The bad news is that I’ve been living in a never ending panic attack. (Hollander, you are having panic attack.)
My shrinky dink can’t prescribe me the good drugs because she’s not licensed in Maine. She did prescribe me something that would - supposedly - calm me down.
My brain looked at it and said, “What’s the maximum dose? Three? Oh, honey, you’re going to need to at least triple that shit if you want them to work.”
My brain? It’s an asshole.
I’m mentally ill - of course my brain is an asshole. It’s just a bigger one than usual.
Fuck.
At any rate, let’s discuss why I’m actually here.
We’re trying something new today! Trauma dumping!
Wait. That’s not new. You must be new here.
Warning: this entire blog is nothing but a trauma dumping ground.
Well, that’s not totally true…
I’ve been gushing (ha!) over gay hockey players. I bitch about writing. I try to be humorous.
I write.
It’s what I do.
(We’ll get to the puppy later; that’s a whole fucking thing that I don’t have the energy for.)
On April 30, 2001, I went to my father’s apartment at lunch. He wasn’t answering my calls and that was unlike him. He was supposed to be home, waiting for a furniture delivery. I had to have the complex manager let me in… Once she clocked what had happened, she fucking vanished. *poof*
I was not so lucky.
In my nightmares, I relive that moment. The door opening. Him napping on the couch. Walking over there to wake him up. Realising he wasn’t going to.
Everything after that is a blur.
I had just turned 26.
I was an orphan and, very literally, all alone in the world.
No family left.
A boyfriend, a few friends scattered here and there, a coworker who welcomed me as a full member in good standing of the Dead Parents Club, Toledo Chapter. (God, do I love the people in my life who understand my sense of humor.)
May 3, 2001 would have been my mother’s 55th birthday, if she hadn’t died nine years earlier.
May 10, 2001 would have been their 32nd wedding anniversary, had they not gotten divorced in March of 1992.
May 13, 2001 was Mother’s Day.
If my brain is an asshole, the calendar certainly gave it a run for the money.
I honestly don’t remember much about the aftermath, either. I do remember an epic melt-down at work, four therapists, a shrinky dink, a diagnosis, clarity, and walking out of a pharmacy with a little orange bottle that would, also quite literally, change my life.
The contents of that bottle has changed over the years, as has the number of the bottles, but without them? I might not have survived the darkest chapter of my life. I’ll never identify as suicidal, because I can’t do it. The unaliving, I mean. I don’t want to do that to my friends. Not the ones that hung around and supported me when I didn’t even know I needed it.
But.
I came really fucking close.
Depression lies and my brain is an asshole.
And both of them were whispering in my ear about how everything would just… go away.
How I would see my father again. Make peace with my mother. How my friends would go on with their lives and I’d just be a faded memory. How it wouldn’t hurt them and how it would fix everything.
I looked at the pill bottle.
I looked at the side effects.
I calculated the risks.
I looked at the clock to see how much time I had before the boyfriend would come home.
And I put the bottle back where it belonged.
Thursday is the 25th anniversary of the day I found his lifeless body on a couch in some shitty Toledo apartment.
I am not doing well.
Not even close.
Someone asked me if this year was especially bad because April 30th is also the day we went in front of a judge and finalised our divorce.
Also? May 3rd? The day he told me he wanted a divorce. Granted, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but to finally pull the band-aid off? That was a weird night on so many different levels.
The calendar?
An absolute motherfucker.
- - - - - - - - - -
[Verse 1]
How long till it feels
Like the wound’s finally starting to heal?
How long till it feels
Like I’m more than a spoke in a wheel?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
I’ve had my share of Monday mornings when I can’t get up
But, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Verse 2]
How long till you know
That, in truth, you know nothing at all?
How far will you go
To get back to the place you belong?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
But I refuse to spend my best years rotting in the sun
So, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
- Survive, Lewis Capaldi
I know I have roots there even if I don’t know where the trees are.
Hail! to the victors valiant / Hail! to the conqu’ring heroes / Hail! Hail! to Michigan
/ I forgot the words / GO BLUE!
