Category Archives: anger

While life goes on around us

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February 8th, 2023, is the day a dear friend of mine took his own life, and it is a day I will never forget. Those in his intimate circle knew about his struggles, but the rest of us were utterly shocked and gutted by the news. I have been spending the last two days selfishly wondering why I was so oblivious to his pain.

My heart aches for his wife, his immediate family and friends, and the rest of the people in his life who were fortunate enough to have been touched by his charismatic personality. He was the essence of joy. He infected the world with his wit and charm, as well as his brutal honesty. His generosity knew no boundaries, and he was always the guy who would be the first person to give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.

Robbie O was the friend we always wanted, and in our hearts, we knew we always needed. He was effervescent. He was quirky. He was one of a kind. The number of pictures taken of him flipping the bird make me want to do that in every future picture that will be taken of me.

In my attempt to distract myself from the emotions I am trying to deal with, I have been mindlessly scrolling through my social media pages to read tributes from other friends and see pictures of him I had not ever seen. Although I still cannot wrap my head around what happened, I am comforted by the abundance of thoughtful messages being shared in his memory, and the feeling that we are all trying to collectively figure out how to process this great loss.

While the generic buzz of social media is filled with pictures of food and Tik Tok videos, and life goes on around us, I see the innocuous posts about everyday life and I want to shout into the void. I want to scream into those obscured realities. I want to reach through computer screens and make the world aware of what is actually happening, and what the world will be missing in the absence of our dear friend.

I want people to realize what a great detriment we are all suffering through while we are still trying to accept our loss. We should all stand taller knowing he was in our corner. We should all puff our chests being able to say we knew him. And we should all hold every memory of Robbie O tight to our hearts while life goes on around us.

How live-streaming helped me live again

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Covid-19 has taken a huge toll on me, not physically but, mentally. After cresting the half-century mark last year, I am blessed to be able to say I had never struggled with anxiety or depression. What I would have first described as a distraction slowly burrowed into my brain and riddled me with emotions and a sadness I had never had to deal with before. Having been an extrovert by day and introvert by night, I became overwhelmed by the isolation that came with being advised to stay at home and only go out in public when necessary.

Looking back on the past few months, I should have known I had been affected more than I care to admit. The things I loved to do in my spare time became a burden and I forgot the pleasure I felt when I cooked a wonderful meal for myself or sat down at my computer and let words cascade down from the heavens to help me write the novel I am working on that has been untouched since March. The passion I once had for my hobbies became non-existent and that made my sadness feel even more powerful.

But life has a way of kicking us in the pants and it chooses interesting ways to send us compelling messages that cannot be ignored. I spent forty minutes watching a live stream on Patreon by someone I greatly admire. During his video, he emphasized how important it is to put ourselves first and to take time each day to do small things that bring us back to ourselves. His message couldn’t have been louder or clearer. I had been so focused on things that had nothing to do with me that I had all but forgotten to focus on myself and the things that are important to ME.

I have not posted on my blog since April 27th. It pains me to say that. This space has always been my sacred space. This space has let me be myself and free the words that want to be freed whenever I feel the desire to let them loose. But those words have been muted by the blanket of stress I have let weigh me down. NO MORE! Today I take back my power. Today I let the words oppress my thoughts and unleash themselves. Today I will create a spectacular meal for myself because I am the number one thing in my life. If I don’t take care of myself, how will I ever have the energy to take care of anyone else? Thank you, Jamie Lambert. Your words did not fall on deaf ears.

 

I don’t care where it came from

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Emotion has always been the driving force behind the need to write my blog posts. Putting words to a page allows me to process emotion in a way I feel most comfortable. This post is going to allow me to vent some frustration and attempt to understand the vast divide between the people who get it and the people who never will.

It is currently Monday afternoon, as I write this, and in the past thirty minutes I have admonished myself for habitually touching my face several times. It shouldn’t matter since I have been staying home and have obsessively washed my hands approximately thirty times since noon, but I’m still trying to do my part to flatten the curve.

I have cried so many tears thinking of the front-line workers in essential services, the truck drivers, the first responders, the police, the fire departments, the paramedics and the many doctors and nurses who are forced, too frequently, to decide which patient deserves to be put on the only available ventilator. Day in and day out, they enter a war zone to save as many lives as possible.

Shortly before I felt the desire to write another blog post, I received a comment on Facebook from an old acquaintance (who I have since unfriended) sharing his theory that the virus is lab-made and everything will be fine in a week. His rhetoric was written in response to a meme I had posted about adhering to the government-imposed social distancing and self-isolation. He continued his nonsensical comments by saying he would not allow the government to tell him how to run his household and the “hype” surrounding the virus isn’t warranted.

