tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60112499708619368392024-03-13T08:16:24.287-04:00Heather's Musings on LifeI'm back! Now, writing with purpose!Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-6199668726834707682018-12-18T23:53:00.002-05:002018-12-19T00:11:47.567-05:00It's not about Puppies anymore.When I was 14 or 15 or maybe both, I made a resolution for the New Year to write in a journal every single day. Midnight was my deadline. I once wrote on the back of a discarded envelope in the dark while riding in the back seat of a car, and finished just before midnight - that's how committed I was. Then, it wasn't about learning the process of how to write, or whether I was expressing myself accurately and eloquently enough. It was just about a moderately troubled and mostly lonely teenager with a fair amount of angst, channelling all those emotions into a healthy place. I never worried about anyone reading what I'd written, and occasionally I'd even carefully share a page or two with my cousins. For me, without a mother around to lament all my troubles to on a daily basis, I had my journal, which I lovingly named Knox. Now that I have a 14 year old daughter in my home, I see why she feels no need to journal (but very much enjoys writing). She has me to actively listen to her every thought, insecurity, or experience. We talk about all of it, and she only holds back when she doesn't want to admit that she ate too much sugar or still hasn't started a school project whose deadline is rapidly approaching.<br />
<br />
No, the process of writing so long ago wasn't about sentence structure or whether or not anyone might ever wish to read any of it. Writing, for me back then, was about staying sane, examining my own coming-of-age feelings, and keeping a promise I'd made to myself to write each and every day.<br />
<br />
So, when do we stop making and keeping promises to ourselves? Is it when life gives us lemons? Is it when we get too busy? Is it when we are happy and focus on a goal seems so far-fetched and perhaps silly? Is it when we attempt a goal and don't reach the mark we'd imagined, so we deem ourselves a failure and just call it quits? Or, is it when we feel like we are so confused in life that we can't even decide on what the goal should be?<br />
<br />
Listen up. No one is perfect. Stop believing in the Facebook fantasy life of all your "friends." Trust me, they screw stuff up too, every day, and unless they're the woe-is-me-about-everything type, they don't put those mistakes out there. No, I didn't post that time I stupidly washed and dried a brand new hundred dollar Patagonia wool sweater, and like the Grinchy color green that it was, shrank it three sizes too small. I didn't post the day I felt I needed to quit a job. And that time I lost my shit and yelled at everyone in the house and spanked the cat...no I didn't post that either. Stop assuming you're the only one with a slightly off-track life, or a messy house, or a kid who won't eat their vegetables, no matter how hard you try to convince them they'll die if they don't.<br />
<br />
Just stop it.<br />
<br />
Why is having a goal important? Because Silly Pants, it's something that's all yours. You get to decide what it is, what it looks like, how it fits into your daily schedule, and whether or not you even share it with anyone else, especially those perfect Facebookers. It can be your little secret; in fact, I think it should be. People want to decide their New Year's resolution and post that shit everywhere, like it's a new car or something. Um, nope. I tried that and it didn't work out. As soon as reality set in (or February as I like to call it), I realized just how difficult it was to not use plastic silverware for a whole entire year (especially since I eat out so much - Heather Homemaker I am not), and I felt a lot of shame for having failed. Then, I abandoned the goal altogether, which I wish I hadn't done. I created this whole mess of feelings even though I had perfectly good intentions when I started. (Save the Earth!)<br />
<br />
And yet, I still believe in goals. When I was 13, and learning how to write a story in 6th grade English class, I wrote about the litter of puppies our rat terrier Jill had given birth to. I imagined what they might be when they grew up. The absolute delight I felt when my teacher's eyes grew big at my inventive little story made me commit right then.<br />
<br />
I would write a book before my life was through.<br />
<br />
And even though I just told you to keep your goal a secret, I shared one of mine with you. Stay with me, I have a point.<br />
<br />
Because I had this goal, I kept writing. Even when I felt like I had nothing of real consequence to say. I didn't major in Journalism in college like I'd wanted to, so I dug my heels in a little deeper. I kept journaling, and though there was no audience to applaud or be proud of me, it still made me feel better. Even when my sentences were off, and even if my hands cramped up with pain for thoughts that couldn't stop streaming out of my head, I kept at it. When I was a poor student, my writing gave me a place to go, and when I thought there wasn't a sane thought in my head, those blank pages that awaited me became my friends.<br />
<br />
Writing has always been for <i>me</i>. If you benefit from it, then awesome! I'm happy if it helps you too.<br />
<br />
First, set your goal. Hopefully it won't be about weight loss or house cleaning - unless those are <i>true serious problems</i> in your life. (As I write, my room is most definitely a mess - and believe me, my standards are low. And yet here I sit cross-legged in my bed writing. What began as a journal entry for me turned into a surprise for you.)<br />
<br />
Then, have compassion for yourself as you work on your goal. Cut it into bite-sized pieces that you can do one by one. Do <i>not</i> overwhelm yourself with so many goals that you cannot juggle them all so the balls get dropped - right onto your self-esteem.<br />
<br />
Thirty one years after I set my first goal ever, I'm still working on it. I met a whole bunch of other goals along the way, but this original one, I hold close to my heart. I have grown so comfortable with it now, I hold it as tightly as a prized possession. I consider it a valuable gift I gave myself long ago, and it keeps on giving back to me, so much so that if I ever do publish a book, I'll have to do another one to fill the empty space in my head -- to give my thoughts someplace else to go. Not accomplishing this goal thus far doesn't make me a failure at all, it simply makes me more driven to focus and write first for me, then for you.<br />
<br />
Do it. You have a couple of weeks left to decide what your New Year's resolution will be. Resolve to set a life goal for <i>you</i>. Resolve to hold it close, consider it daily, and allow it to both challenge and transform you. Before long, if you're like me, you won't be writing about puppies anymore!Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-56260503459439608762018-12-07T08:38:00.001-05:002018-12-07T08:38:25.007-05:00Tweet-fest musings.The world we live in can be better understood if we view through a different lens once in a while. Want a new lens? Pick up a true story and read it. Ask others to tell you their story, and give them your undivided attention. Pause, reflect, and repeat. Listen until nothing surprises you, until you have no more judgments. Until you know that your story isn't all that horrible or amazing.<br />
<br />
Then, when you know you're just as good as the next fellow, when you are able to measure yourself against a fair litmus, when the rose-colored glasses are no longer appealing, you've arrived. There's a lot of confidence to be found in honoring, and telling, your own true story. Remember, everyone has a story.<br />
<br />
Ask yourself, what are my god-given talents? What are the skills I brought into this world during this life? Then, take those skills and use them creatively for service to others. This is about using yourself as a vessel for good in this world, with a focus on helping others. You will build onto your story. And you'll see that you're on much more equal footing than you thought you were.<br />
<br />
If you are struggling, the very best way to heal yourself, to help yourself, to nurture the center of YOU, is to turn outward and do something amazing for someone else. It's not necessarily about spending money on them, but spending the currency of the soul: time, concern, love, empathy, and compassion. <i>Everyone</i> both needs and deserves these things.<br />
<br />
Finally, remember that you are not better than anyone else. We all struggle. We all begin as a couple of cells trying to survive. We all have different lessons to learn while we are here. Just because you have a different set of circumstances doesn't make you better. Stay humble.<br />
<br />
<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-82738972592512004492018-11-30T11:37:00.002-05:002018-11-30T13:20:58.512-05:00White LighteningMiriam never, ever liked the color red. Not even on flowers, and especially lipstick.<br />
<br />
Red lipstick meant you were an unsavory woman - up to no good.<br />
<br />
“Only whores and robbers are out after midnight,” she always said. This was the advice she gave me when she set my curfew at 11:59pm.<br />
<br />
At five foot eight, she was taller than I would be all of my life. She came up from nothing, leading a hardscrabble life with her husband who turned alcoholic after dodging bullets in World War II and in a cruel twist of fate, getting struck by lightning after coming home. The bolt shot straight through him and came out his feet. He had to go to the Veteran’s hospital to recover, leaving Miriam by herself with six kids to look after. When he returned nearly a year later, he seemed a completely different person. The lightning had poisoned his psyche, and Miriam never saw the man she married, the one she loved, again.<br />
<br />
