I'm Jessica

Shawn and I went on a road trip for our 10th Anniversary. This was from our first night, Sunday, August 5th, 2018. I posted this on Facebook while we were on the road:

Night one of our trip was quite something. We had a long day of driving and tourist-ing (I know it's not a word, let me be). We were so close to our hotel, but I hadn't packed ibuprofen and also had developed sinus congestion so we had to stop at the gas station next to the hotel. There wasn't another option close by. I had to pee and I knew I wasn't making it to the hotel.

Seeing as it was me heading to a public restroom, something odd happening was not unlikely. I'm all about in and out as fast as possible in a public bathroom. I could hear stuff happening from the stall next to and I tried even harder to pee and flee. Then, I hear talking. In the age of cellphones, I assumed I was not part of this. Wrong. "I don't know who is in here right now, but I want someone to know my name. I'm Jessica" said the voice from the stall. In my anxiety-induced-socially-awkward state, I said, "Um. Okay." Washed my hands and left.

I told Shawn about it and that I didn't know what to do. I decided to tell the attendant. He said that he'd check in and that the graveyard shift see a lot of things.

We get to the hotel and check-in. Shawn heads back to park the car which had been sitting by the main entrance while we unloaded. It took him awhile to come back. I came to the lobby to get ice and saw Shawn standing by a window. He is talking to someone who was crying. I went back to the room.

Shawn came to the room. I asked him who he was talking to and he said it turned out to be Jessica...gas station bathroom Jessica. He was going to take her to Walmart, which was a good 10 minutes or so away, and wanted me to come for various reasons. She was a mess. Quite possibly a drugged out mess, but a mess just the same. He had given her our leftover pizza. She was so hungry. He gave her the cash that he happened to have. The trip to Walmart was to put the cash on her debit card in order to use an app that would get her a bus back to where she needed to be. When we dropped off, I gave her the fruit we had and a small package of Kleenex. She confessed to us that she did steal the energy drink from the gas station and knew it was wrong.

There were several "Sirs" and "Ma'ams". Some were with "Thank yous" and some were with "Yeses" or "Nos" in response to questions or instructions.

In the end, like the lost duckling we found about a month ago, we found a place for her to go and all we can do is hope for the best outcome of safety and being reunited with her friends and family.

Shawn is loving and compassionate and will go out of his way to help someone/thing in need and I am lucky to have him as my husband.

Abby Cat

From a Facebook post on Monday, August 6th, 2018:

I have posted pictures of the Queen Bee, Office Diva, Abby. The 16-year-old seal point who ran the show. She assigned you paperwork when she felt like getting up from atop it. She’d take it upon herself to make attempts at rebooting or reprogramming or just typing some kind of mess on your laptop. I swear she came very close to changing my passwords at times. She also enjoyed licking condensation from my giant, ice filled, water jug.

She was particular about her surroundings, her diet, her water bowl, and her people. Morgan was her person, no one could compare. She was so connected to Morgan that she shared her ringworm with her TWICE! The rest of the office was second tier for sure. Some of us aren’t cat people. I mean, we’ll rescue them, but we don’t have them as pets. But with Abby’s 4 months with us we didn’t really become cat people, but we did become Abby people.

Friday morning was probably the most difficult time I’ve had since joining Life Is Better. Abby, who had been through ringworm and food strikes had been diagnosed with renal failure earlier in the week. It was decided that, at 16, it was best to let her go. So, I drove specifically to see her one last time. I’m glad I was there and I’m glad I was with Abby’s #1 and the rest of the 2nd tier crew as we watched her slowly leave us.

#queenabby #proudtobeanabbyperson #adoptdontshop#rescuedismyfavoritebreed #thatrescuelife 

Abby on  a pile of paperwork as she ponders assigning it to me.

Attempting to reboot and then change passwords.

Thirsty kitty is thirsty.

The thirst is real.

Tick Tock, I still keep track

It's that time of year again. I'm recalling the day of my hysterectomy (I spelled it right all on my own). I'm still waiting for the year that it's," Hey, that happened and we've moved on. We are too old for that having babies shit, anyway." Guess what? Big surprise coming! This is not that year.

I have come to realize that in all of this time, I have not been physically around a pregnant acquaintance (okay, I need the little, red, squiggly line to help me spell that one) or friend. There's been FB stuff, but no reach-out-and-touch (not that I'm touching) someone proximity. 

Now, that I am around someone pregnant. Someone I see a couple times a week, I realized just how hard it can be at times. I'm happy for her and her husband. I wouldn't want her to change any of her experience around me. Life goes on and there is a bittersweet feeling I hold inside, but that is not for her to worry about. 

What got me recently was her describing the feeling of pregnancy. I don't remember exactly what was happening. I just remember finding myself wonder what it felt like from the inside. What happens when the baby moves? Kicks? Hiccups? All those things. The curiosity I have that will never be sated. 

So, there are the 4th anniversary thoughts. Below are other related posts.

Just to be clear, this may be TMI

Thoughts-ectomy

Things still aren't how they were supposed to be

The right thing sometimes sucks

Unhappy Anniversery

2nd surgeversary

Three years since the day I thought I stopped being a woman

"Besides what you see I [don't] have confidence in me."

People have told me that what I'm courageous or brave for writing the things I do on this blog. Even if that is the case, even if I'm doing more than screaming into the void, I am far from having confidence. And, maybe those things are not the same thing.

