Sometimes my life sucks.

Actual post date: November 30, 2008

Greetings, Subscribers only. I've decided to hide out in my own archives.

I have not been a happy camper. I only told the therapist and the husband, but the missing battery charger for my camera is not just a quirk. I have a vague little flash of memory. I took it from the place where I always keep it. I remember holding it in my hand. I don't remember what the hell I did with it, but I remember feeling relieved about moving it; like I had spared myself some horrible situation by doing it. I fucking hid it from myself so I couldn't take pictures and then I 'forgot'. I can't remember what I did with it. I have searched and I cannot find it and I can't remember. Why would I hide it? My pictures tell my story, that's why. Last December, I took a series of photos that told the story of an accidental stowaway in a time travel mishap in one of my novels. The stowaway was a child. He 'fell asleep' in a town remarkably like my old hometown. He 'woke up' decades later on the beach in... yes. He woke up right here. And I've got the 'pictures' of his travel. I began to feel very scared after I put that series together. I started to have that awful feeling that I was about to be sucked up into something. I went scrambling for the therapist, but it still happened. I had a terrible flashback. Maybe I'm still not over it. I still don't know what it means, either. I don't know where it goes. I only know that I was terrified, hysterical, and trying to get inside the closet in my bedroom. I collapsed on the floor in front of the closet and I couldn't stop crying. My poor husband didn't know what to do. He left a message for the therapist and he called my sister to come over here. She came. Things have not been the same since because I am 'letting' this ruin my life. She came over once a couple of months ago. I was still sleeping even though it was after noon. I woke up and listened to my sister talking to my husband and kids. I heard her moving around the house, heard her heels on the kitchen floor. I was too embarrassed about my sleeping schedule to drag my disheveled self into the living room and let them know I was awake. I thought of the day of the really bad flashback. "You can't let this ruin your life."

I remember the yellow light on the bedroom ceiling right before the flashback that day. I remember the feeling as it came to get me. I remember the fear and confusion as I sprang up from the bed. I don't remember thinking about the closet, I just went there and I had no clue what I was doing. I think this came from the grandparents' house. I don't know the 'event'. I don't understand, but I still have flashes. This crap just refuses to leave me alone, yet it won't resolve. And I can't remember. I'm stuck here. And it's not because of anything I have done.

By yesterday morning, I was feeling pretty bad about the trap I'm in. I wanted (want?) out, so I wrote to the therapist. It bounced back to me. His mailbox is full (and I swear it isn't because of me). Now I am depressed. I feel very, very lonely knowing that I cannot write to him. I'm starting to lose my hope again. Anyway, here is what I sent when I thought I had the strength to try to find a real way out of here. Maybe there is room in his box for a sentence and a link to this post instead of a letter? Maybe. I might try it later, but everything seems like so much trouble right now and I feel really unsure of myself.

Here's the letter.



...This way that I live is stagnant and is not really healthy for me. I have been doing fairly well in the area of stability. I am stagnant. I don't remember, you know. Stability does not fix me, it only keeps me from acting crazy and letting my life fall apart. It can't ever bring freedom. Can you please think of something? Please. If nothing changes, someday I will be the crazy old lady with seventeen cats who gives toothbrushes to children on Halloween. My trees will be toilet-papered annually. Cleaning it up OCD style will take weeks and be the highlight of my pathetic existence. I will still be staying up all night. I won't have my children to clean up after anymore, so I will have my cats. And I suppose I will probably do a lot of dusting at night. I will need to with all those cats. You know I rarely have time to get that detailed now, so that will be an improvement, right? At least I will be stable and I'll still be moving in the right direction, right? Do you see how this would not really be that different from how I live now? Do you know that I don't especially like cats? And having seventeen of them in the house would probably end in respiratory arrest. I have allergies, you know.

I'm not sure what is missing or what I am doing wrong, but nothing is moving except the dust bunnies. Something is very, very wrong when I hide my own belongings and cannot remember. I need something different and I need you to help me think of something. And NO, it cannot involve any other therapist of any kind. At this point, I will probably try almost anything else, just not that. I can trust only you. Please think of something. I won't just reject all of your ideas and say they are silly or won't help like I used to. I don't need to shove you away anymore. The burning feeling is here and I still haven't written back to my son, but my kitchen is very, very clean. I'm afraid to go to bed. The burning feels very bad.

