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Covid is a Respite from Work
Disclaimer: I’m not condoning getting Covid. It’s horrible. We (my partner and I) are on day 19 of symptoms that keep coming in waves. It started Christmas Eve. We thought we just had a cold. Scratchy throat, sinusy, coughing, run-down. I started taking a ridiculous amount of zinc (Zicam) and symptoms started ebbing. Christmas night, they came back and by Sunday, I was wiped out. Still went to work Monday with a pack of tissues and a tickly cough that could best be described as annoying. My partner came in 4 hours later and told his supervisor how he was feeling at which point our respective supervisors immediately sent us to get the Brain Probe.
We tried the Health Department tent site – they had run out of tests hours ago but we were still able to register and the administrator promised to call us that afternoon saying she would hold tests for us when she got a resupply. That never happened. I tried to get us in at Walgreens, CVS, the local community clinic, and 2 walk-in clinics – could not get an appointment for over a week. Our job will not accept a home test – they must be done in a lab – but there were no home tests available either just for our own edification. We went home exhausted. I made some more phone calls. Finally I found a sketchy walk in clinic that confirmed there were tests available and they were testing every day from 10 til 2 with the caveat that it would cost $20 with insurance, $100 without. As mad as I was at that, we really had no other choice. Everyone else was no cost – as it should be in the 3rd year of a frikking pandemic – but there were simply no testing supplies anywhere.
The next morning, we tried the tent site again to no avail. Still no tests. We went on down to the sketch walk-in and were able to get right in. Within 72 hours, we had positive results in our emails. My blood went cold when I saw mine. I had no idea what I was in for, how bad symptoms would be, how it would affect my asthma, how long it would last. I had an unknown in my system and no idea how I would react to it. That was terrifying. Even more scary? How the hell am I going to tell my partner who was still sleeping and hadn’t checked his email yet? Having worked in a medical field for 20 years, he was especially up at arms about folks spreading it by not getting vaccinated. The twist here? We had both had both shots AND our booster was done just a week prior to showing the first symptoms. Plus we’d just spent Christmas with his family.
I told my dad first, then my sister, just to practice I suppose. They were concerned and supportive. By the time he woke up, he checked his email and saw his positive, I just said, “Same.” I thought he would be mad but he was just in shock. That was 2 1/2 weeks ago and we’ve had another positive test since then, awaiting our 3rd results. We keep calling in to work every day to ensure we’re still on the payroll. We’re not getting paid because our short term disability has a 2 week elimination period so that’s hit us for about 2 grand. We’re having to get financially creative.
On the bright side, we’ve gotten a lot closer during our quarantine and isolation. We’ve had many good talks, even some including marriage. I’ve gotten a lot done around the house and we’ve gotten caught up on things we’ve been letting slide, including intimate things. We’ve not had work stress, no schedules, just time together and instead of being left at each other’s throats, we’ve actually gotten closer. I have to say I don’t mind the forced lock-in. I couldn’t ask for a better plague partner.
Next results should be ready in the morning. This is round 3. We still have symptoms. All bets welcome.
The rest of you, stay well.
