The Case

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

I've been listening to true crime podcasts so blame that haha

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Shannon paced in front of the whiteboard/corkboard in her home office. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head and not the intentional kind. It was a mass of tousled knots that didn't even register on her radar of concerns. If pressed, she wouldnt have any idea how long it had been since she last brushed it.

But she could tell you every known detail of the last night she spent with her cousin Emily 6 years and 5 days ago.

Emily had been murdered. Another statistic of violence against women, unsolved, a cold case, another national tragedy so said the headlines that dwindled day after day with no answers until literally everyone had forgotten her. She'd even asked around the campus she disappeared from out of curiosity around the year 5 mark, and not a single person could remember who Emily was.

A nameless, faceless statistic.

Not even a body or a grave site or an urn of ashes to show for her life. She'd never been found.

Emily and Shannon had grown up together. They were roughly the same age, and thanks to Shannon's dad being out of the picture and her mom struggling with addiction, she'd spent more of her childhood years staying at her aunt's house sharing a room, the top bunk specifically, with Emily than she had with her own mom. She thought of Emily as a sister. Probably closer than most sisters since Shannon had been so grateful for the love her extended family had shown and Emily had been so understanding and patient that they'd rarely fought.

Her entire world imploded when Emily went missing. And the guilt that still pressed on her like a weight 6 years and 5 days later because she was with her that day and chose to do her own thing was an unstoppable force. She hadn't been able to let it go for a single second not even when the police let it go cold, not when the headlines stopped appearing even on yearly anniversaries, not when locals couldn't even remember who Emily was or what happened... Shannon would never--could never--let her go.

So here she was retracing everything she knew, every report from the only private investigator her family had been able to afford, and all the files she'd gotten her hands on once she got her own P.I. license at 24. She did small town bullshit cases to pay the bills and spent far too much of the rest of her time looking for Emily's killer.

She was 27 now. She hadn't ever had a real relationship. No one could handle how much time she spent on the case or the anger she felt, the shortness of her temper, and the lack of patience she had for people who didn't understand why she was so afraid of the world.

Back to the case, the facts, the pieces, the things she could focus on instead of herself.

Emily was 20 when she disappeared.

She was finishing up her sophmore year at University of Georgia in Athens.

She wasn't dating anyone. No one had any drama with her according to the many, many people interviewed.

On the night she disappeared January 20th, Shannon had gone to Athens to see Shakey Graves play. She was 21 herself and had been with Emily almost the entire day. She spent the night in Emily's dorm on the night of the 19th after getting to North Georgia from their hometown in Valdosta pretty late. It was a long drive, and Emily had stayed on the phone with her the last hour to keep her awake. The two had done some shopping earlier in the day then ate dinner at a small bbq place. No one acted weird, approached them in any way, or--as far as she could tell--followed them back to the dorm.

When Shannon left for her concert, Emily had plans with friends to go to a home basketball game. It was actually a pretty big deal because of impending March madness. This win could give the Bulldogs some kind of direct spot to the March Madness tournament.

6 years later and Shannon still didn't understand basketball well.

The point being that lots of folks were in from out of town on top of the other basketball team from Florida State and all their staff. Every single player at that game had been cleared however. Each of their whereabouts after the game and the following day were accounted for. But with so many people being in town for this game, various concerts including the one Shannon attended, and several other events, the police had given up on finding the person. The Stegeman Coliseum,where the basketball game was held, seats over 10,000 people alone.

Shannon had grown a bit cynical. She knew the police put forth some kind of effort. They checked out the team, for example. But it never made national news. Athens' economy depended on these games, the team, tourists for the music scene, and the university. Scaring people off with a dead student wasn't something the city was willing to do. They had leads. they had people they'd eliminated. But making the kind of deal out of it that was needed was never undertaken.

Back to the facts, the timeline, the logic.

The city had been inundated with outsiders for days prior and after the 20th.

When Emily hadn't shown up to the dorm that night to let Shannon in after the concert, when Shannon finally found Emily's roommate who hadn't seen her since she left for the game, and couldn't get Emily on the phone by call or text, she called Mama Leena. Emily's mom. Basically her own mom. Leena immediately hopped in her car when she couldn't get Emily either. It wasn't like her not to check in or answer a call or text even if she had been with a boy. She would have text Shannon at her concert to let her know not to wait up. She would have left her a way to get in or made arrangements for her to stay with a friend. And in all honesty even though the police never bought it, Shannon knew even then that Emily wouldn't have gone off with a guy with Shannon up there for the weekend. They never got to spend time together at that point, and any time the two of them did manage to get together, it was about quality sister time as much as possible. No one night stand would have gotten in the way of staying up late, talking, and watching shitty B horror movies as was always their tradition. And Emily hadn't really been interested in anyone. Shannon thought she might have been gay. Or asexual. But she didn't press. Emily wasn't a one night stand kind of person. She wasn't into romance or dating. She barely had crushes on celebrities. It stood out. But police see college aged girls as being a certain way, and they never accepted any other description preferring to hold on to their sexist stereotypes.