A while back, I had this crazy plan to fly in and out of Boston - go see my friends’ band in Albany-adjacent cities and then catch a Bruins game. A nice, low-key, all-me, 50th birthday long weekend.
Yeah. That did not go as planned.
It became fly into Albany, see the two BMS shows, go to Boston and watch them lose to BUFFALO (BUFFALO! ACK!), drive to Maine and buy a house.
Dude, I bought a fucking house.
It’s the third one I’ve owned outright and the fifth house I’ve bought. Buying a house doesn’t get any less stressful the fifth time around, let me tell you.
But, let’s start in Albany. Future me is going to wish I wrote this somewhere, so why not here? I share everything else important here. (This may be a long one. Strap in! (Strap on? Whatever works!))
I get to Albany to find out they’re charging me a $200 one way rental fee for the car. Not only that, they’ve decided me to give me a Hyundai Elantra. The Elantras are REALLY low to the ground. Like, really, really, low. Hated that car since the moment he gave me the keys. Grrr. Glad I didn’t get a nicer car - that fucking $200 would have made the car way too expensive and I was already pushing my budget.
(I bet this is the most expensive vacation I’ll ever take in my entire life. Altogther, I spent roughly $203,000.)
I have always had good luck with Super 8s in Upstate NY. I am sad to say that the original hotel in Cobleskill fucking sucked. It seems minor, but the room had a broken safe. (I had a laptop. I didn’t want to bring it to a bar in an unknown neighbourhood.) They tried to put me in a different room. Broken safe. Third room? So moldy, I couldn’t even walk in the door. I walked out of the hotel in full Karen mode. (Well, they must have thought that. I thought I was being nice about almost dying. Mold has become something I’m super allergic to. So, yeah, no thanks. You can poison someone else.)
So, I went ALL THE FUCK THE WAY BACK TO THE AIRPORT and stayed at the Tru by Hilton. That was ah-mazing. I’m only staying at Trus from this point forward.
Black Mountain Symphony killed it during that first show. I sat back and let the songs roll over me. It felt like the first time I could breathe in ages. All the stress. POOF! Gone. So nice to be home, surrounded by friends, and the best music ever. Oh, it was amazing.
I left the Tru to stay a little family run hotel closer to BMS’ second show of the weekend. It was a nice room. Nothing too fancy. (The BMS show was great, as expected, and I bonded with Bill’s mom a bit. Love her!) The absolute worst part of the night was when I was woken up by something. The bed was shaking. Literally shaking. Like someone was fucking with the mattress. And then, once the bed stopped moving, it felt like something got on the bed with me. (It could have been Guinness or the ex for the way the bed sunk.) The room got cold and I could feel someone in the room with me. This started at about 3AM and lasted until 3:30. I barely moved a muscle except to breathe and cracked my eye to look at the time.
Turns out there is a cemetery across the street from the hotel.
I guess someone just wanted to say hi.
From there, it was Boston. Battery Wharf Hotel. Eh. It was hard to find and they had valet parking. (I hate valet parking!) The restaurant didn’t serve me the first morning and I had waited for over fifteen minutes, made contact with three different people and was not acknowledged once. Grrrr. It was just… eh. It poured all day Monday so I didn’t leave the room except to go to the Bruins game. It was so weird being back in the Garden. Everything changed from how you get into the arena vs where the trains are. Bruins stank it up, but UConn and BU had boys on Buffalo. It didn’t help that Sweeney traded Marchy and Coyle right at the fucking trade deadline. Bastard.
From Boston, I headed to Maine.
Fell in love with a house in Dover-Foxcroft. $230K, 1.25 acres, river front, a she shed that was livable. I also fell through the floorboards. Too much work for that sort of money.
Ate at Bob’s Clam Shack, spent a good hour staring at the Nubble Lighthouse, and spent the night in a hotel at Long Sands Beach. Nice to reconnect with my memories of my father, even if I didn’t make it to Ogunquit.
Made my home base in Bangor. Millinocket’s about an hour north, but I had some rewards points to use and I didn’t see any Hiltons up there. Spent the next two days looking at houses. FIFTEEN HOUSES.