Daily Prompt: It’s Friday, I’m In Love
In response to: Daily Prompt – It’s Friday, I’m In Love
In actuality, it’s every day that I’m in love! It isn’t something that’s easy or convenient, but it’s there, and it just won’t leave my heart alone – the feeling that I get thinking of my Hunny Bear, knowing that for the past four years, he has taken every tear, every stress, every hurt and turned them around into smiles, comfort and healing. Even though we are 1,000 miles apart, he holds my heart, touches my soul, brings warmth and meaning to my life. Distance has not been easy at all, but Second Life and Skype bring us closer. With these, we can cuddle, dance, run amok, explore, learn and so much else. We grow closer with every face to face talk, with every piece of writing on which we collaborate, and with every moment of our lives that we share with each other, whether good, bad or mundane. It’s those mundane moments that mean the most to me. Those are the real intimacies, the ones that leave us emotionally satisfied that we have someone with whom we can have any conversation, share anything without judgment. He knows things about me most people don’t, and likewise I know things about him that just don’t get shared. We have that trust that solidifies our relationship. I’m certain we will be in each other’s arms one day. In the meantime, I can rest at night with a satisfied heart that not only do I love, but I am loved, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day ❤
My Honey Loves Me
My sweetheart really does know how to make my day…
Before Will, I’d never really had a Valentine. But for the past few years, he has just kept outdoing himself on Valentine’s Day, this year with a dozen roses, orchids, so many other flowers in there… the photo doesn’t do them justice, they are… WOW… and the bear… He *is* my Hunny Bear! And the card and the chocolate… I am feeling very spoiled! And loved ❤
ISO: Stability
Bear with me as I reflect on some out of the way things here, like the connection between Daytona and God. I’m still unsure which led me to which, but here I am, borderline homeless in Daytona (defined soon) and wondering why after such fervent prayer, life keeps throwing me one backhand after another just trying to knock me down – which, admittedly, it has a few times in the past five months – and keep me from getting back up.
After losing my job in January 2013 due to the death of the owner of the company and subsequent company closure, I spend the next 8 months looking desperately for work that would pay enough to cover my basic expenses: rent, utilities, transportation, food… I’d taken a couple temp jobs in that time frame because they were all that were offered, but it was still nowhere near enough to cover even rent. After my tax return had run out, rent of course fell behind. I had given up numerous comforts (if you can consider a proper diet and asthma/heart medication comforts) in order to start paying a little over each week on my rent to catch up. By August, I was essentially destitute. Knowing I couldn’t continue to pay rent, I gave my landlord 2 weeks notice and moved in with the man next door for a couple weeks. That turned out to be a nightmare, as he was an ex felon and was extremely controlling and cruel. He was also just plain disgusting as a person. His treatment of me made living there unbearable and so I got out before I got into a situation that I wouldn’t be able to escape.
In September, someone I used to date back in 2010 contacted me from Daytona and offered to let me move in there. It took a lot of very difficult decision making as this would put me 3 hours away from my daughter of whom I have shared custody. Seeing her 4 days a week would then mean seeing her only once every 4-8 weeks due to miles, gas, funds, etc. Without work and without a place to live however, I had to make the decision to relocate to try to get back on my feet. You may as well have ripped my heart out of my chest and taken my last breath away because that’s what it felt like as I started heading to Daytona without my baby girl. There was no work, unemployment had run out, my tax return and savings had run out, and I was without shelter. What else could I do?
I get to Daytona and just as I arrive at the house, I find out the water has been shut off. Not a good omen. Ex is scrambling to find the funds and we are out of water for days. It goes ok after that for a couple months, I learn my way around town but never quite feel welcomed. These people have a completely different set of ethics (or lack thereof) from the way I am. I find work within a week of arriving, but instead of being helped to get on my feet as was promised, I end up financially supporting a household of seven people, sometimes in full, on bills, food, gas, cigarettes, personal supplies, household supplies… The ex… he makes a decent sum of money, netting far more than I ever have in a month, but spends it all as soon as it comes in. As many times as I asked him to sit down and create a household budget with me, he changed the subject. Soon, the money I was making was running out, leaving me with nothing at the end of the week for having to support everyone but myself. That’s December, about the time his whole personality changed. He began to withdraw, to push me away, then one of his own exes came back into his life. He stopped coming to bed, started staying up all night on the phone with her, spent nights out (taking personal supplies that made it obvious it was a planned “sleepover”), and started becoming emotionally abusive. Then mentally abusive, eventually moving into screaming, cussing, threatening and being all out vicious toward me. At that point, I was scared as I’d been through this before and each time it only escalated. This man was becoming completely unraveled and was getting progressively and rapidly worse.
