"I Know Someday You'll Have a Beautiful Life, I Know You'll Be a Star...." - Pearl Jam

It's been awhile since I wrote. Almost another lifetime.

Alright, that's a bit dramatic. But in my mind, I've written to you a million times, I just never sent the letters. It was just too much to try.  My foundation crumbled brick my brick, stone by stone, until it almost all fell down and I felt crushed by it all. 

But I'm back, bitches. Is anyone still out there? 

The last time I wrote to you was four years ago.  I had just moved into my own apartment. Sam and I were separated and he was seeing someone new; I had just started my first new job after Pictometry eliminated my position, so I was on my second job since moving to the United States. I was waiting for USCIS to issue my ten year Green Card; my grandfather was sick; I had started seeing someone new who I was very excited about a few months earlier; my fitness and weight loss efforts were suffering a temporary stall. I had just lost my beloved Whiskey and a few months earlier had found Atticus while looking for Felix who was still missing. 

 Let me catch you up:  I'm still in that apartment. I feel like it's time for a change. An unhealthy relationship between my two cats has developed because Atticus flips out and attacks Sugar when he gets anxious, which he does on a daily basis. Sugar is getting older and is less tolerant than she used to be, not that anyone should be tolerant of someone attacking her every day.  When I first got Atticus, he was not yet an adult and he recognized Whiskey as the dominant male cat of the household.  After I lost Whiskey, Atticus was a little older and he decided he wanted to be the dominant cat.  Sugar let him.  They used to groom each other and sleep together. But that changed the first time Atticus saw a stray cat that kind of resembled Sugar right at my bedroom window. That was the first time he viciously attacked her. He wasn't playing. 

I think at this point they both would be happier being only kitties, but I can not part with either of them.  So I live a double cat life.  Sugar stays in my bedroom with the door closed all day, Atticus gets locked up in my spare bedroom all night. They both are constantly on me and demanding of attention and needing cuddles the entire time they are out of their room. Although I love that they are both affectionate, I feel trapped by this situation.  I can't go anywhere overnight.  I can't move without Atticus underfoot every second and he's extremely territorial and possessive of me. I feel weird inviting people over because of this and both of my bedroom carpets are being destroyed.  The dynamic between these cats is ever changing, so I have hope things could change again. But the apartment itself is also getting to me.  The kitchen is tiny, I have no privacy, the maintenance guys are sloppy and unresponsive, my upstairs neighbor changes regularly and they all seem to eventually have a baby and they all work until midnight...so I've been sleep deprived for years.  I also miss having access to outside space....a patio to grill on, to sit outside and observe nature.  Moving on....

Sam and I are divorced and I rarely see him.  He has been re-married to an amazing woman for almost longer than he and I were married. He seems incredibly happy, and I'm so happy for them both. I've always been a solitary creature at heart, but I miss having a companion and I'm incredibly lonely....lonelier than I ever thought I would be. The guy I told you about who I was seeing disappeared from my life a couple of years ago. I grew to deeply love him and made the mistake of telling him so and he just could not handle that, so he disappeared himself.  Knowing he's out there somewhere makes my loneliness worse than if I had never met him, I think.


I'm now on my tenth job since moving to the United States. Ten jobs in 8 years (really not even 8 years since I was at Pictometry for 2 1/2)....many of them contract positions. Ten health insurance plans in 8 years (or not...sometimes I couldn't afford health insurance because I was on unemployment and couldn't even pay my rent). This instability has been very problematic for me. The financial insecurity I have experienced in the last six years has been devastating.  There's no other way to describe it.  When you already live paycheck-to-paycheck, any interruption in the routine takes a hit on your financial well being. Every time I switched jobs, there has been a gap between pay periods, a gap in health insurance, the beginning of a new high deductible, no paid days off when you're a contractor and certainly no vacation. 


My mental state has declined steadily with every job loss, whether it was expected or not, whether it was my choice or not. The expectations I had always had for myself and my career have never been reached and I have no idea how to fix that.  Some people have religion, many people have kids, everyone has a partner...I don't have any of those things. That's been mostly my choice and I know that, but the things that give our lives meaning...I don't have that.  It's always been work for me. Work is what motivates me.  Work is really the only thing I have. So not working or working and losing it or not doing well at it....I can't even describe the million little ways in which changing jobs  so many times has impacted my life in a negative way. You just have to believe me when I say it has been devastating in almost every way.