If you already have an idea and would like to discuss it before Wednesday, please let me know. Maybe you have something open on Monday? If you are busy, or need to think about it a bit, then we can just discuss it Wednesday. Please don't wait for me to ask, though. Please bring it up. I wish I could explain to you what time feels like to me and about all the ways this could get so very lost by then, but I can't. I would need to write fiction in order to do that, and I would hate for my computer to come up missing. Going by the camera problem, it probably wouldn't be the whole computer, though. Probably just the power cord. I have issues around driving, too. Perhaps I should lay in a supply of distributor caps, spark plugs, and battery cables. Do you see why I cannot live this way? Please help me. Did I mention that the camera incident has been scaring the hell out of me? No, I guess maybe I didn't, but it is. It's a stable fear, though. It's stone-cold frozen. It goes well with my combat boots, trench coat, and mirrored shades, but it is not complimenting anything else at all.


Lynn



And while I'm at it, here is the other bounced letter I sent the morning before that one.



Something new has happened, but I did not panic. I need to tell you now because it will get lost if I don't. I was in the twins' room. I was cleaning up a glass of milk I knocked over while making up the beds. I was down on the carpet. It could use vacuuming. There was something about the carpet... and I noticed the bits of lint and... lots and lots of long, dark hairs (the girls shed). I reached out to grab a candy wrapper from under the bed. I had to really reach. I was really on the floor. On the carpet... and it seemed I had been down there before. Like Violet in my novel 'The Diary' when she traveled through time and appeared on her neighbor's kitchen floor, which she examined very closely and with great interest in her state of stupified confusion. I was on the floor in the twins' room, but I was very near some other carpet in some other place. I caught the smell of... something. Smelled like a bathtub/ floor/ mop/ linen/ vacuum cleaner smell. A household smell. There was the carpet and the smell, but I was not somewhere else. I was still here and merely aware of somewhere else. And then again with the long, dark hairs clinging to the carpet. Just like Aunt P's hair has always been. The upstairs bathroom in my grandmother's house. The household smell. A rug. Little bits of lint and long, dark hairs. Somewhere else started to tug at me then, but I could not 'hear' what it wanted. I got up from the floor. My daughters' beds. They are rugged wooden bunks. The cabins. The lake. The hair. And then it was gone. I had to hurry so the beds would have fresh linens on them by the time my husband brought the children home from the movies.

I still cannot find my battery charger for my camera. I think I will just replace it and then have my husband hide it with the bag of pills he keeps from me.

My mother called Thursday. Caller ID said we spoke for 1 minute and 38 seconds. There wasn't much to say and I don't care.

My husband took a call from my broker while I was still sleeping Friday morning . He is dissolving the corporation and moving his office to his house to keep the business viable. I was afraid he wanted me to move my license, but I don't have anyplace to hang it. I called him and he agreed to keep it for me if I get my own errors and omissions insurance if I decide to sell or list again. I will have to meet with him next week to file the proper paperwork to be under the new entity. The prospect of possibly losing this situation with my broker threw me into a state that felt a little desperate. I felt like a piece of my identity was being threatened with extinction, which caused me to zone out so I could take care of the banking. I think the zone out caused the incident in the girls' room. And this right here is why I am not fit to keep my own brokerage right now. What would happen to any clients if something happened to me at a bad time and there was no broker to come in and take over in a calm manner and make things okay for them? He knows there are problems and he doesn't give me shit. I couldn't possibly explain this stuff to another broker. He knows I am not selfish or careless, so he doesn't ask for explanations. It scared me to think my bridge to 'normal' was on fire. It hasn't been the best day here.

Thank you for saving this stuff for me so it doesn't get 'hidden' along with my deleted emails and battery charger.


Lynn



G, if you are reading this, please email me about Monday. I am sorry about the odd means of communication, but I can't call at a weird hour even though it is only to leave a message. I would be forever mortified if it somehow disturbed anyone. And I much prefer this to some crazy, screaming emergency phone call. Remember those? I can't let that happen to me anymore.





*And I think I'm closing comments on this one. See the pretty pictures in the last post, eh? They are a rehash of old stuff, but I really like the little story I made with them.