So much has happened...

First of all... thanks to all of you who have been coming to read this blog. I haven't been writing because - well - I've been putting all of my energies into myself. That's right. Totally putting every ounce of energy I have into improving myself. This is what has transpired since I last posted.

I've lost 137 pounds since Feb.
I enrolled in college and I have a 4.0 average and am on the dean's list.
I got a part time job - IN A RESTAURANT - working on my feet again.
I cut my hair.
I've been improving our financial situation.

I love myself.

That's all... so as you can see - I've been busy. I want you to start coming back and reading some things I've learned that I want to share with you all. I have lots of emotions and feelings about all of what's happened over the past few months. I need to start writing and sharing again. I love you all.

Kathleen

More than a feeling...

Although I dumped lots of stuff yesterday on you all... it wasn't even the tip of the iceberg! This picture is kind of how I feel right now. I'm trying to explain it to myself first and then relay the message to all of you but it's strangely and uniquely indescribeable.

I've been interacting on facebook. If you'd like to join me there search for Kathleen Howe or emotionalfeelings101@hotmail.com and ask to be my friend, but send me a note so I know that you've come from my blog. I'd like that. I'd like to get to know those of you who know me so well.

I've been going through so many changes. My skin is changing. I got burned the other day, right on top of my knuckle when I reached inside to fix the top on the pot roast pan. It smoked when my skin touched the coil, but it didn't hurt me. Today I see this huge ugly burn mark on my hand - I had to think... it was days ago that it happened. Where did that come from?

I've realized some things. Writing about what I've discovered about my life was making me feel slightly powerful like I had some kind of power about me. I've lost so much power in my life. I want to be powerful within myself and I haven't been successful yet. So I've been thinking of ways to become powerful.

Today is such a blur so tomorrow I am going to try to make more sense to tell you what else I've been experiencing in the twenty some days since I stopped writing. You have to stay tuned. I am thinking that in some small way if I can make sense of it, it might help someone else too.

Thanks for coming back. I'm loving you all that come back to read me again. It really feels good to know you're not alone.

I've been on a meltdown...

I haven't written in weeks. Sorry. I mean that. I received some comments during my meltdown and I appreciate them, thank you! It's been a very difficult time for me; the kind of time that causes you to develop a large lump in your throat and each time you look in the mirror you see a stranger staring back at you. It's very frightening. I've been wanting to sleep quite a bit. I have so much to tell you all. I had so much to say when I returned from New York City, but I couldn't focus on writing. I was having too many physical problems from my hernia surgery. I had that dang seroma. I still have it, but it's not leaking anymore. Instead it's a painful hard ball of something in my stomach. It hurts and it causes me to experience extreme pressure on my bladdar and my bowels. I'm angry that it hasn't gone away. That seroma has caused me to sit too long in the recliner, staring at my husband playing mah jong on the computer, game after game, thousands of games he plays until I sit in the seat if he gets up to go to the bathroom, or he goes to get something to eat.

I've been having extreme difficulties with my teenagers. This alone is enough to drive you crazy. I've had to call the cops on my own kids. I took my teenage daughter to the police station after she tried to jump out of my car while it was moving. She was screaming in all her glorious drama for the police to be called so I decided I would drive her there myself. I'd take her straight to the source. She had called me an "f-ing bitch" and I slapped her across the mouth for the first time. She antagonized me with other dramatizations and foul sounding tirades until in all I had slapped her three times. I hated it. The cop said he would have done the same thing. My husband said he would have done it too. I didn't want to do it. I hate violence. I lived on the receiving end of violence for too long. It wounded me. No one seems to understand that. I'm very sad about it still.

I had to take away all of her priveleges. I had to take away her belongings. I had to be stern and strict and ground her. I hated it all.

Then her brother started in on me. I had to call the cops when he decided he wasn't going to stay home when I told him to. He wanted to go out with his friends, but I just found out he's failing school again - this time for the fourth year. He's 17 years old and wants to quit school. I had to take all his things away from him, ground him, yell at him, follow him around the house to see what he was getting into. This has wounded me again - yet - again - wounded and no one really understands it.