Come January, he’d left me for the third time. The final time he broke up with me, he did so online without telling me, then told me finally and had the nerve to immediately ask me for gas money. Upon refusing to give it to him because – well – he’d just left me, he threw me out, first with 30 days notice, then with 3 days notice. I came and went, sleeping where I could but the room he had just haphazardly thrown my few remaining belongings into was unlivable – it is a storage room, full of junk and mold, there is no door, no privacy, no bed, only a bare box spring, and a filthy couch that made me sick to sleep on one night. I felt like an unwanted dog being banished to a filthy kennel, only I think he’d have treated a dog better than he was treating me.
My dad being my angel, he ended up providing a clean, safe place while I looked feverishly for a roommate but Friday will be my last night there. In the interim, a woman I’ve known for several years and used to work with ended up offering a room to me with her in Sebastian. We talked about it, sorted out the details, and I was to move in with her this coming Saturday, the 8th. Trusting that my friend was acting honorably, I gave my daughter the good news that I would only be 45 minutes from her now instead of the impossible 3 hours and that I’d get to see her every week like normal again. She was ecstatic, as was I as we miss each other terribly. Well I don’t know what happened, but 3 days before I was supposed to move in with her, I noticed she’d deleted me from Facebook. I called, no answer. I texted, no response. An hour later, I tried to go to her page to message her and it turns out she had blocked me. There was NO warning or reason as to any of this. I left her several voice mails yesterday and still no response, so my dearest William sent her a message on my behalf asking her what was going on and still has not heard back.
Still have no idea why a friend of several years who so happily offered to have me move in with her, saying I’d done so much for her over the years, would – without any warning – delete me from Facebook, block me, refuse to answer her phone, return a text or a voice mail. Why would someone do that? She knew what I had at stake. She knew I’d already told my daughter that I was moving back to the area, she even offered to come up to Daytona to help me bring some of my things down. The last conversation we had, she gave me the new address and we were making plans for the move this coming Saturday. It was all a go and she said she was happy to help, that I owed her nothing. I would really love to know what is behind all this, why someone who was always so sweet would out of the blue do this to me. Does anyone have any insight to offer as to why someone would do that?
So thank God I did not turn in my resignation at work, as I would have had to do had this move gone through. Something stopped me from doing it, “Just in case.” I returned to my search for a roommate and happened to call on a listing last night for a room for rent in the area… a little more than I was budgeting, but I will have to work something out if it goes through. I spoke with the homeowner last night for a solid hour and she was very friendly, an older lady, who really seemed to resonate with me. In exchange for helping her around the house, she offered to drop the deposit and pay for half the internet that I would be transferring over. I will be meeting with her tonight and am praying to God that everything works out and I can move in Saturday. At this point, I have no other options so if anyone reading this would please join me in that prayer that I find a place to move into this Saturday, between my faith and your intercession, God can do some amazing things.
The other question bothering me so much is why does God continue to test my faith by allowing me to come into worse and worse situations? I mean I have lost everything over the past 18 months, including access to my child who is the single most important person in my life. I’d go as far as to say she IS my life. Every time I have prayed on this, I have received the same answer: “I do this to draw you nearer to me. If you see that I can raise you from nothing, then you will have everything.” But how much more pain and loss can I take? I realize God knows my limits, but life has become unbearable far too often, especially in the past five months. In RCIA, they discuss depth of faith often. It’s so difficult to have faith when all you’re doing is futile even down to your most basic needs being stripped away and the longer it takes to get an answer – or see a miracle – the further that faith sinks. This becomes a vicious cycle as God detests the lack of faith and puts the person in an even lower situation, pressing the faith to return. It’s a Catch 22 – how does it stop? As life – and faith – elude me, I will leave off here, hoping some answers come in the way of a safe place to live with my meeting of this seemingly nice woman tonight. Thank you for listening, and please – keep me in your prayers.
