Today is my 5th day off work after the last day of school on the 13th of June. What a day that was! Got passed in my school bus by a little white import car across the double line, going up a hill while I was making a 90 degree left turn with another car coming down the hill. Naturally the little white car, short for asshole driver, had to veer quickly in front of my bus to avoid hitting approaching car head on. I smashed the brake pedal down hard, stopping the bus to avoid getting hit by the asshole!
No way to start the last day of school.
Back to day 5. Fathers day is over and our refrigerator is filled with two kinds of beer, one cheap USA beer with blue in it's name and the other cheap Mexican beer with blue in it's label. And that following my housemate/landlords short fast 3 day weekend with house guests and partying at places soon forgot with friends he will never forget unless he is in a coma. A coma could likely happen the way he drinks! He is a binge drinker, but explains to me it is who they are.
I am actively looking for a new place to live having lived here 21/2 years and nothing has changed except perhaps it is raining in the 3rd week of June. It reminds me of the summer of 1976 when I took a trip to the Northwest and there was record rain in July! On my way to Montana while driving I had to stop in Blackfoot Idaho and help sand bag the town because of the broken black foot dam. Apparently all that rain could not be contained and interstate Hwy. 15 was so flooded only high wheel trucks could slowly get through. We aren't having that much rain.
Onward! Rodney King has dies at the age of 47. Wow and I am 62 and still moving forward into semi retirement. How do we live, how to we come to our end. Life is a big mystery and what happens after death only the dead will know or not. I don't think there is life after death. I think we have this life and when it is done, so are we. So, we must cherish what we have and do what we can to make the world better for those who come after us. However, that is not everybody's view is it? Look at the way our society has lead all of us to use, consume, use all that we can get, Greedy! Our society, our capitalist system is greedy wanting more and more all the time. More for business, less for the common person. See what happens, once I start, stopping is difficult. I don't want this to turn into my political rant!
I have to get ready soon, my physical to maintain my medical card and my Oregon Dept. of Education card, green so that I am deemed healthy to transport children all over the state. I expect to get some charter work in the coming days but a lot of things are happening at our bus yard. New buses are coming and they have to be Oregonized. I did not sign up for that minimum wage work, just charter if you please. $13.89 an hour. There is also a contract suggestion committee today and I was not invited but found out about it. I have my physical at that time, mostly waiting for my physical. I told my union rep I would not take no for the answer to my signing up for the committee this time like last time. I sent her a text telling her I was sorry to miss this meeting, having my physical to attend, but would come to the next meeting. It pisses me off that I have this conflict.
It is the 5th day of not working. In July, I will be counting the days before getting on a train to CA. In a couple of months down the road I will be back counting at 5 days left before going back to school. In Jan. of next year, I will be counting the days to my 63rd birthday. Time is moving on drip, drip, drip.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Writing is my time traveling companion....
In my life, there are always to many words. I struggle to find the correct order to put the words, the words themselves and figuring out which words to use and where in my head they are hiding. Yes, the words are hiding. My selection process for finding the words is hindered by my own limitations. What are my limitations? Not much at all really, but an old way of adapting my hunter gatherer genes to sitting still and thinking, hoping to be able to see the consequences of my actions.
That was the start of this piece but by the end of my thoughts for the time being it has turned into time traveling. Whenever I dig into my thoughts I am transported to the past, the present and the future. It is because of how I feel, what I have felt and all other influences on my life. What I have seen, what I hope for, what I don't like and mostly what I feel and think about my own life. Words are my time machine and when I step out of those other thoughts and back into the present depending on how the thoughts and feelings have been transformed into words, fast or slow makes a difference in my expansion or shrinking of time.
Changing the way I take actions is what I am writing about here. I am saving money in my prime share so that I can purchase a used, new to me vehicle that will carry me into the future. Saving money the last ten years has been harder than any time in my life until just recently. The money I was being paid has just been enough to skim along the edge of poverty, occasionally dipping down and having to put off purchasing food or medicine so that I could have enough gas to get to work. Now I am saving my hard earned tax returns and adding what I think of as extra money to my prime share on pay days which are every two weeks. I still owe my sister money she lent me, that saved me when I had my two serious medical emergencies earlier this year and my dentist for the partial dentures that I now possess, allowing me to once again chew my food the way my parents instructed me so long ago, thoroughly.
My dental insurance company said my absence of teeth was a pre-exisiting condition and they were not going to pay for the 6 artificial teeth that I now put in and take out of my mouth. Now I am paying the full amount over a thousand dollars instead of half that. I am still falling into the statistical averages of people who have encountered the side of insurance companies we who believe in single payer are fighting so hard against, the middleman waste of our money to fat cats who want to take our money without working for it. That is a small distraction, thoughts about situations that I have little control over.
So, back to saving and words to describe it. It is delayed gratification and I suspect I am doing it because I know it is the way to freedom from aspects of our society that gets in the way of my acquiring what material items I need to meet my needs and follow my dreams. When I acquire my home on wheels I will like many home owners invest money into my home which when I get it, will need materials such as insulation, windows, appliances, etc. I intend to attain these things to make my mobile home a home for me.
