“You Can’t Go Home Again”

In the Thomas Wolfe novel, he claims, in part, that “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood”. While we know that literally, one can go home again, but as I stated in an earlier post, the metaphorical idea holds true…one can never really go home again.

For the past decade I have held inside me a dream to buy back my Grandmothers home. When she passed in 2001, my father & step-mother decided to sell the house. This fact has bothered me since I found out about it. The main reasons for this being that my Grandmother had this house custom-built during a time when women were still not as likely to do such a thing, but she was never a “typical” woman. She worked very hard for everything she got in her life & I have always respected her for that. Sadly, I always held in my heart that she would allow me to live in the home & carry it on in our family once she passed. That was not the case.

I have to make it a point to admit that when my Grandma passed away, I was not there. The easy answer to why is that I wasn’t aware. The more complicated answer is that after so many decades of running into a brick wall with my family & relatives (mostly the relatives), I made the choice (at the wrong time, it turns out) to stop running at the wall, only to slam into it, hurting only myself. (or so I thought)

Madelyn was diagnosed with Lung Cancer in the fall of 2000 & passed away in April of 2001. Christmas was ALWAYS her favorite time of year. The weeks leading up to Christmas, she was recovering from surgery that removed her lung tumor & half of the lung it had invaded. She was planning a family Christmas party, including her sister (my Great-Aunt) her children & theirs as well. A few days before Christmas, as I was making my daily phone call to see if she needed me to stop by & bring her anything, she mentioned to me that she felt it would be best that I didn’t attend the Christmas party. I can admit now that I immediately saw red. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want any “trouble” this year & with the Belians attending, my presence would cause strife. I don’t think she had any idea how much that statement broke my heart. What did she mean, I shouldn’t come. I was her granddaughter, the child she had a HUGE hand in raising. Her direct bloodline. If anyone should be there, it was my dad & his wife, myself & my brother. Well, they were all there, but not the bad seed. That was my moment. The moment when I said “Enough!” I stopped that day. I stopped trying. I stopped putting myself out there, only to be ridiculed & seen as the person I was when I was young….irresponsible, disrespectful, distant, loud, etc. That is a person I would never outgrow in the eyes of many people I share a bloodline with, some of whom I don’t even really know. It’s amazing how those things can stick with you, but all the good, the growth, the change that you make is just plain invisible. (I did find out later that my Grandmother never told my father that she & I had that conversation, which only made him angrier at me, which in hindsight is understandable (“Same old Jennifer”)

I openly admit that not spending Christmas Eve with my Grandma was a terrible mistake on my part, regardless of my reasons. What I should have done was suck it up, bury my personal pain & go hang out with her. Because I chose not to, we never spoke again & 4 months later she was gone. I wasn’t able to be there to say goodbye, to help pick her burial outfit (because she took great pride in the way she appeared & dressed), to help care for her (even though I was told I couldn’t have handled it), to give back, even in the slightest bit, what she gave to me my entire life by being my ONE constant. The stable, responsible role model that I always knew she was, but could never quite live up to. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love that woman more than anything or anyone in my life. It just means that once again I was selfish, consumed by hurt & bitter that I was always the bad seed, the black sheep…a role I never asked for, but surely earned.

Fast forward 11 years & a HUGE change in myself. I have made it an odd habit of driving by the house since I found out my gram passed. It became somewhat of an obsession to me. At times, mostly highly emotional times, I would find myself crying or screaming at the people living there to get outta my house. Not the healthiest behavior, I’m aware, but I never claimed to be entirely stable, emotionally or otherwise.

Recently, I’ve noticed there were no cars in the driveway. That was the immediate sign to me that they had moved out, obviously a case of foreclosure. Last week I typed the address into the local realtor website & sure enough, there were 9 pictures of my childhood home. I wrote them IMMEDIATELY, asking for a viewing. I was gonna get it back! I was so excited, making plans in my mind, blah, blah, blah. It was a very fun & exciting 24 hours….that is, until the real estate agent showed up to meet me.