At A Crossroad (Perblog Oct. 19, 2013)
PerBlog October 19, 2013
After spending the majority of this year out of work and the most recent 2-3 months couch-surfing after I lost my apartment, I am finally starting to get settled in at my new home. It is 2 ½ hours from where I have been for the past decade, but St. Lucie County had just completely run out of opportunities for me. After my old boss passed away and the company closed behind him in January, I simply could not find work that was enough to take care of my basic needs. I’d found temp work here and there, but nothing permanent came through. With my apartment several months behind, that was it. I started another temp job and put my stuff into storage, staying between my car and a neighbor’s house (which quickly became very abusive situation). I approached people that I trusted and no one was willing to let me stay with them until I got back on my feet so without an ounce of help from my friends and no family in the area, I had a choice to make: continue being homeless and unable to care for myself much less my daughter, or make a change in my life.
It’s been a very difficult change to make. 150 miles away, a previous boyfriend was willing to take me in and provide food and shelter while I sought work and recovered my losses. His family (3 kids of his own plus two extended family) has been welcoming and friendly as I try to find work here in a much bigger city and try to adjust, settle in and find my way around. I am still looking for work, but do have some calls coming back for interviews and I am hopeful something will come through soon. I have so much I need to catch up on – vital bills that can NOT be ignored but right now there isn’t a damn thing I can do about them. I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that I am 2 ½ hours away from my daughter until I find work and get a couple paychecks in to be able to get back for visitation, the fact that my belongings are being auctioned off at storage because I couldn’t pay for it, and the fact that I lost two pets in the process, Topper and Moppit, my cat and my dog. I have very little clothing with me, and only one of my journals – the most recent one – even though I had kept every one of my journals since I started writing them at age 9. I had to leave when I had to leave, and that meant coming up with only what would fit in my car. This is the third time in my life I’ve lost it all. Isn’t it about damn time something other than being shit on becomes permanent in my life?
Well, with nothing to my name, here I am starting over yet again. Praying to God something permanent comes in so I can once again have gas and food (it’s still scarce here in a household of seven), proper clothing, personal bills paid, and a little to live on. After those basics are taken care of, I look forward to being able to fix the A/C in this house, as it’s got a bad circuit board and was 92F inside today and my asthma is suffering BADLY for being stuck in this hot, humid air and I’ve no means to get my medication. Internet would be great too! Right now my only reliable connection is at the library. It’s sad, the things we take for granted when we have them constantly. When not having certain things begins to affect one’s health however, I think there is justification for bitching a bit when trying to change the situation that wasn’t working isn’t itself immediately working. My life has turned upside-down this year and fallen out from under me. It is HARD. Bear with me if I’m angry or depressed or bitter. All that pretty hope and happiness idealism isn’t always possible.
Entering The Shallow End
This post comes about after the Internet – this mysterious web that connects virtually every person and everything in the world – claims yet another victim, this time a 22 year old friendship; one that began long before Facebook or MySpace were so much as a thought, even before the practicality of personal computers came to light. It began back in high school between two girls on the road to finding themselves. This road was full of testing twists and turns, hills, valleys, and a few mountains that seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was a road of bonding and rebellion, of pacts and backstabbing, even of forks that strayed from the other side, often for a decade. One thing was certain – it always met back up in the middle.
Now, after all the years behind this road trip, it seems to have come to a screeching halt, twisted violently into irrepairably damaged shards of what it once was. One friend shared her joy, one shared her sadness. And with only two innocent, self-feeling words from the latter, “wouldn’t know,” the bomb was dropped that destroyed the delicate fabric that held together these two paths. Without compassion, the joyful girl without warning turned words to poison as she proceeded to attack the other, her life, her very feelings, dredging up vile phrases which had in fact nothing to do with the originating topic of conversation. It was as if something cracked in that pretty outer shell that she’d erected and out came the deluge of the pure ugliness within. Ah… now *there’s* the real Her. Shame it won’t be missed.
It shocked quite a few people, this sudden turn of attack. However, after 22 years, one does tend to be able to tell within a person what is real within them. This did not come as much of a surprise to the girl who attempted to share herself and came under attack, because this is how she always remembered the attacker – as one never to be trusted. Words of defense were uttered (read: typed), and that was it. More than two decades were simply erased with the clicking of “Delete.” Now, the fallout of such an event will no doubt continue to ripple on for days as news of it continues to pour into her e-mail in-box long after the deed was done. Certainly they don’t realize she can still see the talk behind her back while lurking in the e-shadows watching the comments fly… or, more than likely they do, in some ways, hope that the words do get back to her, if only for their own opinions to be heard as they jump on the Petty Train. But nevermind, she’s already moved on.