My dream of a mobile home is not that of a manufactured RV. My dream is of a stealth step van that I outfit with gear on the inside that will make it livable and to let it remain a work truck on the outside so that I may park around towns and country sides looking in all the world like the water department or the some other service company. I have read many ads for such a vehicle and have come across someone else who has expressed the same dream and is now living in a step van.
Ah, this is an interesting change in the blogger website, the ability to publish and then come back and up date without having to jump to other actions. I like it. I left, made breakfast, did some other chores and am back to finish some of the thoughts I was working on.
It seems I have to often resist in some way what our society has been feeding on. That is the wholesale marketing of our institutions. Marketing in my opinion is what companies do that is not quite as honest as one would want to believe. Who exactly determines what is best? Well a company selling a product expresses they have the best product. If one really wants to determine the best product or the best value for your buck one has to look further and get the opinion of Consumer Reports which does not allow themselves to be swayed by advertising. Only in this way can one get an opinion of a product that is unbiased it seems. Advertising and marketing firms are biased because they are getting their pay from the product owner and hence want to make that product successful. In order to do that they bend or stretch the truth or completely falsify what the product will do. Falsifying the truth is lying and lying is against what I was brought up on by my parents and others. The values I was taught growing up seem to have been diluted by the all mighty quest for the dollar.
This is what I rebel against. I have been growing my hair again now for almost 3 years. It will be 3 years in July, which was the last time I cut my hair nearly down to the scalp with my buzzer. July 2009 and then it was grow. Having long hair is one of the first non destructive ways I could rebel against the accepted norms when growing up. At that time my hair was touching the collar of my button shirt and it was unacceptable. Of course, I was already labeled the bad boy who wouldn't pay attention, who openly told teachers to FUCK OFF or FUCK YOU! The administrators of my schools would welcome me in a special session when I was entering middle and high school along with others to read me the laws governing behavior expectations of that institution and to make the point clear would give me and my co-conspirators free samples such as 40 whacks with the big paddle or a week of detention in the first week of high school without any evidence other than past behavior. It is no wonder I fight so against the norms of our society. So, growing my hair is a way of protesting, somewhat wearing my unwillingness to adhere to societal accepted norms. It is also somewhat of a reflection on my past happiness, that I was happier in parts of my past than I admitted later on. Of course, happiness is elusive in our society if we deem that it is acquired from material possessions or wealth from making the most money. Happiness comes from our hearts, following our hearts, at least in my case. I have found my happiness and it has not been easy. I've had tastes of happiness only to have it leave. It would always leave if I was getting my happiness from the outside. I now accept the happiness that is in my heart as being main happiness that I have been seeking. Being satisfied with myself, who I have been working on being and accepting myself unconditionally.
Just so, the end of my morning rant. Enjoy your life, pursue your dreams! Follow your heart!
That was the start of this piece but by the end of my thoughts for the time being it has turned into time traveling. Whenever I dig into my thoughts I am transported to the past, the present and the future. It is because of how I feel, what I have felt and all other influences on my life. What I have seen, what I hope for, what I don't like and mostly what I feel and think about my own life. Words are my time machine and when I step out of those other thoughts and back into the present depending on how the thoughts and feelings have been transformed into words, fast or slow makes a difference in my expansion or shrinking of time.
Changing the way I take actions is what I am writing about here. I am saving money in my prime share so that I can purchase a used, new to me vehicle that will carry me into the future. Saving money the last ten years has been harder than any time in my life until just recently. The money I was being paid has just been enough to skim along the edge of poverty, occasionally dipping down and having to put off purchasing food or medicine so that I could have enough gas to get to work. Now I am saving my hard earned tax returns and adding what I think of as extra money to my prime share on pay days which are every two weeks. I still owe my sister money she lent me, that saved me when I had my two serious medical emergencies earlier this year and my dentist for the partial dentures that I now possess, allowing me to once again chew my food the way my parents instructed me so long ago, thoroughly.
My dental insurance company said my absence of teeth was a pre-exisiting condition and they were not going to pay for the 6 artificial teeth that I now put in and take out of my mouth. Now I am paying the full amount over a thousand dollars instead of half that. I am still falling into the statistical averages of people who have encountered the side of insurance companies we who believe in single payer are fighting so hard against, the middleman waste of our money to fat cats who want to take our money without working for it. That is a small distraction, thoughts about situations that I have little control over.
So, back to saving and words to describe it. It is delayed gratification and I suspect I am doing it because I know it is the way to freedom from aspects of our society that gets in the way of my acquiring what material items I need to meet my needs and follow my dreams. When I acquire my home on wheels I will like many home owners invest money into my home which when I get it, will need materials such as insulation, windows, appliances, etc. I intend to attain these things to make my mobile home a home for me.