I took myself off of my pills... my Cymbalta and Abilify. I didn't feel any better on them and after six years on Effexor and then another year trying to deal with the change to Cymbalta and then adding Abilify our insurance benefits are being played with and who knows... maybe someday I won't be able to take my pills anymore because I can't afford them. If I felt bad on them, then why take them? I gradually withdrew from them for a month, but I am still in withdrawl. I spend a few hours a day feeling like I have the flu. My body aches and my head gets soft and blurry. I'm truly wounded by all of this and I'm tired and I need lots of sleep, but our income has just been cut in half and I feel helpless to make money. No one will hire me.

I applied for a job and the woman lied straight to my face. She said she wasn't hiring and the signs were up all over the store. It was just a McDonald's Restaurant. I have always gotten any job I applied for. Now it's not that easy for me. I can empathize with those who have difficulty finding a job. I'm torn... what to do?

It's football day and I've always loved it but today my family is all in Florida at the wedding of my nephew. I couldn't go for two reasons... my seroma and we just couldn't afford the trip. I have been away from my family one too many times when they were celebrating. I miss it. Another reason I don't want to be there is that I am too fat. I wouldn't survive the hubbub. I am the oldest, I was always the prettiest, the most wonderful girl... now I'm not and it's horrible to be where I am.

My adult son is ignoring me and acting like I'm the cause of all of his problems. He won't let me into his life and finally I told him that I don't know him very well at all. I told him the truth about what his brother and sister think about him - that he's an alcoholic and that all he cares about are his friends at the bar and his drinking. Now I think he's going to work a different job but he's not telling me or his siblings anything about it. This wounds me. I'm his mother and no one has loved him more in his entire life than me. LIfe sucks sometimes and I hate it sometimes.

I told you I was on meltdown. I'm going to start writing again though, every day. So come back and read me. Tell me something that I need to hear. I've been telling people what they need to hear for seven almost eight years and now I need to hear something myself.

I've been on a meltdown and I've missed you all so much.

Something I noticed in New York City

When you live in New York City it can be harder than in the Midwest to be stuck or to even survive. Have you ever thought about not having a car and having to leave your home to walk in the bad weather, whether it be rain or snow or sleet, to get to the transportation you need and then you're out again in the weather to leave your chosen mode of transportation to get to where you work or where you're going. You have to think about your mode of transportation and the "route" you need to take to get where you're going. You have to watch the taxicab drivers because they'll try to take the "long way" so that they make more money and if you don't have some idea where you're supposed to be going - they can rack up quite a fare! None of us living in the midwest ever think about stuff like this unless we do take public transportation, but it's still not like NYC. You have to go everywhere on public transportation. There is no other choice. Besides all of that you have to fight the crowds of people as well. There are so many people there going the same way you are!

Imagine being sick with the flu and you have to go to the doctor's office. You can't just get in your car and drive there in your pajamas; you have to go out in the weather, plan your route, get on the public transportation, be in the weather again, then take the public transportation to a drug store, stand around waiting for your medication, buy things you don't need, feel like you're going to pass out standing around, get your meds but have to get back on the public transportation and then back through the weather and then back home. Back home is probably a very small space because it's so expensive living in NYC.

Say you have an operation... you'd probably take a taxi to and from the hospital, but still what if you had a complication like this seroma thing I have. You'd have to go back to the hospital when you can barely walk and deal with the stuff flowing out of your wound in a taxi and then out in the weather walking into the hospital and then again in reverse when you're done in the emergency room after having to go to the pharmacy again - and through that story. It's hard to do. It's hard to live there. What if you're depressed and don't have the energy to do all of these things?

Then the things you have to witness that aren't pretty.... there are so many things. My daughter, Michelle, who I visited in New York City told me about how hard it is to deal with living there, but she loves it so she deals with it. She just needs certain boundaries with people outside her everyday life because she can't cope with any more drama in her life than what she has to cope with everyday. I guess I understand it and accept it all, but I just love her so much and seeing her was so nice, I just wish she could handle our relationship that could include some communication on a weekly or monthly basis. She is so afraid of not being able to cope with things. I can see what she's saying, but what is life for but to share your life with your family?

