Things we learn along the way:
1. Wedding of friend - party favors - fish in bowl - Oct 2004
2. Fish - free (Aquarium - 50.00, monthly food - 22.58, 1st pump - 21.99, 2nd pump - 33.00 3rd pump - 50.00, chemicals - 45.00 - decorations - 39.78 - time and energy in cleaning goldfish tank - at least an hour every week or two - lesson learned - priceless, fish are not free.)
Starting fresh. I wake up after a long Rip Van Winkle sleep, having hidden myself away because I am confused, tired, and disappointed. When I don't like where my head is I often choose sleep as a refuge.
So, I wake up and check my email. I get this one from my sis-in-law.
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/news/katrina/photos/
Depression doesn't describe my feelings to the above. I feel helpless. I only wish I had the resources, the yard for a dog or two, the gasoline, the time away from my job to make the trip in order to REALLY help. Sure I sent in my measly, teacher's-salary-dependent, contribution to the Red Cross, but some how that seems so inadequate.
It makes me wonder if the ulta-rich have done as much? Reminds me of the story in the Bible about the poor woman who gave a mite and the rich man giving much more, but then Jesus told the rich man that the poor woman had given much more. The rich man didn't understand. Jesus said, it's because she gave everything she had and you could have afforded more.
I guess it's the heart of the giver that makes the difference. The sacrifices that are made in the name of love and compassion are never wasted. Are we doing as much as we can? Are we thinking that these richer folks will take up the slack? I don't think we can count on that.
So instead, I try to focus on things that maybe I can impact. But I meet with resistance. I try once again to get the word out about the current situation of the Katrina tragedy. I send emails, bulletins, posting blogs that maybe will reach the eyes of someone who can do much more than I am able to do.
I'm at a loss to know what to think of all this. I predict that I'll end up moving on like I have after every other disappointing thing that happens. I live for a new day and hope that space and time between my hurt today will diminish over time.
Like the aging process of a fine wine, so comes our wisdom.
She was a trusting, naïve girl for most of her life. By resolving she could be no different, would lead to her untimely end.
She discovered late in life that many opportunities had been missed to explore and enlarge her world. Her choices had made out of being either sensible, or responsible, or just by giving in to complacency. This slack attitude was inspired and encouraged by her mother. It’s easy to see why her mother would be fearful of practically everything. She had been taught to be fearful. Her mother had lived a hard life. Her mother was the daughter of a pioneer and an extension of the Choctaw Indians.
My friend continued to strive against this paranoia of people and of life itself, disregarding her upbringing with all her might. It took many years of strife, poor decisions regarding people, and hard-earned wisdom for her to branch out of her protective bubble.
One of the most catapulting events in her life was when she discovered the Internet. She became interested in chat areas, blogging sites, and dating sites. For months, she would study the people that she communicated with. She would learn as much as she could about them. Some people called her a stalker, but really all she was acting out was her passion for research, and perhaps her pension in having a "detective" nature. “F.Y.I., baby.”
Probably, her detective nature was born much later in her life, as I have known about her through friends for many years. She had believed so many people that proved to be liars, cheats, and free-wheelers in all sorts of trades that she had been burned or scorched by these sorts repeatedly. You could say that this girl was damaged goods.
She was quite distrustful before she began to bare her soul to Internet strangers. She must have adopted a false security or maybe she put more stock in her abilities as a “detective” than she should have. She began to learn as much as she could about anyone she had an interest in and vice versa. She made sure that her decisions were similar to many others’ that were doing what she was doing. Internet dating gave her permission to accept mistakes along the way, learn from them and never repeat them again. She would meet life head on and be afraid no longer.
There were several passing love interests generated from these activities. She had become hooked. She once told me about two of her encounters. I only wish I could have foreseen the errors in her process of acceptance. I never was sure if I understood what the criterion was for her meeting any of these people.
The first time she went off to meet someone she had met on the Internet, it was completely successful. She came back to her hometown, feeling empowered. She had taken a pro-active course that led to a very nice man. He was fun. He met her in a public place and they had drinks and dinner. He invited her to spend time with himself and his friends a couple of weeks later. They did get together for that backyard grill party. Apparently, she had a wonderful time, but they never got together again. A friend told me, she wrote it off by saying it was because they lived so far apart. They lived about 250 miles from each other. Even though they continued to email and chat online, the meetings stopped after the friendly backyard get-together.
A couple of months later, she announced that she had developed a very sexy, erotic type of communication with another man. She had looked up everything she could about him. Apparently he had no children, a steady job as a professor and loved animals. They hit it off when they finally met in his hometown. I’ll never know why it was that she felt she was the one that had to do the traveling. I mean, if these guys were really interested, wouldn’t they want to be the one pursuing her, making the trip on their time, in their car, with their money? She didn’t think like this. She gladly took off repeatedly to see this man for several months.
The visits started becoming less and less, but it didn’t really matter to her because she had a couple of other guys that she was interested in as well.
