Author: tresswann

Aftermath of the Doctor’s Visit

Posted on by tresswann

What can I say?  I never like going to the neurologist as I find it a very draining experience. I hate seeing people worse off  than  me.   She is always telling me how I am not doing badly. Last time she said I was more spiritual.  Don’t get me wrong.  She is nice and listens to me.  Not sure, if she really hears me.  When we first started, she said everything wasn’t all about the disease/condition.  She was for me and my kitten heels.  The last few years the exams have been cursory.  My husband thought that once I wasn’t participating in research drugs she wasn’t really interested in me.

I have had a bad few weeks. Not enough walking or exercise due to bad winter.    I am never in pain except for when I fall.  My knee has been hurting me and it’s not a “fall” hurt.  I have been barely able to walk.  Well, I did turn a corner last Thursday, even though I did fall but I walked 11,500 steps.  Still, it’s been a real struggle.  I hate the way I am walking and looking.  I knew this time wasn’t going to be good.

I had the very sympathetic look – so sorry you are falling more often with the unspoken words what do you expect?

Bad news – we expect your symptoms to worsen in your already effected area but it appears things have changed and we need to look.  Yup, my left leg and my fingers are going.  And did I know that I have arthritis in my spine?  No, I didn’t and it looks like it might be getting worse?

Oh and the falling?  You may not want to hear this but maybe bilateral support?  As I was asking, can you say it in English?  My husband was saying, she’s not going for it.  Crutches!!!  Is she f’ing kidding??

And drugs?  She wants me to take the Bac more regularly.  I needed bloods for the Ampyra.  I hate needles.  Once a doctor told me he needed blood and I said needles?  He said, well I am not a vampire.  I thought this visit was going to be about other drugs.  Nope, she wants MRIs.  Luckily, with my change in insurance, they are only $75.  Last time, it took me almost two years to pay them off. Glutathione?  Complementary treatment.  I did get scrips for a new spectral leg though.

I also feel out of balance, literally and figuratively.  I thought I was finally getting to a place where I didn’t have to stress about buying “stuff”.  As I approach my milestone year, I wanted to stop settling.  I like being able to buy the Hourglass blush and highlighter.  I wanted to upgrade my car.  Material, superficial stuff I know.  And I know walking is more important.  I guess I just want to live as if this isn’t happening.

Oh, and the neurologist is not covered under my new insurance.  She wants to see me in about a month.  Look at it this way, I’ll be getting a larger tax refund next year.

So, what do I want to do about all this?  Fight back.  Restart and commit to the physical therapy, get in more walking (read lurching) and be more aggressive foodwise. Neuro says one of her patients gets good results but it’s not a good idea, just be moderate.  I am going with my plan and let’s see if I can have improvements by next time.  I am betting on me.  I hope to blog about it daily.  We’ll see.

Visiting the Doctor

Posted on by tresswann

Yes, sometimes I write about what’s going on condition-wise.  Tomorrow, I have a visit to the neurologist.  I haven’t been since July.  She likes to see me every three months.  I delayed for several reasons.  I thought I was  going to be an employee so I would have different insurance.  I was really hoping that by changing the way I eat, I would have positive change.  And frankly, I get tired and depressed hearing about the natural progression of the “disease”.  Last time, she told me I was more spiritual.  My unspoken response – “BS”

Well, tomorrow I am going back.  I am worse.  That’s another thing I don’t like, her denial that I am getting worse. It’s just natural.  One of the things we have been discussing is medication.  She has prescribed Ampyra for me but my former insurance didn’t cover it.  It costs $1300 – 1800 a month.  Now, I can get it for $60.  It works in 60% of the people.  I should be able to walk longer and faster.  I am terrified of drugs.  Also,  she can now prescribe meds that work on relapsing.  However, I have seen for some reason going that route only works for men.

