Just as with friendships this pleasure must be nursed and fed over and over, so I buy more and more “stuff.” Then, as a friendship or love affair may smother, so too does this obsession with collections. The obsession took over my life and I eventually lost interest yet it is still there so I continue. After packing for an hour or two, I lie in bed watching nothing in particular on TV. The TV numbs my feelings and covers my fear. My dogs, Princess and Charlie, curl up next to me, sleeping as if they had just finished a full day of work. Eddie never sleeps on the bed even though I’ve tried to get him to do so. He prefers to stretch out on the rug or curl up on his overused dog bed. Often, as I stumble in the dark into the bathroom at night, I step on him. He seems to like the coldness of the floor. Occasionally the three dogs make noises in their sleep as if they are troubled. I stroke them, wondering what they are dreaming. I wonder if packing the house worries them. Eddie has gone through other moves with me so is certain he is coming. Princess, however, was put in the pound at nearly eight years old. Perhaps she does not feel as secure. Charlie wouldn’t know of moving even though he has lived in three homes with three different families. So I stroke them through their nightmares that are perhaps about being left or put in the pound, the place that left them alone shaking in a cage. Why would someone risk everything, as I have done, to chase a dream? Yesterday a man at the dealership led me on a walkthrough of the RV. I pretended to understand what I was shown and told. While he talked I pictured where I would put things and reassessed how much I would be able to carry. I don’t understand why the interiors are done in earth tones and started to figure how I could cover everything with blue and other color accents to brighten the place. If I am to live in it there must be color. He is talking about how the shower and toilet work and I am thinking what an ugly shower curtain and how I can cut mine down to fit. I try to hide my yawn when he opens the hood and catch my laugh when shown the tire iron (or whatever it is called.) I catch some of what he is saying and I realize I know nothing about this machine I am buying. Unlike a car, I have to learn to use everything in the RV, not just where the gas is put. There are all kinds of buttons, hoses, fuses, and lines. He tells me about water hoses and faucets but not how and where to put the water. Am I supposed to know this already? Am I supposed to have a basic understanding of how this house on wheels works so he only has to show me where things are? Does he actually think I will understand the owner’s manual? Yet another fear enters my mind. Better to sleep on it. Maybe in the morning the fear will be gone. Tomorrow I will test the mini washer and dryer I purchased. For now I must sleep because I fear the washer and dryer won’t fit in the RV.

I separate the paragraphs in what I post. I don't understand why they post in a block.

Memory/But I Didn't Have Time

One day my sister, Tomaca, emailed the following story to me saying I needed to respond to a comment. After reading the story I emailed her back saying I didn’t write it. She replied that I wrote the story and need to acknowledge the comment. So I read the story a couple more times. As I read I began to recognize the rhythm and remember the true events that led me to write the story. A Traumatic Brian Injury can damage your memory as it has mine. I can forget what is said right after I hear it. Sometimes I forget what a conversation is about right in the middle of it. Here’s the story. I believe my memory and writing skills will return to me. But I Didn’t Have Time A SHORT STORY She wanted to tell me about her grandfather, a fine dark brown skinned man, a major figure in history with so much memory collected in his house, the family home now becoming a museum in honor of him, to document and display his place in American history. She wanted to tell me, but I didn’t have the time. I had to get back to work to papers piled high on my desk, to phone calls that needed to be made, and to emails that needed to be read and answered. I had to get back to the ringing phone and constant interruptions giving me more important work to pile on my desk into a dizzying mess. She wanted to tell me about her brother who, as a child, dreamed of being a concert pianist, which he did, traveling the world over to make the piano flow with such beauty tears welled in eyes. He taught college students to make piano keys dance beneath their fingers as they looked into his approving smile. She wanted to tell me, but I didn’t have the time.I had to grab groceries and stop by the cleaners to pick up my now clean clothes and drive home to cook dinner, then to write papers that needed to be written for the next day, water the roses and to nod off in front of the TV playing some meaningless nonsense and then to bed because tomorrow would be busy again. She wanted to tell me about her brother-in-law, dressed all in blue, always all in blue wearing a sparkling butterfly pin. His Ph.D. from Harvard came as a surprise to those who saw him draw deep into himself to tell stories to people lost for a time until the tales end, when he becomes himself again all dressed in blue with a butterfly pin. She wanted to tell me but I didn’t have the time. I saw her in the drugstore and ducked so she wouldn’t see me with her bright smile ready to talk as if she had all day which maybe she did but I didn’t. And then I would have to walk slowly beside her as she moved with her cane. I needed to get home to feed my dogs and change clothes to be on time for a dinner with people I pretended to know and pretended to like. She wanted to tell me about her sister who traveled world wide with her blue wearing husband, about her working as an archivist in the Harvard Library, knowing the feel of crumbling ancient papers and books neatly stored in cool shadowed rooms. She wanted to tell me, but I didn’t have the time. She seemed to appear everywhere I went, inviting me into her stories, but with work and writing and caring for a house and a yard, surely she would understand that I have to get to the cleaners before they closed. Next time I see her, I will stop to talk but my ride is waiting to get my car from the shop to run to the mall for something I wrote down to remember but lost the paper. Awaking from the sound of crushing metal and shattering glass, screams and cries piercing through the night’s stillness like a streak of lightening. She sat in her seat belt, head fallen to one side, her mind floating above her attached to nothing and no one, no breath, no heartbeat, no stories of history or of the present, no stories laced in blue with a butterfly pin, and no stories of the musty smell of yellowed papers. She wanted to tell me about scholars and poets she had met during her life, many names and rainbow faces, published works, oral histories, library shelves all bringing the brightness of knowledge and dancing, lost now in the scattered glass of darkness, all because I didn’t have time. I sit beneath a tree near where the wreck happened and stare ahead with the sun warming my face. My body relaxes as cars hurry by and I imagine her laughing eyes. Now I have time.

