Change Isn’t Always A Good Thing

You know you have gone off the deep end when you tell the employees at Hardee’s they are a bunch of plebeians.  You heard me right, I called them plebeians.  I went to the drive-thru before going west to check my mail and get a few parcels of groceries.  When I got to the window and received my bag, I checked it as I always do.  Biscuit with egg, cheese and tomato.  However, there were no napkins in the bag.  Usually they put ten napkins for each sandwich.  I waited for the girl to return to the window and asked for napkins and she replied, “We are all out of napkins.  They are being unloaded right now in the back.”  I looked at her in disbelief and handed the bag back to her and advised I could not eat that unless I had napkins.  She couldn’t seem to understand what napkins have to do with eating a greasy sandwich.  She snatched the bag wondering what to do and I asked if they were all plebeians and do not use napkins to wipe their hands and mouth when eating.  She took my bag and gave it to someone to return my money.  That person returned my bag with some paper-towels.  While I waited, I noticed the tables by the window just ahead of me had full napkin dispensers.  This roused me even more.  Why tell me they are completely out of napkins, when in fact they are not?  How much trouble is it to go into a virtually empty dinning area and taking some of the napkins for use in another area until supplies are unpacked?

I know you are wondering what this little tale has to do with the title of this post.  A lot.  Back in my grandmother’s day it was called “the change”.  The more accurate name is menopause.  A number of years ago, my best friend, Sissy (rest her soul) went through the change.  No one could live with her.  Her husband, daughter and even I avoided her most of the time.  Her mood swings were so bad that one time she even bragged to me about calling the secretary of her church a B****.  Sissy, like me,  never cussed.   This was strange for me to comprehend.  Those close to her finally figured out what was going on with her.  While we still avoided her a good deal, we tried to be more understanding.  This prompted me to have a bit of a conversation with my aunt.  I asked her (I am very naive) if she had been through the change yet.  After she stopped laughing she affirmed that she had.  I told her about Sissy and inquired as to the symptoms my aunt had.  She said all she had was hot flashes.

About a year or so ago I began noticing definite changes in my menses.  In the last few months I have noticed my demeanor changing.  I get upset and even angry faster.  I am still good at holding my tongue, excepting this morning.  I keep everything inside and don’t tell people what I truly feel.  I figured this change was due to Meniere’s and the way it has been treating me of late.  I also attributed my change to loneliness as I do not have interactions with people on a regular basis.  This mornings display gave me pause and I took the drive out west to try to consider what was going on with me.  Hot flashes and night sweats have been with me intermittently for a while now.

I once had someone describe menopause to me as one minute you have your head in the freezer and the next in the oven.  I thought she was joking.   Women are just now being overtly educated regarding this change.  When I was growing up it was still a bit of a taboo subject that everyone knew about, but did not speak of, especially in polite company.  Now it is all over the television, radio, movies and print media.  There are pills you can take to supposedly help lessen the severity of the symptoms of menopause.  More drugs.  Seems there is a pill for just about everything these days.  I am, as my GYN says, pre-menopausal.  I suppose things will get worse as I continue into the change.  Until I am safely on the other side of this, I will do all within my power to continue to hold my tongue and keep a fan nearby.  However, if, on the rare occasion, I slip and call you a plebeian, please try to be understanding and know that it is not how I honestly feel.  It will be the hormones going crazy within.

To Trust And Trust Not

What is trust?  Why do people trust?  Is trust a commodity to be bought and sold?  Or, perhaps, trust is a liability.  Where do I begin to answer my questions and try to figure out why one five letter word stifles me faster than any other, save love alone.

Random House begins their definition as such; “Reliance on the integrity, ability, etc. of a person or thing.”  But, doesn’t reliance mean trust?  OY!  The English language is confusing.  Maybe the part I have trouble with in this definition is “of a person…”  Roget didn’t even attempt to tackle the word trust.  They went from ‘truss’ straight to ‘trustee’.  Smart people they have working for them.

Trust is so overrated.  People use the word without really understanding it, like ‘love’.  They say “just trust me” or “you have to trust me”.  Why?  Every time I have put blind trust into another person, I alone have been hurt.  One should be able to trust the folks who gave them life.  Mine abused me physically and emotionally; and they allowed another parental figure to physically, emotionally and sexually abuse me.  Why trust?