Living in the city must be difficult for single people who have no one else to depend on for help. My daughter was single until recently there and I know it wasn't easy for her. I am just trying to observe her rules in life and accept what she needs because I do love her so much. No matter how hard it is to live there I would still like to live there someday. Perhaps when I'm old I'll be able to. Fifty-two isn't old, I mean old, like seventy or so. We'll have to see where I end up when I'm seventy. I really loved being in New York City. I felt like it was the perfect fit for me, for who I really am.

The fall weather has me thinking about how hard things are in New York City when the weather turns. I can imagine how difficult it is in the ice and snow. I would still love it. I even like the idea of an efficiency apartment. I would like to have an apartment in New York City, another one in Boston, and then a small house central to where all my kids are living. That's not too much to ask is it? I hope not! I'll have to get the plan into the works, put it down on paper soon. I have so many things I want to do. If this seroma would just go away and the doctor would take out my staples.... well maybe on the first of October. I hope so.

I've been feeling lost....

I've been feeling lost these days; stuck in bed or the recliner because of my surgery, but more importantly being stuck standing still so close after visiting New York City. I loved that place. I belong there.

Why do we so often find ourselves in places that we don't want to be? When I returned after only being gone for 3 days, 4 nights - I felt displaced. I felt like I was being brought back to a place that I never belonged in. That's true. I just ended up here one day and I guess I have to say this... there wasn't a lot of forethought put into the place I was escaping to; at the time I was just escaping.

When you don't think much about what you're doing - you get stuck sometimes. No one ever told me that life needed to be a plan. I was just surviving, I'm still just surviving, only now I'm just surviving with insight. I've figured out how things need to be, I just need to figure out how to change them so they are like I want them to be. I need to get creative.

I'm struggling. Recovering is hard for me. Now I'm double recovering. First this hernia surgery, then the seroma, and tomorrow the doctors for who knows what they'll do to me. I'm not happy about it. There are three days left of September and we have no money. None. The trip to New York City was expensive. I'm tired of living with no money. This is one thing that is going to change.

The only reason I would like to have tons of money is to give some to my kids and to do something for people in need. I have a few causes that I'd like to be able to help, but until I have lots of money that won't be something I have to think about. I would like to live just comfortably without running out of money every month. This might get worse before it gets better so I'm bracing myself.

So... my thought of the day is, because this has to be short because of this seroma problem... is if you want to be in a certain place in your life you have to think about it and make a plan. It will never just change on its own. It takes a lot of work even with a plan and knowing where you want to be. You may fail a few times or even a lot of times trying to get there, but if you think about what you are doing every day - have some sincere and honest conversations with yourself... you might just find yourself almost there some day and the last part of your journey might be a wonderful revelation.

I'm back!

Did you miss me? I've been recovering from surgery. Watching football, sitting, and sitting, and sitting some more. Been watching the new shows on television and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping some more. I had hernia surgery on the seventeenth of this month and after waking up with a bunch of staples beginning right below my belly button and extending down about five or six inches - I declared, "I succumb!" I just let the pain pills take over for a few days and then I suffered in the chair not really feeling good. I didn't know what was up but I know I hate staples. My son told me to hit my easy button and just go with it! hahaha I've been trying, but I'm not a very good patient. It has been very hard for me to sit still after my trip to New York City. My feet are the skinniest they've been since I broke my leg six years ago though. Being off my feet for a week has been wonderful for my injured leg. I've had some very strange dreams over the past week or so.

Had to go to the ER last night when stuff started POURING, yes I said, "POURING" out of my wound. I was walking around the house wondering what the stuff was all over the floor everywhere I went. I lifted up my shirt and then took off the binder they have me wrapped with and it started pouring like a stream out of my incision. My husband saw it and freaked out before I had a chance to and we were out the door in a heartbeat to the hospital. They weren't freaked out, just something that happens I guess. They call it a "seroma." It's a collection in a little pocket of fluids from your blood like, the plasma from your blood, which collects sometimes instead of dissipating into your body. I never heard of it before - have you? So now I'm sitting around with two sanitary napkins taped to my wound so it doesn't pour out anymore. They said there was still quite a bit of fluid in there to come out yet. What a weird thing to happen.