They owned a car, but every day he took it early in the morning when he woke up so sober he shook. It was good to get the kids up and fed and dressed and ready for school in peace. Some days she got a ride to the sewing plant where she worked, but that still required a mile walk up the dirt road to the intersection. Her friend Ethel owned a two-story farm house whose living room store served the small community with a smattering of the essentials available for purchase. Miriam often walked the mile home carrying grocery sacks of flour and eggs and bologna and potted meat for sandwiches. Right up the street from Ethel lived Miriam’s go-to source for milk fresh from the cow. All she had to do was bring the empty jug back, and Verbe would trade her for a full one. These two friends understood Miriam’s plight, respected her fortitude, and gave her things on credit. She was always good for it.<br />
<br />
The little girls got handmade dresses; Miriam herself had worn flour sack dresses as a child. Just as her mother had been, Miriam was a good seamstress, so when she wasn’t working, cooking, cleaning, or raking the sparsely grassed yards, she enjoyed making her children’s clothes. The boys were easier than the girls; a pack of white tee shirts went a long way with them.<br />
<br />
Sometimes the children heard when their father hit their mother. She took as many of his licks as she could, knowing that eventually he’d run out of steam and pass out drunk. Sometimes too, he’d piss right on the floor and demand she clean it up. And back before the Earth got so hot, Georgia used to get regular dustings of snow. In a fit of rage, he once sent her out in the snow without so much as a blanket. Miriam hid in the woods until she knew he was asleep and then pecked softly on the children’s bedroom window. The boys raised it as quietly as mice, and she crept back in, shivering for another hour. Another time, while she was preparing dinner, he walked into the kitchen and tossed the onion peels all over the floor. Just to prove his false bravado, he’d made her crawl around on her hands and knees and pick up each paper-thin peel with her teeth.<br />
<br />
It was like the Devil traded places with God and sent that lightning bolt at him. Or maybe God was trying to kill him and it just didn’t work because he had too much of the Devil in him already.<br />
<br />
The onion peel situation sent Miriam over the edge. Years later, as she recounted the story for me, she explained it all.<br />
<br />
“We didn’t have no shelters for women and children back then Honey. You understand? And it was legal too. Now men can get arrested when they beat their wives.”<br />
<br />
There was only the sound of the ticking of the clock and the wood creaks as she slowly rocked back and forth in her chair. She sat warm-as-toast by the fire in a plush house coat given to her by her girls several years before. To her right in a small closet by the front door, were at least 4 more plush gowns of varying colors and patterns, save red of course. No red anywhere. She only wore the one, and intended to save the others either to be buried in or for someone who might need them more than she did. She pointed her toes into the wooden floor and thought while she rocked. I didn’t say a word. I knew that this was big stuff she was telling me, big in the way that I needed to hear so I would know how to live my life in a better way than she’d had to.<br />
<br />
“It was one or two weeks later and Dorsey came in staggerin’ but he wasn’t like he usually was, like maybe he’d gotten a weak batch of the white lightening and so I knew I could say what I wanted to and he’d be too drunk to fight back and sober enough to hear it.”<br />
<br />
“What did you say?”<br />
<br />
“Well, I told him I wasn’t gonna take it no more. I had me a pot of water in a rolling boil on the stove. When he laid down on the bed in yonder, I let him get settled in and warm, and I took me a dipperful of the water back there, splashing some as I went, and I held it over his face.”<br />
<br />
“Oh no. Granny?”<br />
<br />
“Then I said to him, Dorsey, the very next time you lay a hand on me I’m gonna put me a pot of water on the stove like I got right now, and I’m gonna let it get to a scalding rolling boil and when you open your mouth and start that snorin,’ I’m gonna pour it right down your throat.”<br />
<br />
“What did he say!?”<br />
<br />
“He just laid there and looked at me and I knew that he knew I was serious. And then I turned around with my dipper of hot water and went back into the kitchen.”<br />
<br />
“He would've died if you’d done that Granny.”<br />
<br />
“Well, God saw fit to take him another way.”<br />
<br />
And God had. When my father was only 17, Dorsey took a handful of tranquilizers given to him by the Veteran’s hospital doctor. That combined with his usual pint of white lightening had taken him straight from this world into what I could only imagine then was a fiery burning hell. Frankly, I was glad I never met him. I might’ve killed him too.<br />
<br />
In the 21 years that had passed between his death and our talk, Granny hadn’t even entertained the thought of letting another man into her life.<br />
<br />
“Best thing you can do Honey is this: just stay away from boys. Don’t even let them know you’re interested in them.”<br />
<br />
The last 35 years of Miriam’s life did go much better than the first 52. When she died, we buried her in a steel blue casket, a brighter steel than her eyes had been, and instead of choosing one of those old unworn gowns to bury her in, we found a brand new rosy pink gown and housecoat. The undertaker even put some pink lipstick on.<br />
<br />
We gave him strict instructions – no red lipstick, no red flowers, nothing red at all.<br />
<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-44981726318695222102018-11-29T00:21:00.003-05:002018-12-08T17:49:25.358-05:00Dear Lindsey Buckingham (A Story about a Letter)<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I had an
uncle who absolutely loved Fleetwood Mac, and on one very brisk March weekend
in 1989, he coerced me into listening to their new Greatest Hits album even
though I wanted very much to pop my New Kids on the Block cassette into my radio.
I lost that battle, but because I fell asleep that night to the intense and
brilliant guitar picking of Big Love, I awoke the next morning with a different
perspective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That
Saturday morning, my Uncle and I cranked up the music again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My small cassette player speaker was no match
for his truck’s audio system, so it wasn’t long before we were outside washing
his truck, the sun peeking through the trees to warm us up just enough to not
shiver. We made our way through the album again, stopping to press the rewind
button a few times, and singing loud enough that my grandmother popped her head
out of the front door yelling, “Y’all are gonna wake the dead buried all the
way over at Erastus Church!” As she scuffed back into the kitchen in her robe
and house slippers, we laughed and kept singing. And because Keith had charge
of the water hose, he didn’t forget to soak me to the bone once the truck was
sparkling clean. I ran up the concrete steps to the front door screaming, water
streaming in behind me, much to my grandmother’s chagrin. She spun around from
the stove, mouth wide open, exclaiming “Keeeeiiithh! You’re gettin’ my floors
all wet!” Granny was never one to cuss much, but I know she definitely thought
about it in that moment. This made the whole thing even funnier, really. She
had to turn back towards the stove to keep me from seeing her grin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Six days
later, Keith was gone, victim to an unrelenting epileptic seizure and a pre-911
ambulance staff who couldn’t find our house so deep in the woods. In the shock
and horror of the days following his death, I held onto the green cassette tape
we’d worn out the Saturday before, my last gift from my uncle. Eventually I
gave it back to Granny, whose long slender fingers curled around it as she
wept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the funeral, my aunts had to
hold onto each of her arms to keep her from falling down, not because she was a
weak woman, but because losing her youngest son took the breath right out of
her lungs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Keith was
only 28 years old, the baby of six children, and he still lived at home. Since
my mother had long ago left for Florida, I spent most every weekend there and
Keith felt much more like a big brother to me than an uncle. It didn’t hurt
that he was funny as hell. Once, on a Saturday, he shaved exactly one half of
his thick brown beard off his face. He walked around all day like that. He
watched television with his feet propped up on the ottoman, he helped make
dinner, singing so loud, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies! Tell me tell
me tell me liiiiieeees! Oh no no no you can’t disguise, you can’t
disguiiiisssee!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We barely heard the
biscuit timer go off and later after dinner when he read the newspaper, he held
it up but not so high as to cover his face. I giggled all day long that day and
the thought of it all these years later still makes me smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I was
still small enough to fit in his lap, Keith and I had a game we played with
feathers. Since the house was situated in a small clearing in the North Georgia
woods, there was usually a loose feather, a fallen leaf, or worst case, a dried
pine needle, that would work. The game went like this: we stared at each other
as straight faced as possible and took turns barely touching the feather along
the outline of each other’s lips. Whoever cracked up laughing or itching first
lost. It was a game of mental toughness that ended in fits of laughter and
shouts of “rematch!” again and again. I often laughed until my belly cramped.