Let me just say this, and I apologize for the profanity that will follow….at this point, I don’t give a shit where the virus came from. It could have been created by a university student, bored in their molecular biology class for all I care. My biggest concern is that it is here, and it is killing people. The “hype” surrounding this virus has crippled our existence and forced those of us, who understand the concept of how this virus spreads, to stay home and hone our skills on social media, pick up sewing again, read the book we have been meaning to read or to teach ourselves how to bake homemade bread. My family lives two minutes away and it would be SO easy to drop by for a quick visit, but those visits are now reduced to me say hello from my car window across the road from their driveway.

I spent a great deal of time calming myself before I wrote this post. It would have contained an exaggerated number of expletives had I not taken many deep breaths before putting my fingers on the keyboard. The “hype” surrounding this virus has already killed upwards of 74,000 people, and those are just the registered deaths. Those who have succumbed to the virus were people like you and me. They had families and friends, and their deaths will not go unnoticed.

This isn’t over. This virus isn’t finished with us. More people will die and they could be people we know and love. And if I follow the inane thought-process of the ignoramus who is not following the guidelines of staying at home, I hate to think how much soap I would need to wash my hands of the blood of those I may have inadvertently infected with my utter disregard for the severity of this pandemic by NOT staying home.

My government does not run my household. My heart and my head run my household. And if I, for one second, thought I could potentially help even ONE person by staying at home, you can bet your ass, I will choose staying at home. Every. Single. Time.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was that day

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Once a week, in the midst of our current global situation, I prepare myself for a full-on ugly cry because I know it always lurks in the shadows. I embrace the reality of what we are all going through and become a victim to its weight, enough so that I let it bring me down and send me into wracking sobs to purge the emotion I feel. It is the release I need to climb out of the darkness and allow myself to see the immense light that keeps us all going. And there is so much light.

Yesterday was that day, for me. It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t counting down the minutes until I could cry, I just cried, and it came at the most unexpected moment. I had just watched such a joyful live-stream on Facebook and I cried tears that were filled with more happiness than sadness because I realized that all of us are struggling and trying to make the best of an unprecedented situation. We are all just doing the best we can to make it through, one day at a time.

Life, online, is our new reality. My recent presence on social media has increased at an alarming rate, but this is our now. Social media is our way of holding tight to the people who bring us joy and keep us grasping at snippets of a life we once knew and, one day, we will know again.

Life after Covid-19 will eventually return. It will be a very slow process and one that we will venture into with distrust, at first, but it will return. I’m sure most of us will be wary of shaking hands or giving hugs, but life will slowly evolve back to where we were and we have to have faith in that truth.

I send so much gratitude for those on the front lines, from medical staff to essential services. I send my undying appreciation for those who are self-isolating to flatten the curve. And I send my plea for those who take this situation lightly to rethink your actions and embrace this pandemic seriously. This virus is unforgiving. It is severe. And I would hate to think, one day, you could look back and think yesterday was that day, the day I could have stayed home and really made a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

If only the trash could always take itself out

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This blog is my forum, my asylum, my place to say things I want to say without the consequence of having to defend my words to anyone.

While trying to get my brain back into writing mode by entering a short story contest, I was notably derailed by social media. I still have time to make the contest deadline on Friday but my brain has been so consumed by my intense feelings and my desire to work through them that I do not have the ability to string a series of words together other than to defend myself against words that were written hastily towards me with an underlying malice, intended or not.

I made an innocuous post on Facebook on Sunday night stating my intention to book my “staycation” in March and get my next tattoo that will have a great deal of meaning for me. The first response to my post took me by surprise and left me feeling like I had to defend the words I had written. Without going into great detail, I was hurt more than I anticipated and knocked down by a friend I have known for many years. But the overwhelmingly supportive tribe in my small community quickly lifted me up and made me dust myself off.

Words have a great deal of power. The people who brandish strings of words without thinking about them before they write them do not realize the devastating effect those words can have on those who are the focus of their bitter diatribe. But being offended by those words gave ME the power. Being offended by those words made me move on and continue to be an adult. And being offended by those words made me fully aware that, thankfully, I was not the only one outraged by those words.

Shortly after the deluge of responding opinions from the people who support me, the author of the comment who started this whole mess “unfriended” me on Facebook. One of the remarks I received truly stood out and is the most fitting line to be the title and the conclusion of this post, and I thank her for that.

“If only the trash could always take itself out”.

 

 

Time doesn’t heal, it just changes your perspective

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I presumably share more things on this blog about my personal life than people want to read. But starting this blog eight years ago gave me a forum to write about whatever I choose to write about and if you, who are following, still want to read along, I thank you for being a part of my journey.

