What I Didn’t Understand

Sometimes prayers are answered, but you just don’t understand it at the time.

Praying silently for hours at my mother’s bedside begging God to give her back to me because she was the last person I had left in the world who loved me.  What good is this life without love?

Leaving my mother’s side for a moment, my mind was overcome with pain, hurt, and loss.  Yet, in a moment a name was whispered in my ear.  He had not been a part of my life for years, I brushed that moment aside as soon as it happened because when it came to him I left so much room for doubt.

When we were together it was different – I was different.  Just being near him I was different.  He made me feel alive in ways I can’t explain.  He had a way of turning me on – not just sexually, but parts of me I didn’t believe I had.

However, I was so hurt by him.  I believed he felt the same for me, yet he never spoke of feelings to me.  I believed he was either ashamed or embarrassed to have feelings for such a large woman.  I cannot begin to explain the pain it caused for him not to speak to me, or share his emotions with me.

Years later after our worlds went in separate directions, I tried as best I could to reach out to him.  He closed the door so severely it made it impossible to approach him again.

Perhaps, though what I didn’t understand in the moment when his name was whispered in my ear was that my mother was not the last person in the world I had left who loved me.  Perhaps, he did love me, or perhaps there was a man out there who could and would love me and that was my destiny and my future.  I did not need to spend years of my life caring for her just to have some form of love.

The problems with my father at home were and are so difficult to explain it was hard to believe in any other future other than protecting my mother.

Perhaps, what God was telling me and letting me know – in an answer to my prayer – is he is out there.

Returning home from the hospital my mind was a mess thinking about him while trying to put my life together.  What do I do next?  Thinking of him at the same time, trying to understand why it was his name that came to me.

He has been the strongest connection I’ve ever made.  He was not my first love, or even my friend really, we were just a boy and a girl who went to college together.

We were in a play together.  I was Big Momma and he was Gooper in a Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  The director stopped and changed direction.  The direction was for me and him to turn at the same time from opposing sides of the stage.  The director said it looked liked incest.  Because I couldn’t help myself when it came to him, I was excited and happy every moment I got to see and be a part of his life.  I remember the turn.  My heart leapt at the sight of him.  It was something I couldn’t control.  It was just pure happiness.

Our last conversation I will not forget.  He and I sitting on the lawn just talking.  He was going one direction in life and I in another.  I knew that would be that.  We said our good-byes.  I walked away.  But, I looked back, I had to look back as we walked away from each other.

I was a mess for months and months afterwards.  It was as if I was in this world, but not apart of this world as my tethering point – which was him – was gone.

Yet, at this moment he has been presented to me as my greatest enemy, killer of all my hopes and dreams, the one person who has brought me to the point of suicide every day for years.

Perhaps he is my enemy with only one wish to destroy and torture me.

I don’t know.  We haven’t spoken to each other for years.  He chooses to not be a part of my life.

But, an answer to my prayer was he is out there.  I just didn’t understand at the time.

25

A realization hit me tonight – it has been more than 25 years since a man has found me attractive enough to ask out on a date.

I mean, I’ve been on a few dates a few years ago, but they were all a set up.  Only a couple of them where ok-looking, but hardly what I found sexually attractive.

I understand I am no great beauty.  I am just an average looking woman.  But, in more than 25 years I have never met another man – other than Michael who wanted me.

Michael was not a good man.  I didn’t understand completely until tonight that was the last man who is ever going to love me.

I just can’t live like this anymore.

I just can’t manage or deal with the stress and isolation of this life any longer.

Especially since I’ve come to understand Michael is the only man who has and will ever love me.

Laughter – Gone

The last time I remember really laughing was at Panera.

A man asked to meet me at Panera.  I was skeptical.  It felt like a set-up  – it was.

I walked into Panera with this man.  I showed up late, dirty hair in a ball cap because I intended to dye it later that evening.  I ate before because I didn’t want to share a meal with this man any longer because I cared nothing for this man.

At Panera, I saw him at a table with other men.  He had closed the door to him so severely, I didn’t go to his table to say, “hi.”  I walked outside without saying anything or even looking at him when I recognized him.

Yet, outside eating with this man I could feel him looking and watching me from the window.  As always when I was around him he turned something on that lit me from inside.

I was hilarious.  I was witty.  I was so funny.  I was improving and throwing out one-liners that would have entertained the entire world.

I knew I was funny.  Not because the man was laughing – I just knew I was funny on a professional level.

What I have learned.  What I understand – I will NEVER be that person again.

My proof is the last few times I’ve met him and been around him.

