95 and counting

i spent today celebrating my grandmother's 95th birthday.  she, my 2 aunts, cousin, daddy and i went to eat and then visited for hours on end (as the bradfords are want to do.)  we listened to stories of her 95 years--her first memory (having pneumonia before her 2nd birthday) the first time she rode in a car (her mother's funeral a month before her 5th birthday) the first time she experienced indoor plumbing and electric lights (a trip to ft. worth to visit an aunt with her daddy and sister not long after her mother died.)  those things are invaluable to know.

i have been blessed with close relationships with my grandparents.  my daddy's daddy died the year i graduated from college.  i was 22.  my other 3 grandparents are alive.  i'm 38!  i love to hear the stories of relatives i never knew, the nicknames, the childhood memories (like the fact that 2 of my grandmama's sisters shared the same imaginary friend, harley.)  those are priceless things.

my anxiety has been high the last few days in anticipation of today.  knowing it would mean a long day outside the house and a trip to a public place.  that, and the ever-present, post-flood fear i have of death.  i spent too many hours worried about the phone call that never came telling me that grandmama hadn't lived to 95.  she was tired at the end of the day but she is fine.  i love her with all my heart.

"95, and my kids still can't keep up with me!"

this has never been more true of a 95 year old.  she still washes and dries the dishes after every meal (no dishwashers for her!)  she did say when i asked her the convenience she most appreciated that when granddaddy bought the electric washing machine that it was nice.  i imagine so with a husband and 5 kids...

i love you mildred lehr crownover bradford!  you are the most Godly, precious woman i've ever known.

grace and peace

thanks be to God

so many days i use this forum to share my anxieties, fears and complaints but today i want to give thanks to a great and generous God.  not knowing what to do about the fast-approaching payment dates of most of my bills, last night i reached out to three Godly, loving and caring women at my church with my needs and my prayer requests.  this morning i heard from all 3 of them and have a paid mortgage and car payment.  

these women don't know that when our preacher asked us yesterday morning to give thanks for our "mothers in the faith" that i prayed for all 3 of them by name.  see, this is not the first time they have come to my rescue since the flood.  

even after all this time it's still humbling and sometimes very hard to ask for help.  i have certainly done it enough and will no doubt continue to ask for assistance until employment comes my way.  the most humbling things remain the help that comes without my asking:

the cash i got today in a card from my best friend,

the overly generous birthday gift from a friend,

the dozen or more meals another friend has bought with no thought to when i will be able to pick up the check,

the groceries bought by my mother,

the money from daddy to refill my long-overdue prescriptions,

the monthly check from my best friend's parents,

the therapist who sees me for free,

the hugs,

the willingness to listen,

the 'i'm sorry',

the late night phone calls from my brother,

God's never-ending grace and provision.

i keep repeating a scripture over and over when i begin to worry about what i will eat, drink or wear...

"therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  each day has enough trouble of its own."  matthew 6:34

grace and peace and thanks

         

growing pains

i don't have anything in particular to talk about today but i felt the need to write.  maybe something will come...i usually feel better after writing and that is no small feat.  i'm struggling with bronchitis, and it is a struggle, it takes all i have to shower, take winston on his short walks and breathe!  last night i nearly killed myself in an attempt to put clean sheets on the bed.  it took nearly an hour to accomplish for having to sit and catch my breath. 

i was in desperate need of sleep and i managed to get a couple of hours.  i think i've had a total of 8 hours of sleep in the last 4 days...i'm hurting now.  sometimes my insomnia doesn't bother me much (when i can read and write and generally enjoy my awake hours) but in the last couple of weeks i've been unable to write and am almost unable to read.  those middle of the night hours aren't fun right now. 

nothing is fun right now.  i had dinner with a friend last night and had another one of those moments...those reminders of how out of touch i am with the real world.  we went to macy's for a few minutes and i was flabbergasted by the price of one piece of clothing.  i feel, in those moments, like a coma patient waking up after years of unconsciousness to find a world full of new things and it's scary.  my near complete exclusion from the pre-flood world has taken it's toll. 

i don't work, i don't shop, i don't have concact with many peole at all, i don't leave the house for days and weeks at a time and it's shocking to realize that the world has moved on without me.  it's like that scene from "growing pains" where mike seaver realizes while he's home sick from school that "'gilligan's island' is on TV whether i'm here to watch it or not."  the realization that the world as we perceive it is just that:  our perception.  it goes on with or without us. 

anyone who has lost a loved one knows that feeling, when you are immersed in grief, and cannot believe that other people are going about business as usual while you mourn and say goodbye to family or friend.  the last 2 years of life have felt like that.  i am in a constant state of shock and grief and everybody else is keeping on:  shopping, planning vacations, celebrating holidays, etc. and here i am.  just stuck.

sometimes i wonder if the world has changed too much for me to ever feel comfortable again.  or have *i* changed that much?

grace and peace  

2 years gone

#s since the flood...