My dream of a mobile home is not that of a manufactured RV. My dream is of a stealth step van that I outfit with gear on the inside that will make it livable and to let it remain a work truck on the outside so that I may park around towns and country sides looking in all the world like the water department or the some other service company. I have read many ads for such a vehicle and have come across someone else who has expressed the same dream and is now living in a step van.
Ah, this is an interesting change in the blogger website, the ability to publish and then come back and up date without having to jump to other actions. I like it. I left, made breakfast, did some other chores and am back to finish some of the thoughts I was working on.
It seems I have to often resist in some way what our society has been feeding on. That is the wholesale marketing of our institutions. Marketing in my opinion is what companies do that is not quite as honest as one would want to believe. Who exactly determines what is best? Well a company selling a product expresses they have the best product. If one really wants to determine the best product or the best value for your buck one has to look further and get the opinion of Consumer Reports which does not allow themselves to be swayed by advertising. Only in this way can one get an opinion of a product that is unbiased it seems. Advertising and marketing firms are biased because they are getting their pay from the product owner and hence want to make that product successful. In order to do that they bend or stretch the truth or completely falsify what the product will do. Falsifying the truth is lying and lying is against what I was brought up on by my parents and others. The values I was taught growing up seem to have been diluted by the all mighty quest for the dollar.
This is what I rebel against. I have been growing my hair again now for almost 3 years. It will be 3 years in July, which was the last time I cut my hair nearly down to the scalp with my buzzer. July 2009 and then it was grow. Having long hair is one of the first non destructive ways I could rebel against the accepted norms when growing up. At that time my hair was touching the collar of my button shirt and it was unacceptable. Of course, I was already labeled the bad boy who wouldn't pay attention, who openly told teachers to FUCK OFF or FUCK YOU! The administrators of my schools would welcome me in a special session when I was entering middle and high school along with others to read me the laws governing behavior expectations of that institution and to make the point clear would give me and my co-conspirators free samples such as 40 whacks with the big paddle or a week of detention in the first week of high school without any evidence other than past behavior. It is no wonder I fight so against the norms of our society. So, growing my hair is a way of protesting, somewhat wearing my unwillingness to adhere to societal accepted norms. It is also somewhat of a reflection on my past happiness, that I was happier in parts of my past than I admitted later on. Of course, happiness is elusive in our society if we deem that it is acquired from material possessions or wealth from making the most money. Happiness comes from our hearts, following our hearts, at least in my case. I have found my happiness and it has not been easy. I've had tastes of happiness only to have it leave. It would always leave if I was getting my happiness from the outside. I now accept the happiness that is in my heart as being main happiness that I have been seeking. Being satisfied with myself, who I have been working on being and accepting myself unconditionally.
Just so, the end of my morning rant. Enjoy your life, pursue your dreams! Follow your heart!
Saturday, March 17, 2012
An update on where I am standing
I just want to admit that it has been one heck of a ride to this point in time. A point that is so small compared to the rest of the universe, well that is a different subject.
That operation I was told I was going to have on my right knee, not happening. Apparently, there was some error in reading my MRI and now it seems that I have been told no operation necessary. What a relief! This idea of an operation and having to move and be quite immobile for unknown length of time really had me intensely focused on emergency procedures for moving, not working, collecting social security, food stamps etc. My sisters suggested I not post all that was going on at Face book, which has pulled me out of that obsession to post all this minute details about my life.
On an aside to that, I read someone's page one day and they said they were addicted to FB. I see how that can happen. Unless we are vigilant in our processes we can find ourselves so distracted by the unimportant trying to sometimes avoid the pain that is right in front of our faces. I lead a distracted life and I still have some goals that I desire to accomplish.
So, I still intend to look for a place over in SE to back to. Most of my friends I have made in Portland live in SE.
Back to the non operation. I have managed because I have people around me who care about me. Because of them and whatever forces including my own nature I am not going to need that operation and knowing that recovery from life or body malfunctions is a process that doesn't happen over night.
Yes, it is true. I am getting very distracted because the faucet has a bad washer and I have to go to the store and eat some lunch. I have not eaten anything today because eating is what I do to give me energy for my M-F activities. The stress that is generated at my job eats up my energy.
Stress from my job is large and I only came to this realization after pulling down the veils of denial that I usually put over my eyes keeping me moving forward. At some moment in time after many drips, a pool forms and it is the recognition that I have been denying the forces that surround and shape my external world. I'm going all over the place. That is normal for me but I have discovered it about myself and can stop it such as right now! Done for today.
That operation I was told I was going to have on my right knee, not happening. Apparently, there was some error in reading my MRI and now it seems that I have been told no operation necessary. What a relief! This idea of an operation and having to move and be quite immobile for unknown length of time really had me intensely focused on emergency procedures for moving, not working, collecting social security, food stamps etc. My sisters suggested I not post all that was going on at Face book, which has pulled me out of that obsession to post all this minute details about my life.
On an aside to that, I read someone's page one day and they said they were addicted to FB. I see how that can happen. Unless we are vigilant in our processes we can find ourselves so distracted by the unimportant trying to sometimes avoid the pain that is right in front of our faces. I lead a distracted life and I still have some goals that I desire to accomplish.