I’ve turned away.  I’ve not acknowledged him.

He walked by touching my knee at a bar a while ago.  I didn’t speak to him.  I touched his side as I left – that was all.

There was a time I thought I needed to speak to him one last time.  I guess that time is gone.

And with it, my laughter has gone.

 

 

Not Much Has Changed

I have said and shared more than once that Florida has great potential for the film and television industry.  There is no reason why there shouldn’t be more work shot in Florida.

However, from what I’ve experienced, as well as, from my understanding of the problems involved with productions – Florida has not grasped the possibilities for the future.  Florida makes decisions for the immediate need.  Florida as I have experienced it all these years is still a good o’l boy mentality with red neck mischief.

Florida should figure out making and creating decisions that could impact – for the better – the entire state what a difference it would make for every person for years, decades, and centuries to come.

There is no reason why Florida isn’t more accessible to Hollywood than California.  Except California has put money, planning, city engineering, planned communities, engineered roads, etc.  Florida takes the position of do it yourself.  There is no organization, no commitment to a future for every person for the years to come.

What I’ve experienced – Florida is slow.  It does not learn from the success of others and apply it with a purpose to the now.

I grew up in California, then my family moved to Oregon.  When I moved to Oregon (as a young child) I thought Oregon is years behind California.  The mentality of its people, fashion, politics, its view on the world, etc.

From Oregon my family moved to Florida when I was a teenager.  I was devastated by the move.  I was in culture shock for a very long time.  Florida was so far behind Oregon – it’s mentality, fashion, politics, it’s view on the world, etc. it was unbearable.

Shouldn’t come as a shock, I suppose, since Florida was the last state in the union to amend its state constitution giving women the right to vote – 1971, folks.  Can you believe that?  That is if my internet research can be believed.  Since my internet access has an undisclosed (unauthorised) governing upon it.

For me, it is quite literally painful to see possibility, potential, yet be stopped over and over and over again by stupidity, narrow-mindedness, and a failure to believe in the possibilities of human potential.

This writing for me is still an explanation, or reporting.  It is not the writing I started with, nor is it the writing that I have stored away in the recesses of my mind, but do to the confines of my current life I am unable to reach.

I am Florida.

I have great potential.  I have great possibility.  Yet, time and time and time again I have been stopped, blocked, locked in, physically hurt to stop me, and literally slammed into to keep me isolated, stuck, and a version of what someone else wants of me.  But, it is not me.

If I was able to live outside of this faked life – this unreal life I’ve been imprisoned in – if I was able to speak, to live with control over my body alone, without intruders in my body, in my place of residence, without games of control, without competition for my money and attention, where I could finally be free of 360, it would be the difference between California getting all the jobs and Florida finally being able to stand on its own legs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Booked, Not What I Got

I come here to write.  Because I want to write.  Because I need to write.

All I get to do anymore is explain and report – at least that is what it feels like to me.

I used to have it.  I used to be able to free associate without being pushed, motivated, or told.

I guess, that was back when I still had feeling in my hands, freedom and control over my brain space.

So, now ALL I am left with is telling.  Which is not the same as writing – not to me.

Oh, how I miss the writing path I was on with control over my head and body.  I was just getting to a point of being extraordinary when it was taken away from me – stolen from me.

I did some travelling last year as a way to escape the prison of this house – twice it was an enormous mistake.  Twice I had booked reservations for a carefully planned out trip, yet was forced and manipulated into a different experience.

So, I am naming names here for anyone who cares even if it only me.

I wanted to stay at the Best Western in New Orleans even if it was on Rampart street.  I understood it to be the best choice for me.

I wanted to stay at The Key Lime Inn at Key West.  I was going back a second time to Key West for inspiration because it has gone from me entirely with the loss of control.  I need the inspiration to write again, so I can live instead wishing to die everyday.

I wish I could explain the means that were used to convince me that the decisions I made were incorrect.  But, how can I?!  Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

I wanted to go back to Key West to visit Ernest Hemingway’s house hoping for inspiration to write again.  Visiting his house a second time was the same as the first – it did nothing for me.

However, when I saw that the hotel I wanted to stay at was across the street from his house I nearly cried.  It was so much closer.  It would have been so much less walking.

I can’t stand this experience of being taken advantage of ALL of my memories.  It is shamefully disgraceful.

I would have had a front porch if I had been able to stay at the Key West Inn – all to myself.  It was nicer accommodations and everything.

It is so painful.

I’ve stopped paying attention anymore.  This life has gone on for too long now.