As he unlocked the door, he turned and said to me “I have to tell you that this house is infested with black mold”. I said I knew & didn’t care & he opened the door. For a brief 5 seconds, I could smell her. Then the black mold stench took over. My mother had offered to go with me & at first I didn’t understand why. Maybe she wanted to see the house she spent much of her late teens & early twenties in. Later, at lunch, she told me the real reason, that she felt this was something I shouldn’t have to do alone. That was lovely, especially considering that we are not very close.

I walked through every room. I envisioned the furniture, the sound of the television or music on Christmas. I went into my old bedroom, that one felt weird, the bathroom I used to sit on the counter with my feet in the sink getting ready. Everything was the same. In the ten years these strangers lived there, they didn’t change a thing. They just let it rot. I hate them.

When I reached my grandmother’s bed/bath in the back of the house, the agent & my mom had already gone outside, unable to stand the smell of the mold. I just talked to her in there, seeing her putting on her makeup in her bathroom, standing in her walk-in closet choosing one of the 100′s of dress suits to wear that day. Inside her closet I began to cry. I cried because I miss her. I cried because I wasn’t there when she passed. I cried because I was still the same failure she hoped I wouldn’t be when she was alive. I cried because this was the last time I would ever be in this house.

In the end, I’m glad I went. I feel free of that dream now. I no longer drive by the house. I don’t think about it. I don’t fester over it. I don’t care.

Goodbye house

Down On The Farm

Many people in the world make a choice to live their lives on a farm. Some people are born into it & the land goes back generations. Then there is the rare person who lands on two farms within a year, someone who never considered that life or saw themselves living such a rural life. I am that rare person. I type this to you while feeling very down on this farm.

The circumstances that landed me on the farm I am currently taking up space go back 30 years. At the age of 12 I began to truly rebel, as a direct result of the childhood I had endured up to that point. Sadly, as I inch ever closer to 42 by the day, I have still not managed to figure out how to leave the pain behind me & break the cycle of self-sabotage & ruin that I perfected decades ago.

It all started with a panic attack. Okay, that may not be entirely true. I had slipped up & made mistakes in the months preceding the morning I was frozen inside my car. Most, if not all, people make mistakes. Sadly, some of us have made so many that the people who are closest to them can’t take any more of the pain, the worry, the disappointment or the betrayal they feel. It’s understandable. There is no such thing as unconditional love when it comes to a screw up. Who could?

In a matter of four hours my life came crashing down around me on a Wednesday in April of this year. I experienced one of those panic attacks that keeps you from doing anything…calling someone for help, telling someone close to you that you were going through a trauma, answering the swarm of phone calls or texts messages that flooded in. All of these things, for reasons I still don’t understand, just made the anxiety worse. By the next day I was told I had nowhere to live. Day 2, they were keeping my dog for money owed, without even being given a choice. Also on that day, there was a phone call between my father & myself in which he told me he was done & that if I picked up my dog, it would be the worst thing in the world for her & that she deserved a better life than being stuck with me, especially since I am now homeless. I did call the police & made a report, so I couldn’t be accused of abandonment. They informed me that they would accompany me to the house where they would ask for the dog to be turned over, but then told me that there was a chance that they could refuse, causing me to have to file a court order to have her returned. Well, I don’t have the money to file a court order. My other choice is to file a report with the microchip company I am signed up with stating that she has been abducted. All I want is to have my dog returned to me, because she is the only thing I truly care about on this earth, with the exception of my 4 year old niece. I live for my dog. She is my baby, not my pet. She chose me, regardless of where or how we live. At the same time, I feel an incredible amount of guilt over the idea of tearing her away from the only life she’s known for the last 7 months, even if that life did include me until 6 weeks ago. I can’t even imagine the abandonment she must feel. Dogs do get separation anxiety, but her feelings were never taken into consideration. Damn, I really should have chosen not to respect their wishes that 2^nd day to not go into their house without their being there & taken MY dog with ME. I have never been more shattered or more torn about anything in my life. Without her, I honestly don’t care about anything. I just don’t. Life means nothing. A future doesn’t matter. I have no ambition; even more than what has become normal for me. She is all that matters. Sure she’s probably loved & to a degree happy, but these people are kidding themselves if they think she isn’t hurting or that she doesn’t wish she was with me. Dogs know & feel FAR more than they are given credit for. She wants to be with the mommy she chose when she was 6 weeks old.