In the meantime, I fell getting off subway on Thursday.  It’s getting harder and harder for me to commute.  My left leg is going.  On a positive note I should be able to get a better brace a.k.a. spectral leg for my right leg.  A new one may allow me to wear nicer shoes which will help my self – esteem.  Donna will know I hate, hate wearing shoes like the groundhog (inside reference) I don’t want to give up but struggling into work isn’t working for me. I like what I do but really don’t want to be there.  I took cabs last week except for the day I fell.  I can’t afford that.  Commutation already is hundreds a month.  I needed a cane to walk in my own tiny house this weekend.  Husband had a thought which may be valid.  I am a woman of a certain age and have been taking Estroven for years.  I forgot to buy some and have been without for a week.  Hot flashes and me don’t mix well.  Back on it so hopefully it will sort some of this out.  Also, my work stress has been through roof .  That’s a topic for another day.

Tomorrow we have a late appointment which means we see all the people who can’t even sit up being wheeled in, beyond depressing, the ghost of Christmas future.

Not optimistic.  Guess I can have a down day or so.

The Liebster Award Blog

Posted on by tresswann

liebster

Well,  better a little late than never.   I  do have to thank  Ms and Fabulous http://msandfabulous.com  for doing this for me.   I love reading her. It’s been really good for  me to think about some of these questions.

Why did you start your blog?

I started my blog because I have always had a journal/diary whatever.  As I’ve previously said in a way this is my Midas in the bulrushes moment.  It’s my way to vent and to process.  Ok, and to share.

What is your favorite color?

La vie en rose, of course.

What is your favorite dessert?

So many to love.  It  can  be seasonal.  Things I like Key Lime pie, Christmas pudding, trifle, cheesecake.  My current favorite mango coconut sorbet.

What are your top 3 favorite books?

Again, so many to choose and so many to love.  Well, Dickens at the top of the list.  So, I am thinking David Copperfield.   A Little Princess or The Secret Garden.  Hmmm.then….. Amy Tan is wonderful, Joanna Trollope, Ruth Rendell, Laura Lippmann, recent loves.  Maya Angelou –  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  The Last Picture Show – Larry McMurtry.  Anything by Gail Godwin.  Barbara Pym – definitely shaped my consciousness.

What are your top 3 favorite movies?

Oh three so doesn’t work for me.  My favorites are transitory.  Movies I watch again and again….

Forrest Gump – I even paid to see it three times.  “The Object of My Affection,”  I keep on coming back to Easy Rider.  Did I love Peter Fonda?  “The Secret Life of Bees”,  “Jean de Fleurette and Manon”.  “Breaking Away”  – struggling to find yourself and recreate yourself.  Next week or next month,  maybe a different answer.

What is your favorite home-cooked meal/comfort food?

These are hard questions.  Eggplant parmigiana.  Stuffed flounder.  Solid Cadbury chocolate is comfort.

If you could speak another language, which one would it be?

Uh but I do.  I love French.  I wanted to take Latin and my parents put down their feet and  I threw one of the few hissies of my life and ended up in French.  It changed my life.  I have a facility for language and do Italian, Spanish and German.  In high school, I wanted to do Farsi and Russian.  Japanese would be useful in my job now.  Language is like extra vocabulary.  I believe knowing only one language is limiting.  My father used to make sure I knew how to say “I am American.  I need an attorney” in any country I was traveling to.   And me, personally,  I wanted to be able to understand “Let’s kill that little girl over there”.  I have enjoyed the freedom speaking other languages has given me.

If you were a superhero, what would your super power be?

Super power.  It’s always a toss up between invisibility and flying.  Right now,  flying trumps all.  It would be glorious to feel free, soaring and weightless instead of the careful measured tread I have to take.  And to be carefree.  Peter Pan calls me and don’t tell me he wasn’t a super hero.  He must have been the first.

What is one piece of advice you would give someone just starting a blog?

The same advice that was given to me – take a course.  I learned a lot from Blogging 101.  The other piece – read other people’s blogs.  It helps.

Which song would you pick to be your personal theme song?