May 2009 FEAR

So many people spread their fear to me as they warn me of traveling alone. I find this fear to be interesting as I continue to prepare for my new home in a 22 foot RV. I have chosen a Holiday Rambler – Augusta Sport. The RV is big enough to be a home while small enough to use as a car. Downsizing my home to this bit of space is overwhelming. Am I out of my mind? If I do nothing to change the flow of leaving the security of my job, of knowing there is a check magically placed in my checking account twice a month, of the bills being paid, and having food to eat, of knowing the flow of my day; if I do nothing I will go, a woman alone, counting to ten so the fear will go away. They, whoever these authorities of my life are, warn me of traveling alone without a man to protect me from those who would harm me. Yet in my house are three dogs racing to the door at the sound of a knock and running along the fence to frighten away anyone who ventures too near. There is also an alarm set more to protect me inside than belongings when I am gone. I peer around me as I walk to the garage whether it is day or night. At the gas station I pull up to the pump closest to the store so someone can see if I am being abducted by some stranger who means me no good and will harm me because I am living the everyday life of a woman. Look for light, never walk in shadows. Be aware, always aware around you and of sounds near you and your house. Sleep lightly; walk confidently; don’t let them know you are afraid in your daily life. If I am to be afraid, let me also live. As of today, May 1st 2009, I am no longer employed; retired at 56, free, and if I think I become afraid but not of what others warn me. I fear I will become homeless, picking through scraps in a dumpster to ease the gnawing emptiness in my stomach, and clinging my threadbare clothing tightly around me, ripping one hole larger. I force my mind to pictures of moose walking through a distant rich green field in Alaska and of the excitement of touching the sleek coldness of a glistening blue glacier. I think of cheering at the folk music festival in Vancouver BC and of my head back laughing with newly met friends. Perhaps I should have a small celebration for the milestone in my life but all I can think of is being on the road, music blaring and my face nothing but a smile.

June 2009

My dream of April 2009 did not come true. I had the 10’ x 21’ RV and spent a couple weeks over packing it. I had purchased enough of some supplies to last a few years. Was I heading out to the wilderness where there were no stores? At one point I just wanted to leave Cheney where I’d spent a good 11 years with four more in neighboring Spokane. I was a mental, nervous, depressed wreck. I told myself I would die if I stayed there any longer. More about that story later. Every space in the RV was used for storage, even the tiny bathroom. I put in my three confused and worried dogs and took off for Seattle. Now, I had never driven anything bigger than my SUV, a Ford Explorer. I didn’t really understand how to use the mirror and could not see out of the back of the RV. With a nerve racking four hour drive in front of me I made my way onto the freeway. The dogs, Eddie, Princess, and Charlie, become more comfortable as we drove. I did not. The ride was uneventful. I didn’t hit anything. My first destination was my brother’s house. I spent a couple days with him and his family while waiting for my Kindle to arrive. Now I could carry books with me. Time to move. The first trip was one to Sequim, Washington to visit friends. That was fun, shopping in Port Townsend, berry picking, and eating fabulous meals displayed on plates like a work of art. The conversation was full and stimulating. I would have spent the summer there; however I needed to move on. My plan was to follow Highway 1 for as far as I could before the music festivals started. When I reached a RV park on the Reservation at Neah Bay, I thought I’d found paradise. We stayed there for a few days. Only a few RVs were there and they parked near the cabins. I parked at the other end where I could stare at the water, brilliant and blue, from a window. The dogs ran along the shore, careful not to go near the water or too far from me. My blind Eddie walked on his leash with me. On the day a heavy rain fell I baked scones and ate them with tea poured into a china teacup decorated with delicate red roses. I read every book I’d bought for my Kindle and rested a lot. I began to realize I was much too tired to drive Highway 1. I was much too tired attend music festivals. Each day I seemed to get more and more tired. I needed a place to stay and recuperate for what I thought would be a couple months, not almost four years. The RV just fit into a space in my brother’s backyard with the garage on one side and a fence on the other. Trees hung over the top of the RV brushing it almost in worship. I was not fully aware of what had happened to me since being knocked out and the lack of medical care. Right then I just needed to rest.

Spring Cleaning

Today I spoke to no one except my dogs. Perhaps I should have called someone but now it is too late. Usually I talk to people as I walk the mall, saying good morning and asking how are you doing. I talk to the cashiers in stores. Today was different. Being so hungry for spring I started spring cleaning. Before the TBI I could have finished my little house in a day. However, since I am limited in how much I can accomplish in a day I spring cleaned the bed and bath rooms.