The beginning of this new month, new year and new decade has not started well for me. I had to say goodbye to the truest form of devotion I have known and I miss her presence every single moment. One day at a time, I have had to forge ahead and rewrite the scenes as I go. I thought I would be performing the original script for many more years to come, but such is not the case and the blank pages are waiting for a new story to unfold.

Slowly, I am beginning to build my new life one sentence at a time. As I construct those sentences, they become paragraphs and those flowing, connective words will eventually become a new story. It is an arduous task, but one I have to undertake with a strong will and the faith that good things wait ahead for me.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have begun to focus more on myself. I have selfishly decided the needs of the one (me) might (if only temporarily) outweigh the needs of the many I have been focusing on for a very long time.

Time doesn’t feel like it is healing me, but merely making me look at things with a fresh, and possibly transitory self-indulgent, perspective and, for once, I am giving in to that prospect. I go into the unknown with the understanding that time holds me in its furtive embrace, willing me to see things in a new light.

Side line – as I was writing this post, I was called out on social media for wanting to get a “look at me” tattoo to honor my faithful companion of twelve years. I was made painfully aware that the money I will spend on having her memory etched onto my skin could be seen as a frivolous expenditure and money better spent on causes that could use that donation. My rebuttal to that notion will be as brief as I can make it.

For the past four years, I have spent every Sunday, weather permitting, from November to April, bringing together volunteers to make crockpot meals for our local food bank so the clients can have healthy, home-cooked meals at least once a week. The time spent choosing the meals, making the shopping lists, picking up all of the ingredients and preparing the meals has healed many parts of me and has certainly changed my perspective in many aspects of my life.

Time will never heal my losses. It won’t bring back my parents, my best college friend or my dog. But time will give me many opportunities to put my best foot forward and help in the most essential ways I feel I can help. Time will allow me to engage those volunteers. Time will help me shop for those groceries. Time will help plan those meals and orchestrate the process from food preparation to delivery. And time will help me heal the gaping wounds of my losses by getting tattoos that help me surf the gigantic waves of the grief I encounter from losing those close to me.

Thanks to that hurtful message on social media, time has, once again, changed my perspective. I have time to ignore that viewpoint. I have time to wipe my tears and realize it shouldn’t affect me as much as I let it. And I have time to focus on the good in me and let that good change my perspective on someone I thought was a friend.

 

 

If you can’t handle Amber, you’re not ready for RED!

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This post may be more of a rant than anything else and, for that, I apologize. In the wee hours of Thursday morning, my phone blasted with the warning sound of an Amber alert shortly after 3:00 a.m. I struggled to find my reading glasses to see where the story was coming from and read the details of the alert. The alleged abduction was not anywhere close to me so I settled in to drift back into sleep. The alert went off one more time and I wished for nothing more than the safe recovery for the two children who were reported missing.

Fast forward to the next morning on social media. Once again, a shameless number of people were complaining about having their sleep interrupted by the crass sound of the amber alert through their phones while they were snuggled comfortably in their beds. Countless other idiots actually called 9-11 to complain about their precious sleep being hindered by the obtrusive tone of the alert that two young children were missing.

I continue to struggle with the audacity of people when responding to Amber alerts. This siren, this loud cry in the middle of the night, is hoping to find one person in a sea of tens-of-thousands of people who may be able to bring these children back to a safe haven, one person who may have a clue as to what happened, one person who may be the key to finding the children who have been taken against their will. Why is this a difficult concept and why are people so obtuse?

I really don’t care if your sleep is interrupted. I abhor the fact that selfish and self-absorbed people feel it necessary to complain about Amber alerts on social media and I have already unfriended those who have done this. I cannot even fathom calling 9-11 to complain about my life being interrupted by an Amber alert and can only hope, one day, this type of asinine behavior is mitigated by a hefty fine for those who feel their sleep is more important than the life of a missing loved-one.

The aptly named distraction called Netflix

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I can weakly defend the recent abandonment of my writing by calling Netflix ‘research’ but I don’t think that defense would hold up in a court of law. While I am gathering some very useful character traits and background ideas for my second book, I have yet to take those ideas and weave them into my characters.

My current book involves a serial killer but he is not fully a product of my imagination. He is loosely based on a child I met two years ago. This child did atrocious things to smaller living creatures and he stared at me with a look that turned my blood cold. He was only eight years old at the time. Perhaps my inability to focus on molding this character comes from my hope I am wrong about this little boy but everything about his mannerisms has been documented by behavior analysts and related to the psyche of a fledgling serial killer. I have had many discussions with professionals in related fields about this child’s actions and they have all expressed great concern about his tendencies toward violence and the path he is potentially going to follow.