Ah, these questions with no clear answers.  I always thought the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”  was my theme song, flawed for obvious reasons.  When I was a college, Don McLean’s “Everybody Loves Me Baby” really worked.  I was going through a bad time and Bruce Springsteen’s Badlands. “Thunder Road” obsessively and constantly.  “it’s a town full of losers and I am pulling out of here to win” (See Levittown (read childhood)  comment)  but it’s so much more.   Hangfire by the Stones saved my life somewhere in the 80’s. Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” is a consistent theme.  I am a Levittown girl.   Joni Mitchell’s Cactus Tree and/or Coyote the last few years.  Van Morrison reaches my soul – Caravan.  Lately,  I have been playing the Allman’s Melissa on my ipod and Jason Isbell’s Live Oak.   The soundtrack of my life.   Is there a theme to all this music,  maybe someone else will see it.

Which do you prefer: bare lips, chapstick/lip balm, lip gloss, or lipstick?

Lipstick.  Finally, a definitive answer.  But I can’t live without eyeliner!

Eleven Random Facts About Me:  (Jessica, this stuff is hard!)

My favorite place to be is on the beach, any beach.  I miss the ocean all the time.  This condition has stopped me from walking on the beach.

I like my chocolate  and liquor straight and unadulterated.  Read that – not in cake or ice cream.  No juice, no soda.  Maybe a little ice.

I used to fit a terrorist profile in Italy.  I was single and travelled all over, staying usually only a night or two, all over Europe.

I love to cook.  This was unusual for my family as on my maternal side, they had servants and ladies didn’t cook and on my paternal side, well, maybe it was cooking but it certainly wasn’t good.

I can’t stand wearing red, pink or coral nail polish.  Blues, purples, greens, silvers and golds for me.

I hate red roses. They symbolize death to me.

Being married and staying married is something I never thought I would or could do.

I have a dish fetish.  I don’t know how many sets I have now.  I moved out of my mother’s because I had seven sets under the bed and in the closet.

I am a secret workaholic.  I do it in bunny slippers.

I am terrified of being a little old lady with cats.

I have great faith.

I nominate:

OnBeauty https://onculturebeauty.wordpress.com

Deuce2treble3quinn4 https://deuce2treble3quinn4.wordpress.com/

EmmaLisa3 http://emmalisa3.com/

F you, MS https://fyoums.wordpress.com/

Kelzbelzphotography https://kelzbelzphotography.wordpress.com

MyBrainisMessingwithMyHead mybrainismessingwithmyhead.wordpress.com

My questions:

  1. Why blog?
  2. If you could be anywhere but here now, where would that be?
  1. Traditional Medicine or Alternative?
  2. Is make-up part of your armour?
  3. What genre do you like to read best?
  4. Last film you saw and why?
  1. Favorite holiday?
  1. What is your favorite place you have visited?
  1. Did you like high school (or equivalent)?
  1. What scares you most?
  1. What advice would you give to someone starting a blog?

Official Rules

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award, AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster Award in which you:

  1. Thank the person that nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
  2. Display the award on your blog.
  1. Answer the 11 questions about yourself provided to you by the person who nominated you.
  1. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.
  2. Nominate 5-11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 200 followers.
  3. Create a new list of questions for the bloggers to answer.
  4. List these rules in your post.
  1. Inform the bloggers that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post.

April Warrior Check In

Posted on by tresswann

Back for April:

How do I feel today – Perkier today than in a couple of weeks.  I have had a lot of stress, frustration and pressure around my work.  I think my husband is slipping.  He definitely did and now I have no trust.  And although today was the first day all week, I could walk freely,  I took a bad fall in the subway.  My husband was with me and he couldn’t stop it. People always bad mouth New Yorkers but a man helped my husband pick me up off the platform and people held the elevator for me and this was rush hour!  I walked more today than all week combined.  I thought I really hurt myself.  We will see.

What did you do for yourself today?

Well, I blogged,  had lunch with some friends.  I am not working tomorrow, resting, reading and doing fun things.