So, I still intend to look for a place over in SE to back to. Most of my friends I have made in Portland live in SE.
Back to the non operation. I have managed because I have people around me who care about me. Because of them and whatever forces including my own nature I am not going to need that operation and knowing that recovery from life or body malfunctions is a process that doesn't happen over night.
Yes, it is true. I am getting very distracted because the faucet has a bad washer and I have to go to the store and eat some lunch. I have not eaten anything today because eating is what I do to give me energy for my M-F activities. The stress that is generated at my job eats up my energy.
Stress from my job is large and I only came to this realization after pulling down the veils of denial that I usually put over my eyes keeping me moving forward. At some moment in time after many drips, a pool forms and it is the recognition that I have been denying the forces that surround and shape my external world. I'm going all over the place. That is normal for me but I have discovered it about myself and can stop it such as right now! Done for today.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Age is really starting to sink in to my level of awareness
I am feeling older all the time. Not a bad thing if I remember to think young, out of the box and rebelliously while maintaining the calm reassuring gently soul that I am in social situations such as work and when I drive my own vehicle with the amateur drivers on the road. I have been driving professionally now for almost 5 years and when I am in my work vehicle I have a certain feeling of security. That sucks doesn't it? Secure feeling at work, insecure feeling not at work! What's up with that? I'll tell you. How can I be so backwards to be feeling secure at work and insecure at home or in my personal vehicle. See how it is with me, a contradiction whether it is with society or just with myself.
On the 30th of December, I slipped and fell on some stairs where I live. That seems bad enough but it wasn't the fall that got to me because I only bounced down two steps or so out of nine and on my butt. It was the extension or compression my knee that did the damage. It RIPPED the quadricep tendon off the bone below my knee and that hurt 15 on a scale of 1-10, probably the worst pain I have ever experienced. That's not all. While reclining and healing from that, I got some blood clots that traveled to my Pulmonary Artery and caused a serious loss of oxygen to my whole body causing me to collapse. That is not all of why I am feeling so old. Not only have I had two life changing medical issues in a short period of time these have cause me to file for Social Security and need to move from my basement room of 2 years. I don't like to move around much, like to stay put, but that is not what is on the burner for me.
I have to move now, because I still need the operation on my knee which will take me out of commission for a length of time that is as yet undetermined. Undetermined and not working while I heal. They say the longer I put off the operation the less likely my knee will regain all of it's function. That's a little scary in itself. The other scary part is I will have to rely on others to take care of some of my basic needs such as shopping and perhaps food preparation. Many have volunteered to help. I am grateful for my friends and fellow workers.
I have never had surgery of the nature of what is coming. When I was about 17 I was in the hospital for a rather rare and serious disease, meningoencephalitis. The pain I experienced in my head because of the expansion of my brain was pretty intense, but could be numbed down with narcotics. If they forgot to give them to me while in the hospital, I woke up the whole ward with my screams. That was pretty intense. Only after i got over it did they tell me how close I was to not leaving the hospital alive. A year later or perhaps a year earlier I had Hep ! and mono at the same time. No surgery was involved. I telling about these medical conditions because it seems what I get comes in pairs. Of course, when I was 21 or so, I cut my right arm open by accident and the muscle and the skin had to be stitched back up. I should probably remember that more of my recent medical issues have come in pairs.
For 24 years I had substance abuse problems. I have been away from all that now for nearly 26 years. That's about right. I am 62 now and started with my abuse when I was about 12. During the time of my self abuse with drugs I also severely abused myself physically. I had tantrums upwards of in my 30's. I had extremely low self esteem brought on by my ADD issues that continued unknown to me, but perhaps diagnosed and revealed to my parents when I was younger, because a family member told me the doctors wanted to give me Ritilan but my father objected. I was about 10 or 12 then and that's when my parents started offering me coffee. As far as a diagnosis I finally had one when I was 50 years old. ADD and other head trauma. Nothing has ever been simple with me. Why am I writing this? I just want to get it out of my head and I have told some people that I write here. It is easier for me to put it here than tell it over and over again. Sure it is long, but anyone could do it in different sittings just like if one were reading a book. Read some, put it down and come back.
Because of this learning challenge, I didn't get it most of the time. By getting it I mean, wasn't paying attention or paying attention to more inputs than most of my peers. There was so much noise going on in my head I had trouble focusing on what was being said by most people. I got labeled quite early in life as someone who didn't pay attention, someone who fooled around and was not honest, someone who didn't fit it, a trouble maker etc. It is easier to label someone without really trying to find out the cause. To many of us slipped through the system. For the longest period of time, I lived my label. I was not a nice person, I was not honest. I drank until I dropped or dropped someone else. I used to fight and get the fight knocked out of me. Sometimes I knocked the fight out of others. I put a person in the hospital and put myself there too. I was in and out of jail. I fought with the police, they beat me up pretty bad. I was arrested many times and it is a miracle I am not a career criminal or dead or died in prison. I was angry, but the under lying feelings were frustration, low self esteem. When I drank, I lashed out. It is to bad I couldn't just drink a little or drink and be happy or just pass out. That was not me. All that pent up anger from my upbringing was finding it's way out with a multiplier. It is part of what keeps me from picking up a drink even after 26 years of abstinence. Did I get distracted, possibly. Wasn't I talking about diseases?