This brings me back to my reason for this post. Netflix lives up to their name by casting a wide net of flicks and offering a profusion of shows and documentaries about many topics. If the authorities were to look at a list of the shows I have viewed recently, my name could potentially show up on their watch list. I spent the last couple of nights watching a series of shows about Ted Bundy and I am going to delve into a few more documentaries about real serial killers so my writing has an honesty to it and doesn’t come across as manufactured. I want this character to have deep emotion, to be real and to be frightening, and I want the reader to have an apprehension because they believe this character could be someone they have met before.

If you are looking for me, I will be caught in the net again, hoping these tortured human beings can help me understand how their minds work so the fiction of Lark will be as frightening as the reality of the heinous crimes they committed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good, the bad and the grossly unfair

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Death is selfish. It lurks in the shadows. It hides in a realm of certainty somewhere between acceptance and denial and it feeds on our inability to process its inevitability. It waits for nobody. It heeds its own agenda and it gives no signs of compassion. It simply reaps.

This past weekend began on a good note. I left work on Friday with plans for a full day on Saturday with a friend and things quickly changed. My weekend went from good to bad as Mother Nature unleashed her winter fury in the wee hours of Saturday morning and obliterated any plans for travel on Saturday. Since my car is still in possession of its summer tires, our plans were thwarted and I was home-bound for the day. While I made the most of the day by making soup and catching up on some reading, my disappointment still tainted my afternoon.

After a good night’s sleep, I awoke Sunday morning with a renewed faith the day would be great. With my shopping list in hand, I loaded up a grocery cart with items to make Freezer Crockpot meals for our local food bank, surrounded myself with a group of volunteers and we created twenty-eight meals that will each feed a family of four. The good that afternoon far outweighed the bad from the previous day.

When I got home a few hours later, I was greeted by the news an old friend has passed away on November 2nd after a brief battle with cancer. I was unaware of his passing until today and missed the opportunity to attend his funeral service. Even though my car is equipped with only summer tires, I would have driven through those early snow storms to pay my respects to Doug and his family.

He was a wonderful man. Charismatic only touches the surface of how animated his personality could be. He was quick with a smile, eager to share a laugh and truly one of the most genuine people I have ever had the good fortune to meet. To say he will be missed is an egregious understatement. I spent a great deal of Sunday night in tears, crying for the loss of Doug and the fact that so many people are taken before we are ready to say goodbye to them. Fuck cancer.

 

I’m starting to question my intelligence

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I have always been proud of the fact that I have a great deal of common sense.  Sometimes I have moments of cleverness that make me happy that I have the ability to formulate logical and reasonable assessments of a situation. Lately, all of that has changed.

Tired of hearing the Squirrel Grand Prix up and down my walls at 6:00 am, I decided to take action.  I bought a live trap with the thought that it would be easy to trick a few red squirrels into it so I could re-home them.  I was wrong.

I was lucky on the first round.  I came home to find a large black squirrel in the trap and we went for a nice drive to a golf course about 10 km from my house.  It was surprisingly calm during the ride but once the cage was out of the car, it was quite anxious to begin its life in its new home. One point for me.

I put some nice, plump cashews on the spring trap and set it out before I went to bed. I peeked out the window the next morning to see the trap had been sprung but there was nothing inside. I used peanut butter to attach the cashews to the spring trap with the same results. I knew the trap worked since I had imprisoned a few chickadees in the process. The status of the hunt was moved up to Defcon 3. I took a small mason jar and placed it inside on one side of the trap with the nuts inside the jar. I made sure the trap would close with the jar inside. I put the trap close enough to a beam on my deck so the little buggers would have no choice but to enter from one side, climb over the plate springing the trap in the process and making me the victor. That did not happen.

When I went out the next morning the trap had been sprung, the nuts were gone and the little shit squirrel had defecated in the jar as a way of saying, “screw you, lady”. Defcon 2 – I was at the point where I was going to borrow my brother’s wildlife night-vision camera so I could see how this was happening.  That squirrel had to be the rodent version of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible to get in and out of there without getting caught. It probably was licking its fingers after its meal and reached through the side of the trap and set it off – just to spite me.

Defcon 1 – Someone made a suggestion that made complete sense. Why had I not thought of this? I went to the local Home Hardware and purchased some Krazy Glue. If I was knowingly going to feed these furry creatures again, they were going to work for it! But the dynamic changed. They were on to me. Those nuts sat glued to that tray for two weeks and were buried in our mid-April snowstorm. Once the snow had melted and the elements had broken down the glue, the little bastards came back, took the nuts and left.

The only stage left after Defcon 1 is war. Wish me luck, I’m going in.