In other news, I have a ten year Green Card and am eligible for US Citizenship. Right now, I'm not entirely sure I want to be a US Citizen even if I could afford the $800 fee, so I'm waiting for now and...."enjoying" (?) my Green Card status. My grandfather passed away a few years ago.  My father had emergency spine surgery and has been re-learning to walk and drive and live his new reality.  We recently found out that my mom had been misdiagnosed as having Early Onset Dementia 10 years ago. What she actually has is Epilepsy as the result of a traumatic brain injury from when she fell down the basement stairs 10 years ago.  My nephew was born. Most of us in my family no longer speak to my uncle and we've been learning, as a family, how to be together as a family with a completely different dynamic than we did while my grandparents were alive and while I still lived in Canada and when everything was different.

Oh......and I have failed at recommitting myself to fitness and weight loss. I have made a few half hearted attempts to get back to it over the years but nothing stuck. My therapist and I made a pact in 2014 after my treatment plan before and after weight loss surgery was complete that if I ever started to abuse food again or went for more than a week without going to the gym, that I would contact her and we would start treatment again.  I stopped going to the gym years ago but I didn't keep my promise to her. It was only a matter of time before I started to abuse food again.  I just kept thinking that I could handle it myself, I could get back on track and find the place where I was before, that I was not out of control and I knew what I was doing.

But I didn't know what I was doing and I lost my way. I didn't see it coming, but I should have. Addiction is addiction...whether it's alcohol, drugs, food, sex. Some vices you can just cut out of your life, others you have to walk a tightrope and learn to tolerate a razor edge relationship where you enjoy it, but not abuse it.  Accepting and respecting that balance is the most difficult thing I've ever done. As all the events of the past several years slowly unrolled, I descended deeper and deeper into depression until I could no longer see daylight and food was it for me...my salve.  I lost my hope and I lost myself.   I gained back almost all the weight I lost with my last surgery.  I started to experience constant, chronic pain.  I lost my confidence. I lost the will to live.  It's not that I wanted to kill myself, it was more that I just didn't care what happened to me. I had no sense of self worth left. I may as well not have even existed, that's how insignificant I felt.  I isolated myself whenever possible, interacted as little as I could get away with. I just sat on my couch and stared at the tv without even absorbing what was on it and feared that my dark thoughts would one day consume me.  My past obsession with death transformed from something I was terrified of to almost a welcoming thought.  

This didn't happen overnight.  It was a slow snowball.  The things that were keeping me going were my cats and the guy, not that he knew he was doing that.  (At least I don't think he did.  Maybe he did and that's why he left?  Who knows.) Then he disappeared and my cats started fighting and had to be separated, so I lost my two easy pleasures, the joy in my day to day.  Without those, turning back to food seems inevitable since I wasn't seeking help.  

About a year and a half ago, I realized I just had to get help. Everything started to be hard all the time. Nothing was fun anymore. My thoughts were getting darker and darker.  Even when I did manage to see my friends, I felt awkward.  So I finally went back to see my therapist, Jessica.  I've been seeing her since then.  She insisted this time that our treatment plan circle around DBT - Dialectical Behavior Therapy.  She reminded me that she wanted me to do DBT the first time we saw each other and I refused. So I agreed this time. DBT was originally created in the 80's as a treatment plan for folks considering or who had attempted suicide. It's divided into four areas: Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance, Mindfulness and Interpersonal Relationships.  Within each area, there are a number of skills to teach people how to think and therefore act differently in any given situation so that they achieve a more effective outcome.  These techniques are now commonly taught..anyone can benefit from these skills. My DBT group was organized into a year long skills group (as opposed to a process group where people sit around and talk about their lives....this was very much about learning the skills in a group setting, no processing) of 12 people lead by a therapist divided into 8 week sessions - an hour and a half each week.  You go through each of the four modules twice and then "graduate".  The treatment consists of the group plus regular one on one therapy with my personal therapist every two weeks.

I'm on my final five weeks of DBT.  I graduate in July.

Recovery is kind of like a roller coaster....it isn't just smooth sailing. Some moments I feel pretty good, much improved, other moments I'm right back in the darkest depths.   A few weeks ago, I was going through a bit of a moment where I was like, "This treatment is useless, why am I doing this? It's annoying to have to take so much time off work and it's a pain to do the DBT homework and Diary Cards and I still feel hopeless AF after a year and a half, so I'm just going to quit."  Then I accidentally stumbled upon my old blog posts while I was cleaning some stuff out and my own words just hit home for me.   Wow...I forgot, I've been here before.  And I climbed my way out of it before.  I may not have a lot of hope in my future right now and that's ok....I have hope that one day I will once again have hope.  I just need to keep on keeping on. I'm proud of myself that I did finally seek help and I'm proud that I stuck with the treatment plan. 