In 2007 I had a kidney stone. Now I thought I was dying, the pain was severe 10 on a scale of 1-10. I didn't have a second disease or illness until 2010 when I had acute urinary retention which also was rather painful and lead me to the urologist who diagnosed me with enlarged prostate gland also known as BPH. A small walnut sized gland in men that enlarges with age in about 70% of us. Things our parents never told us about. Sounds familiar. I don't need to go into details.
Fast Forward. 2011, fall on stairs and lay around for blood clots so I can have a Pulmonay Embolism. Had that too. Got tested last week and waiting for results from Electrocardiogram with Doppler and some other testing to see if my heart has returned to normal size after the PE. Then they will quite possibly say surgery is OK to perform, but there is another thing to consider. I am taking an anti-clotting medicine and have to change to one that is faster to leave my body, stop and have surgery and then be unmobile more the most part for at least 6 weeks.
I am a survivor and have always got back up. This scares me because it goes against my very nature. I am having to work really hard at just keeping going and find a new place to live, not pursue my landlord, just get out of here.Some of my friends have reacted angrily when I tell them my landlord thinks he is off the hook for any part of my injury or loss of wages. I've had plenty of time to think about it. I filed a claim against his home owners insurance only to hear from them he had no landlord to tenant insurance and I am out of luck for help on my lost wages or medical costs. My life right now is tough. I didn't talk about filing for Social Security. This probably has kicked my ass as much as anything. It is driving home to me that I am actually an aging person. I don't think like one, have struggled most of my life trying to identify with most of my peers as being an adult. I know I am an adult now and an aging one. I know this is all slowing me down. I have had to slow down, just change everything.
I had to write this today. The last couple of months have probably been the roughest of my life. The work I am doing is probably some of the toughest, the pay the lowest for the responsibility and the stress, the people I have met although of varying ages some of the best people so far in life. I am more productive and feel more of a sense of community than for a period of time in my life. I have little pain in my knee, but feel that with the operation that will change. Our knees, our mobility don't get an injury like this. It sucks, but it is my nature to work on the positive side of it all. I have had many adventures in my life, this is just another. Not one I've chosen, but one I have been dealt. I will survive it and will continue to chase my dreams, if I could just remember what they are.
On the 30th of December, I slipped and fell on some stairs where I live. That seems bad enough but it wasn't the fall that got to me because I only bounced down two steps or so out of nine and on my butt. It was the extension or compression my knee that did the damage. It RIPPED the quadricep tendon off the bone below my knee and that hurt 15 on a scale of 1-10, probably the worst pain I have ever experienced. That's not all. While reclining and healing from that, I got some blood clots that traveled to my Pulmonary Artery and caused a serious loss of oxygen to my whole body causing me to collapse. That is not all of why I am feeling so old. Not only have I had two life changing medical issues in a short period of time these have cause me to file for Social Security and need to move from my basement room of 2 years. I don't like to move around much, like to stay put, but that is not what is on the burner for me.
I have to move now, because I still need the operation on my knee which will take me out of commission for a length of time that is as yet undetermined. Undetermined and not working while I heal. They say the longer I put off the operation the less likely my knee will regain all of it's function. That's a little scary in itself. The other scary part is I will have to rely on others to take care of some of my basic needs such as shopping and perhaps food preparation. Many have volunteered to help. I am grateful for my friends and fellow workers.
I have never had surgery of the nature of what is coming. When I was about 17 I was in the hospital for a rather rare and serious disease, meningoencephalitis. The pain I experienced in my head because of the expansion of my brain was pretty intense, but could be numbed down with narcotics. If they forgot to give them to me while in the hospital, I woke up the whole ward with my screams. That was pretty intense. Only after i got over it did they tell me how close I was to not leaving the hospital alive. A year later or perhaps a year earlier I had Hep ! and mono at the same time. No surgery was involved. I telling about these medical conditions because it seems what I get comes in pairs. Of course, when I was 21 or so, I cut my right arm open by accident and the muscle and the skin had to be stitched back up. I should probably remember that more of my recent medical issues have come in pairs.
For 24 years I had substance abuse problems. I have been away from all that now for nearly 26 years. That's about right. I am 62 now and started with my abuse when I was about 12. During the time of my self abuse with drugs I also severely abused myself physically. I had tantrums upwards of in my 30's. I had extremely low self esteem brought on by my ADD issues that continued unknown to me, but perhaps diagnosed and revealed to my parents when I was younger, because a family member told me the doctors wanted to give me Ritilan but my father objected. I was about 10 or 12 then and that's when my parents started offering me coffee. As far as a diagnosis I finally had one when I was 50 years old. ADD and other head trauma. Nothing has ever been simple with me. Why am I writing this? I just want to get it out of my head and I have told some people that I write here. It is easier for me to put it here than tell it over and over again. Sure it is long, but anyone could do it in different sittings just like if one were reading a book. Read some, put it down and come back.