I trusted my grandparents who had me most of my childhood.  They protected me until they wanted to make it permanent.  When they were denied this by my mother, they too gave me away.  They gave me back to the very person who wanted nothing more than to hurt me.  Why trust?

I trusted a man.  I gave him my heart and two years.  However, after a year and a half engagement, he decided to marry someone he knew for only two weeks, pretty much leaving me at the alter by sending me a letter one week and three days prior to our wedding.  Why trust?

I have trusted doctors who wrongly diagnose me and put me on medication that I do not need and which causes other more severe problems.  Doctors think they have all the answers and look at me as a troublemaker of sorts because I know more about me than they do.  Just be cause you have a degree is not a reason for me to trust you.

I used to trust myself.  But now Meniere’s is in play.  I never know if I am going to have a bout of vertigo or perhaps a drop attack.  I stagger along my way running into walls and furniture.  I can’t trust me or my body to do what I want them to do.   How can I trust me when I am laying sprawled out on the floor in pain from an illness that I cannot control nor vanquish.

Long ago, I would trust those who were, or at least seemed, different from my parents.  Until they proved I couldn’t trust them.  Now I trust no one.  I try to, but it just never comes.  I am finding more and more that there is a lot to be said for cynicism.  Maybe there is a future in it.  Or perhaps just a nice side venture till I can at least trust me once again.

So, why trust?  I still have not found any truly viable reason to trust flesh and bones.  When I have to rely on others, I suffer and always feel that it is not from goodness that they help me, it is for good old fashioned currency or some other form of repayment.

WHY TRUST?

Cynicism And Pain

Losing a loved one.  Losing your life as you know it.  Pain enters when there is loss.  To truly grieve means you allow yourself to feel exuberant amounts of pain.  In essence, you swing open the flood gates and pain, hurt and anguish spew in.

I don’t remember the last time I fully grieved.  Maybe it was in 1981 when Grandmaw died.  I remember the pain when I went through it and how stifling it was.  Now I remember Grandmaw and I am sad because I still miss her, however, the memories are sweet.

There are so many that I have lost since Grandmaw, but I don’t remember fully grieving.  I remember the pain at the loss, but when I try to go further in my memories there is anger – so I stop.  I stop and bury the feelings.  Yes, I know everyone has a right to their feelings and they should be expressed, but not me.

To be the good one, I always desired, but never was.  I have, through the years, learned to repress my feelings.  When I was angry, I was punished.  When I would cry because I was unhappy, I was punished.  When I would be happy, I was turned away.  When I would show love or affection, I would be hurt.  So the easy thing to do was to repress.  The English have it right – don’t display what you feel.  This I can do.

I am neither a masochist nor a sadist.  I have virtually no tolerance for pain, nor do I enjoy inflicting pain, especially on myself.  This is reason enough for me not to grieve.  If I start, I may not stop at this point.  And then again, there is no one there to catch me as I fall.  So I repress.

Recently I have discovered a new tool to add to my repertoire –cynicism.  Although I am new to this concept I am finding it to be just another useful mechanism to keep from dealing with the hurt, pain and anger that keeps coming my way.  When posed with the age old question “is the cup half full or half empty?” I would always respond half full!  Now I retorted, “It’s not my cup.  I don’t care.”

I can cry. I do cry — when I am alone. I scream -– when I am alone.  I yell and fuss — when I am alone.  To bring my anger against me means much frustration. To bring my anger against others could mean they retaliate and well… So I remain angry and frustrated while displaying to the world that all is well. It has to be.  Debbie is always fine.  Debbie needs no one.  Debbie will always be fine. At least that is what the world will always see.

Pain, I am resolved, will always be part of my life.  My deductions for now are that I am only meant for pain; be it physical or emotional.  So, for now at least, cynicism is a means to escape the pain, anger and drudge of life.

Will this to become my sole way of dealing with things?  Probably not. Will cynicism always be in my life?  Probably not.  However, for now it is useful.  Maybe someday someone will enter my life and I will be able to trust them enough to let them be there as I open the floodgates and feel the pain. For now, the cup it isn’t mine, find the owner yourself.

The Human Touch

Today, for the first time in more than a month I felt the human touch.  I actually initiated the first touch by extending my hand to bid farewell to a nice lady I was chatting with about my passions of history and writing.  we were both at the senior center waiting to speak with the tax people to have our taxes prepared.  My name was called and I prepared to stand and meet the preparer.  I found myself extending my hand to thank the lady for chatting with me.  It was kind of slow motion.  I remember pausing and wondering why I was doing this.  What would it be like to feel another human’s touch after all this time.  I know I have gone longer than a month.  I think the longest I have gone without feeling the touch of another human is close to three months.  As this lady’s hand slipped into mine, it felt odd and at the same time pleasant.