About a month after the professor’s visits began to wane, she had told us one evening that she was on number three. She said that she felt good about the number 3. Number 3 had always been her favorite number for as far back as she could remember. “It’s some sort of sign”, she said. We asked her about him. She told us that once again, he was unmarried, no children and very handsome. Those were the types she sought. She even had a picture of him that she had printed out in her wallet. She was excited about getting to go on yet another love adventure. We wished her well and asked her to keep us up with her Peyton Place life. She laughed and said, “Its no Peyton Place. My men are all available. I make sure of that!” She was thorough in her research regarding married men. She would actually look up to see courthouse records when she got enough information to see if there had been a marriage license, a divorce decree, etc.
No one could fault her for her detailed reconnaissance. After all, she was dealing in some pretty murky waters on the Internet. A week went by and no one had heard from her. Two weeks later, her body was found.
Apparently, the man she was to meet had a friend that he let borrow his computer when he came over. This man, she did not know about. This other man had a prison record. He was out on probation. He had snooped into the other’s guy’s emails and discovered that she was to meet him at a blues club. He arrived early after intercepting an email about her schedule change. Although he didn’t look anything like the man she was to meet. We can assume that he had a very believable introduction that might have gone something like this.
Hi, S. can’t make it until 8:00 and he asked me to come by to keep you company. My name is N. Would you like something to drink? He goes to the bar to get the drinks and on his way back slips a drug in her drink. Yes, she had been given, Rohypnol, used often in date rapes. Afterwards, we can assume that she may have needed some air. It can make one feel nauseous. Perhaps, it was at this point that he walked her to his car and said that he would take her to her date or get her some medicine for her stomach. No one will know for sure what happened. But what I have wanted to do for her since she was unable to tell the rest of the story is to do exactly that. I may not have it all correct, but having known her the way that I did, I think I can come pretty close.
She was raped repeatedly with more than double of what was needed to have her in a compromised state of mind. She probably murmured for him to stop, feeling as though she was yelling but really only managing a whisper or groan. After he was done with her, he left her there to die. You see, he had used a broken bottle on the last bodily intrusion. She laid there and bled to death.
I am speaking for her now. She was in and out of consciousness until the last twenty or so minutes when her organs began to shut down from lack of blood. She was paralyzed to move. Only her mind would have been still having thoughts. I believe she would have said these words. “I never thought to research their friends.”
You are taking way too much on faith, too for granted, when you are too available, too free, too open and pushing yourself to be more brave than good sense may have warranted. We are all vulnerable. Please be careful.
I can’t get over the feeling that I am going to be hurt again. There is no way around it. I simply don’t have the heart to do this, but I can’t not try.
What a predicament.
I invited the change that is beginning to reside in me. I base the need for change upon my prior behavior, i.e., the jealousies, the obsessions, the lack of self-esteem, the neediness, the lack of control, the over control, all of those types of things. My choices have always been for the men that need me more than I need them. I’d love to know what it was like to have the type of love and acceptance that comes with being devoted to someone, that feels the same about me.
I’m pretty normal in a different sort of a way. It’s different in a good way. No purple hair, (anymore). No weirdo people hanging around me, (anymore). My friends bathe, have homes, and are educated people. I have a normal paying government job. And no it’s not in the postal service!
I must learn to accept things involving other people, places and things as they are. I must take my own advice and embrace what I fear and become friends with it. Then it will have no more control over me nor will I give it any exceptional attention.
I am no longer talking about the things that I am planning on doing. I am doing them. Every chance I get I will try something new and different, until I can figure out what is missing in my life. I shouldn’t feel as though I need a man. I shouldn’t feel as though I must have a doctorate. I shouldn’t feel as though I have to live in this “effing” hot State of Texas until my parents pass away. I need my life back, NOW! I need what is left of it. I have squandered way too much of it.
What brought these thoughts on?
I saw HIM, the “him” I’ve been writing about all of these weeks. I saw him weekend before last. It was good to see him. I told him that we shouldn’t be exclusive to each other anymore. I had to make sure that I was ok with that before I said it. I wasn’t thinking about what he might think of me dating others when I said it. I was mainly trying to be prepared for his being free in making those decisions for dating others. I thought that if I was ok with that, then I was in the clear.
Then today it hit me. I’m only thinking about what he needs or wants right now because I haven’t understood his actions toward me when we are not together. I’ve gone into all of this in other blogs, but you know, he acts very present when we are together and quite absent when we’re not.
Now I have the additional problem of having to wonder what he will think of me dating. I told him that we both could. I guess he was alright with that. However he did say that he isn’t wanting to date anyone else. I told him to do it anyway. You see, I still love this guy but I sense there are so many things that could go wrong with the relationship and neither one of us could take that. We’ve both come from such abusive situations. His wife fooled around on him for years. Mine shoved me around and literally drugged me around for years.
I wonder if I am creating self-fulfilling prophecy?
I’m missing him. Listening to the lyrics sung by Zucchero, “I need his loving. I need it like the sun and water. Everybody’s got learn sometime. Change your heart, look around you. It will astound you”.
I was just beginning to get him out of my system. Out of my head and heart. Then I see him and it starts all of those sad feelings when he leaves. I can’t stand it. I’d rather not feel this way, but I can’t help it right now. I might end up being more hurt by this recent decision, but I will stick by it. I will be strong. I will be brave. I will try something differently this time. Until I am changed by whatever means is necessary to rid myself of the feeling of needing or wanting anyone.
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