Because of this learning challenge, I didn't get it most of the time. By getting it I mean, wasn't paying attention or paying attention to more inputs than most of my peers. There was so much noise going on in my head I had trouble focusing on what was being said by most people. I got labeled quite early in life as someone who didn't pay attention, someone who fooled around and was not honest, someone who didn't fit it, a trouble maker etc. It is easier to label someone without really trying to find out the cause. To many of us slipped through the system. For the longest period of time, I lived my label. I was not a nice person, I was not honest. I drank until I dropped or dropped someone else. I used to fight and get the fight knocked out of me. Sometimes I knocked the fight out of others. I put a person in the hospital and put myself there too. I was in and out of jail. I fought with the police, they beat me up pretty bad. I was arrested many times and it is a miracle I am not a career criminal or dead or died in prison. I was angry, but the under lying feelings were frustration, low self esteem. When I drank, I lashed out. It is to bad I couldn't just drink a little or drink and be happy or just pass out. That was not me. All that pent up anger from my upbringing was finding it's way out with a multiplier. It is part of what keeps me from picking up a drink even after 26 years of abstinence. Did I get distracted, possibly. Wasn't I talking about diseases?
In 2007 I had a kidney stone. Now I thought I was dying, the pain was severe 10 on a scale of 1-10. I didn't have a second disease or illness until 2010 when I had acute urinary retention which also was rather painful and lead me to the urologist who diagnosed me with enlarged prostate gland also known as BPH. A small walnut sized gland in men that enlarges with age in about 70% of us. Things our parents never told us about. Sounds familiar. I don't need to go into details.
Fast Forward. 2011, fall on stairs and lay around for blood clots so I can have a Pulmonay Embolism. Had that too. Got tested last week and waiting for results from Electrocardiogram with Doppler and some other testing to see if my heart has returned to normal size after the PE. Then they will quite possibly say surgery is OK to perform, but there is another thing to consider. I am taking an anti-clotting medicine and have to change to one that is faster to leave my body, stop and have surgery and then be unmobile more the most part for at least 6 weeks.
I am a survivor and have always got back up. This scares me because it goes against my very nature. I am having to work really hard at just keeping going and find a new place to live, not pursue my landlord, just get out of here.Some of my friends have reacted angrily when I tell them my landlord thinks he is off the hook for any part of my injury or loss of wages. I've had plenty of time to think about it. I filed a claim against his home owners insurance only to hear from them he had no landlord to tenant insurance and I am out of luck for help on my lost wages or medical costs. My life right now is tough. I didn't talk about filing for Social Security. This probably has kicked my ass as much as anything. It is driving home to me that I am actually an aging person. I don't think like one, have struggled most of my life trying to identify with most of my peers as being an adult. I know I am an adult now and an aging one. I know this is all slowing me down. I have had to slow down, just change everything.
I had to write this today. The last couple of months have probably been the roughest of my life. The work I am doing is probably some of the toughest, the pay the lowest for the responsibility and the stress, the people I have met although of varying ages some of the best people so far in life. I am more productive and feel more of a sense of community than for a period of time in my life. I have little pain in my knee, but feel that with the operation that will change. Our knees, our mobility don't get an injury like this. It sucks, but it is my nature to work on the positive side of it all. I have had many adventures in my life, this is just another. Not one I've chosen, but one I have been dealt. I will survive it and will continue to chase my dreams, if I could just remember what they are.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
The life I lead, I'm not complaining, just saying...
I lead a life living on the edge. What is this edge I am saying? Edge of sanity, edge of reality, edge of what is real, edge of poverty and the list goes on. The difference today is I am making better choices than I did in the past. Something else that influences my life the feeling there is more to life than our visual world. And, I am more grateful having survived my abuses from the past. I am doing a lot of reflecting about my chaotic life. I am still bouncing off the walls because of my ADD. I keep thinking maybe I could improve with medication, but don't want to let the medical people experiment with my well being again on that level, nor do I want to be dependent on medication. I am already dependent on pharmaceuticals that are keeping my blood from clotting and some for other medical issues. I don't like it, but if I want to survive another how many years, have to knuckle down and take them.
I continue to be at risk when I am not doing something that has some structure to it like work or meetings with others that are running things. Left to myself I am continuing to not be able to grasp getting organized. Of course, there is a certain level of fear at changing my chaotic ways. There is a fear of success and a fear of failure. The big picture though is there is more to life than my own little world of chaos. My own own little world though has a strong influence on what I accomplish. It is a constant mental battle with me. Conflicted has been circulating recently in my brain. I am a conflicted person because why? Why do I and why do I continue on this path of conflict? Often we do what is comfortable but not necessarily productive. I learned about that in 12 step programs, but my ability to change my behavior is still after all this time inhibited by my lack of structure.