My major depression, treatment-resistant depression, bipolar depression, whichever-diagnosis-is-on-the-table depression and my anxiety have stolen things from me. The greatest theft has been my confidence.

There is very little I have confidence in about myself. It's a terrible thing to believe yourself to be incapable of doing most anything. I have lost confidence in the idea that I could get a job, a full time, little to no anxiety, contribute to our household job. I cannot envision such a thing.

So, I sit with my anxiety and lack of confidence. I sleep until my anxiety and lack of confidence messes with it. I do not adult. I cannot adult.

Dream big, but a little less specific, perhaps

I've been thinking about ending this blog. I can't remember the exact thing I heard, but it was something like bloggers are just "throwing up into the abyss", or maybe it was "vomiting into the void". Either way, it had me feeling like blogging is a waist of time and kind of a self-important act. There's also the fact that my dream for my blogging was to become something that would amass readers from all over, which I guess fills the self-important part. Anyway, for now, I'm still here.

And on to other matters.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post that started out with a girl on "Sister Wives" coming out as gay. I made brief mention about how her mom was struggling with it. One of the things her mom was struggling with was her dream for her daughter. Things like her getting married and picking out dresses for that. Also having grandchildren from her. All of these things can still happen, but in a different way.

Recently, I heard that someone I know, let's call her Susie, has a daughter who now identifies as male. Susie is a progressive liberal who is also a mom. She is struggling with how this is so difficult when she is so liberal. But, she's struggling with what she envisioned for her child and for the difficulties life has in store for her child. She knew what she wanted for her child and this wasn't it.

Then, another person I know was talking about her baby girl. It was about the future and the wedding she will have. And the groom and all the traditional things. She was dreaming big. She dreams big about all the things her baby can and/or will become.

All of this got me thinking. I think it is so easy to fall in love with the life you imagine for your child. I know, I don't have biological kids that I've raised since birth, but I still can observe things. Maybe parents should dial back their dreams for their children. Maybe the dreams should be for hope, love, peace, happiness, strength, and so much more. Happiness doesn't have to be boxed up in a trip to the bridal store to try on dresses for a cis wedding. When you wish that box on your child and your child simply cannot open it for you, happiness, for maybe only a brief moment, doesn't happen. 

One of the greatest moments with my dad was when I apologized for being his greatest disappointment and he told me that I wasn't and that all he ever wants for me, all he ever wants for my siblings, is to be happy.

So, dream happiness, dream love, dream strength, dream peace and allow them to figure out how to manifest those things.

So much mattering is happening

Presidential elections matter. Primary elections matter. Midterm elections matter. State elections matter. County elections matter. City elections matter. All elections matter.

If you don't think they do, think about the road you are driving on; the paramedic who saved your grandma's life; the police response time when you really needed them. Those are things that come from government; come from elections on tax increases; come from something that comes from a ballot.

Here's something I discovered for myself during this primary cycle in CO. There were a number of county level offices, mostly uncontested. I typically would just fill in the bubble like the guesses I made on the SAT. I just figured that they were from my party affiliation so just go with it. I decided to look around more for all the candidates.

The county coroner's office on ballot actually had two candidates. I thought about it and was like, "Who cares who cuts me open. Does it matter if they are red or blue?" Since I was already all about the Google for my voting needs, I decided to look at the coroner candidates. I figured I'd just see some medical credentials, maybe coroner positions held previously, yadda, yadda. As I was starting my Google search for the one candidate, high on the list of results was something about his focus on transgender and non-binary people when it comes to death. He is a supporter of LGBTQ rights and with that comes his stance that coroners need to respect gender identity in death as much as it should be, needs to be, in life. He wants death certificates to reflect the person's identity as they had lived.

This really blew my mind. Not the LGBTQ, trans, non-binary stuff. The part where a coroner actually has a political platform, for lack of a better description; that coroners have more on their mind than human dissection; that red or blue choices in coroner might really MATTER.

So, again, for all the bullshit that goes along with it, politics, voting, and making your voice heard all really do matter....especially in the age of the motherfucker in chief.

What have we done to ourselves - oh, wait, I didn't vote for him.

I never thought I would come close to eating these words. The state of the U.S. and its place in the world is becoming quite scary to me. The things that 45 is getting away with are stomach churning. He's got the whole ripping kids from their parents thing going on. Yeah, Obama had shit going down, but his wasn't the separation (with spellcheck, how did 45's people spell that wrong?). He deported a crap ton of people, so STFU about him already. Oh, right, 45 went with an executive order to end seperation [sic]. That was a lot of bullshit with little actually being done. And then, he gets his fucking racist Muslim ban a thumbs up from SCOTUS. He also removes us from the the U.N.'s Human Rights' Council. Pardon me while I go from some Pepto, Tums, and all the other stuff to try to turn my stomach right. He also pulled out (if only that were a successful form of birth control and that his dad would have practiced it) of the Paris climate agreement. Then there's his grand standing, dick measuring contest he had with Kim Jong-Un. His Twitter feed is another example of how vile this guy is. These are becoming horrifying times...I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this, but they are.

Then, there's SCOTUS. Holy crap is it also becoming a bit disturbing. Believe me, I am not Colorado proud when it comes to Neil Gorsuch having a spot on the bench. We need RBG to hang on for a long time - science, make this happen!!!

And now, I need to find some shitty T.V. to cleanse the palate and calm the stomach.