I've missed writing.

Right now Michigan is playing Indiana, then Ohio Buckeyes come on this afternoon later and then the Gators play tonight. Those are the three teams we follow because my son lives in Michigan and two of my daughters went to Univ. of Florida. My husband cooked up a big pot of chili for us to eat all day on an overcast cool day in Ohio. We have the windows opened and it's cool in here, but nice.

So... I've had some really good thoughts and some really strange dreams, but as I get back to writing a bit more every day I hope I can remember everything I've wanted to talk about. Sitting up at the computer is a bit harder than sitting in the recliner and now with this new thing with my wound I'll have to watch it even more. But I'm back and writing again everyday so stop by and read. I've missed you all!

Listening

There's something that we all need to learn how to do... "listen."

I woke up about 7 a.m. Wednesday morning last week in New York City instead of Dayton, Ohio. I had been riding on the Greyhound bus for sixteen and one half hours to get there. I was so excited, but I was also nervous. I had been talking to a girl on the bus who sat in front of me; she said that New York City was overwhelming everytime she visited. I heard her. So I was more nervous than I thought I would be. I wasn't sure I would be able to handle New York City alone. I would find out, but I wasn't sure until I began to experience it. It was overwhelming right from the get go.

What is so overwhelming about New York City? It's such an extreme and intense test for all of your senses to come alive and feel, taste, see, hear and smell more than ever before. There are so many people, so many sounds, so many smells, so many tastes, and so many diversive "things" that you take in within a split second. You must be open, calm and aware. It's an awakening that life exists in a different form than you ever experienced before. But I quickly realized that in order to get the most from New York City I would have to take the time to "listen."

I heard so many voices. I heard so many languages. I heard anger, fear, outrage, compassion, strength, weakness, neediness, and the more I listened the more stories I heard from the depths of peoples' souls. It was written all over their faces, the way they dressed, what they were doing and all I had to do was to be open to them to understand. What was interesting was the difference between children and adults. The children try so diligently to mimic their role model; yet when they don't have their walls up the child within pops out when you least expect it. It's enlightening. It's hopeful. It's horrid the way many of the adults in the city speak to their children. Perhaps poverty has something to do with that. Perhaps it's the frustrations of the city and striving to survive within the jungle that causes parents to speak out so wrongly to their little mimes. It's one of the shameful parts of the city. Can the youth overcome it? I am not sure about that. I hope so.

I listened to my daughter when we had dinner and I saw the difficulty of living in the city in her body movements, in her words, in the tension in her voice, the tone of her voice and the seriousness she allowed me to see. If you listen long enough without speaking, which I find incredibly difficult, you will learn everything you need to know. I listened to the pain in her voice. I knew she was in pain but I didn't know why, but I learned. The city takes so much from you but if you are careful it gives you something back in return. You must keep everything in perspective and take in as much positivity as you can so you can cope with the "given negativities" the city proper owns.

I challenge you all to listen tomorrow instead of talking. Keep your mouth shut and just listen to everything. Listen to nature, listen to people, listen to your environment and see what you learn. Listen to your co-workers, listen to your children, listen to your spouse or partner, listen to your own self. Just listen. I challenge you to write back and tell me what you learned. It's extremely intriguing to get into the habit of just listening. See what stories are right in front of you, but you've never noticed because you were too busy talking.

New York City needs us to listen to the people. They are true Americans, the essence of what this country was built around. Be a part of Ground Zero by visiting New York City. Those people died Americans and more as part of what our founding fathers wanted for this entire country. They were living their dream. They were larger than life itself. They died for their country and for what it stands for. I learned to respect those who live in New York City. It's not easy.

Tell me something you know about listening. I'd love to hear it.