It was toss up between the emotional choice and the smart choice. The emotional choice had a beautiful view of Mt. Kathadin, but needed a lot of work. They were asking almost $200K for it, and I really doubted it would appraise at $150K. I offered a fair amount and they countered at basically what they were asking. Yeah, that’s a no. The view is BEAUTIFUL and well worth $200K, but a house with dated appliances and asbestos shingles is not.
I ended up going with the smart choice. A little three bedroom ranch, in move in condition, with a garage and a basement I can finish.
We close on May 9th. Movers come May 21st.
Had Chinese for lunch and my fortune was perfect: Trust in the journey of self-discovery; you are evolving.
I find it wholesome to be alone in the greater part of the time. - Thoreau
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. - also Thoreau
Hmmm… I haven’t read Walden and Civil Disobedience in forever. The fact that he’s top of mind today might mean it’s time for a reread. I mean, I still have my copy from high school. I’m surprised it’s held together this long.
The blue book in the background was an Xmas gift from the X, (Ha!) but I haven’t read it yet.
Wow. THAT was the tangent to end all tangents. (Today at least.)
And now I’ve forgotten what…
Nope, I remember.
Can I just say what a bitch it is to start a company? Especially when you’re into tech and have a creative / marketing background? I spent a ton on software templates and social media posts in an effort to cut corners. The social media stuff may be well worth it and the two software tutorials / templates seem to be worth their money as well.
I spent last night branding the social media posts and building out the recommended schedule for them. I launch January 1st, so it’s coming up quick.
I just had a five day vacay from the day job and didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to on the side hustle… but I also relaxed a lot. Burnout has been my constant companion for months and dealing with seasonal depression and obsessing about my move to Maine isn’t helping matters.
I have to work on day job stuff today because I don’t want to close November in January, but that’s a choice I’m making. Not the best one, but it’s a choice.
In the meantime, I’ll throw up a crappy home page with a link to my Calendly, Facebook, and Instagram pages. It’s at least something while I work on the back end.
Is it bad I’m buying shit from Amazon instead of leaving the house and going to Target just because I want the boxes? Yeah, it’s probably pretty bad…
In other news, I gave into the hype and saw Wicked. I broke much sooner than I did with Hamilton, and I’m just as disappointed. Hamilton’s soundtrack won me over, but I can’t say the same for Wicked’s. I don’t know why I can’t see these and obsess over them like my friends do. I want to love them that much, but they’re just… bleh.
So yeah, about that move.
I am constantly pissed off that I’m spending as much on a 700 sq ft apartment as I did on a 2K+ sq ft house. I can’t afford this on my salary, but none of the less expensive ones were as nice and after all their add ons (especially the cat charges), they were just as expensive. Florida real estate is stupid.
I can get decent houses in Maine for $100K - $200K. With a nice deposit, my mortgage will be more than reasonable. AND if I’m spending $2K a month on a place to live, I’d rather create equity than line some landlord’s pockets.
I’m moving in May / June and I will be working remotely with some support in Florida. At least that’s the plan. The boss already knows that I’m moving so it’s been discussed; he just doesn’t know the timeline. I’m saving that for after the holidays.
We’ll see.
Alright, I should stop stalling. The sooner I get the day job shit done, the sooner I can get back to doing nothing.
I didn’t give him enough credit when The Slim Shady EP dropped, but fuck, he gets it all and more now.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoy the way he plays with words. The way they fit his mouth, dance over the track, just… everything.
This song right now is on repeat. Ed Sheeran’s chorus is spot on, the word play, and the emotion that comes across in that one “FUCK!” (you’ll know when you hear it)—Absolute perfection. Every single second of it.
(TW: abortion)
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Two weekends ago, I spent three amazing days with my little brother.
I hadn’t realised how much I needed to see him until that first hug in Epcot.
I was the first friend he ever brought home from college and, apparently, I’m the only one that stuck around.
There’s so much I can say about that… but I’m not ready to discuss it. Yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
I hired a photographer to do a Dopey medal photo shoot at Uni. It was a birthday present to myself, but I didn’t splurge - I hired a person who took photos as a hobby so that she could build out her portfolio and… I’m not happy with about 99% of them, but this one came out exactly as I imagined it! Well… if the medals were in focus, maybe.