Now….well, now my life is empty. I have no job, no money, nowhere to go, no interest in caring if I’m going to be alone in this. I have even considered ending my life, but then I think of the people who were closest to me & have now chosen to take themselves out of my life. I truly believe that some of them would be pleased that I offed myself & some would just consider it another ploy on my part to make them feel bad. The funny thing to me about this entire situation is the fact that I have nothing negative or bad to say about a single one of these people. While the circumstances surrounding my return to Michigan are confusing to me & not necessarily in my best interest in the long term, they were very supportive of & good to me. They helped me in ways I didn’t deserve. I appreciate all they did for me. The only thing I have a problem with is when a person looks you in the face on multiple occasions & says that you ALWAYS have a home with them, up to the week before the events of that fateful day in April, only to turn in less than 24 hours & put you out without any notice whatsoever.

After weeks of soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that this is my fate, my payback for decades of bad behavior & disregard for the feelings of others. So, I’ll take the suffering. I will embrace my fate. Beyond that, I don’t know what will become of me & as I type this, I honestly don’t care. If Gypsy is not returned to her mother, what does it really matter?

So, that’s where I am today. I DO NOT want any of your sympathy. I DO NOT want help. I DO NOT want money. I just want to write. Do & think what you want of me, I honestly don’t give a shit anymore. I’ve been turned on, burned & betrayed by people who used to be friends, much the same way others feel I’ve done to them, during the unfolding of these events. All I want is for the pain to stop. I can only think of one little face that can heal the wounds….but I’m fairly certain the people that I would be fighting for her will tap their wealthy resources to bury me. Well….job well done, because you already did!

I love you more than life itself Gypsy Rae….& that is NOT bullshit!!!!

Perception

“Distance should remain just as it is….distant!”

I stumbled across this quote as I tried to come up with one last idea to salvage a shattered relationship with someone who, though we share a partial bloodline, I barely know & vice versa. It reminded me that some scars are generations long & life is all about ones perception of any given situation.

So, I guess all that’s left to say on my part is this…”I am whatever you say I am”, to quote Eminem. It just seems to fit the circumstances I find myself in.

At least I find comfort in the realization that those who truly know me…good, bad & ugly…love me regardless of my faults & forgive me when I make mistakes.

That is love.

That is family…in my eyes, because sometimes blood does not a family make.

Hamster Wheel

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”
~Oscar Wilde

The words of Oscar Wilde seem to speak so directly to me in whatever situation I find myself in. Who knows, maybe if I spent more time writing down my own words I wouldn’t rely so heavily on others.

I’m sure it’s quite obvious to whoever is left reading this that I have been going yet ANOTHER major life change, several in fact. I realized yesterday that I haven’t written a new blog post since August. That’s a pretty big stretch for me & explains a lot about why I have been feeling stifled yet again. I seem to get so caught up in whatever bullshit drama I create for myself that I lose my creative drive & focus. I just give up, all over again…& again & again.

In the eyes of many, coming home to Detroit after not trying nearly enough in Los Angeles, I did not fail. Ask me if I feel that I failed & I will say yes. Why? Because I never really fought. I just gave in, crumbled, fell apart, gave in to the negative recordings in my head that tell me I have no creative talent, I will never amount to whatever pipe dream fantasy I have been living in for as long as I can remember, I am not the “Hollywood Type”, that I don’t deserve it, that I’m not good enough. Who knows what the truth is….surely not me. 