# of years: 2

# of months: 24

# of weeks: 104

# of days: 731

# of hours: 17,544

# of minutes:  1,052,640

# of minutes i feel removed from the flood: 0

# of bills to be paid in may: 10

# of bills which will be paid via automatic withdrawal: 2

($72 car insurance, $8 netflix-which i only have because i don't have a television)

# of dollars left in checking account come may 5: $5.00

# of panic attacks: innumerable

# of new prescription medications i now take: 3

# of medicines i tried before i settled on the current cocktail: 5

# of days remaining before I run out of meds: 1

# of doors left to hang: 6

# of friends who have not spoken to me since the flood: 2

# of friends who have stopped taking my calls: 4

# of resumes sent: 187

# of job interviews: 5

# of books read: 147

# of pages written: 169

# of pets lost since the flood: 2 (sage and maeve)

# of pets adopted since the flood: 2 (kentucky and moxie)

# of pets in need of flea and tick meds: 3

# of $ needed to buy said meds: $50.00

# of days until we run out of pet food:  approx. 4


# of days feeling safe in my own house: 0

# of houses on my street alone that are abandoned: 5

# of $ still promised me by metro: $412.00

# of $ they want me to spend in order to receive $412: $879.00

# of neighbors fired post-flood: 5 that I know of

# of houses foreclosed on: 3 that I know of

# of neighbors that feel "back to normal": 0 that I know of

today i hightailed it to my brother's house so i wouldn't have to be here on the 2 year anniversary of the flood.  his kids always make me feel better, even today.  i vowed not to return until well after dark so i could justify just going to bed--which i am about to do.  i wanted to acknowledge some of the above numbers that are ruling my thoughts these days.  

i can't get my mind around these stats.  i now wonder how long my electricity and my water will stay on once i stop paying.  i wonder how many of my creditors have my home #--since i'm about to have to turn off my home phone.  i wonder how i'm going to at least buy pet food and hopefully get my car payment and cell phone bill paid each month so at least i won't lose everything all over again.  i'm resolved if i lose the house--it's not a big loss to me now.  i hate this house but i don't want to be totally helpless (carless and phoneless.)

i pray everyday that i will get a job and won't have to lose anything but it would be crazy at this point not to acknowledge that i am just a few months from foreclosure.  a few months from bankruptcy.  i can't solve any of it tonight so i'm off to bed.  "after all...tomorrow is another day."

and i could really use a may 3rd as i feel like i've been living may 2, 2010 for 2 straight years!

grace and peace        

it goes on...

here i am again, anxious, sleepless, and sick.  one leads to the next and finally my body breaks.  friday brought with it a level of anxiety that i had not felt in a while.  yes, i am anxious all the time...but the terrifying, debilitating nervousness awoke with me that morning and since i have paced the floor, been wide awake virtually non-stop and have been hit with a sinus infection/cold or the like. 

the 3 day headache i suffered with last tuesday-thursday left me spent and weak.  the upcoming 2nd of may ever-nearing on the calendar and a complete lack of any resolution have sent me spinning.  my life continues to revolve around a long-ago day most people have long since forgotten and/or moved on from.  i'm not made that way.  my traumatic childhood and subsequent happenings have left me more prone to inertia and stress than to coping and moving on. 

as i walked winston today i heard the neighbors' fountain, installed post-flood, and i am reminded that not everyone who suffered as i did has remained stuck in the pain.  i'm afraid, literally afraid, of the sound of running water most days and i find it damn near impossible that a family who lost everything in a flood could rebuild and then go and put a fountain on the front porch!  they are the loveliest of people and have a young daughter, who is breathtakingly beautiful, who loves to come pet winston when i walk him...but i regularly think of how i could best bash that fountain to hell and remain on good terms with the family.

it's true that most of my neighbors are right where i am--nervous, angry, lost and with not a small feeling of helplessness but some people just experienced the flood and dealt with it and recovered.  i have no idea how to deal with it.  i continue my therapy, my medication, writing about it on this blog and in other forums, and yet i'm still here.

