It’s been a long time since I was so tired that my body started falling asleep while I’m still awake. Right now, at 10:41 p.m., it’s starting at the top of my right shoulder. Arthritis and carpel tunnel are sending aching messages to my hands and fingers. These I am not used to but not surprised about. Shoulder fatigue, that’s a rarity. I will be off work in 19 minutes. It will be the end of the week for me after a 15-hour shift on Monday. It was an 8-and-a-half-hour shift yesterday and a 10-hour and 45-minute shift today. Hence, I have a fatigued shoulder. My body continues to complain that at age 73, I should be retired from a job that has me lifting an almost thirty-five-pound patient from crib to wheelchair or from wheelchair to floor and back again. I should be working from home to complete and submit my writing. At what age do you walk away from homecare nursing? I have been with this little girl since before her 1st birthday. She will be 7 in April. It’s not just my shoulder. Everything aches sometimes. At what age do you walk away? When she’s 7, or when I’m 74?
Tag: Reality
Kitchen Blog: 0330
I’m at work, washing my hands in my client’s kitchen and I have this thought. You see, there has been no communication between me and Chris since my poetry and his money request. So I want to post to messenger, this thought, ‘During the day, your mind is full of distractions. At night,
![20150723_211851[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20150723_2118511.jpg?w=300)
in the stillness of dreams, questions unanswered will form. While awake amid the sleeping hours, if you listen to your heart, there are the what ifs, the maybes, honesty. You see clearly, finally. All is revealed, in the midnight hour.’
This is what I want to post, and what I will post. It’s all a lie though, because I didn’t dream questions, and I sit here now thinking the answer to the ‘why’ of me and Chris is…
“Insanity,” says my mind.
Wow. Where did that come from? I didn’t even know that my mind was awake. I’m just barely awake myself.
“I never sleep,” says my mind, “Why do you think we’re so tired all the time?”
I figure, take a swig of coffee and start drinking some Pepsi.
“Or just stand up,” says my mind.
I talked to Andrew today, about our cousin’s death. Andrew mentioned the possibility of genetics with the causes of death in our family. Strokes and such. He says he’s been warned that it can happen to him. Also blindness and Diabetes complications.
“So Chris is nothing compared to that stuff, right?”
You’re right, I tell my mind. Chris is nothing compared to a lot of stuff going on in this family. Still, I can’t flush him from my system.
“Yeah,” says my mind. “Something as simple as shutting down messenger. So what if he doesn’t try to reach you some other way. Kill it quickly.”
Now I have to smile. My mind and it’s dramatics. It does have a point. I talked about Chris and the frequency of his (phony?) break-up concerns, but how about my ‘shut down messenger’ thoughts. It’s all getting annoying, tired, old, boring, STUPID!!!!!
“Yes. Very,” says my mind. “And do we have to end it? Do we have to say goodbye? Why can’t we just let it go? You know, like the couple of one night stands you had in your past life. You even left relationships without a backwards glance, left them wondering where you went. Left them with a ‘What. Really?!! To coin Chris again.”
I smile again. I love my mind. Too bad the two of us together are still indecisive. I don’t know. I guess I get some kind of something or other from hearing from Chris now, but not at the cost of me chasing a response anymore. There was the shadow thought of my mind earlier.
“Yeah. The thought that floated away half conceived. Wait, what was the thought?”
Now we both have to pause, my mind and I.
I remember. This, after about ten minutes.
“So do I,” says my mind. “No alarm, just an ‘if we don’t hear from Chris by…’ cut off point. A deadline. Then we shut down messenger.”
You’re right mind. That was it.
“So, what’s the shut-off date? Lol. Like your water.”
Lol. That’s not funny mind, that’s not funny at all.
“You want to get your little black book?”
Got it. July 4th.
“Independence Day it is. Are we still doing the post?”
Not sure. Unless I can do it here on the tablet.
“Let’s try it.”
I guess I’m not the only hopeless romantic.
“I don’t know about the romantic part, lol.”
Lol.
More than an hour later, maybe two, we did the post. So we’ve done our part.
“I feel our heart beat racing. Is this what ‘love dying’ feels like?”
I don’t know mind of mine. I don’t know.
Kitchen Blog: Going to Cleveland 4/11/2014
In my kitchen early, frying chicken by 0630. I want the chicken crispy and flavorful. Seasonings of choice…a little garlic powder…pepper…seasoned salt…paprika. Some right on the chicken. Some added to the flour coating. Not much choice here, chicken travels well once cooked, and we’re heading to Cleveland.
![20141225_132211[1]](https://shesfightingforherfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/20141225_1322111.jpg)
My mind says, “Cleveland, where Chris lives.”
We’re sitting in the Greyhound bus station, waiting for the bus, and our cousin Deloris.
So now I’m feeling some unnamed way and I see Chris from my mind’s point of view, but Liam is also there, and wtf is all this? My iPod is playing and I’ve critiqued two Zoetrope pieces and maybe I’m hungry for chicken, but I am either missing, or trying to miss Chris.
We’re going to see Auntie and I think of her and I want to cry, and my mind says,
“Not here.”
There are oldies playing that remind me of the very old days when Auntie was young, and our mother was alive and neither me, nor my mind, can picture the two of them together, as if where there was one, there wasn’t the other, and I know this isn’t true, because Auntie visited her twin often. Yes, Auntie is our mother’s twin.
Now it’s so sad because this could be our last visit to Cleveland with Auntie as our reason to go, and my mind is saying,
“Don’t think that now, not now.”
I want to cry now, rid myself of tears, so that I don’t cry at all in Cleveland. Auntie, when she leaves us, will join her twin and all her siblings. They will be young, possibly children, and they will be happy. They could be adults, reunited with lost spouses.
My mind says,
“They should be children. That way spouses who are not missed, will not look sadly on happy reunions.”
I agree. Yes, they should be children. All smiles, all happy. I like that image mind, I’ll go with that one.
Hello world!
I have broken free. Let me rephrase that. She has set me free. I am the ‘her’ who does not hide, who will not bite our ‘collective tongue.’ There will be warm and fuzzy here, but there will be cold and jagged. There will also be shards of glass on a path that will hopefully, be frequently traveled, so please watch your step. There will be an ongoing series of an online relationship between us and a person who has captured our heart as no one has ever captured it before. The we, and us on this blog is ‘her’ to whom this blog belongs and me, when my ‘mind’, keeps us honest. So the texts we’ll be posting will be, what Chris (our person) says, what she says, and what I am thinking. Other conversations between me and her, take place in our kitchen, so we’ve dubbed these posts, Kitchen Blogs, with different subtitles. Most of this will be Chris related, but there are other men in our life, and you’ll learn about them in the kitchen, or other rooms. So come on and join us, let’s see what’s going on, and also, what’s cooking.
shesfightingforherfreedom 