I was never one of those kids who was told I could do or be anything I wanted. Honestly, I wasn’t told much at all in the way of inspiration, support or guidance. I realize now that my parents weren’t equipped to tell themselves these things, let alone me. There is no fault here, even though for decades I set it squarely on their shoulders. When you stop to think about the damage we gain as broken children…yeah, our families & environment played a large part in shaping who we are today, but really…who carries on the negative reinforcement? We do. We tell ourselves we aren’t good enough. We set ourselves up to fail, repeatedly. We sabotage anything good that comes our way. We do all the real, long term damage. If we are all truly in control of our own destinies, then why are we all so busy blaming everyone & everything else for our problems, shortcomings & emotional damage?

So, here I sit, freezing my ass off, asking myself what I could have done differently to have endured Los Angeles. The answer is pretty simple…nothing. I wasn’t capable of saving myself from complete destruction. I have no idea how, not in that environment. It was the first time in my life where I found myself in a place & a situation that I couldn’t overcome, at least enough to move on to the next mistake. I even found myself convinced that if I didn’t get out of there when I did that I would die. I believe that to be true, but not necessarily in a literal sense, more metaphorically speaking. Who I am would have died, my faith in me, my fight, my essence, not my actual body….but who knows, maybe I was even closer to real death than I realized at the time. Getting jumped/robbed/beat up didn’t help my disposition much either. Funny thing about that entire experience & my eventual & inevitible exodus is that I miss that place every single day since I boarded the plane to leave. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll go back & try it all over again.

Now that I have been back in Detroit for a few months one thing is clear. From the first time I moved out of here, I have never really wanted to live here. I do love it & all the people who possess space in my heart, but the idea & practice of me living in this place feels like purgatory to my soul. I just don’t feel what I used to & so many others still do here. I just don’t care. I know now that there is a whole world out there to explore & experience. I am a restless soul & of all places to sit still, I never thought Detroit would be where I found myself once again. Sure, there are good & wonderful things that have happened since my most recent return, there always are. Sadly, the inevitable negatives at the very least equal the good, as they always do.

What can I say? I know my imagination & dreaming sharply contrast my ability & drive. Who doesn’t think they are meant for something greater than the life they are living? Please! I am pretty sure most people convince themselves of that just so they can survive their mundane existence. 

What am I really trying to say in this post? SO much….much more than I have the energy for & too many topics to post at once, sadly. If I continue, this will read like some simplistic high school diary post. 

Change is inevitible & a vital part of the life cycle…..but I’m tired.

 

In my next post….the 5lb puppy who awakened my heart & facing a possible cancer diagnosis.

August 20th leaves a paradox in my heart

August 20, 2005

I lost my dear friend Eric on this day after a hard-fought 20 year battle with drugs. My heart broke that day & most days since, at least a bit, due to the hole his loss left.

August 20, 2011

This is the date of my baby sisters wedding. A day full of love, happiness, joy, laughter & dancing…yet somewhere, in the back of my mind, I can feel the heartache of the previous experience I’ve had with this date.

I start to question myself the week before the wedding. “Why are you feeling such a strong sense of grief now when you should be so excited, so happy?”  The only clear-cut answer I have to this question has to do with Eric’s daughter appearing my life mere weeks before the wedding, bringing up feelings I had long since buried. Suddenly, I was filled with anguish, pain & grief not felt since his loss. It was as if I reliving that day all over again.

Odd how such beauty can come out of sadness. I’ve never been able to understand this strange brew. All I know is that having my friend’s daughter in my life, to share stories with, to stare at her face when I miss him, to watch her as she learns more about him & looks for any sign that he is in her, the daddy she never knew.

He always loved her. He carried a picture of her in his wallet until the day he died. He never got over the fact that he was not in her life. None of this helps her fill that gaping hole inside her own heart, but day by day, story by story, I watch her get to know Eric a little more. She falls more in love with him & it is beyond words.

Who knows, maybe this is my way of honoring him, by sharing this experience with her. So be it.