I am my own worst enemy, even though I have continued to make progress moving forward. Right now I am writing about some thoughts that I've been thinking about for the last several weeks and it is about stalling, distraction. I have learned behaviors and they do have an influence on me. Apparently, all my behaviors are learned. And I have unlearned many that are likely more beneficial than some of the ones I've retained. My thoughts are breaking down, no structure and it is hard others to imagine. It is hard for me to imagine or organize into a cohesive, informative, readable short piece about my very existence! Others have shown me they care about balancing the rights of the many with the rights of the few. Maybe because of that imbalance I feel less than those that are close to the decades I have spent on this planet? Obviously, I never learned or accepted what my teachers were trying to tell me when I was much younger. I can't imagine other than boredom what I would be like if I wasn't so challenged by all my distractions. It is not boredom that moves me through life.
I was thinking that I would to come back to this website and chronicle my feelings about myself and others I encounter more regularly, much like I used to do at other web addresses, but my desire to complete tasks in real time seems to interfer with my desire to write anywhere. Change, it is a struggle for me. I guess this is the real message of my unorganized ramblings. Change is difficult and I am feeling overwhelmed by my serious medical condition and the fact that I am going to be thrust further into an unstructured recovery from my operation that is coming in March or April. Let me out of here!
I will report that I tried to preview this page but Firefox is having trouble finding the server and giving me that message, so I will just go on to publishing it with the orange button
I continue to be at risk when I am not doing something that has some structure to it like work or meetings with others that are running things. Left to myself I am continuing to not be able to grasp getting organized. Of course, there is a certain level of fear at changing my chaotic ways. There is a fear of success and a fear of failure. The big picture though is there is more to life than my own little world of chaos. My own own little world though has a strong influence on what I accomplish. It is a constant mental battle with me. Conflicted has been circulating recently in my brain. I am a conflicted person because why? Why do I and why do I continue on this path of conflict? Often we do what is comfortable but not necessarily productive. I learned about that in 12 step programs, but my ability to change my behavior is still after all this time inhibited by my lack of structure.
I am my own worst enemy, even though I have continued to make progress moving forward. Right now I am writing about some thoughts that I've been thinking about for the last several weeks and it is about stalling, distraction. I have learned behaviors and they do have an influence on me. Apparently, all my behaviors are learned. And I have unlearned many that are likely more beneficial than some of the ones I've retained. My thoughts are breaking down, no structure and it is hard others to imagine. It is hard for me to imagine or organize into a cohesive, informative, readable short piece about my very existence! Others have shown me they care about balancing the rights of the many with the rights of the few. Maybe because of that imbalance I feel less than those that are close to the decades I have spent on this planet? Obviously, I never learned or accepted what my teachers were trying to tell me when I was much younger. I can't imagine other than boredom what I would be like if I wasn't so challenged by all my distractions. It is not boredom that moves me through life.
I was thinking that I would to come back to this website and chronicle my feelings about myself and others I encounter more regularly, much like I used to do at other web addresses, but my desire to complete tasks in real time seems to interfer with my desire to write anywhere. Change, it is a struggle for me. I guess this is the real message of my unorganized ramblings. Change is difficult and I am feeling overwhelmed by my serious medical condition and the fact that I am going to be thrust further into an unstructured recovery from my operation that is coming in March or April. Let me out of here!
I will report that I tried to preview this page but Firefox is having trouble finding the server and giving me that message, so I will just go on to publishing it with the orange button
I'm preparing for my first ever operation....
Wow, an operation where doctors of several skills get together to initiate actions that will bring a change in my physical condition, hopefully to reverse an injury I inflicted by accident on myself. I'm talking about my right knee injury.
On December 30th I slipped on a set of stairs where I live and literally tore the tendon connecting my quadricep muscle from my knee. The pain was incredibly intense and almost beyond enduring, but I had to pick myself up and get to the urgent care. I might have been better off going to the hospital emergency because if I had, they could have taken me to the MRI machine and determined the severity of my injury, without me having to wait and slip through the cracks of modern health care providers until Feb. of 2012.I finally had the MRI on the 5th of Feb. and the health care providers could see the extent of the damage done. When they told me it took someone else explaining it for the severity to sink into my perception of reality.
I'm preparing to have the tendon reattached to the bone, I think it is the Tibia and they will have to put me out through modern chemistry and knock me out. To me this is a scary proposition. It is scary because I haven't ever had surgery except to have an arm muscle stitched back together when I was 21 or 22. That was a long time ago, when I was younger and more foolish. What is really going to be difficult is not being able to get around well for about 6 weeks! I am going to have to rely on others to help me out. This is very difficult. The whole thing, the operation and the recuperation are about giving up control of ones own life. I am doing my best to prepare myself for this operation near the end of March.
This is probably all I can write about because, I am really distracted and have many tasks and actions that I have to attend to, many that are not related to my general condition that I just wrote about.