Growing up I dreaded the human touch.  The main touches I received were painful and wrong.  I guess when you get the wrong kind of touches and then the right kind and then have people not wanting to touch you at all, it can be quite confusing.  I withdrew my hand and as I was approaching my tax preparer Galar decided to growl a bit and the elderly gentleman grabbed my arm to steady me.  It felt odd again, but Galar’s growls were more intense than the gentleman’s hand holding my arm.  I got lost in the tax preparation process and didn’t give it much thought beyond until I left the center and slid into my car.  Most people don’t ponder the touch of others.  Being a writer is a solitary life.  Having a chronic illness brings about even more solitude.  Sometimes I  believe I should be used to this, but then I feel the pain of being so disconnected.

There are different kinds of touches.  Here I only look at the kinds appropriate for public viewing.  You have the intimate touch of a hug and kiss from a friend in greeting.  Then on the opposite end of the spectrum is the sterile touch as when my doctor examines my ears or someone reaches out to help steady me when I am off balance.  Then you have the middle ground, a handshake in greeting or farewell.  Usually I am only receiving the sterile touches and have gotten to where I don’t even feel it unless the doctor is performing a procedure.  Perhaps once a year I am lucky enough to receive the intimate touch as someone will feel the need to take pity and come visit me.  Those I have come to not expect at all in my life and when they do occur, I am usually so overwhelmed that I cry.  It is the touches in the middle that make me stop and wonder.  Enjoy those you care about and make sure they know how much by at the very least, embracing them when you see them.  Don’t let them form the idea that touching is wrong or has to hurt.

Peace

To start, let me specify that I am not using this post to bash religions nor religion in general.  Neither am I trying to sway anyone to believe a certain way, nor open up to a challenge/debate on religion.  However, of the five major world religions, Buddhism, Catholicism,  Christianity, Judaism; only two are not laden with controversy.  I have written blog posts, essays and poems regarding world peace and it never fails that I receive at least two comments telling me that “only G-d can bring peace” or “there will be no true peace till Jesus comes again”.  I sit and ponder which g-d they are speaking of and what religion has to do with what I have written about peace.

In the core of each of the aforementioned religions is the stress for peace.  But with all the controversy and turmoil surrounding three of the five, I find it difficult to see their message of peace.  I am not judging and I do not aver that the actions of some make it the way of the whole.  However, when those actions are so negative, they tent to put a cloud over any good that could be done.

In the United States, especially here in the ‘Bible Belt’, it is supposed to be a good thing to say you attend church or are a christian.  I wrote an essay a while back addressing two christian groups.  One in the US and the other in the UK.  These groups protest poets and writers just because they don’t like what is written, especially when the writer writes against war.  They also go to airports and protest soldiers coming home from the war as well as protesting the funerals of five young girls killed in a car accident on a rainy night driving home from a football game.

I have personally seen church people and Christians judgmentally taunt people for their beliefs and lifestyles because they differ from their own and what they teach.I have often heard the statement made in churches that they “love the sinner, hate the sin”.  Yet they treat those they call sinners in an ill manner when they don’t conform and give up said sins.

I am trying to see the peace through the cloud.

For decades, Catholicism has dealt with its own issues.  One of the biggest issues is the allegations of sexual abuse of children by the priests.  Most recently it is alleged that the pope has known about specific allegations and buried the information.  Priests take vows of celibacy and break those vows to have sex with boys and women.  I was always taught that when you make a promise, you keep it.  Especially if you make the promise to G-d.

If the leaders are discontent, how can I see the peace?

You don’t have to go far these days or do much research to find anything negative regarding Islam.  members of Islam are ever being suspected and blamed for terrorism around the world.  All a person has to do is look the part or be seen attending a mosque and they are suspect.  Not long ago a man in the United States Army went on a shooting spree at a military base.  As soon as it was said he is a practicing Muslim the media went wild that it was an act of terrorism.  I wrote about this and had stated it appeared to be PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  As soon as the authorities came to the same conclusion I did, the media dropped it.