I mentioned my blog to Jessica in our last session and she had also forgotten that I used to write to you, and she strongly encouraged me to start again.  It really does feel  like another lifetime since the last time I wrote you. So much has changed. And yet, nothing has changed.  If I could, I wouldn't take back the time I spent with Sam or the time I spent with the guy who left me heartbroken or change all the jobs I've had or having Whiskey and Felix in my life or bringing Atticus into my life...it's all added to the rich tapestry of my life experience and who I am. I think the thing I need to work on is letting those experiences truly add to me instead of allowing those experiences to chip away at my self worth. My marriage ended...it doesn't mean I'm worthless.  The man I love does not love me back....it doesn't mean I'm worthless. I left my job...it doesn't mean I'm worthless. My cats don't get along....it doesn't mean I'm worthless. Sometimes I'm totally broke....it doesn't mean I'm worthless. 

So I'm back, bitches.  And I've got a lot to say. 


Random Thoughts:

“I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself." 
- Daenerys Targaryen

“Well I Wish I Had Some Money, and I Wish I had Some Love…But Keeping My Own Sanity’s Gonna Be More Than Enough.” – Lindi Ortega

Well it certainly has been a long time since I wrote anything.  And a lot has happened since I last wrote in November….I really don’t even know where to start.  So I’ll just start.

I published my last post on November 5.  On November 7, I lost my job.  My position was eliminated, which in theory was not a huge surprise to me, but in reality it came out of nowhere.  Because of my separation agreement with Pictometry, I really can’t discuss the details but I will say my position was collateral damage of budgetary changes.  It was not a result of my performance.

That did not stop me from falling down the rabbit hole.  All the careful habits I spent the year building basically disappeared in a day.  Which looking back now, surprises me because honestly, I can’t say I was happy in my job.  I wasn’t even that upset on the day it happened.  But the next day, I woke up and went to the gym just like any other Saturday and then had no idea what to do with myself.  So I sat down to eat breakfast like I always do on Saturday mornings and started watching Sons of Anarchy for the first time from the beginning.  

I didn’t stop watching it until I was completely caught up to the current season.  (Full disclosure - I took a two week break when (SPOILER ALERT) Opie died because I was so devastated I wasn’t even sure I wanted to watch anymore.  In those two weeks, I started watching all over again from the beginning, so it wasn’t really a break.  It was just a break in continuity.)  That’s what my life became after I lost my job.  On the couch, watching TV, avoiding anything and everything other than SoA.

Except for love, of course…there always time and energy for love.  I started seeing someone around this time.  (I use the term “seeing” very loosely.  Why is everyone so damn afraid?)  He is a very private person and I want to respect his wishes so I’m not going to talk about him online.  But I will say I am very, very into him and I can see the potential for something much greater with him. Whether or not that potential is reached will be another story for perhaps another time.

I published my last post on November 5 and that night I went to check out a Felix lead.  I had put up a bunch of posters around my gym and a girl who lived down the street from my gym called me and said she was positive she had my cat.  I was excited but I had heard that a million times so I wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t Felix.  But it was an adorable older kitten, probably very close to a year old, with a moustache who seemed like he couldn’t wait to cuddle with me.  While he purred and rubbed against my legs and stood up on his hind legs begging me for attention, the girl gave me a sad story about how her landlord won’t let her keep the cat and how she doesn’t have a car so she can’t take him to a shelter, so even though he’s not my cat, will I please take him anyway.  She obviously had no clue how to look after a cat…he had no litter box and she had been feeding him nothing but table scraps for two weeks since she let him inside her house.  

I told her I would go to the gym and think about taking him.  I had brought with me a can of cat food and I gave it to him and he devoured it like he was starving.  I’m a sucker.  I knew I wanted to take the cat, but obviously I had to check with Sam first.  It’s his house, he wasn’t thrilled about having cats in the first place and now that we were separated, it wasn’t really my call.  I asked him before I went into the gym and he said he was actually fine with the new cat, so he brought a cat carrier over to me when I was finished at the gym and the two of us picked up the cat and took him home.

(It is these kinds of things that make me realize Sam really did love me and care about me, I just couldn’t see it while I was so busy hating myself.  He knew losing Felix completely devastated me and that nothing he could do could fill the Felix sized hole in my heart.  So he let me have the cat hoping it would bring me some peace and comfort.)