i am unable to write, to read, to watch movies or television.  i'm just not comfortable anywhere.  i mostly lie outside on my back and stare directly into the sun.  when i get cool or the bugs begin their feast of my flesh i move inside and lie on the couch staring out the skylight into the moonlight or the moonless dark. 

i pray for...

grace and peace



stephen king and jack white

i had 2 tasks today:  download the new jack white album and buy the new stephen king novel.  a few years ago this would have been a great day indeed--2 of my favorite artists releasing material on the same day.  yay!  well, this is not a few years ago and so today went like this:

paced the house anxiously dreading the bookstore (who EVER saw that coming?!) and tried hard to convince myself to use my remaining birthday money (in the form of an itunes gift card) to download the book to my ipad and skip the album therefore saving money and a trip to barnes and noble.  i got ready anyway, walked winston, headed out to west end with the knowledge that if i got there and couldn't go in that i could always come back home and read the damn ebook.  

i get there and, great day in the morning, there's a parking spot!  you nashvillians know how impossible that vanderbilt parking lot is.  it was a sign i suppose.  i made it inside and instantly my hopes of finding the book sitting on the "new release" table were dashed.  it was nowhere.  everyone in the new store (it just opened after the borders that used to be there folded) was busy.  i had to hunt through the store (both floors) which now appears to be the actual vanderbilt university bookstore--as in all the text books, sweatshirts, electronics and paraphernalia is on display.  i was anxious about the new surroundings and i still couldn't find the book.  i finally had to ask and one of the employees found it on a cart in the back.  

i realized as i walked though the cafe with my iced coffee that i was getting some looks.  since the flood i've joked that i feel like i have "flood victim" or "prone to panic attacks" or "PTSD" tattooed on my forehead because my anxiety makes me a little paranoid and ultra vulnerable.  i quickly remembered that i was standing in the middle of all these vandy students and i had on a white t-shirt with a huge orange "T" on both the front and back.  it was not my status as trauma survivor that was garnering all the attention it was my allegiance to the university of tennessee, and it's unmistakable orange, smack-dab in enemy territory.  i got out of there in one piece, no thanks to a rude man, who not only didn't hold the door for me, but nearly knocked me over on his way in.  it was so egregious in fact that a young guy came out after me and commented on it.  his kindness thus saving the aforementioned man from my wrath.

i rushed home as i always do after such outings with shaky hands and pounding heart, driving much too fast and running from and toward nothing in particular but my own anxious thoughts and fears.  i did get a little laugh as i was in the midst of a near tourette's screaming fit at a honda doing 55 in front of me in the fast lane.  yes, 55 is the speed limit, but "i can't drive 55!"  as i passed the car on the right, mid-scream, i turned to taunt the driver of said honda when i saw 2 nuns.  the nun driving had her hands at 10 and 2 and the nun in the passenger seat was holding rosary beads.  i'm not even kidding!  it was hilarious to me.  i laughed a good long while at that one.  as long my, by now, pounding head would allow.  

when i got home i downloaded the jack white and walked winston.  by the time i got inside it was 2:30 and my head was splitting!  from then until now i've been on the couch in the fetal position.  i don't know if it's stress, my ever-worsening eyesight, my allergies or my lackluster diet of late but i've been in severe pain.  so much so that i have neither listened to my new album or read a word of my long-awaited, difficult to come by, new book.

  

i just keep hearing ferris bueller's words over and over in my head, "how's that for being born under a bad sign?"  

grace and peace    

mourning levon

here is the scene during my walk today-

 

iPod off shuffle, for once, and playing "the band" at near eardrum-rupturing volume.  tears pouring down my cheeks while i sung along with my sore throat and runny nose.  i learned of levon helm's death earlier in the day and took my walk mainly to walk off some of my grief.  levon, drummer and singer for "the band", has long been one of my favorites.

pollen of some sort was so thick in the air that it looked like a snowstorm and some of the yards resembled small, square cotton fields.  as i ran fingers through my hair i could feel it fall to my shoulders.  not to mention that i could, for the first time in months, actually smell the honeysuckle that lines the streets of my neighborhood--nice, but i'm allergic.  none of this helped my demeanor (or my allergies).  a mile and a half in i thought i wouldn't be able to make it home to a cold glass of ice water and a hot shower before my throat closed up good and proper.  i kept the walk to 2 miles but have been in an allergy-induced funk since i got in. 

one more night to survive a headache as well as heartache.

RIP levon!

grace and peace