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it's OK I'm reloading
Went for a walk in Union Park today. Not far from my house. A really beautiful city park with lots of trees, green space, flower garden, prairie area, playground, wading pool, and across the park is the river and a bike path that goes to another great park about 2 miles away that has an excellent view of the downtown skyline.
It puts all the city parks in Denver to shame. Not only are there lots of trees, but they are old growth, and well maintained. It's nice not to see people shooting up or camped out. I haven't felt unsafe once since I got here. It's a nice change from my time in hell. If I never see someone shooting up or pooping in public ever again it will be too soon.
I am thankful for a lot right now, but I am also in mourning for my lost home, my lost way of life. It's hard to believe I don't have my home in Roch to go back to. I feel like my home was taken from me. Logically, I know I chose to move, chose to sell my house, but I also feel like if I didn't do that, my mental health (and physical health) would have taken a steady decline. I couldn't keep fighting the same battles again and again. I had a dream the old fucker in Rochester was not only killing squirrels, but foxes and people's pets. I woke up upset, but then I realized I don't have to deal with that anymore. I can look out my window and see animals and plants, and not worry that some psycho killer will be out there killing them all.
I don't know how much better it is for me here over all, there's a lot of issues here too, but there's not much I can do right now. I still don't know if my husband will able to make it without hospitalization. He is on medication, and off the self-medication, but it's only helping slightly. He's not tearing the house apart looking for bugs and he's not taking 7 hour showers because he thinks insects are crawling out of his skin, but he's still got a long way to go.
I am really angry at all the smart, kind, creative men I've known that have let themselves get destroyed by meth. The doctor at the ER in Denver told me that schizophrenics have low dopamine, so the meth really is their way of self-medicating, but the side effects are horrifying. I don't know if that's just what she read online or what, but it makes sense.
I don't feel secure in going back to Minnesota and renting a place, only to be on my own and not be able to afford it. I can't go backward. I have to move on. Ironically, I have to move into my childhood home in order to do so.
We had a yard sale a few days ago. We had just finished getting the rollaway dumpster picked up...3 long days of hauling can after can of trash out of this house. And my husband says he is freaking out and can't just sit around, so let's have a yard sale.
So we did, and we made $385 in 3 days (about 15 hours total) and that 's great. We got a lot of bulk out of this house, made some money back that we need because our cash is fading fast. But I had to deal with so many people. Not good.
Some lady spent 2 hours here. Then right after we shut down on the last day, she shows up with her boyfriend and wants to look in the garage to buy more stuff. It was nice she spent like $60, we gave her a deal, but she was insane. I've never heard of a person spending that much time at a yard sale, then coming back later too. They wanted to look in the house for things to buy and I had to be like, "I live there!!!!" No one seemed to understand that we live here, we're not just cleaning out the house to sell.
Maybe because they saw me come here over the last few years to try to help clean things up and then leave again and again. For some reason, the neighbors can't understand why I am here.
I am here because I can't afford to live on my own. Because I was forced out of a place I really loved for a multitude of reasons. Because I have nowhere else to go.
I had therapy today, but I cancelled. I don't think that therapist is a good match for me. My husband and I saw her for once couple's session, but she all but said she wouldn't see him again. She did one session with just me (over the phone) but she already didn't do what she promised she would, so that doesn't make me trust her.
My husband is always commenting on how he feels constantly judged, and he's probably right. I know there is no reason why she would refuse to see us as a couple, except she doesn't like him. Even when he's on his "best behavior" people don't like him.
Today he said that he doesn't want to have to keep proving to everyone that he is OK, but that's how it is.
But that is how life is, isn't it? At least when you're crazy. You have to convince everyone that you deserve to be out in society and not locked up in some ward somewhere, at the complete mercy of the system. It's a daily challenge. At least that's how it feels. And I don't know if "normal" people understand that.
The therapist lady asked us how often we felt we had challenges from our mental illness. We looked at one another and kind of laughed. Every day. Doesn't everyone have to deal with it everyday? Isn't that just a part of who you are? You're not bi-polar, you HAVE bi-polar disorder. Whatever. Every day you have bi-polar disorder and that is a part of you and it always will be.
I keep thinking of my home. The good, the bad. I miss being able to get to so much on foot. The graveyard, downtown, the parks and the woods. I miss Big K, even though I know, I know, I know it's for the best that I have disappeared from his life.
We talk about going back next year to see friends, check out the city. I'm sure Rochester will still be under construction. It perpetually is, it seems, because of the fucking clinic. They are always working on the master plan to make Roch seem like it's all part of the Mayo Clinic campus. That the whole city was a planned community of health care workers. Ignore the homeless and the service workers, they aren't real people. It's just part of the scenery.
Anyway, guess it's not my problem now. I have a whole new set of problems. Tomorrow we are renting a u-haul van and moving my husband's equipment into his rental music studio. He found a place in the neighborhood that is renting out studio space to artists of all kinds. I hope he will be happy there. Not looking forward to moving all this heavy stuff again so soon. In fact, my body is in some serious pain, but I am eager for him to have a space he feels safe and creative in. Then I will get my own art space. And I can set up a dining table. And maybe it will start to feel like a home, instead of just a high end squat.
I sat in Union Park and wrote in my journal for about an hour or so. I hadn't written in there since August 27th. It's probably for the best. Pretty much every day of that time between then and now has been nothing but sorrow and horror and pain.
There's nothing I can do about it now. That's just how it is.
5:05 PM - Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020
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