It was not a smooth transition.  This cat came into the house and hissed and growled at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING…….the dog, the other cats, the people, the furniture, the air…he just did not seem happy.  So we put him in his own very small room for several days until he was ok.  He was completely fine if I went into the room and interacted with him.  But anything else turned him into a terror.  After a few days he was still not ok being around the other cats so Sam suggested moving him to another room where the other two cats hung out pretty often, so their scents would be in there.  Maybe the new cat would get used to their smells.  We moved him into that room and it was again with the hissing and growling, only 10 times worse than it was before.  Sam and I were at a complete loss.  We both have a lot of experience with animals and are not afraid of anything generally, but the two of us took one look at this cat and kind of slowly backed out of the room and shut the door.  

That night I checked on him and he was like a different cat.  So loving and cuddly and happy.  He stayed in that room day and night for over a week until finally he started wanting to come out.  He was kind of aggressive in his play towards the other cats which they of course did not appreciate but he was not neutered and I thought, hoped, that would fix that problem.  Whiskey, who was best buddies with Felix, had absolutely no interest in the new kid and seemed extremely annoyed by his antics.  Sugar, who up until this point really disliked all cats including Felix, seemed infatuated with the new kid.  She followed him around and admired his antics like she was smitten.  I called the new cat Atticus.  I don’t know why, other than the name just seemed to suit him.

 

Atticus has turned out to be the most affectionate cat I have ever seen in my life.  He wants constant cuddles.  When I come home, he runs up to me and stands up on his hind legs and reaches up his paws like a baby asking to be picked up.  Even Sam became very attached to him.  He really has filled that Felix sized hole in my heart and sometimes I feel very guilty for it.  I also have called Atticus Felix more than once…they are very similar in so many ways.

While all this was happening, my grandfather, who you may recall I wrote about at some length last Summer, became ill and just never quite recovered.  It got to a point where he could no longer take care of himself or live alone.  He was in the hospital for several months until last month when a place opened for him at a long term care facility.  I may write more about this in the future, or I may not….I dunno.  It’s difficult for me to talk about.

I still had not heard anything from USCIS and Sam and I were both feeling very anxious to change our living situation.  So I began looking for a new place to live.  I had some savings in Canada that I decided to cash out and use to set myself up in a new apartment.  It’s kind of a big gamble because if the US government decides I can’t stay, then I’ll need to come up with some more money to help me move to Toronto and set myself up there.  I do feel I’ll be able to stay in the US.  Sam wrote a very supportive affidavit and although we don’t have all the evidence the government is looking for to prove a real marriage (things like kids, wills, joint bank accounts and joint mortgage), we do have all kinds of other evidence.  So I think I’ll be fine, but still, I can’t feel 100% sure about that until I have my 10 year Green Card in my hands.

Still, I decided that for both mine and Sam’s sanity, I needed to take that risk.  The first apartment I looked at in person was in Penfield and I really liked it right away.  I visited the property at all hours of the night to see what it would be like and I felt very comfortable there.  The space was huge and there was a pool on the property.  I wanted to take it, but I was still on unemployment insurance.  I didn’t feel I should sign a lease until I had a job.  Then a job offer in East Rochester came along a week or so later.  The job and my apartment are maybe 5 minutes away from each other.  So I accepted the job and signed the lease and started planning my move which would happen on March 7.  Suddenly everything was starting to turn around.

In January I took a trip to Canada to get my hair done and buy a few new clothes.  I had not bought any new clothes since losing 140 pounds…I was still wearing what I had in my closet and it had gotten to the point where everything was just way too big.  I started my weight loss journey wearing size 5x and 6x.  Pretty much the biggest size I could ever find is what I wore.  Nothing in Lane Bryant or Addition-Elle or Torrid fit me.  Nothing.  I could only shop at Pennington’s or online and hope that what I ordered fit me, which it usually didn’t.  I wore a size 48 D bra.  And my bras were now hanging off me.  