Looking back on those moments now, I feel a pure and unconditional love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I also
remember a time one hot summer when I was sunk in and side sleeping on the super
soft brown plaid couch that I think probably every middle-class home had in their
living rooms in the eighties. Keith decided that pouring ice water into my ear
would be a great way to wake me from my afternoon slumber. I woke with a start,
of course, and when I realized what happened, chased him out the back door and
all the way down our long driveway, with him laughing so hard he could barely
breathe let alone run fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank God
happy memories don’t fade very well. Especially when they have a soundtrack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Through the
years, I turned to the music of Fleetwood Mac and the solo music of my favorite
member, their guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, to help me in my life. When I felt scared
for my future, their song “Don’t Stop” gave me comfort. When I felt lost in the
headwinds of change, the music represented stability, because it always gave me
exactly the words I needed to hear. When I was pregnant and searching for just
the right name for my daughter to be, I heard Fleetwood Mac play “Sara” live in
concert, and in a matter of a couple weeks, when I couldn’t stop referring to the
baby as Sarah, that became her name. “Down on Rodeo,” one of Lindsey’s solo
hits, reminds me of all the times I was too afraid to make the leap, or spent
too much time hanging in limbo before making major decisions. That song is a
sad call to action. “Shut Us Down” is a piercing look into the past fabric of a
long-term relationship, and provided me with some valuable insight years later
when I was going through my divorce. It takes pain to know pain, after all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And every single time I found myself
paralyzed with fear over anything, like passing my comprehensive exams as a
graduate student, “I’m So Afraid” became my elixir, soothing me into an
understanding that sometimes it’s okay to just sit with the fear rather than
run from it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On October 24th, I finally had the chance to meet Lindsey Buckingham, a true rock-n-roll
god. As I held his hands and told him that I was grateful for the VIP
opportunity since I’d been waiting so long to meet him, he quietly whispered
“Awwwww” and leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. We took a photo together and I
gave him a carefully written letter that I spent three days agonizing over. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needs to know how much Keith loved his
music, and I how much I loved my Uncle Keith. Some stories just must be told,
and as the letter hit Lindsey’s hand, I had a split-second vision of Keith,
beard half shaved, smiling down at me in excited approval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-61591907076171073812018-11-27T01:32:00.002-05:002018-11-27T01:32:29.929-05:00Don’t Tell Me You’re FineTonight I spent SIX hours straight having some real talk with my daughter who is 14.<br />
<br />
We hit on some big, deep stuff. Life lessons and whys and hows and whats of life. There’s no way I could even list it all. We covered the gamut of the beautiful and devastating things a human soul encounters during an Earthly journey. She was engaged and listening and as usual I am amazed at all she already understands, even though she’s just beginning in this life.<br />
<br />
At one point I asked her, “Sarah, what do you say when a stranger asks you ‘How are you doing today?’”<br />
<br />
Her reply: “Fine.”<br />
<br />
I then asked, “Who taught you that? Did I ever teach you to mask your feelings? To tell people that you’re fine all the time when maybe you’re not?”<br />
<br />
“No mom, but that’s just what everyone expects.”<br />
<br />
—-<br />
<br />
Why is this? Why have we all collectively decided as a society that it’s acceptable to put a false-always-happy portrayal of our lives out on social media and even when someone asks us directly, face to face, how we are, we fake it?<br />
<br />
I know that everyone reading this has answered FINE when things were *not* fine. When you were stuck in the middle of a relationship crisis, or worried about money, or someone at work was making you miserable, or maybe your whole life had just been saturated with the gasoline fire that is grief-a close love had died and you were being swallowed up by the abyss.<br />
<br />
I’ve done it. I’ve said I’m fine probably thousands of times when I definitely wasn’t.<br />
<br />
—-<br />
<br />
Next question is for you (and me): Why do we secretly want the other person, whom we’ve just asked how they are, to tell us this insincere but oh-so-socially-acceptable lie?<br />
<br />
Do we really want to believe that everything and everyone is fine all the time?<br />
<br />
It’s always snowing in the snow globe! Look at the happy faces on the townsfolk!<br />
<br />
—-<br />
<br />
And yet, we are now in the midst of a most critical time in our country. Our lives are all being affected by turmoil.<br />
<br />
Enough us enough.<br />
<br />
Tell me HOW YOU ARE. Really. The truth.<br />
<br />
Say it:<br />
<br />
I am worried.<br />
I am afraid.<br />
I miss my loved one.<br />
My car broke down.<br />
I might lose my home.<br />
My kid won’t speak to me anymore.<br />
My aunt was diagnosed with a terminal illness.<br />
The divorce is unavoidable.<br />
<br />
Whatever it is, just say it.<br />
<br />
Healing begins when we are authentic. Empathy can happen if we understand each other fully. Compassion deserves a chance to show itself and make us all stronger for its efforts.<br />
<br />
If I don’t know your struggle, how can I love you, as a fellow human being, through it?<br />
<br />
We MUST do this on a micro-level before we can begin to connect all the dots and do it together on a macro-level. The human-kind level.<br />
<br />
If I’ve never almost been homeless or never heard the story of a friend who’s been homeless then how can I empathize with the homeless person?<br />
<br />
For every one of us struggling, and all of us do, there’s another one of us wishing we knew whether or not a single other person out there could understand what we’re going through.<br />
<br />
Do it. Say your truth. I’ll say mine. We will hug and love can spread.<br />
<br />
We are ALL in this together.Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-67667951217576993982016-02-02T05:15:00.001-05:002016-02-02T05:18:00.885-05:00I was still mostly Frozen.This was taken about an hour after I finished the race last Sunday (1/24/16). And after I sat on my phone enough so that it warmed enough to turn on again. I must say I did not expect it to be so cold outside on race day that a device I was holding in my hand would literally freeze! Unfortunately I can only blame my obsession with getting better & faster, and the snazzy jacket I knew I'd get for racing - Anna & Elsa had nothing to do with it. I just wish the part of my rear end that I literally couldn't feel at the end of 9.3 miles would have fallen off and stayed in Atlanta rather than warming up and sticking with me! ;)<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xA8zK27xJBA/VrCB0TDWcxI/AAAAAAAAApU/bbajI5QJ2-U/s640/blogger-image-2136422315.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xA8zK27xJBA/VrCB0TDWcxI/AAAAAAAAApU/bbajI5QJ2-U/s640/blogger-image-2136422315.jpg"></a></div>Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0Athens Athens33.977264 -83.436525tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-70702893454526533122015-09-24T02:04:00.000-04:002015-09-24T02:19:24.274-04:00It's not about the chicken - my tribute to nurses.I have not written here in a while, because I've been very busy. Whenever a writer doesn't really write much for a while, it always takes something that urgently needs to be said to put 'em back in the saddle, so to speak. That time is now.<br />
<br />
Recently, hosts of the View made a mockery of Miss Colorado, who is a nurse. This of course prompted the #NursesUnite trend on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites. It also caused The View to lose a couple of it's financial sponsors and then the hosts of the show to issue a very bad apology. Nurses everywhere were fired up, and rightly so.<br />
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I work with ER nurses, lots of them, and I have for nearly 8 years continuously. These women and men are among the hardest working people in America, and I'd bet nurses in the rest of the world would agree that they work very hard too. Many of them are young when they enter the field, and I am sure they do not anticipate all that they will be confronted with throughout their careers. <br />
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How many of you go to work each day knowing that today you could experience something so haltingly awful that you'll never forget "the scene" for as long as you live? How many of you ever burst into tears weeks after an event has occurred because it took your brain that long to process the trauma and feel safe enough to really react to it?<br />
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Every single day that a nurse's feet hit the floor in her work place, she (or he) knows that there is no way to predict how that day will turn out. What they'll see, who they'll meet, if anyone they're trying desperately to save will make it, or if the least sick patient will be the one who needs the most love and kindness. Nurses see some of the most god-awful things and situations possible, and when they're in the midst of hurting or freaking out inside themselves, they still have to remain calm enough to soothe the family members, the patient, or each other. Often times they go home to spouses, family or friends who don't get it either, so they must silently deal with what they've gone through as witness and care-giver mostly alone. And even if they find someone who could possibly understand the story they need to tell, a federal law called HIPAA prevents them from discussing it. They must lean on each other. That's why it took mere hours for #NursesUnite to spread like wildfire. They all have each others backs, and I do too.<br />
<br />
I'd be willing to bet that any nurse who's worked in the field for long has something akin to a bit of PTSD for all she's seen and lived through. Not all of the patients die, not all of them are critical, but all of them have a story, and nurses hear those stories, one by one, over and over. Sometimes patients are a real pleasure, but sometimes patients abuse nurses too. Nurses experience the full range of human emotions, the highs and the lows, sometimes in just a 12 hour span. If you ever are in the care of a nurse, you can bet that you are not her only patient either. Nurses work their tails off, day in and day out, not only to put food on their tables at home, but because of a higher calling that they felt obligated to perhaps from childhood on. They care. They love their fellow man. They want the best for you.<br />
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Most of the nurses I know are very intelligent people also and they have to be for what they do. They must make split second decisions, and even perform instant calculations in their heads because their hands are full of medications, wires, tubing, supplies, or even the patient. Most of them also have legitimate hobbies which could also be alternative careers - they have to because they need an outlet to detract from the stress in their real jobs. Miss Colorado's monologue about being a nurse should never have been mocked. Nursing in and of itself is a real talent. Not everyone who tries can actually BE a nurse. <br />
<br />
What follows is a <u><b>FICTIONAL</b></u> story that I wrote last week as part of a basic fiction class I took through the UCLA Writer's Program. My instructor thought it was "amazing." It's my short nod to nurses, and I hope it gives you insight into what nurses do and who they are. Maybe it'll even make it to someone at The View.<br />
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____________________<br />
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It's not about the chicken.<br />