What did I eat today and how did it make me feel – Mixed, though mostly good.  Granola (homemade) for breakfast and snack,  orange,  uh two Lindt chocs,  sushi for dinner and half a slice of my husband’s pizza.  I feel it, gave me a headache

Did I exercise? What did I do? How did it feel – Still not going to the gym or Zumba.  Due to more falls back to square one with abs.  Have been on treadmill and Wii.  Need to find the original DVD because of the balance issues.

For whom or what are you grateful? What matters most in life?   Grateful that I didn’t seriously hurt myself in my fall.  Grateful for the kindness of strangers.  Friends and family, health are what matters most.

Do I have a higher purpose or driving force in my life?   Make a mission statement – Higher purpose still not defined.  Beginning to dream again.  Too heavy for me.

How long have I been treated with conventional medicine Not this month but I have appointment with doctor on Tuesday and am going to try for the Ampyra.  And yes,  I am going to do my best to eat right this month

The first time I had a symptom – June 2004 walking on the beach boardwalk

What symptoms are most troublesome – Getting really slow and bad at walking and not being able to get on and off the train.

Do I blame myself for things –  Yes, I am still blaming myself for not being aggressive against this.

How is stress level? It’s high.  Now I am really frightened about how things are going down.

What can I do tomorrow to make it better than today?   Start over.  It’s a new month. Rest and do art.  Eat right

Until next month.

Poster Children

Posted on by tresswann

I have a thing about poster “children”.  When I received my initial diagnosis, me being me, I said let me learn everything about it, I can.  I am notorious for doing my homework.  First thing, we reached out to the MS society.  My diagnosis, which I reject or maybe deny, is PPMS.    Actually, I reject but that’s another day.  So we receive their packet.   Talk about poster children.  The PPMS brochure has woman in a scooter and she talks about how wonderful it is now that she has her scooter.  F’ing excuse me?  Not only is this not what I want to hear, it’s a piss poor message as far as I am concerned.  So, how I am going to cope and fight with this disease is bop around on a scooter?  Really?  Not me, not yet, probably God’s willing not ever.  We start with surrender and acceptance?  Not working for me and I don’t think it should!  We scratch MS society off our list and decide to fly solo.

Next, just this month we receive the newsletter from the Institute that’s treating me.  Monitoring is actually a better description.  See inspiring story on page…  Flip to page.  Another woman saying she wept buckets when they told her to use a cane  but now it is sooo wonderful.  Well, I didn’t weep when we had that conversation. I argued and acquiesced.  I don’t cry as a rule in front of other people.  I work really hard at not crying about this.  When I do, it’s usually frustration and rage as oppose to fear.  I have to use a cane now most of the time in public and it is so not wonderful.  I understand I do need to be safe.

What kind of message is being sent?  Are we Victorian?  Am I supposed to lie back and think of England?  I get it about false hope.  But what about possibilities and determination?  They don’t seem to fit in this “traditional” setting.  Well, I worked for years in fashion and was always considered trendy so this is my take.  Screw these “poster children”,  my trend is not to go quietly into the night or anywhere, not to surrender and not to accept defeat.

Broken Canes, Mary Poppins and Peter Pan

Posted on by tresswann

Last Monday morning I started off to work.  It was the first time I think in weeks that I was going to work and in a skirt.  No clunky snow shoes.  I had on my regular granny nanny tie shoes.  I was feeling positive.  As I got on the escalator the handle of my cane felt weird.  Hmmm,  I didn’t realize it was jointed.  I use collapsible canes.  And until the last few months didn’t break it out until I was in the last leg of the way home at Penn, then tucked it away on the train so when I stepped out it was safe in my back pack.  That being said I also go with pretty.  Not for me those orthopedic metal looking horrors.   In fact, we argued with my Dad when he started using one for whatever reason, we got him an Irish walking stick.  My first one was black with multi colored butterfly.  This one was dark purple with flowers.    I get to the top of the escalator, stop to adjust backpack and the handle split apart and flew off.    Two men who are on my train picked up the pieces and handed them to me.  OK so I am missing the handle but I still have the stick part, just about the same height, no problem, right?  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It devastated me to realize that I couldn’t walk in empty space without it.  When did this happen?  I stumbled and staggered to the bus.  Then I had to walk the block to the office.  I held onto a marble barrier.  Didn’t see my friend who sometimes crosses with me.  There is a security guard who watches out for me and he was coming into work and helped me up the steps and into the building.  The building is a city block so I had to prop myself up another 3/4 block to get to my floor and then walk half a block to my desk.  I was shattered.  Being nervous made it so much worse.  During the day at work I don’t use the cane unless I go to another floor.