 

 

 

The End Of My Ability

Can someone please explain to me why a single man does not ask me out, does not ask for my time, does not ask me anything?!

I am not unattractive, or undesirable, or ugly, yet I am left in a prison and unbearably alone.

Still not writing.

This house is a prison.

Can someone please explain to me why every man I might find sexually attractive is already involved with another woman?!

I feel the time is too late and my time has long since passed.

Why do I continue on when I so clearly should let go of this life that has nothing left for me.

Let go of this life – Yes!

Drugged

Did you know it was possible to manipulate bugs and insects through radio wave frequency.  We’ll it is.  You can get them to fly in different directions, and go from room to room.

I’ve discovered I have neighbors who will go to such lengths to torment and torture me.  Anywhere there is the slightest gap, front door, garage door, window, or balcony they are able to – best way to say this – inject bugs, gases, scents, etc.

I mentioned in the post previous that I believe my boss dated me in disguise several times.  I would never have dated him – as I knew him, otherwise.  Physically, he doesn’t do it for me.  Which is a very big deal if you don’t find a man physically/sexually attractive then what is the point of the relationship?!  In my opinion.  Why would I date a man I wasn’t sexually attracted to?!

One of the biggest problems while working at The Container Store, not a single available man I found sexually attractive could be found.  The only men willing to date me were men I was not sexually attracted to – so, unsatisfying.

Since moving here there have been several instances of being drugged.

At a party I had three beers, and then a friend gave me a shot.  I woke up with a man on top of me in his car.  I started freaking out.  I had never blacked-out before when drinking.  I know, I’ve written a lot about being home-bound (so to speak) while taking care of my mom.  Honestly, I am not much of a go-out and party all the time.  I am more of a home body.  However, with that being said, I certainly know how to have a good time when I am out.

I couldn’t believe it.  I was trying to put the pieces together while trying to come out of the fucking hang-over.  One of my first thoughts was after losing weight – this is the guy I get to sleep with?!  Oh my God, he was old, and just moderately attractive.  Worst of all, he just so happened to be the father of the man in a position above me at work whom I greatly admired, respected, and thought was just oh-so-handsome.

He took me to his hotel.  I spent the rest of the night in the bed opposite him, fully clothed.  As he walked his wrinkly, naked body to and from the bathroom.  I can somewhat laugh at it now.

You look at a man naked, his body should be desirable.  Looking back at it now, it belongs in some sort of comedy.

The girl who gave me the shot of vodka at the party was someone I worked with.  I’m telling you now, I know there is no way I could have blacked-out after 3 beers and a shot over the course of about 3 hours.  I believe I was set-up and drugged.

A birthday party.  I went to a friend’s house for her birthday.  I know exactly how many beers I had when another friend from work showed up.  She made a shot – I woke up the next morning.  With another friend telling me a story about how I hooked-up with the tallest guy at the party.  Great, a step-up, I get the taller man, but these guys were none of my type.  Simple, not smart guys.  I was outraged!

I don’t do one-night stands.  I mean I’ve had them, but so very few.  I may have been drinking when they happened, but I remember everything.

Then, another instance of being out with friends, and I woke up the next morning.  Having had my clothes taken off and wearing pajamas.  Who does that?!  Who takes your clothes off if you’ve had too many?!

I believe I was set up on all accounts.  I believe something was placed in my drinks to either accelerate the alcohol or to make me pass out entirely.  When my clothes were taken off of me, I found an unusual mark on my body the next day.

For me there is no reason or explanation for any of this.

I don’t see any reason why anyone would want to drug me.  But, it happened.  I don’t have a way to prove it, but I know each of the instances I’ve written about did not happen on their own.  They were planned and purposeful.

I tried speaking to other’s about the occurrences before.  I was shut-up.  Basically, told not to speak about it.  Because it was more important for someone else’s project to not be discredited.  I was not allowed to tell my story, or share my feelings.

It was like being repeatedly raped, and told it didn’t happen.  Told to pretend.

Someone told me once that taking care of my mother, I had placed my life on hold.  I’d heard many versions of that while being her care-giver.  I didn’t absorb it because I didn’t believe it.  For me, I had always known it was only going to be for a time.  Then, another chapter of my life would start.

For me, this having to pretend all the time is worse than having my life on hold.  Because at least I had a purpose while taking care of my mother.

Everywhere I go, people look at me as if they already know me.  Everywhere I go.  It is like being in a virtual movie set, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  It is absolutely stress-full, and stress-filled.

I cannot pretend any longer.

I cannot pretend that the job I go to is real.

I just can’t…anymore.