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<div style="-webkit-margin-before: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Clark could hear the sobs coming from the kitchen as soon as he approached the front door. He fumbled to get his keys right in his hands and dropped his work bag at the door. Loran was in the kitchen, sitting cross legged in the floor like a child, like she used to sit in the floor with their daughter who had moved out last year. There were pots and pans scattered, somewhere in between clean and dirty, along with sponges, the bar towels, a few forks, and there shining in her hands, a glimmering and silvery knife.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"Loran, honey what's the matter?"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
When she looked up, he could see her blue eyes were swollen and red from an obvious fit of crying and hysterics. He'd only seen her this way a handful of times in their long years together. She was known for her even keel nature, and frankly, it had made her a good wife.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"Lucille Ball Featherpants is dead!" With that, she went right back to squalling. Big heaving sobs that raked her body from her toes on up. Everything tense and tight and angry and full.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
She'd had Lucille for three years, a good long time for a yard chicken, and Lucille had earned her name by having mostly black and white feathers. Loran had loved watching the real Lucille Ball on her black and white television as a small child, and to this day replayed the shows on DVD whenever she needed to just relax and get into what she called her "blank stare" mode.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Then, with gritted teeth, "I told you to fix the damn hole!"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Clark felt his body recoil in a hot flash of surprise and defense.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"Loran what on Earth came through that hole! Where's Lucille? Where's the hen?"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Then sobs again, and "Who's going to have my coffee with me? Who's gonna chirp and talk to me in the mornings when I get home?"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
She'd asked him to fix a tiny hole in their backyard fence a few weeks ago, but his back was still dreadfully sore and his doctor had told him to take it easy. "No unnecessary strain," he'd said with a grin, knowing he and Loran still had a very active sex life.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"Dammit why couldn't you fix the fence? Lucille never hurt anybody!"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Clark made himself sit on the floor with her and he straddled her from behind, wrapping his legs around her and curving himself around her to hold her, to let her feel him.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"I'm so sorry babe. How long have you been like this? How long have you been here on the floor?"</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
He knew she'd worked the night shift and gotten off somewhere around 7 if she was lucky. But now it was nearly 1, and Loran wasn't asleep. His plan to come home and crawl in bed with her for a quick lovemaking session had gone out the window now, but still, he was glad he'd come home.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
As her body shook she just kept repeating over and over, "Lucille Ball Featherpants, I'm so sorry I love you."<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Clark knew she was exhausted, and could only imagine how her shift must have gone the night before. She had nearly 30 years in as an ER nurse and though she was tough as nails, everyone broke from it once and a while.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"Baby, what happened? You've been crying for hours! You need sleep, and water, and something to eat probably."<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"I needed you to fix the damn fence Clark! Lucille needed you to fix the fence! It was a snake. A snake got her!"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Clark bear hugged her from behind. He grabbed her arms and her legs and he held her tight against him. "Loran this is not about the chicken!"<br />
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<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
"This cannot possibly be about the chicken! What is it Loran? What is it that you've been holding inside for so long? What did you see? Who did you try to help? Did a child die in your arms? Did you see someone who was murdered or raped or abused? What Loran? What?"<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
She felt the urgency in his voice and whether he knew it or not he was yelling at her, right in her ear, yet suddenly she felt the sobbing stop, felt her mind return to present time and place. She felt the numbness in her behind from sitting on the hard floor. Her knees ached too, and her back was on fire from being hunched over for so long. She knew now that he was right. That it wasn't about the chicken. That it was about the skinny long legged 22 year old kid who'd been shot right in the heart only hours before, whom she couldn't save no matter how many bags of blood she'd poured into him. She knew too, that it was about the 4 year old little girl from last week who'd been raped since the age of 2 by her scumbag grandfather, now locked behind bars. But the little girl still couldn't get over bouts of severe constipation and urinary tract infections because she didn't want to pull her pants down even to use the bathroom. It probably too was about the homeless man who was so brilliant and confused that he was unable to function in life and came in the ER almost daily begging for food.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
It was about all of these, and more.<br />
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
Loran turned her body into his and whispered, "I know. I know."</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">
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<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-35867966701902155932015-01-05T23:25:00.001-05:002015-01-05T23:26:28.976-05:00Things I have way too many of...<ul>
<li>Lip Balms (Chapsticks, lip glosses, etc. I have 16 of these things piled on my bed right now. Don't even try to steal any from me...)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Socks (If I could only find the matches I could either A) wear them again, or B) donate them. Therefore, I'll keep looking.)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Books (I still can't really read e-books. Must be able to <i><b>smell</b></i> the pages of the book. This definitely adds something to the reading experience. Once I've smelled your crack, we're bonded, therefore I cannot give you up or share you with others.) </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>TShirts (Kooky 80's tees are the best, and they make me feel mature because I experienced these things first hand. NKOTB, Pac-Man, the McDonalds Fry Guys, Smurfs...need I say more?)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Jeans (One day soon I will fit back into my favorite jeans, and find my other favorite pair, and I will wear my new favorite pair tomorrow. Size 8-14 anyone?)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-8617812455263958522014-12-29T20:35:00.002-05:002018-11-30T13:33:24.339-05:00How to deal with Grief during the holidays.Grief, in short, is the process of how we deal with loss. Loss of a person when they die, loss of a job when we get fired, loss of our self esteem when we are dumped by a romantic partner, even loss of our faith when tragedy happens and we can't make heads or tails of why it had to happen. I've learned a lot about this process in my 4o years, and in my experiences working in the Emergency Room. Here's a list of how to get through it during the holidays (or any day of the year). These are just a few of my opinions - feel free to give other suggestions that have worked for you!<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Find Fred Flintstone: That's right. Eat your vitamins. Your body's response to extreme stress can be at best just getting by to a full on depression, infection, rejection state of being. As cortisol levels rise, you may gain or lose weight, and you are much more susceptible to real illness or all over body pain. Each day you might feel like you got hit by a different Mack truck than the day before. Same pain, different day. Combat this by eating healthfully, limiting sugar, getting enough sleep, and drinking plenty of water with lemon. Take a good whole food vitamin if possible.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Where's Waldo? Feel like you're searching for something, only you really don't know what that something is? Answers to life's big questions? Where is God? Why did this have to happen? Will the mean person who did the mean thing get punished, ever? When you cannot find yourself, you definitely can't figure out those higher order questions. So get away, preferably by yourself so you have ample time to think and reflect, cry and throw things, or indulge in a tiny bit of retail therapy. Meditate, go for long walks, find a cabin in the woods, or let the highway be your guide and your favorite music be your companion. Don't try to figure everything out all at once, but trust that you will figure it out in it's own time. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Get your face licked: Yup. Go where you can find some furry friends. A petting zoo? Your grandmother's cat? The pet store? Let them crawl all over you. Watch their tails wag. Contemplate what they are thinking! Let them lick your face and know you won't die from it! There's something incredibly healing in developing a relationship with an animal companion. While you're at it, give yourself a point for every time you notice a baby's laugh. When you get five points, go get an ice cream! This is to remind you that LIFE goes FORWARD. You have to hop back in and jump some more rope!</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Give a gift. To someone else. Not that there isn't value in treating yourself with something special when you are being hit by a proverbial asteroid! But giving to others leaves a longer lasting feel good type of high, and it reminds you that you still have something to give, even if you aren't in the same role, relationship, or job that you used to be. Bake the mailman some cookies, go volunteer at a local hospital, or make something for a friend that you know she'll love. Do that thing you've always wanted to do for so-in-so! You will feel better at the end of the day. Trust me, you will. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Refocus your Life Lens: This is the one, huge, overarching lesson from my years working with aggrieved, homeless, and hurting people in the emergency room. Although this may sound harsh at first, consider it. Your life can always be worse. Read that again. Your-life-can-always-be-worse. And believe me, it can. Your entire house could have just burned down with all your pets and family inside. Your company could have handed you a pink slip, and you totaled your new car. Your child could have just been diagnosed with a fatal disease. You might have just caught your partner cheating with your best friend. Your best friend might have just died leaving her three kids to you. All sorts of horribleness can happen out there. Try to be thankful for the things that didn't happen, the people you have left, for the one person you can trust night and day, 24/7, or for the disease you don't have. Someone else always has it worse. Or equally as bad in a different way that you wouldn't want even more than you don't want what's happening to you now. Widen your lens. See all the horrible that could have happened so you can appreciate what you still have going. </li>
</ul>
<div>
Finally, know this: if you are grieving a loved one super hard right now, I want to tell you something. They are STILL with you. The "other side" or "heaven" or the "afterlife" is just a thin energy field away. Sit down in a quiet room and tell them how you feel. Say it all out loud. (Ask them to visit you in a dream. Psychic dreams are the ones you never forget, even years later. They are the ones that make you feel like the person you lost was just right there with you.) Cry as much as you need to, and never ever feel guilt for still grieving the loss, even if it was decades ago. Remember though, that you only lost them in the physical world, in the Spirit World they are there and still engaged, still loving you, still helping you as much as they can. </div>
Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-55268358310524380832014-12-29T19:42:00.001-05:002014-12-29T19:42:03.296-05:00Anyone need a (really) old car?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is a 1928 Overland Whippet. Other than a little TLC, it only needs points and a 6-volt battery. I've ridden in it myself and it's very cool...like taking a walk back in time. We are taking serious bids over $6,000. Thanks!Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-9470448797656681042014-12-04T01:24:00.001-05:002014-12-04T02:45:47.756-05:00The Blower's DaugtherThere's nothing quite like a song you have never heard that strikes such an emotional chord that you know you've just been hit by a freight train, only you have no idea where it came from and why it's here.<br />
<br />
And there is nothing quite like a song that can bring to the front of the stage in your head one of the most dramatic moments you lived and re-examine it in such a way that you hear, see, feel, touch, and taste it all again, like a bruised piece of fruit. The thing is though, reliving these utterly devastating moments helps us <i>heal</i>. Reliving them from an older and wiser perspective also helps us empathize and forgive. It helps us unpackage the tender glass shards our hearts are ultimately made of and oh so gently place them back together in a way that feels a bit more whole and that doesn't prick us so painfully again.<br />
<br />
It took me two full days but now I get why this song claimed such a giant space in my head.<br />
<br />
When I was fourteen, for a moment, my father got really upset with me, and he sent me packing to live with my mother in Jacksonville. The leaving was bitter, and nearly ripped my heart to shreds, but the thought of finally getting to know my mother and exploring thoughts of new experiences for myself kept me treading water, kept me wanting to engage, and ultimately to stay here and live my life. Teenage angst can make you want to jump off a bridge. The hope of having my mother kept my heart beating.<br />
<br />
That hope slowly lost steam when, even as young and as naive as I was, I figured out she was a drug addict. These were the days before she loved prescription pain medications. Yes, these were the days of coke, and pot, and booze. Only God knows what else.<br />
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Two weeks in, she left the small two bedroom apartment that we shared with her boyfriend Darrell and his brother (I had the couch), and she never came home. At some point, Darrell shook me awake and took me to the hospital to see her. She was hooked up to all sorts of monitors and wires and she was flat out unconscious. She'd overdosed on cocaine. Darrell left me there with her because he had to go to work.<br />
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Now I know what the medical staff was probably thinking. "That poor girl. Who's going to take care of her now?" I remember the psychiatrist coming in to talk to me, and asking me questions about my mother that I clearly didn't know the answers to. I remember when the line that showed how her heart was beating fell flat. I remember them all running in and slapping my mama in the face to try to wake her. Ushering me out, then back in again when they'd revived her. For hours and hours I watched her as if she were lying there a superstar in a movie about some poor woman who'd gotten overwhelmed and overdosed. Surely this was all an act.<br />
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For many, many years the feelings I have had that are associated with those six weeks I spent in Florida in 1989 have been buried very deep. I went through therapy. I dealt with the angst, the grief, and the loss of so much of my innocence, of my hope in better days for my mother. I know now that those fear-filled days in that hospital in Jacksonville, and many of the strange days afterwards have helped me form my own understanding of my mother that I could never have had otherwise. Some experiences just <i>must</i> happen.<br />
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I hope not to sound preachy here, but in the end, our love and understanding of one another is quite simply, all we have. This song takes me back to those visions of her, the different times I tried to understand and feel things with and for her so that she could take a bigger space in a heart filled with only the ghosts of all the lost days and nights in between. I get why she couldn't be there for me. I get it and I understand it and I accept it, but unfortunately and quite fortunately at the same time, I can still feel the loss, the frustration, the anger, and the fear.<br />
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Never ever let yourself close up so tight that you cannot feel the emotions you need to keep feeling to consider yourself alive. The heart will not stay hurt forever. Use this song, or any that strikes your own emotional chords, to help yourself remember those painful experiences and continue to heal from all you have learned and been able to do since.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dV7yUhBMqj4" width="480"></iframe>Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-17820215895176586922014-07-12T01:31:00.000-04:002014-07-12T01:31:04.966-04:00The newest Bruin.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I finally did something for me! As you know, if you read this blog, I've always wanted to be a "real" writer. Believe it or not though, I've never had any real training in writing beyond the undergraduate english courses I took at UGA (the first of which I was able to skip by advanced placement testing). I did get A's in all my English classes but never took the creative writing classes I wanted to take. I tried once when I was in grad school - to add the class and make it work - but had zero time for it and eventually withdrew. Now, at nearly 40 years old, I'm going to study and practice the art of writing for real from one of the best writing programs in the nation. I'm so lucky too, because I get to do all of this online. I get to become a real card carrying UCLA student, and I get to earn the Writer's Certificate and even become a Bruin alumni when I finish my coursework.<br />
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Awesome! I cannot wait to get started. For fun, I may post some of the writing I do here on my blog. My first class starts August 6th!<br />
Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-80274861678536482462014-06-10T06:08:00.000-04:002014-06-10T06:08:08.489-04:00Getting serious about vacation planning!Some of you know that I started working with Academy Travel in the fall of 2012 as an Independent Contractor selling & helping people plan their Disney vacations. Going to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL (actually Lake Buena Vista) was always a happy and positive experience for me growing up. Crossing the Florida line meant visits with my mother and family in Jacksonville and sometimes meant a very fun and exciting trip to Disney! When I arrived home from taking my daughter on a very special Disney trip and was continually raving about how much I loved the Walt Disney company in general, a co-worker of mine suggested I look into becoming a Vacation Planner. She said it would be perfect for a Disney freak like me! She was right. Every time I quote a vacation, I have fun! Actual fun! I love answering questions about all things Disney, and I'm well read on Disney travel, corporate news, and all things Disney vacations! Most people don't realize that Disney also can take you on special guided trips around the world! There's more to Disney than the giant paradise dubbed The Happiest Place on Earth. This fall I hope to go on a Disney Cruise for my 40th birthday celebration, and no I don't get discounts!<br />
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The Disney company is very smart. Their prices are their prices. I can sell trips to you for the exact price Disney sells it for and no less. The advantage of using my services is that I help you PLAN your trip. You can do Disney on a budget and cut costs at every corner or you can go all out and have the most amazing five star trip of your dreams. There are more than 25 Disney resorts on property in Florida alone, along with 4 theme parks and 2 water parks. If you haven't been to Disney in a while, since you were a kid, or maybe you've never been at all...then I'm your girl! Hit me up. My services are <i><b><span style="color: blue;">100% FREE!</span></b></i> No kidding. <br />
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I'm currently setting up my Disney home office, and I'm even re-painting the walls with Glidden Disney paint in a color called "pawprint" from the Winnie the Pooh colors! I also received my box of goodies for Authorized Disney Vacation Planners today that assists me in advertising and answering clients questions. I'm so pumped. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance to you as you plan your <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">DRE<span></span>AM</span> </span>vacation!Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-75363969336404569072014-06-05T01:58:00.001-04:002014-06-10T05:47:23.739-04:00Pics from my glorious week away.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-43520448284776559142014-06-04T04:32:00.001-04:002014-06-04T04:34:05.526-04:00Vacation (finally), and the importance thereof.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kXkZQZ1Hjx0/U47ZPy-Eh0I/AAAAAAAAAbg/1WmdV96dA6w/s1600/DSCN2661.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kXkZQZ1Hjx0/U47ZPy-Eh0I/AAAAAAAAAbg/1WmdV96dA6w/s1600/DSCN2661.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>My family just returned Sunday morning from an awesome 8 day trip. I had 9 total days - in a row - off work. Can I just say that I needed to have done that a long time ago?<br />
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One of the downsides of living in America and being a citizen who cares about working and contributing to society (because believe me, quite a few Americans do not) is that we work too many hours. I have a rather nontraditional schedule which gives me 3 days on and 4 days off a week because I work 12 hour shifts at night, nevertheless, it wears me down just as much as the 8 to 5 grind wears folks down during the week. We work and we work and we work because we have to pay our bills to live, and sometimes we fail to consider how much value there is in taking time off. I'm very lucky to work for a company that gives me 200 hours of paid leave each year. That's roughly 16 days off per year (because I work 12 hour days), and I've yet to actually take that number of days off in a year. Sometimes it was because we were not staffed well enough to be gone for long, but mostly it was because I didn't recognize how vital these vacations are to my health and well being.<br />
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I mean, I had a really good time. We went to Fort Lauderdale for 5 days and stayed at the Marriott Beach Place towers in a condo. It was super duper nice and there were adequate stores and shopping (a mall actually) right in the back of our hotel on the beach side, including a 24 hour CVS. I would definitely stay there again. The staff was friendly and very helpful, the place was very clean and tidy, the decor was modern and crisp looking, and they had adequate hot tubs, pools, places to eat, and it was just a few steps to the beach! The ocean was crazy crystal clear and a beautiful teal color, the beach was clean and very well maintained, and I appreciated a huge police presence over the Memorial Day weekend. That city had its stuff together. There was apparently some sort of gang activity nearby while we were there and the police were all over it immediately, closing roads and bridges temporarily to prevent further gang members from entering the beach area. We took one afternoon/evening to ride to Hollywood, FL to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe because it's my personal mission to eat at and visit each one in the United States before I croak. I collect the pins from each city and prominently display them on a Hark Rock burgundy felt banner that hangs on the wall in my upstairs hallway. Traffic was a bit rough, but other than that we had a good time. Collectively we won about $6 gambling in the casino! Another item I can scratch off the bucket list.<br />
