Somewhere Only We Know

I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin...

The state of the world has me in a chokehold. Interpersonal crap has me tied in knots, and grief is an ever present specter.

I want to return to writing creatively, but I have felt blocked for so long, that it feels like an obstacle that I am going to have a hard time conquering.

The compromise I have come up with is to start writing about my own life and what has been going on, and maybe I can glean a little inspiration. I feel so alone and lonely, but I hope that opening up will maybe start a dialogue with a friendly force or two here, which will push me to tread forward.

For now, here is the synopsis of my life in the past month or so. Please forgive me if this all comes across as a litany of complaints. I am trying hard to be positive in a world determined to knock me down.

My fiancé, Rick, and I had been making the long trek, an hour and a half away, to the house my middle brother shared with my parents until their deaths in 2017, and 2019. He continued to live in the house, and had basically held its contents hostage for seven years, until he made the decision to move to a new apartment with his boyfriend.

I had lived with my brother off and on, and a majority of the furniture and all of my belongings were stored in the garage. He not only would not allow open access to my parent's things, but also made it impossible for me to access my own things.

When he decided to move, he set strict "boundaries" about when and what I could do, while demanding help. He surprised me with an ambush during my 50th birthday celebration. When I reacted in a way that he didn't like, he called me unstable and overly emotional.

So I decided to shut my emotions off in order to be able to access the house and get what I wanted out. We made trips out there to work our asses off to clean out the very cluttered garage, which had a terrible rat infestation. Most of the contents was destroyed by vermin. All the while, my brother disappeared. Rick and I were there working in full hazmat gear in the August and September heat.

Every other weekend, we gave up time intended to be spent with Rick's son, who was leaving for college back east. We worked until we were sick, we spent money on gas, which was about $45 a trip. And through everything, my brother was never satisfied, and kept moving the goal post. He moved the completion date up TWICE.

After I had given TRUCKLOADS of stuff away to friends and neighbors, what we really needed was a junk removal service, which my brother refused to pay for. At that time, Rick was on unemployment, which was just covering our rent, and we were using the food bank in order to eat.

Finally, after too many angry, condescending emails from my brother, I had had enough. I wrote him a scathing text that read more like a novel, and I spilled EVERYTHING I had been feeling about his shitty handling of our parent's deaths, their finances, and the removal of their belongings. I squarely told him off. I scheduled one more trip out, knowing it would likely be the last time I would be in the home.

I got one very important item, which was mother's hutch. I worked hard over the span of twenty four hours, before we packed up one last load, and left while my brother was out. In the car on the way home, Rick said, "That was the last trip out. I am sorry that you didn't get everything you wanted, but your mental health is suffering, and we're both sick from working in filth. We're done."

I knew the implications of that statement. It meant leaving behind lifetime's of mementos, antiques, my cradle that my grandfather built by hand, family pictures, art, and so much more. It also meant that I would be facing my brother's wrath. It was at that point I decided that it was time to cut my brother off.

This isn't something I took lightly, and Rick and I had many discussions about it, and I also consulted with my therapist, and prayed A LOT about it. The conclusion on every side was to go no contact.

I am feeling a tremendous sense of grief and guilt. I am the oldest child, and have always been the one who fixes everything, and here I was, walking away. I left so much behind. How would my parents feel about this? What would they want me to do?

Last month, Rick went back to work with a company that designs and fabricates props, costumes, and animatronics for movies and tv. The money is fantastic, but the work is tough, and Rick comes home daily with terrible back pain.

I am left to my own devices all week, and feel quite lonely, even though my daughter Zoe is here with us still. She is on her computer ALL DAY, and into the evening, only logging off to eat, and then for sleep, around 11:00 pm. When Rick is home, she is in full on gaming mode, and we have had to learn to watch tv with her sitting six feet away, loudly conversing with her friends while they game in teams. She doesn't really hang out with us, unless she needs something, or if we force her out of the house to run errands.

She leaves tomorrow morning for Seattle for a few weeks, and my friend Kirk, whom I lived with before Rick and I moved in together, has asked us to house and pet sit from Saturday to Thursday night. We agreed, because hey, staying in a mansion with kitties and a very boisterous macaw sounds like a mini vacation.

So tomorrow, we are taking her to Union Station in DTLA, and putting her on an Amtrak train, where her boyfriend has purchased her a room ticket. First class all the way. But part of me feels like this is a long goodbye, and it many be a month or more until we see her again. I am highly emotional about it.

But hell, I am emotional seven days a week.

I weaned off the chemo drugs I had been using to combat rheumatoid arthritis, mainly because I wasn't getting the relief I had when I first started treatment. The solution would have been to increase the dosage, which would cause me to lose my hair, and that was a line I am not willing to cross. Honestly, I have felt better since stopping.

I am thinking time at Kirk's will include more writing. I will not have a whole lot to do while Rick is at work. Kirk did mention needing my personal assistant skills, as well. This basically means that I am organizing paperwork, receipts, scripts, etc. I put them into categories, by date, and then box it all up. I do this every couple of months. He pays a hundred dollars a day, for which I work about ten hours total. I don't charge him for watching the house and the pets as a sort of repayment for allowing me to crash on his couch from July-January last year.

Boy, this was long. Even if I am just screaming into the void, I am grateful that I was able to get it out.