Luckily, I was able to find a balance between celebration & grief, at least for a day. The wedding was beautiful, it was magic, it was love. I will smile when I think of that day, my sisters dress, her vows, the photo booth, the dancing…the love

Home Sweet Home

It’s an amazing thing, how desperate, lost, alone & scared a person can feel when they’re separated by distance from their loved ones, all that they know, what they grew up with, their support system, their comfort zone. It is a brave & passionately driven person, or a fool, that takes this leap of faith. I am one of those people. I have yet to figure out if I’m the brave one or the fool. Maybe I’m a bit of both, who knows.

Last week I wasn’t sure, once again, how I was going to survive the day. Today I find myself on a 5 day layover in my hometown of Detroit, before beginning a month-long program in Washington, DC. It boggles my mind how quickly things change. I don’t know why it still boggles my mind, as it’s happened SO many times during my life, that one would think I’d be used to it by know. Well….I’m not!

The main thing I’ve noticed since I arrived late last night is that the heavy weight on my chest, the constant state of panic & fear I had lived in, the utter solitude & sadness that brought up in me….is gone. I’m home. I’m surrounded in every direction by love. I have so many people who want to share time with me while I’m here that I unfortunately don’t have enough time to accommodate all of them, unless I was to group some of them together in one place. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I’m willing to try.

At the same time, that in itself is overwhelming to me. I’m tired, run out, worn out, slightly broken from all that I’ve gone through in the past months. In a way, I just want to rest. Reading that last sentence, it makes me shake my head. Isn’t that what I’ve done for weeks now? Months? Why would I want to continue that behavior when I’m surrounded in love? I need to recharge, let those who know & love me remind me of who & what I really am, as opposed to what I believe I’ve become. This could be extremely healthy for me in moving forward on my visions, my goals, my dreams, my need to create something for myself that will fulfill the want in me to be & do something great, whatever that may be.

There is one aspect of Detroit, of home, that tears at my heart. There is someone, a person who has owned the real estate in my heart since the day I met him. No matter what we do, where our paths take us in life, we always gravitate back to each other. What I wouldn’t give to have this person as my life long partner in crime. What wouldn’t I do? I have never stopped loving him. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve even ever fallen out of love with him. Things are complicated, but I’m willing to do what is needed to see our lives come back together, so we may enjoy the rest of our time on this spinning rock together. I guess I accepted years ago that it may not be a possibility, yet, if that were truly the case, would the universe continue to bring us back into each others orbit repeatedly? I don’t find it possible the universe could be so cruel as to dangle my one true love in my face over & over again, just to taunt & hurt me. I feel there is something greater at work. I feel that we’re being told that it is in each other that we will find our comfort, our partner, our home. If only he would see that this is the case & take, once & for all, that giant leap of faith needed to make this our permanent reality. I’ve done & said all that I have in me to let him know that if he took the chance, he would not be disappointed. It’s on him now to decide if he is strong enough to make this come true.

I hope he does!

If he doesn’t & this love affair never sees itself rekindled, I will endure. I have managed to make it this far, I can make a life for myself without the man. I just know that my heart wants him to be beside me through this adventure. But if he chooses not to take that journey with me, I’m still going to take it & he will always own a large piece in my heart.

Okay, I’m off to sleep. I need to rest up for 5 day long love fest that lays before me. How lucky am I?

<3

Nightmares & Cold Sweats

On my second day at 25mg of Zoloft & I gotta say it’s getting tougher. I’m really starting to notice some withdrawal symptoms, but I know I can get through this. As I write, my soundtrack is Johnny Cash‘s American Recording collection. It just seems a perfect fit for the way I feel.

I woke up around 5:30am soaking in a cold sweat, with visions of the nightmare I had been in the throes of before I came around. This was one of the creepiest nightmares I’ve ever had. It was literally as if I was dreaming a horror movie, with actors involved & everything. I should have written earlier when it was more central to my thoughts, but I’ll try to recall it now. Hopefully it doesn’t sound TOO crazy, even though it kinda was.