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On Thursday we left sun-shiny Ft. Lauderdale for overcast Orlando so we could hit Disney for a couple of days. Oddly enough I wasn't the one (in the end) who was pushing for Disney but I'm so glad we made those last minute reservations. We stayed at the new Art of Animation Resort and went to the Magic Kingdom on Friday and Hollywood Studios on Saturday. We had a blast. I remember most of it quite well. Because I accidentally bonked my head on the granite countertop in the beach condo I had a bit of a delayed concussion that rendered me very much "out of it" for hours on Saturday, but nevertheless I trooped out the the park! There are pics of me I have no memory of posing for! Since I've never really been a drinker, at least I know now how it feels to "black out."<br />
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The hardest part was the drive back late Saturday night because we stayed for the awesome fireworks show at Hollywood Studios, called Fantasmic, and effectively left after the park closed. My family wouldn't let me share in the drive because I'd been mostly out of it earlier in the day with my concussion - and we were driving Hal's brand new truck! My car is still at the body shop getting it's dents fixed from the crazed deer that ran into me in May, so we couldn't afford to have another vehicle out of commission!<br />
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We got lots of exercise on vacation too, so much so that I needed a day or two to recoup from vacation, even though I came almost straight back to a 12 hour shift! But I was very emotionally and mentally recharged and ready for work again. I learned a pretty good lesson. Don't feel guilty for taking time off. You'll do yourself and your co-workers and those you serve a favor by regaining your sanity once in a while!Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-8823304895372880222014-04-15T07:53:00.003-04:002014-04-15T08:00:05.012-04:00Working on myself.At some point last October I got rather sick of being sick.<br />
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I mean, I was used to feeling shitty pretty much all of the time. Going to sleep was like running a marathon in my mind - angst wouldn't let it shut off. I woke up tired and bedraggled, feeling like I'd not slept at all, and I was unable to sleep more than three and a half hours at a time without waking up. I hardly had the brain power most days to do anything other than basic household chores, tending to my child, and going to work for my 12 hour shifts in the emergency room.<br />
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For years I'd complained to my doctor about being tired. He'd diagnosed me with fibromyalgia (a diagnosis I'd never quite been sure of) years earlier. My body hurt all of the time. All. There was never a day where I was pain free. Never is a serious word, but I do really mean never. There were better days than others, but most days it hurt to just be alive. Any exertion made it worse. Lots worse. Roller skating, cycling, walking, working my shifts, sex, even rough and tumble tickling with my daughter made me pay the next day. Always and forever I lived in pain. No one could see the pain I was in. It wasn't like I had a broken leg. I had some sort of invisible illness attacking my body every day and there was little to do but grin and bear it and gripe to my family about how miserable it was.<br />
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My guts were sick too, only I was in so much musculoskeletal pain I couldn't really focus on how unhappy my digestive tract was. Until a few months ago, when literally every day I was eating tums and zantac and still feeling bloated and gassy and downright miserable. I attacked and cured an overgrowth of candida, but I still felt sick a lot more than I should have.<br />
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I started exercising on the direction of a dear friend who's also a dietician. Slowly but surely I worked my way up to more than 10 miles a week at one point. My heart was pumping good. I had endurance, but my body was so tired and in so much pain that I literally had to fight to get the strength to go each time to walk with her. Plus, she's wonderful at encouragement and harassment, because her job depends on motivating her clientele so they'll get results.<br />
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For me, no results came. My doctor changed up my anti-depressant thinking that was the culprit. No change in my weight. Finally three months later he ordered a bunch (5 vials worth) of blood tests.<br />
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Turns out, my immune system was working a bit overtime (high white blood cell count). I knew this because I frequently had low grade fevers - a side effect I attributed to my work in the emergency room where everyone is exposed to all sorts of illness. Normal people with healthy immune systems build up a giant resistance after working in germ laden places. But frequently I'd get sick, so much so that my coworkers made (nice) jokes about my crappy immune system.<br />
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Nevertheless, I came to work. I never once have called out due to illness or feeling like crap. Probably because I was so stinking used to it. Feeling bad was normal.<br />
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Back to the blood tests. My thyroid peroxidase antibody was elevated quite a bit. This is a diagnostic tool for Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or when your own immune system attacks your thyroid.<br />
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I'd been feeling tired and had been unable to lose the "baby" weight from the pregnancy and birth of my daughter - 10 years earlier. No matter what I tried I didn't lose any substantial amount of weight. I constantly felt bad about myself, and my body image (which had always been a-ok) tanked. Before pregnancy the heaviest I'd been was 140 pounds. I was not skinny, but I was a very healthy weight. I'd always suspected something might have happened to my thyroid, but each time I had blood tests the thyroid numbers came back low, but still within "normal" range. Frustrating to say the least.<br />
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The doctor's office called in a low dose of levothyroxine to my pharmacy and I began taking it about a month ago. Immediately after figuring out the thyroid issue, I began researching it. I read message boards and forums and question and answer sites galore, and over and over I kept seeing people talk about GLUTEN intolerance and how it goes right along with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.<br />
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I researched the symptoms of gluten intolerance/Celiac's disease and found nearly a virtual description of how I'd been feeling for so long. Unbelievable.<br />
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I stopped eating gluten that day. Now, nearly two weeks out, the pain in my body has almost subsided entirely! I have no more bloating! When I eat my stomach and intestines do not rumble for hours on end and remind me that I shouldn't have eaten whatever it was I ate. I am a carb-a-holic. I may always be, but I'm no longer eating any carbs that contain wheat or gluten.<br />
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Now I'm reading the book by a cardiologist, Dr. Davis, called Wheat Belly. He's definitely preaching in this book, but not only do I see his logic but I agree wholeheartedly.<br />
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I know that I'm now on a straight path to wellness, and quite honestly, I have felt very much "led" to each of my discoveries since that night in October when I prayed for help. I asked God to please help me end my physical suffering, with tears in my eyes, and told Him that I honestly didn't know how much longer I could keep going as I had been for so long. <br />
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I now take a handful of vitamins and prescription drugs that are helping big time. But ending the hyper inflammatory immune response to gluten might have been the single best thing that's happened to me since my child was born.<br />
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Moral of the story? Never be afraid to challenge your doctor, trust your instincts about your body, and use your own mind and brain to find the solution. And of course, when you're searching for answers, never forget to pray for guidance. Trust that the Universe has your back, and your best interest, at heart. <br />
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<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-62903078430684592642014-02-20T00:54:00.001-05:002014-02-22T01:27:54.384-05:00Laughing at life's poofy moments.I know I haven't written in a while, but I've kind of been in a type of conserve-energy-and-just-keep-swimming auto pilot for most of the last year. Sure, there have been bursts of energy here and there. I started a coalition to help parolees. I tried to write 50,000 words in a month. I started exercising regularly (again). I even found enough fortitude to make it through the holidays. And mostly, I've written in that doggoned "Happiness Project" journal almost every day. Even when all I can say is that I worked a twelve hour shift, I tried to write it down. Not everything is happy. Even when you stare at the glass for an hour trying to decide whether or not it's actually half full or half empty. I'm just glad I have a glass to fill.<br />
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Sometimes life does indeed beat us up, drag us along, tear us down, and scramble our brains like a southern fried egg on a scorching pavement. Is there any use in trying to find the "happy" during your life's rough and tumble days?<br />
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Is there?<br />
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I would argue that there is, even if you can't do it everyday. Sometimes when the going is so tough it makes your head spin is when you have to stop, stop, stop and find something to laugh about. Perhaps my 6 years in an ER and my ultra weirdo dark snappy sense of humor affords me a certain talent in finding the humor even in the craziest situations, but laughter HELPS. Laughter seems to hoist up just the right amount of emotional wall in tough times that really does help you schelp on through to another day. Start looking at your life in a 360 degree sorta way. Some of the shit you do is funny, trust me. Lots of the shit other people do is often ridiculously funny. Sometimes their shit is so funny that your shit is small in comparison. And that my friends, means your life ain't so bad.<br />
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Just as important as laughter is the lesson. What is the lesson? There are situations in your life that sometimes literally only last a few real moments...others last for days, weeks, months, even years...until they are -POOF- just not there anymore. Sound silly? But that poof moment is the one where you're like <i>oh wow</i>, or <i>holy crap</i>, or <i>I'll be damned</i>...and then suddenly you figure something out, some life changing <i>well-now-I-know</i> kind of thing. So one day when your friend, or sibling, or grown up kid decides he or she is gonna try that which you've already POOFED your way through, you can say with one hundred thousand percent certainty...oh no, oh hell no you're not and let me tell you why! Every hard thing in life has a lesson for you. If you think about it, you know it's true. So what are the difficulties in your life trying to tell you? What is it that you still need to <i>work on</i> to <i>get better </i>to <i>be happier</i>? <br />
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Still, we get stuck. At least I know I do. Some days I ask myself, "Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing?" "Is this all I have to offer?" "Is there some other greener pasture I could have more fun in?" Or lately, my favorite..."did I do the right things educationally? Should I have just majored in Journalism & Creative Writing like I wanted to when I first went to college?" "Would I be happier now if I had?"<br />
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Argh! I've been driving myself crazy with this stuff. There is one thing I do know for sure though. There were lessons I learned along the specific path I took. I don't believe those lessons were lost on me and I believe they were important for me. Therefore I'm okay for having taken the path I did. What I've done, especially my mistakes, is truly okay.<br />