I recovered a bit and came up with Plan B.  I did realize as soon as it broke that there was no way that I could walk and do my subway usual without it and was going to take a cab.  My stagger into work when I wasn’t fatigued, was horrible.  So I initially thought cab, not happening!

One of my friends volunteered to go down to Duane Reade and get me another cane.  No,  I have a pretty spring one at home. My friend, the receptionist, usually has a golf umbrella.  My thought, it’s the right height with a handle.  My other friend goes to get it.  I call husband who says are you crazy?  I’ll come in with spare cane.

He calls and tells the kids that he pictures me with the umbrella being lifted up and sailing over Grand Central, like Mary Poppins.  Kids haven’t stopped giggling.  And sometimes, he makes me feel like I am being dragged by Mary Poppins when he tries to make me walk faster and longer.  I am skimming above the sidewalk.

And me, I miss being Peter Pan.  Didn’t ya think you could fly like Peter when you were younger?  I did.  I can see and feel it in my mind.  And I want to be Peter again.  I want to be free and soar outside of my body again.  I will figure this out!

Mortality and Other Lovers

Posted on by tresswann

It’s the time and the season I guess.  I used to do leathergoods.  So, I needed to change my wallet and went into my stash and found a cute one.  Over  20 years ago, I had done a line with two guys I was friendly with in Spain.  I had worked with them in my travels.

And yesterday, my mind just couldn’t stay focused on anything for long and I looked at the wallet, smacked my head and said d’uh let me look A up on the Internet.  We had had an affair for some years, before my first marriage and maybe during.  I can’t attest to during but I certainly saw him either just before or just after I was married.  And my policy is to remain friends with everyone and we had for a bit.  Problem A spoke no English except for  ‘allo and “maybe”.  My spoken Spanish is hilarious or silly depending on your view and my written Spanish requires intensive care.  I used to read it really well.  I have the most beautiful  love letters, promising me the sun, the moon and the stars.

Well, he came right up on the Internet and my reading skills have deteriorated a bit through lack of use but I recognized posthumous and memorial.  Ouch, ouch, ouch.  He died this past July.

It’s funny how you know someone and don’t know someone.  He wanted to leave his wife and marry me.    He was a very successful businessman.  I thought about it.  He was a lovely man.  Sort of looked like Michael York.  He had a friend and partner who was married two or three times and the last wife had a terrible time in the village they lived in.  I turned him down, told him he couldn’t afford me.  Village life would  not have worked for me and I would have been shunned.  Madrid is not my favorite European city.  I would have needed Paris on a regular basis and home!

He would call occasionally.  Words are better in person.  I have the most beautiful, beautiful letters.

One day I was listening on the radio to George Thorogood “One Whiskey, One Scotch and One Beer”.  I knew for sure I could never do it.  I felt too American.  There was a part of me he would never be able to understand.

I married someone else (first husband).  No more love letters but he helped me start a business selling his leathergoods. I failed.  No recriminations.  It was a bad period in my life.

And now to find out he too is gone.  Not that much older than me.  The Internet says he was a much bigger deal than I thought or knew.  Goes back to Joebe – what do we really know about each other, even when we are close

Bell Bottom Blues

Posted on by tresswann

I started thinking about Bell bottom blues after I referred to it in a blog about the death of an ex.  Song was on my brain so I got the Ipod out at work today and blasted it.  Howled in my mind.