I decided to try Addition-Elle since it has been years and years since I could shop there.  I walked around the store picking up things I wanted to try and I chose size 22 (4X) everything, not really believing these pieces would fit me.  I grabbed a few size 44D bras and headed for the change room.  The sales person kept insisting the things I was picking out were going to be way too big for me.   I thought she was just flattering me and was really kind of full of it.  But she was right.  I tried on piece after piece and each one was too big.  I could not believe it.  The sales girl took all the pieces back out to the store and brought me size 20 (2x)  in everything and some 40D bras while I sat there in the change room in my underwear and bawled my eyes out.  I really don’t know why that affected me the way it did, but I felt overwhelmed….. with happiness, sadness…everything all the same time.   I was now wearing the same sizes I wore in university.   It has been my goal this whole time to re-claim the life I had, should have had before I allowed being raped to destroy my life.  I wanted to get back on track to where I lost my way 20 years ago and I felt like I was coming full circle.  I was starting to feel healed.

On the way home from Canada, I had a very scary accident and thought I was going to die.  There was an ice storm and the entire QEW was an ice rink.  They were closing down the road and I was behind an emergency vehicle that was veering people off the road.  As I tried to switch lanes, my car spun out three times and slid into the guardrail on the other side of the highway.   Miraculously, I didn’t hit anyone and no one hit me.  There were already several cars off the road in the ditch and police and emergency vehicles were tending to them.  Someone drove by me and gave me thumbs up as if to ask if I was ok.  I was, so I just simply got off the highway and onto the Niagara Parkway.  I pulled into a park area to check out my damage and fell getting out of my car…the ground was a complete sheet of ice.  There were other people in the area and we all discussed our options.  It didn’t seem very safe to be driving.  I contemplated whether I should really try and head home to Rochester or if I should go to my parents’ place about a half hour away.  

There was an older couple heading to Buffalo who didn't know how to get there, if not on the QEW, from where we were so I decided to go back to Rochester so that I could show them the way.  We had to drive along the Niagara Parkway, which is right beside the Niagara River, to get to the Peace Bridge.  There's no guardrail.  You are RIGHT beside the Niagara River.  It is a beautiful drive in the Summer but under these conditions, very scary and very treacherous.    We finally got to the Peace Bridge and I went through the Nexus lane so I parted ways with the couple.  The customs guard was extremely concerned and said the roads were awful.  He was right.  It took me 5 hours to get home whereas it usually takes less than 2….the roads were no better on the American side than it on the Canadian side.  I-90 was almost like a scene out of Walking Dead.  Traffic crawled along and there were cars overturned and in ditches everywhere, sirens and flashing lights and people out of their cars walking on the side of the highway.

As I drove home, Sam called me and told me there was a letter from USCIS and wanted to know if he should open it.  I told him yes and he read it to me.  They wanted more evidence.  I hadn’t submitted enough in my application in July.  The drive home was long and so very tiring and I was completely emotionally drained by the day, between the clothes, the accident, the drive and now this.  

Switching gears, as I was getting ready to move, I started to become very concerned about Whiskey.  Sam had been telling me for months that he was too skinny and I just didn’t want to see or hear it.  It finally got to a point where he wouldn’t eat.  I couldn’t entice him with his favorites and he wouldn’t eat even if I tried to force feed him.  I brought him to the vet several times to try and save his life.  We did blood tests and gave him fluids intravenously, but nothing seemed to help.  He got weaker and just wanted solitude all the time.  The last few nights he was with us, he was shut by himself in the same room Atticus had been in, with a space heater and blankets and he seemed content.  But he couldn’t move without help.  The vet told me on each occasion she felt he could not be saved, that he was in kidney failure.  So on Valentine’s day, I made the very difficult decision to let him go.

A weird kind of NSV happened after that.  Sam came with me for Whiskey’s final appointment and on the way home, we went to Savoia, an amazing Italian bakery.  Remember, I had abandoned all my new habits by then and I intended to eat away my pain over losing Whiskey.  I bought a bunch of cannoli and some other good stuff…..but it just sat there on the counter for a week until I threw it out.  And that isn’t even something I had to force myself to do.  It seems sorrow now has a different effect on my body than it did before my surgery.  Now when I’m sad, my head still tells my body I want to eat and soothe my pain but my body doesn’t respond.  It’s a weird feeling.  I have never experienced a loss of real desire to eat before.

So….that’s where I am now. I’m settled in my own apartment, waiting for USCIS to make a decision on the newly submitted evidence, still "seeing" the same person since November, working at my new job and loving the life I have.  I still have my gym membership and my focus for the next few weeks will be to re-commit to the gym and building my fitness.  I have somehow managed to continue to lose weight and my body continues to shift and shrink.  I’m happy and looking forward to my current challenges being resolved.  I’m excited for my present and my future and I’m accepting of my past.

·         Return of “Random Things” next time.