<br />
I'm still here.<br />
<br />
Big question is what to do next. Something, anything, or nothing? When is the right time to shake things up and let the particles fly around and then settle back down again? I know I've been holding on too tightly to safety and security and walking the worn path lately, but it does feel like the winds of change might soon be blowing my way.Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-16586176329801818312013-11-30T04:02:00.001-05:002013-11-30T04:02:07.843-05:00Conspiracy.I've been fascinated with the JFK assassination for most if not all of my adult life. I probably should have posted something here on my blog in remembrance of this man and his legacy on November 22nd exactly, but I was much too busy being sick with a fever curled up in the chair watching television special after special focusing on the assassination, the conspiracy, the events of the day, and how it all looked and felt that day in Dallas, Texas. I was kind of annoyed that most of what is shown and published now seems to agree with Lee Harvey Oswald being a lone gunman. Only one show that I saw, out of several, seemed to advocate for a massive cover-up. Could it be that fifty years of frustration with not having a real answer or any true belief that our government then or now has fully cooperated with the investigation - maybe the collective we has simply given up ever finding a different answer so we accept the one shoved down the throats of all who would line up and accept that it was a lone gunman who shot a magic bullet?<div><br></div><div>Even Lee Oswald said he was a patsy...in the mere 48 hours he had to say anything at all, before he could really tell us what he knew. </div><div><br></div><div>It was also a conspiracy that I didn't finish my 50 thousand words for National Novel Writing Month. This flu/fever/cold illness has nearly spanned two weeks and sapped the life out of me. I found myself writing some really dark stuff that made me want to run and hide from it, and I had to take a two day break to go pick up my mother's cremains from the City of Jacksonville Florida - and give them a check for every penny of the money that her lousy insurance company mailed to me. Of course she lied on the policy questionnaire, however after reviewing the questions I wonder who would actually qualify for one of their policies? And why did it take seven months to simply return her premium payments?</div><div><br></div><div>One thing that I think I've discovered though in this month of November is that I still want to take some creative writing classes, and I may have finally found a way to do that, online via a real university, and without paying them all of my earnings for one year. The UCLA Extension Writer's program seems to be legit, cool, and offers a certificate program - total cost $6,700<font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif">! I can probably figure out a way to pay for that all on my own and work at a pretty reasonable pace to finish some writing courses that might actually teach me how to write the novel that lives inside my head. </font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif">Maybe I'll be a famous writer before I die, or before the dark ass characters in my head pay someone to assassinate me too. Hopefully someone will bury me in a tricked out coffin with an escape hatch. Just don't cremate me!</font></div><div><div><br></div></div>Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-57002640645544420492013-11-05T01:07:00.004-05:002013-11-05T01:07:53.543-05:00Excuse me for November.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm busy bustin' out a 50,000 word novel. Or at least I'm trying. Where's my caffeine?<br /><br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-1816437283221645432013-08-29T03:12:00.001-04:002013-08-29T03:22:05.830-04:00Fear...life's wrecking ball.I think I've listened to Miley Cyrus' new song Wrecking Ball about fifty times. No seriously. It's playing as I type this. Other than what the radio station plays of hers, I've never been a fan. But this song speaks to me in a way that no song has in a long time. Yes there are several songs that remind me of times in my life, make me think of a person or a space in time or a moment that was missed or even fully lived.<br />
<br />
But this song has taken me to a point of tears. Big ones streaming down my face.<br />
<br />
This song reminds me of fear. Yes, fear. That very deep doubt that permeates every single thing in our lives, causing infinite doubt that we'll never be enough, that we're not right, that we're guilty, that we can't rise above or even stand tall enough to see through the window.<br />
<br />
I have lived with that fear for the sum total of my life. Abandonment and endless critique bestowed upon me this nearly insurmountable gift. Death, tragedy, and sadness have released me from it.<br />
<br />
There are places we come to in life that literally force us to stop and evaluate, regardless of how much we'd love to avoid it, or <i>deny, deny, deny</i> that there's a problem. The other thing about that soul eating fear is that the very essence of it says we cannot stop to question ourselves or our actions because that makes us even more vulnerable - our bellies are already too soft to even allow a hand on them to soothe us. The sudden pierce of realization that even though we've tried so hard, have given our every effort to be simply the best, perfect at all and everything, that by god yes we are human and we have screwed up massive amounts of tiny moments in our lives. That we've made bad decisions. That we've cheated and lied and hurt others by our own actions, no matter how deeply we regret those things now.<br />
<br />
The healing comes when you drag yourself up far enough to feel the sunlight on your face. That sun and it's warmth tells you that you're still here on <i>Earth</i>. That you're human and very, very imperfect, and that any other human who ever expected you to be perfect was imperfect as well. If anyone made you feel that way, then there's a moment they screwed up too. And hurt you in the process.<br />
<br />
But look at you. Look at me. You survived and so did I.<br />
<br />
Fear will drag you into a dark place so desperate that you will simply find yourself waiting for your godforsaken life to be over. You'll get to the end sooner and you'll regret not taking chances more, not being who you really were supposed to be in this life, and not being your true, genuine, authentic self.<br />
<br />
Do not let fear stand in your way. And never cover it with substances that alter your consciousness.<br />
<br />
You are lovable. You can love. You can be a good mother, a good father, a good friend, sister, brother, cousin, lover, wife, husband and every other possible thing you can think of or try to do. Your limits are set only by you.<br />
<br />
Break down your own walls. Don't let anyone wreck you or your life.<br />
There is always time to change direction. There is always time to give yourself another chance at love, happiness, enough money, a satisfying career, or the elusive book you want to write.<br />
<br />
There is always time to give yourself another chance at the life you want for yourself, whatever that may be.<br />
<br />
Don't make the mistake of waiting for someone else to come along and give you the chance. No one can do that for you. You must believe in yourself enough to let go of the fear and take your life's bull by the horns. Pull yourself up by your own efforts and your own faith in yourself.<br />
<br />
I thank all that is good in this universe for finally allowing me to think this way, to realize that my life, as crazy and imperfect as it has been...despite all my failures and disappointments...has been right on track from the beginning. I am good enough just the way I am, because of who I am and all that I know to be.<br />
<br />
Guess what? So. Are. You.Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-42348535255450887672013-07-06T21:33:00.001-04:002013-07-06T21:52:34.978-04:00In remembrance of my mother.Some might see the space and wonder,<br />
Where is the love?<br />
I see the space and know its there,<br />
Because of the love.<br />
<br />
There are things in life we cannot have,<br />
No matter how much we long for them.<br />
In my case, it was you.<br />
It was always you.<br />
<br />
There's no strangeness of feeling like being a motherless child.<br />
Where is it that I belong? Who will stand for me today?<br />
A fall, a bruise, a scrape, a tear. Once in a blue moon -<br />
A broken heart too.<br />
<br />
You were somewhere not where I could see.<br />
But that never stopped the longing, nor promises unkept.<br />
Heart's desires can't be contained so easily.<br />
When I sleep I dream. Where are you?<br />
<br />
Now I know. You are in that heavenly ethereal place<br />
of love, and peace, and acceptance, and learning.<br />
No more debauchery for you. Nothing to alter your<br />
consciousness but the work your soul must do.<br />
<br />
Were you ready to take that leap?<br />
<br />
I was not. Could you feel the quickness of my heart?<br />
<br />
There's a small unprotected space in me that knows now<br />
that despite the mental toughness, it was you that I wanted all along.<br />
<br />
Not necessarily the straight A's or perfect hair or perfect curves<br />
Or eye lined baby blues to bat away a mans attention.<br />
I didn't need anything to complete me but you.<br />
There was always something missing, and I've been chasing it<br />
for thirty eight years.<br />
<br />
Turns out it was just you.<br />
You I tried so hard to run from when you finally came around.<br />
What I wanted was gone. Could not be had.<br />
<br />
But then again could we?<br />
What if you had actually tried?<br />
Could you have given up all you thought you had<br />
for a minutes more time with me?<br />
Could you have stopped and wondered just a bit more often,<br />
"What is she doing today?"<br />
<br />
Did you care?<br />
<br />
In your way I know that you cared as much as you could.<br />
And I have accepted my fate as the best laid plans for my life.<br />
There were others who gave me rivers of love. Rivers.<br />
<br />
I didn't know that I was worth any of it though, until you were gone.<br />
There was some destiny in your leaving the first time,<br />
and some magic in your leaving the last time.<br />
When you crossed over to that land-of-endless-mild-and-honey-everything-<br />
is-better-here-place, something happened to me too.<br />
<br />
I grew up hard and fast and strong with my teeth gritted and eyes dry<br />
because you left me.<br />
Now that you're gone again I realize that I'm enough.<br />
Just as I am.<br />
You took that black cloud of self doubt with you.<br />
I can only hope you tore it up and threw it away.<br />
We don't need it anymore.<br />
Let there be some light now.<br />
Light - in knowing everything happens for a reason.<br />
Even the things we believe will wear us to bits <br />
and tear us to shreds.<br />
<br />
I am here today - my own woman - no longer in the shadow of your leaving.<br />
No more fear of being unloved.<br />
<br />
I am stronger because you left. No more empty holes.<br />
I forgive you your lack of presence and love.<br />
I know we will meet again. I will show you the strength of my heart.<br />
<br />
Perhaps there will be a day up there when you get bored<br />
doing whatever it is that souls do in the afterlife.<br />
<br />
I'll be here. When I sleep, I dream.<br />
Come for a visit then, and I'll see you in my dreams.<br />