This would not likely have happened were these two friends in the same room, and the same two words had been uttered. Perhaps there may have been a glare, or compassion, or a quiet talk. But that’s the charm of the Internet. One may appear as deep as they desire but in reality, they only hold as much depth as the screen on which they write. It takes personal contact to find the true depth within a person. Online, we are but shallow waters in the sea of pixels. The ability to hide behind a screen makes people – pardon my language – pretty shitty – because there is no real recourse, no judgement, no penalty. Pixelife goes on unfettered, safe in the shallow end.
~~~ …and now, for something completely different. ~~~
…enjoy
Score :p
Scored me a good one that is :p OK, so I sound like a high schooler – don’t care. Spent another amazing weekend with the Joe and he’s just awesome. *WE* make a great team! The love, the laughs, the affection, the playfulness, (ok the sex is great too), the talks and sharing, I mean it’s all there. I’m happy, Kari’s happy, it’s so good to have something like this come together and really happen. He dropped the L word on me Wednesday night, in my half-sleep, softly in my ear, and I swear I felt my soul spring to life. He opens doors for me, lights my cigarettes, does all the little things that other guys don’t even think about. He keeps every plan we make. He tells me I’m amazing, and how, and shows his love and appreciation. He says it, he *shows* it, I am loving this.
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- My Mountain of a Man
PerBlog November 6, 2010
Perblog November 6, 2010
Well I have had a pretty chaotic past couple weekends. Last
Friday, Andy flaked out again and disappeared. Again. He’s
not mentally stable, he’s a pathological liar, and he just
wasted the last year and a half of my life. I hope his guilt
kills him, out there all alone in life. It was his fuckup.
I forgave the first two. The boy just didn’t learn. I have
never been so disappointed in anyone or seen such a huge
culmination of failings in anyone else in my life. I guess
that’s what I get for being patient and having faith.
The next morning, Joe and I started talking about dating and
relationships – all day – and he came over for Halloween.
What an awesome night (except that Kari was wired on Hallowen
candy and wouldn’t go to bed and leave us *alone*…) Things
have been developing more as we talked all week and we’re
gonna give it a try.
He came over again last night and… well I lasted til 5 a.m.
LOL… We had planned to go to breakfast today but ended up
sleeping in til after 12:30 – the Farmer’s Market was already
packed up and gone for the day. So, we ended up going to
Uncle Carlo’s for lunch and took it over to the sea wall
where we ate on the water and spent some really nice time
together. We got back to the house and he had to get back
home for a family thing, but… had to go another round lol
and ended up back in bed making him even *more* late getting
home.
So yeh… I’m seeing someone. He doesn’t know what he wants and IDK where it’ll go but, he calls me every night, he shows up when he says he will, wants to keep seeing me, misses me when he doesn’t and… well it’s the most normalcy I’ve had in many years.
Of all the people…
So Andy and I are playing Runescape last night and a little before 1 a.m., WHO should happen to log on but one of the most pathetic of all my exes… The conversation went like this:
Griffith4 has logged in.
Jylsamynne: Enjoying my laptop?
Griffith4 has logged out.
What a loser. Still not man enough after all these years to face the music of stealing my laptop, all my camping gear, THE CAR and numerous other items, like my leather jacket (thank you, Anhkah, for returning that). I wonder which poor bitch he’s found this time to provide his life for him? Whoever you are, wherever you are, trust me girl, and the rest of the long line of women he’s used and abused — it won’t last. Get rid of him while you can, and mind you’re there when he leaves. He likes to sneak out while you’re gone and take your shit with him!
Done venting. I love you Andy, thank you for being there with me 🙂
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