I always referenced it for breakups.

I never wanted to fade away and apparently I didn’t. We have run out of days.  And I never ever wanted to crawl across the floor to anyone or beg. “I don’t want to lose this feeling”  I listened to the words today with a whole different slant.  I always thought of it from my perspective.  I never thought about it from the ones I left, it was always about me.

And in your heart I want to stay, I guess I did. It’s odd to think of someone loving me like that after all this time.  They always stayed in my heart.  I may not have loved them but I went out with a guy who said once you had slept with someone more than once they were part of your life, like it or not.  By the way, aside from my first husband, he’s the only one who doesn’t speak to me.

“You won’t find a better loser”  I have done that well.

My favorite part was always “don’t be surprised if you find me with another lover” .  It’s what I always wanted. I felt it was the ultimate f.u. and the horse you came in on. And Joebe found me with a few lovers after. Isn’t it the fantasy?  I survived,  I am over you and look how well I did.  I swapped you out.  It’s part of being a better loser.

But Joebe and I have run out of days.  And I ran out of them with Bobby and Richard too.  I wanted them to see me, see that I had made it to the other side as it were.  I guess they did, too.  Richard, I saw again.  Ran into him and disappeared for a few days together and realized what’s done is done.  He tried to call me before he died.  I didn’t take the call and chastised a friend who knew us both for giving up my number.  When I found out he had died, of cancer, before he was 40, I was glad that I had not taken the call.  “No regrets, coyote.”  What would we have said?  Who was sorry?  The outcome would always have been the same, the relationship was dead.  But wouldn’t it have been great to run across him with another lover and me with another one and feel all’s right with the world.

Bobby, I never saw again.  I used to look for him in the New York streets.  He died of AIDS before we were thirty.  He was the one when I have been to therapy and they say well who was the one that you coulda wouda married?  Well, aside from the fact that he was gay, we had the best time.  It was that young in New York kind of thing, hipsters before there were hipsters.  Doing all the cool stuff and wearing all the cool stuff.  He left me for a guy.  I didn’t know it  at the time.  His family blamed his death on me.  I couldn’t, didn’t keep him from himself.

I have always wanted to get to the end of the chapter, see the summer rerun and find out what really happened.  I realized when I was 18, life wasn’t really like that.  Still I keep on hoping and every once in awhile you get one of those moments of clarity.  I am approaching one now.  Maybe there’s a reason why we are not supposed to.  This is hard.  This is not satisfying and full of sunshine.

You did make me cry.  There are no more days.  It’s time to say goodbye.  And it really is, and the irony is on me.http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4hv_8TXFWg

Men, Gypsies and a Funeral

Posted on by tresswann

As I said, Joebe passed away last week.   He always called me a Gypsy.  And it wasn’t always positive.    He used to tease me that I could and did move all my belongings in a cargo van.   I had nothing and was free.  Since I married this time, I can no longer move in a cargo van.  I am weighted with both possessions and responsibilities.

Joebe said I was a gypsy and committed to nothing.    He was of an age where he also meant it in the non PC sense of it.  I was amoral, free, uncommitted.  I remember the gypsies of my youth.  I spent the first few years of my life in Coney Island.  The Gypsies would come every spring.  We were always warned that they stole little children and we had better stay close.

Sometimes I didn’t mind when he called me Gypsy because it meant that I was still holding onto that part of me that was uniquely me.  Lord knows he tried to change me.   Like I have said, I have been trying so hard to remember the happy times.  I really can’t.  Every memory just twists.

I met him dancing.  And he was a great dancer.  That’s what won me over. But we didn’t dance because of his jealousy.

Also, after I left my first husband, I wanted to go out with a man who took me to dinner with tablecloths.  My first husband’s idea of dinner out was Fuddrucker’s.  Joebe took me to nice dinners but they were unpleasant as he always accused me of flirting with the busboy or the waiter.   It became easier not to go.

