8:53am Writing Practice 73° Boise
Going to be another hot one today. But it should start cooling down overnight and get to the mid-80s tomorrow. Which is good because Ray and Yvonne are coming over to go to the zoo tomorrow and I said I'd meet them there for a while. They are going to arrive by 10:00 and end with feeding the giraffes at 1:00. I'll take my camera and make a day of it with them. They didn't see the penguins last time or the wallabies.
Also, Ray got frustrated that he couldn't see the animals on the last trip and asked his mother why his eyes are broken. That about broke my heart when Yvonne told me that. His eyes are broken for two reasons. 1) His father was a dead beat and didn't believe in paying for anything. 2) The hospital where Ray was born knew this and gave her the minimal care possible, knowing that they would not get paid for the services. Sad but true. In all fairness, Gerald had mental problems that went undiagnosed until much later in his life. Just to talk to him, you wouldn't have known, he appeared to be a low bottom alcohol abuser and drug addict. We didn't know back then that those were symptoms of mental illness. Many still don't know but it's becoming more widely accepted as truth. Poor Gerald. He lived most of his life under the wrong stigma.
Well, the research into sugar continues and I weighed myself this morning and found that I've lost almost 2½ lbs in a month. Yaaaay! I should be slim and trim in time for the reunion and back to my ideal weight by the end of the year. Now that I know more fully what's going on with sugar in the body, I don't see myself going back to the way things were before. This isn't a diet I'm on, it's how I eat now based on research and knowledge. Low carb/high protein has served me well all my adult life and I believe that consuming fat like I've done all along has actually protected me from the food choice mishaps that would befall me so often. Not that I plan to never eat another candy bar, but when I think of eating one, I immediately visualize what it would do to my internal systems and then I don't want one. Same with soda pops or juice. Anything that has too much sugar in it is sort of repulsive right now.
Why I'm in the mood to be good to my body is beyond me. I've spent the last 2½ years with thoughts of suicide and a desire to join Stephen wherever he is, along with my mother and my aunt and the rest of my family. I've missed them all so much since they've been gone, I feel shallow and empty without them. I went for a drive with Pam a week ago or so and found the perfect spot to run Sybil and me off the road and into a lake where we could sink and never be found. It's on the highway between Horseshoe Bend and Emmet on the Payette River where it becomes a reservoir in the Wild Rose Canyon. At least I think that's the name of the place. I'll double check. Funny thing is, now that I've found the perfect spot and could easily do it on some moonlit night, no big crash, no others involved, never to be found and seen as a dead body, taking my dear old car with me, I'm satisfied. It's out there as a plan and I don't have to think about it anymore. I know it sounds a little crazy, but ever since I found that spot and visualized doing that, I've been happier and more productive. I'm feeling better than I ever have since Stephen died, more centered and content. I didn't notice that until today, just now. I've heard that others who were suicidal portrayed a calmness and a sense of peace a few weeks before their demise and now I feel it, too! I feels OK, like I know exactly what to do and now all I have to do is prepare to depart. And the preparations will last the rest of my life.
In other words, I now know that I'm not going anywhere. At least not like that. Not suicide. But I had to come through it in my own way. As I sit here on my deck with Rocky, smelling the summer high-desert air, thinking about all I still have to do today and with my life, what's left of it, I think I'll be OK now. In the past, when I've come to acceptance about something of someone, the situations have resolved in the most unlikely ways.
For instance, I resolved to stop fighting the energy of the diner and Phil and then a few weeks later, I got fired and was free to take the job at St Luke's. When I stopped fighting my income situation, I was able to lower my mortgage interest which lowered my payment by $300 and then I was able to file bankruptcy and start over from scratch with a life I could afford to live. It's been four years and I'm still doing fine with it. Then I decided to keep the spruce tree in the front yard, the funky thing that was not right for this cottage, I was going to plant other trees around it and hide it in the grove. then suddenly, Rio cut it down on Memorial Day while I was at work after I hadn't heard from him in months. I thought he was never going to get to it and I had just worked myself into a state of acceptance and them BAM! I drove down the hill and around the corner and the tree was gone!
And then there's my mother. I fought her tooth and nail for years trying to get her to get up off her ass and live her life. I yelled at her, I belittled her, I was sarcastic with her --- I was relentless! And then suddenly, as I was complaining about her to a guy at work, I stopped myself and said, "I need to find a way to get over this anger and forgive her, this is not good." And just like that, I turned a corner and took a whole new tact. She was dead within six weeks. I released her energetically and accepted her just as she was and that's all she needed to move on.
All of those events happened within five months of each other. In a way, the same thing happened with Stephen the following year. When he came up with his big problems with drugs again on July 21, 2013, I decided to help and coach but allow him to save himself this time. The situation degraded daily with only a few peaks right up until a few days before he died, when I realized that I had made a grave error and could lose him. But it was too late. I had based my actions on the premise that, if you keep doing things just as you've done them but expect a different result, you are insane. So I decided to try something different. I had decided not to rescue him this time. Although in times past, I had not really gone to rescue him, he had turned up at my door and I rescued him. Going to get him would have been different but at the same time, it would have been the same. He and I both were tired of the old routine and we both wanted to break out of that dynamic. Had I known that he would end up breaking out the way he did, I would have done things differently. And yet the same.
I can write about this now without crying, I must be getting better. I wonder if there will come a time that I can go back over the pages I've already written and really tell this story? I hope so.
In the meantime, I'll continue my research into sugar addiction and how to write memoir and plan to enjoy my busy summer. Because it's sure shaping up to be busy. I'm looking forward to the cooler weather in the next few days! That is for sure.
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