She kept getting lost in the memories. That was always the trouble. There wasn't one time in all of these 6 years that going through this thin stack of information didn't take her on scattered train of memories and feelings and facts all at once.

Given Emily was over 18, the police wouldn't do anything until she didn't turn up the next day. So by the time they were finally called again to come take a report, Shannon and Leena had already put together much of Emily's night.

She had definitely gone to the game. She had seats with 2 of her good girl friends at school, Alaina and Marcella. Their boyfriends attended too but met the group of girls there. All of their stories checked out. After the game they had gone out for a bite to eat, but Emily had chosen to stay behind and walk the half a mile back to her dorm so she could clean up and be ready for Shannon to get back. Even with this explanation, the police had assumed Emily had changed her mind. It was one of those big things that really held the investigation up.

The only other person these friends saw Emily talk to was a guy in a green shirt with an Irish sounding name like Seamus. None of these friends knew him from school, but they hadn't really paid much attention to the conversation. He had the seat beside her, and he had talked to her quite a bit even celebrating with her when Georgia would score so he had to at least be a home team fan. Alaina was closest and said it seemed a bit flirty on his side, and Emily seemed shy but maybe interested? Shannon has always considered this piece of information a bit biased. When any of her closer friend group spoke of her in the days after her disappearance they discussed their concern that she didn't date, that she wasn't getting out there and trying, that she was happy but they felt like she was missing something.

But that was just Emily. The idea that a young woman on her own for the first time in life, going to college, working a part time job at the library, who had a good family could be happy without dating should have been more normalized. Maybe the police would have seen the comments for what they were and not make so many suggestions about Emily running off. Fuck them.

Of course Shannon had spent most of her adult life single too. She sat at her desk and pulled at her messy hair. Her cat Simon the orange destroyer jumped in her lap purring. She joked his was the only male attention she needed, but that wasn't true. Something in her own life was missing, but no one ever seemed to understand her need to figure this out.

She didn't even know how she felt about justice anymore or the system. It had failed Emily so hard. She just wanted to know where her sister's body was. She wanted to be able to say goodbye. To bury her.

Emily had last been seen on CCTV footage in the coliseum and leaving it with this tall red headed kid. Green shirt. Maybe he had offered to walk her back to her dorm, but none of the CCTV cameras outside the dorms she would have passed before getting to her own picked her up. In a less than half a mile walk, Emily was gone. The police assumed she ran off with the boy, but that just wasn't Emily, and even when her clothes turned up a few blocks from the dorms, the police still shrugged their shoulders and said there were too many folks and that chances were slim. Shannon's heart was broken in pieces, and her family had never been the same.

No one had ever identified or tracked down this guy, but tomorrow might bring answers or at least open the door for them. Shannon got up again and packed all the pieces of Emily's disappearance. Tomorrow she was going on a little podcast that did deep dives in cold cases. Maybe someone would recognize the CCTV photos of this person or had been there that night and seen him or Emily or them together.

Every time she got her hopes up, she came away worse than ever before, but her love for Emily knew no ends. Hope would never die.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/03/wheres-quilt-use-your-words.html

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/03/impish-shenanigans-uyw-march.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/2020/03/gwens-turn.html

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/03/use-your-words-hard-feelings.html

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo https://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

So Much to Rant About

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 8 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My subject is: Tell us about your life at home. What is your family like? What do you do for fun?

It was submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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I talk about personal stuff a bit on this blog, but usually that personal stuff involves the past or something I feel or am going through at the time. I don’t really talk about other people much. I try to leave my son off the blog as much as I can, and I have often avoided talking about my own family, the family I still see, to avoid drama if the blog gets read, but I need to vent. Things have been so much lately, and the time has finally come for me to release some anger and resentment, I think. I feel like this might get long, so I’m going to give you the tl;dr version. That’s “too long; didn’t read” for anyone that’s not fluent on internet shorthand.

--I have a chronic illness that makes me housebound most of the time or pay dearly for getting out.

--I also have way too many pets. Several have special needs including a diabetic dog that needs insulin every 8 hours and really limits what I can do away from home even on good days.

--I have an extremely dysfunctional family.

--My kid has hit puberty, and that has been one of the most difficult things I have ever faced in a lifetime full of difficult things. Haha. But no really…

And here we go with the rest of the story.

Around this time of the year 3 years ago, I had what I thought was a viral sinus infection, and I never really got better. For months, I ran a fever, had swollen glands, caught every bug I came in contact with, could barely move around… I felt like I was drunk with a virulent strain of flu all the time, and it’s only gotten worse since then.