I have always worked with men and gotten along very well with them.  It’s part of the all boy college deal.  During that time, I worked with men and I used to go out with them for what we called burgers and a belt.  I used to stay at my parents and tell Joebe I was eating with them.  With anyone else I could have and would have told the truth.

At his daughter’s rehearsal dinner,  I sat next to her, not her mother.  By this time, I had left him.  But he was always telling me “Pretend to be a family.”  He had had issues with his daughter and had not wanted to go to the wedding. I insisted but I was the one who walked out of the dinner.(I did go to the wedding)  She is 10 years younger than me almost to the day.    So, I would say we really didn’t get on.

Sunday,  I walked into the funeral home.  I think it’s the first time I saw her since her wedding.  She had been the one to initially call me and tell me that her father was in intensive care and she wasn’t sure she had the right person. I got her brother when I returned the call.  She broke away from the people she was with and grabbed me and began to sob.  “Susan, when we went into the house, there was a huge picture of you in his bedroom.  My dad always loved you.  He never stopped loving you.”  This was so hard to hear.  First of all, within weeks of our getting together he practically demanded that I tell him I loved him.  Different generations – what’s love got to do with it.  I was the gypsy rolling with the tide, looking for my good time.  I never told my first husband I loved him.  It’s not something I do.  I hold love close to my heart, my hard gypsy heart.

It has made me reflect what impact do we really have on others?  When I left my first husband, he was more upset I thought about losing the curtains (I took them off the windows) than me.  Joebe told me we were supposed to get married and he was going to be short the money I gave him towards rent.  We did things together afterwards. i.e. daughter’s wedding but I wouldn’t say we were friends.  I do love my friends.    I can’t ask him what was going on because he is dead.  It’s sort of like an open window but one that you really can’t see through.

Of course,  there was the rest of the family to see.  I did love his granddaughter and losing her when I left him broke my heart.  I kept distance from my now husband’s children and his nieces because I didn’t want that hurt again.  I am loosening up a bit and admitting that we can love each other.  Seeing Gabby almost made me cry.  She’s just about grown up and of course, doesn’t remember me.

Now, men.  My husband and I have had many problems and we have come out alright.  Our marriage is strong.  He stood next to me and listened to hearing that another man had always loved me.  He walked into a room of strangers to him that had been family to me.  He literally held me up.  No cane and no one said anything about my walking.  He totally supported me in all ways.

Someone who has this condition said something along the lines of how do you forget you have this?  Well, Sunday once my husband helped me in that door, my condition was the last thing on my mind.  I am larger than this.

So, I am beginning to have memories, not bad ones, just memories.   I hear his voice in my head.  And I am beginning to realize that I’ll never see or hear him again.  That’s the way this works. He’s not the first relationship that I have lost but he was the only one I lived with.  You always think you will see them again and you can be like Bellbottom blues or just surviving.  I was always tickled that I survived Joebe.  Now, there’s this unknown area.

And here’s what’s weird. Joebe gave me amber earrings.  I wear them at least once a week.  I went to put them in on Monday and one fell on the floor and shattered.  Gypsies and dreams.

Mortality, Perspective and Balance

Posted on by tresswann

Mortality has been on my mind a lot.  It’s a milestone year for me and I am feeling it, particularly since my mobility is impaired and seems to be worsening.  I hope I have many years ahead of me, good years but you just don’t know.  I live fairly locally to where I grew up so I was reading the local obituaries to see whose parents had died.  And then people’s ages were getting too close to mine and I even knew some of them.  It started to drag me down so I stopped.

Last week I received a call that one of my exes had a massive heart attack and was in a medically induced coma and the prognosis was not good.  This was someone I had lived with for a few years.  When I left him, he said “But we were going to get married”  Nice of him to let me know.  He wasn’t the first.  I left someone else who then showed me a polaroid of the engagement ring he was paying off on for me.