On December 30th I slipped on a set of stairs where I live and literally tore the tendon connecting my quadricep muscle from my knee. The pain was incredibly intense and almost beyond enduring, but I had to pick myself up and get to the urgent care. I might have been better off going to the hospital emergency because if I had, they could have taken me to the MRI machine and determined the severity of my injury, without me having to wait and slip through the cracks of modern health care providers until Feb. of 2012.I finally had the MRI on the 5th of Feb. and the health care providers could see the extent of the damage done. When they told me it took someone else explaining it for the severity to sink into my perception of reality.
I'm preparing to have the tendon reattached to the bone, I think it is the Tibia and they will have to put me out through modern chemistry and knock me out. To me this is a scary proposition. It is scary because I haven't ever had surgery except to have an arm muscle stitched back together when I was 21 or 22. That was a long time ago, when I was younger and more foolish. What is really going to be difficult is not being able to get around well for about 6 weeks! I am going to have to rely on others to help me out. This is very difficult. The whole thing, the operation and the recuperation are about giving up control of ones own life. I am doing my best to prepare myself for this operation near the end of March.
This is probably all I can write about because, I am really distracted and have many tasks and actions that I have to attend to, many that are not related to my general condition that I just wrote about.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
To Much Information (TMI)
Wow, today I have been trying to post pictures here and went to one of the sights that was suggested to do that and came back with nothing. Spent about 45 minutes there editing photo's I had uploaded. It adds to my chaos when I try to organize anything. I don't have a plan to organize because my brain is not programmed for some of these tasks.
I'm frustrated by the distractions that continue to take me off track. If someone mapped my path it would look like the path that a child makes on a blank piece of paper, a scribble, a birds nest, a tangle. That is my path of going about tasks, even ones I make a serious attempt to go about logically or with a straight line.
In addition, I get bored. Boredom was not even a consideration in the most recent past. When I think about boredom now it comes along with frustration. One or the other happens first, but I can' tell which it is. It is somewhat boring to think about. And then when my thinking runs into the wall, frustration.
Many have had ideas in the past and the present about what I should do to make my life work better for me. That happens when others can see my frustration. My observation of having someone tell me what they think I should do is it is hard for each of us to put on someone else shoes.
I am very resistant. I resist most suggestions first without even taking the suggestion in and considering it. If you ask me to take an action or try something you think might be good for me, I respond with a negative such as No! This has been my defense mechanism in the past and is now a conditioned reflex. It is interfering with my current life today. I writing this so that when you read it, you will know to go beyond my first reactive response that is negative. I am writing this in the attempt to change the way I think by making myself aware of how I perceive ideas by others.
This is all again to much information and scattered from the start of this writing. It is my life long struggle to sort myself out, to get rid of all distraction that I experience. And becoming a better person is high on my list. It is all becoming really scattered now, losing all that I started with. At first my energy for this was like dropping a big rock into a body of still water, seeing all the ripples expand outwards, the energy from that rock as it pushed against the water, displacing it. But as the rock was pulled to the bottom of the pond, it came to rest there and settled on the bottom of the pond, it's energy no longer giving it motion. The ripples on the pond's surface became less pronounced and eventually were absorbed by the body of the water. The water waits for the next event, reflecting all around it.
Does any of what I just wrote make sense to me? Hard to say, it is a way for me to help move me along to the next drop, the next moment.
I'm frustrated by the distractions that continue to take me off track. If someone mapped my path it would look like the path that a child makes on a blank piece of paper, a scribble, a birds nest, a tangle. That is my path of going about tasks, even ones I make a serious attempt to go about logically or with a straight line.
In addition, I get bored. Boredom was not even a consideration in the most recent past. When I think about boredom now it comes along with frustration. One or the other happens first, but I can' tell which it is. It is somewhat boring to think about. And then when my thinking runs into the wall, frustration.
Many have had ideas in the past and the present about what I should do to make my life work better for me. That happens when others can see my frustration. My observation of having someone tell me what they think I should do is it is hard for each of us to put on someone else shoes.
I am very resistant. I resist most suggestions first without even taking the suggestion in and considering it. If you ask me to take an action or try something you think might be good for me, I respond with a negative such as No! This has been my defense mechanism in the past and is now a conditioned reflex. It is interfering with my current life today. I writing this so that when you read it, you will know to go beyond my first reactive response that is negative. I am writing this in the attempt to change the way I think by making myself aware of how I perceive ideas by others.
This is all again to much information and scattered from the start of this writing. It is my life long struggle to sort myself out, to get rid of all distraction that I experience. And becoming a better person is high on my list. It is all becoming really scattered now, losing all that I started with. At first my energy for this was like dropping a big rock into a body of still water, seeing all the ripples expand outwards, the energy from that rock as it pushed against the water, displacing it. But as the rock was pulled to the bottom of the pond, it came to rest there and settled on the bottom of the pond, it's energy no longer giving it motion. The ripples on the pond's surface became less pronounced and eventually were absorbed by the body of the water. The water waits for the next event, reflecting all around it.
Does any of what I just wrote make sense to me? Hard to say, it is a way for me to help move me along to the next drop, the next moment.
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