I was visiting a friend’s house, it wasn’t clear who that was, but as I was walking home, I saw a woman shooting & stabbing three people outside of a house I was passing. The people seemed to explode when they died. That was pretty disgusting, but nothing to bad at this point. The woman in question was Juliette Lewis. I imagine she was included because first, she plays an awesome villain, second I subscribe to her tweets & had read some before I went to sleep, so she was in my subconscious. Needless to say, witnessing the murders freaked me out, so I ran the other way, not thinking that she had seen me.

Cut to me in the back seat of a Town Car, being taken to a hotel. I recognized the area as a neighborhood where I used to live, in real life, in Florida. I ended up, somehow, at some house filled with people who I appeared to know, but I have no idea who they were. Things started to get really weird at this point. The people were really odd, they had strange house rules & there were two people who were friends of mine that were also there. These are not friends in real life. Again, they were actors, the guy was Bradley Cooper & the girl was Anna Paquin. Why these two, I haven’t a clue. Apparently I was in some sort of loose relationship with the guy, but at some point he ended up sleeping with the girl, which crushed me. As that was going down, the house & the people in it changed. The scenery of the house began to get darker, scarier & the people turned a bit nasty. This is when Jim Carrey appeared, as a bit of a psychotic guy. I first noticed him sitting at a desk in a dark room, talking to himself. He endeared himself to me about the problem with the friends I was there with. We started talking & soon found ourselves on a sofa. During our talk, I noticed him pull out what looked like a pen from his pocket, but in it was some sort of drug that knocked me out completely. When I came to, I was in a bathtub with Anna, bleeding, in severe pain & scared out of my mind. We were both badly injured, with blood even coming out of our mouths. Neither of us had a clue what had happened & began to cry. In walks Juliette, leading us the a main room of the house.

It turns out that the people in this house were her family, including Jim Carrey. They were, obviously, a highly dysfunctional family. The mom & dad were very abusive. There were 7 children all together. I noticed at this time that Bradley was in the room, also badly beaten & bleeding. We were sat down & for whatever reason I began to talk to them, trying to appeal to their humanity. It was working, to an extent, as they seemed to feel sorry for me, seeing me as more of a victim than the other two. Even Juliette felt this way towards me. That’s when I noticed the sign that was on the wall that said “SLUT”. I looked at Anna & said “Oh look, they have a sign on the wall just for you”. This apparently was the wrong thing to say, because everyone looked at each other & Juliette seemed to become highly agitated at this time, saying “I can’t believe she just said that”. It turns out that this sign was some weird tribute to a dead sister. This is when she grabbed me, took me into another room & began torturing me. She also told me while she was doing this that she had seen me when she was killing the people & that I shouldn’t have been there. She couldn’t let me go, because she felt I would report her. Then, we found ourselves at a WalMart, with the three of us cleaned up, so as not to draw too much attention to ourselves.

After that it gets really foggy, I don’t have any solid memories of the nightmare from here. I think it’s when I began to wake myself up. I was terribly shaken when I woke up & noticed that I was sweating profusely & was very cold. I just laid there for a while, trying to stop shaking from what I had just, virtually, been through. It has stuck with me, but the more time goes by, the less it is affecting me.

I am aware of how insane this all sounds, but it was terribly frightening & realistic. Strange thing is, even during the dream, I found it strange that their were actual actors in this dream state I was in. I have had many nightmares in my life, but nothing this realistic, vivid or frightening. I could feel the fear, I could feel the physical pain inflicted on me. I could feel the emotional fear of being betrayed by the guy I was dating & my friend. I was extremely present in this dream.

I am aware that nightmares & sweats are side effects of coming off these horrible drugs, but I don’t see me sleeping very well for the next couple weeks if this is how it’s gonna be. I am so very tired from only sleeping a few hours & not getting any rest during the time I was sleeping. I sincerely can’t wait until this is past me & I am flushed of these chemicals.

Writing about it really does help. I am glad I have this outlet.

For now, I’m off to attempt a nap. Who knows, I may have another nightmare to write about when I wake up. Here’s to hoping that’s not the case.

Wish me luck, I’m fighting with all I have in me to get through this hell……