Joebe passed away on Thursday night and I got the call Friday.  I really thought he was stubborn and cantankerous enough to come out of this.  He never regained consciousness.  This is who he was, he thought he was having a heart attack so he drove himself to the doctor.  Just what they tell you not to do.  My husband has been upset because all week, of course,  Joebe has been in my thoughts.  I have been reminiscing. He doesn’t mind the reminiscing.  They are not happy memories. He does not like that.   I cannot help it.  I am trying hard to remember some happy times.  He was controlling and emotionally abusive.  It is what it is and he was physically abusive just that one time.  I tried explaining to my husband that remembering the bad times is not bad.  I put on the card for the flowers “You changed my life” and he did.  I learned all kinds of things about myself.  I learned how much stronger I was than I thought.

It’s ironic, it’s March.  I met him in March, 21 or 22 years ago.  I never go out on St. Pat’s but a friend, Joe S asked me to go with him as a favor to some event or other.  Joe T called and asked me to hang out so I said next week.  Next week, I went to hang with Joe T and met Joebe.  My parents couldn’t stand him as he was much older than me.  I was living at home after my first marriage broke up and he would call and say “It’s Joe”  and they would say “Which one?”  Drove him insane.  He was jealous and insecure.  He did make me look at where I was jobwise.  I had fallen on really bad times when my first marriage had broken up and was answering phones.  I applied for another job like that and he told me if I kept on looking at the same jobs I would be in the same place.  I left him when I got the job I have now.  At the time I jumped my salary by 50%.  With bonuses the first year, I made more than he did.  We never really stopped talking and this truly irked him, a man of his age being bested by a little girl. He never thought I was very smart and I am.  I am one of the first women at an all boys school and he always said that I got in because I was a girl.  We went to a 25th anniversary of the admission of women and the former president said that admissions my year were blind.  It was incredibly liberating.  Joebe scoffed and said they lied.

He bought me a house.  One of the reasons he bought this particular house was the day we looked at it, three swans floated up.  It was on water and I am tresswann.

I am preparing to go to his funeral this afternoon with my husband.  My husband always maintains that Joebe was my husband.  I lived with him longer than I did my first husband and had more of a relationship with him.

I have kept on saying all week, this is weird.  This afternoon is going to be weird.  I was at the wedding of both of his children, the christening of two of his three grandchildren.  He was one of 5 brothers.  The family liked me.  I have not seen these people in years.  I am going to have to walk into this with a cane.  My husband says to leave the cane behind and he will hold me.  I am blessed.  Things work out the way they are supposed to work out.  I had a really close friend die when I was with Joebe.  He knew him.  He refused to come with me to the wake or funeral.  Walking in alone was one of the hardest things I had done up to that point  in my life.  See, what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.  Today, I will not be alone.  I will be supported by love.

So, perspective too.  On Thursday, I received a call from my agent indicating that he had been told I am not getting a raise for this year.  Can I say livid is too mild a word?  Yes, I worked remotely for most of January and February but I put in mega hours.  I give heart and soul and do excellent work.  I am not just saying this.  And I am hurt by this.  I will address it when I get into the office this week.  But coming in conjunction with Joebe’s death, it’s time to take another look.  If they think I am doing a less than adequate job which is what a non raise indicates to me then I can and will cut back.  If I cut my hours, I cut my income.  What’s money at the end of the day as long as the bills are paid?  Working less hours will let me get home earlier and when I am home earlier and not putting in extra hours, I can do more “me” stuff.  How about the gym? How about art and writing?

I am a Libra and as odd as it sounds, I need to be in balance.  I have been out of balance.  This manifests itself in my health.  Oh, and a side note on stress, I left Joebe and started a new job all in the same month, not too crazy.  I am moving towards this milestone birthday with trepidation.  I am taking these two events as a sign to get back in balance.  Maybe regain my physical sense of balance. We truly do not know when our last day will be.  I don’t want the rest of whatever time I have to be filled with regrets or what ifs.   Carpe Diem.