<br />Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-78919355688590568662013-06-25T19:08:00.000-04:002013-06-25T19:08:10.981-04:00New Kids on the Block 6/20/13<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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VIP on a 5* ticket. Met the guys again (for the 3rd time) and had a freaking BLAST at the concert. I snapped nearly a thousand pics between Boyz II Men, 98 degrees, and NKOTB. We had 3rd row seats and were so incredibly close to the guys I barely had to use my zoom lens. The VIP experience left much to be desired, but the pic with the guys, even though it goes by so fast, and the 3rd row seat more than makes up for the lack of a gift bag (this year only a bag and a mini-speaker - the cholo socks were missing). I'd love to go VIP on a cruise next! Got dollar signs bouncing around in my head! :)Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-7196737427532744322013-05-04T01:11:00.002-04:002013-05-04T02:21:21.332-04:00Talking about the problem.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HIpUvQifYYk/UYSmVzfIF9I/AAAAAAAAAR8/fXLAB8aRWsU/s1600/IMG_3828.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HIpUvQifYYk/UYSmVzfIF9I/AAAAAAAAAR8/fXLAB8aRWsU/s400/IMG_3828.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gina Kyle Jackson</td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17px;">After only 4 hours of sleep I spent A LONG time on the phone with the funeral home in Jacksonville, then the Social Security office, and then with my uncle Randy who is helping me manage things. Turns out I will be able to get my mothers "cremains" and will not be forced to pay $920 for them after all. Social Security didn't know she was dead so I had to "report" this to them, and there's no "death benefit" unless I'm a minor or a disabled adult. I still don't have a death certificate, and the manner and cause of death are still officially pending, even though I know exactly what happened. One look at the medication list is all it takes. Not to mention my conversation with the cop who worked her death scene. I actually felt sorry for her too. She is a 23 year veteran on the Jacksonville police force and said she goes from overdose case to overdose case all the time but my mother's situation made her choke back tears all day that day. She said she went home and wrote her own mother a letter that very day.</span><br />
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This whole thing, in its entirety, is one <i>very</i> sad story. All I know to do is what I tell our patients families to do when they're going through a death...take it one hour, one day, one week at a time until you begin to feel some peace. And let the tears come when they will because that's healing too.</div>
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If there is <i>anyone</i> in your life that you love who has a problem with prescription pills, no matter how distant you may be at the moment, please encourage them to seek help, or at the very least tell them you love them no matter what. In my mother's case it was a mental health issue & a physical addiction she battled for more than 30 years. After she left my side as an 18 month old, that life took her over. She was beautiful and very intelligent and could have been anything she wanted to be. She could sew like nobody's business, she loved British literature, and she was a neat freak wherever she went. I loved her as much as I could considering the circumstances, and I know she loved me as much as she could muster. I know she's in a better place now, but I regret she couldn't see how good <i>this</i> place could have been for her and for everyone else who loved her in spite of her.</div>
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Complicated grief is...well, complicated. Tears, anger, frustration, resentment, sadness and all through a sprinkling of, "Is this really happening to me right now in my life?"</div>
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I want to start a dialogue about this, to honor my mother's struggle and my lifelong loss of her, and for the millions who need an outlet or who may be struggling with the same addiction (and therefore are systematically losing everything they hold dear in this life).</div>
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Use the comments section to discuss. I'll be checking in and writing more frequently because now the ever elusive story seems to be making itself known.</div>
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Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-75937605664029599442013-04-18T00:28:00.001-04:002013-04-18T02:57:47.234-04:00Sitting with the sad.I'm sitting down to write just now because I'm not sure what else to do with these hours awake and alone so late at night. I received a call from the funeral home today in Jacksonville about my mother. Her body is still at the Medical Examiner's office. Because I am extremely unsure about this life insurance policy that she purchased last year I cannot give her the funeral that would have been my first choice: that I think all people should have when they die. Just a clean, respectful end to things. My father, God love him, despite all the craziness and hurt she caused him - basically forcing him to raise me on his own and without contributing one dime to that process - actually offered to allow me to bury her in his section of grave plots right in our hometown. So if I had an extra $12K lying around I'd do just that, but I don't. Instead, I referred her to the indigent burial program the city of Jacksonville has for people of limited means. Apparently though that won't work either because my very lower middle class salary at the hospital disqualifies her. What this means is I have to pony up the $920 or "abandon the body" and allow Jacksonville to cremate her and spread the ashes, after a whole year passes, in their memory gardens after they ring a bell and say her name.<br />
<br />
Is a box of ashes worth $920?<br />
<br />
Right now, I'm in total self-preservation mode and I think no. I think this woman did not raise me and she let me down over and over and over again in my life. I can remember days where I sat and waited for the phone to ring because she said she would call. Sometimes it would ring, but mostly it wouldn't. I remember the wretched smell of cigarette smoke every time I got near her, usually on the one visit a year that started around age 8, but wasn't every year. I wanted her to love me, to see me, to hold me in some important spot in her life and she just couldn't.<br />
<br />
The drugs got her through it.<br />
<br />
Two years ago I had her in my home for two entire weeks at Christmas. She nearly drove me bananas with the television being on ALL THE TIME. Watching her and Hal fight over the remote was kind of funny, but all in all, I was very uncomfortable with her here even though on some kind of level in my head I knew I needed to do it. Even when Christmas morning arrived she was too sleepy to watch Sarah open her presents. But at one point during her visit I asked her why she did the drugs - and she flat out admitted that it was because she was trying her best to forget me.<br />
<br />
I believe her. Because I very much felt forgotten. I very much felt different from all the other kids at school because I had no mother, because my mother had (gasp) <i>left</i> me - like bad penny. She'd just disappeared.<br />
<br />
Last night I found in one of her albums a picture of me taken the day after I was born. Oh the serious look on my newborn face. It's like my soul knew I was in for a wild, complicated, sad to the bones kind of roller coaster ride and my face reflected that from day one. Here we go. Next to that was picture of a very young Gina holding a baby. My heart leapt at
the thought that it might actually be the first photo I'd ever seen of
her holding me as a baby. But then I realized the baby wasn't me. And
my Dad looked at it today and said "nope it's not you." There's not one single
picture of her holding me as an infant. Of her owning me as her child, her baby, her
responsibility. It was simply never meant to be that way.<br />
<br />
The summer I was fourteen I moved down to Jacksonville to LIVE with
her. Three weeks into my visit, she'd raided my savings account and
then overdosed on drugs. She couldn't handle being my mother. There was
just no way in hell she could actually contribute to my life in any
meaningful way beyond giving birth to me. I remember vividly sitting in
her hospital room and watching the EKG machine flatline a couple of
times. Obviously she survived, and did some time in a mental facility.
Then a few weeks later when the rest of my family figured out what
happened, one of my aunts took me on the long ride back to Georgia -- with
all my stuff -- and with a very empty feeling inside. <br />
<br />
In my mid twenties I spent $99 on a plane ticket to have her come visit. She stayed with me for all of two days, and was mostly drugged during that time too. She was too out of it to even meet my friends. After the second day she had me take her out to the country so she could spend time with her cousins and that's where she stayed for the rest of her time in Georgia. It's like she broke my heart all over again and took advantage of my kindness. Every single time I let her in, I got squashed like a bug. There was my heart.<br />
<br />
The night of her birthday this year I got home around 7 and fully intended to call her but my dad called first. She beeped in and left a message and I called her back immediately. Our conversations in my adult life were 85% about her. Once again she dominated the talking and was going on and on about this PBS program she was watching. She wanted the companion book for her birthday. I agreed to get it for her. After about a half hour of her talking I told her I had to get Sarah taken care of and in bed and that I'd call her back after I did. Sure enough, 2 hours later when Sarah was asleep I felt that pulse in my chest - call her it said. But I did not want to. I mean, I really didn't. I don't necessarily know why I didn't, and I feel guilty for it now, but I didn't want to talk to her any more that night. But again I felt that tug at my heart and I called her just long enough to let it ring once before I hit "end" and hung up. Thankfully, she called me back. And we did talk, for almost another hour. I love you was the last thing I said to her. From what I can tell now, she was dead a mere 48 hours later. That damn book she wanted was in my barnes and noble shopping cart on my phone. I'd planned to call her back to ask what other book I could add to it so we'd get free shipping. And there it sits. I'll delete it out of the cart at some point.<br />
<br />
Step by step I'm dismantling her earthly existence. We packed up her apartment, and we gave lots of stuff away. Her cat lies here under my feet, happily purring, free of cigarette smoke for the rest of his days. One by one I'll cancel her credit accounts. One by one I'll call her doctors and let them know. I've already started it because this is what she left me with. A great big mess. One by one, erase, erase, erase. Clear up, take away, write off, and delete all the earthly accounting of the mother who could never really be. <br />
<br />
But then there's this furniture here in my house, and the not-so-faint smell of cigarettes that go with it, now a constant reminder that she's gone but yet here still. Kind of like when I was a child. Always a part of me but never really there. Something I wanted but couldn't ever have.<br />
<br />
What do I do with all of this? For a while I think I need to sit with the final stage of my grief. Final because all my life I've grieved her in some way or another. Even as she lived I never really had her. Now that she's gone I'm the only one who's here to take all the things she left behind.<br />
<br />
For now I'll sit with the sad. Then hopefully I can take the sad and turn it into something useful for myself, and for others. It's the only way I can right her wrongs to me. Live my life and make it mean something to me and to others even if it didn't mean enough to her.Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6011249970861936839.post-48048836181883375282013-04-12T15:22:00.001-04:002013-04-12T15:22:07.979-04:00There are no opiates in heaven mom.My mother was found dead on Monday morning. She'd probably been sitting in the floor there like that for up to 3 days before her caretaker found her. Even though we don't have the autopsy report back yet, I feel in my heart that it was a prescription drug overdose. Earlier this year CNN did a piece on the epidemic of narcotic and benzo abuse and cited it to be the number one cause of accidental death in this country this year. I always hated the fact that my mother used narcotics so much and felt that those pills played a large part in her continued absence in my life. My wheels are turning now about perhaps creating a non-profit organization to educate the public about prescription drug abuse. Not necessarily in "honor" of my mother, but because of this: I didn't just lose my mother on Monday, I lost her every single day that she was too high to have a normal life, normal feelings, and a normal conversation with me on the phone. Heather A Poseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16169547159116510756noreply@blogger.com2