The other day I watched a piece on 60 Minutes.  They profiled a woman who had been a CIA agent.  The woman, originally from Lebanon, came to the United States as a teenager.  She made no secret of her past and had to undergo many stringent background checks to be employed by the FBI and the CIA.  After many years of service she was scrutinized for her place of birth and her (dis)connection to her sister’s husband.  It was later determined that she was NOT a terrorist.  She still lost her job and all she had worked for and was even dubbed in the media as “Jihad Jane”.  I foresee a return to the McCarthy Trials.

With suspicion and a select group terrorizing the world in the name of G-d, I can’t see the peace.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, I have friends of different religious views including those who are Atheist.  Many years ago I was asking friends what they truly believe and why.  One person accused me of only asking like-minded people.  I had only begun seeking, but after this gentleman made his harsh comments, I quit asking.  I just wanted to know what other peoples views were.  I wish I had kept going.  I have one friend now who kind of jokes that he has taken parts of various religions to get to what he likes.  He does always seem to be at peace.  Well, except when his computer eats his music.

I once heard (or read) where someone said, “Prayer is you talking to G-d.  Meditation is G-d talking to you”.  Most religions are about praying.  To me that translates to us making petitions and doing the talking.  When do we listen?  Before I got sick, I loved hiking and spending time in nature.  I felt closer to my creator at these times and did some good writing during and after these hikes (sometimes during long drives in the mountains, too, just listening and feeling).  These days I feel most at peace during meditation.

The veil of controversy is thick with regard to many religions and therefore I find difficulty finding the peace they claim to have and disperse.  For me, I seek and research to draw my own conclusions.  I don’t debate them, but will answer any legitimate questions asked of me.  As for world peace, I still believe it will only come by  understanding and accepting each person without bias or prejudice.

You Think It’s Funny?

I did not plan on this post today.  I have another put together that I was going to post, then something happened.  I didn’t get much sleep last night as my heart was broken.  I woke up this morning the way I went to sleep last night, my heart aching and tears in my eyes.  I went to Writer’s Circle last night and the theme was April Fools Day.  I don’t do April Fools Day and therefore I didn’t write anything for it.  I read a few of my old standards as a friend had come to hear me read (he wanted to see if I sound like Dolly Parton).  Then another writer who had to pop out early asked me to read her April Fools piece simply called Fool.  I read it through and found we both share a similar view of things and I happily read the poem.  Most of the “antics” at Muse Harbor were in the form of puns (mostly from the comical host) and fitting limericks.

Later last night I was taken back in my feelings to when I was a kid.  My pulse was racing and I was quite flustered.  I made it through the event and then somehow, I made it through the night.  When I finally got out of bed and turned on the news I heard another disturbing story.  It was reported, for the second time in a week, that a teen had committed suicide due to teasing and bullying.  Everything from the night before and from my youth came flooding back to me.  It seems we don’t usually hear about it in the news that a child has been tormented and teased unless they deal with it outwardly by taking a gun and shooting those who have terrorized them.  We tend to ignore or sweep under the rug those who can take no more of the teasing (even if it is said to be done in fun) and they take their own life.

Jokes and pranks should not hurt or harm.  Comedy is the same.  But it seems more and more (especially in the United States) that the only way to have a laugh is to cause pain to someone else.  I try to just roll with it when others find they need to disrespect me or do things they know I do not like.  I do this because all my life those who cause me pain follow my complaints with “you need to lighten up” or “we are just having fun and joking”.  In other words, the person being tormented is accused of causing the pain because the terrorists mean it as a joke only.  Double whammy.  How is it funny when you cause another human being to cry themselves to sleep?  How is it funny if the one you torment has finally had enough and returns with a gun to make the pain (you) go away?  How is it funny when the one being tormented has finally stepped over the edge and they take away your source of entertainment by eliminating themselves?

Jokes and having fun should not be at the expense of someone else and their feelings.  Let me repeat that.  Jokes and having fun should NEVER be at the expense of someone else and their feelings.  If you see what you presume to be a weakness in another person, it is your duty as a human being to help that person to strengthen it and build them up.  But instead, you find it funny to use that weakness against them.  Just because they don’t like your abuse and terrorizing ways does not make them less a person then you.  Try complimenting and treating others with respect, the same respect you demand for yourself.  No, I do not like April 1st.  Too many fools think they have free license to torment and terrorize other human beings and those human beings are supposed to accept it and like it because it is in the name of fun and April Fools Day.