I have what’s called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome here in the United States, but in other places, it’s often referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The symptoms are wide-ranging involving several different body systems. I have pretty severe gastroparesis and the symptoms that come with it which means I can no longer digest most proteins or vegetables/fruits. I can tolerate a few veggies from specific families and a few fruits, but they have to be cooked to the point they mostly lose their flavor. I’ve lived off rice, pasta, and potatoes for quite a while now. It’s a common issue for people with cfs/me. I have the joint and muscle aches that go with it to the point that even getting around my house is difficult sometimes. My energy is like a broken battery. At best I can expect to wake up at 50%, and that’s only if I have gotten a good bit of rest, but that rarely happens since insomnia is also an issue. Every single task I do during the day takes away from that battery, and if I overdo it, I pay for it for days or even weeks. My immune system doesn’t function the way it should and reacts to any stressor disproportionately resulting in constant swollen glands and fevers. I have trouble regulating my body temperature altogether though. My allergies are worse than ever and allergy attacks also trigger bad days. But the worst of it is probably brain fog. That’s an umbrella term for cognitive issues and for me it looks like not being able to recall words and actually say them. I know what I want to say, but I can’t actually say it. I lose track of what I’m doing much easier. Things take a lot more focus. My memory is shot, and I have real issues concentrating. I’m sensitive to sounds, smells, and lights. My migraines worsened.

And like now I can’t even talk about the full extent of it because I feel like people are reading this and rolling their eyes at how much I’m complaining, but this is my fucking truth, and it sucks. It sucks living like this… It’s not even living.

I exist.

I exist to push through as much as I can and take care of as much as I can while being invisibly disabled and being surrounded by people who refuse to understand or even acknowledge I’m not well. I’m expected to show up regardless of how I feel or what else I may have going on and then treated terribly when I have to be late. It’s one thing to be this sick. It’s another when even your own damn family doesn’t give a shit. The people in my home get it because they see it on a daily basis, but even then, even when I’m visually and obviously struggling to even walk, I still have to ask for help. So this illness is a big factor in how things go at my house. There’s no cure for it. This is my life now. Period. It’s difficult. I’m proud of myself for not giving up or giving in and for still managing to take care of myself and my home, but that doesn’t mean, at all, that it doesn’t weigh on me every single day of my life and nearly every single moment I’m awake.

Between rescuing, fosters, foster fails, and an accidental litter I have animals in the double digits that live with me. It was a lot of work when I wasn’t sick, but now? Oh boy. I have two cats with vision issues and anxiety. I have several with allergic skin conditions. My dane has an allergy issue as well. My chiweenie is old as Moses and needs glucosamine daily, and my staffie mix has severe diabetes. When she first showed signs, her blood sugar levels were over 500 when tested. And for months even with insulin, changes in food, more changes in food, and even more changes in food, it stayed in the 300-400 range. I was ready to pull my hair out when I researched more on my own and figured out that most dogs metabolize insulin faster than humans, so now I’m beholden to dosing her every 8 hours. It’s 9 a.m., 5 p.m., and 1 a.m. give or take 30 minutes. She isn’t great with anyone else doing her shots. She’s not really a people person at all. So…yeah, even without the cfs being a hindrance to going out and doing fun things, it’s hard to plan around that schedule. And no matter how many times I tell family and others that I can’t just let her go without or move it up too much too soon, they still make plans at times I can’t be there then get angry that I’m “late” even when I explain, again, that it will be an issue for me. You know, I get that people can’t always cater to my schedule even though I’ve always made changes to work with theirs. But to also get angry over it? That’s too much. I’m not going to risk my dog dying (and yes one missed dose causes a huge spike) for any reason much less a dinner or a party that, by now, people should know I can’t make it to at the time it starts. I love my animals. It’s not their fault I’m sick. I don’t want to find homes for them, and I’m certainly not going to neglect them. Sometimes it can be extremely frustrating, but more than that, they give me the kind of unconditional love and laughs I don’t get anywhere else. And when I can’t find any other reasons to keep going, I know I’m the only one that knows their medication schedule and they need me. Maybe that’s a bit dark, but it’s true. Holding on to the little things helps so much sometimes.

I guess you can see why the family is dysfunctional already, but I’d be lying if there wasn’t more to say. I want a peaceful life where I can be sick and have a bad day at my own home without someone taking it as abandonment. I want to be able to go to my mom’s house and NOT have my sister in law purposefully ignore me and not speak for months on end then get angry and throw a tantrum when I stop trying to make any effort. How many times do you have to show up at someone’s house with crafts in hand only for them to run off to their bedroom and slam the door before the problems aren’t blamed on you anymore instead of them? I’d really like to know. For the rest of my life, my family, the very little I have left, will always think of me as the depressed 16 year old dealing with sexual assault related trauma, abuse trauma, depression, and PTSD that made their life inconvenient. I’m 30 fucking 7 but I’m still treated like the misunderstood kid that didn’t clean her room and hated everything including and especially herself. No matter what happens, any tension with my sister in law will always be my fault because I was “tough to handle” as a teen. A bitch. She will never have any responsibility in it because that’s “just how Jenniy is.” It’s absurd. People grow up and change. I’m not even close to the same person I was that long ago, but I can’t escape it. And the kicker of it is….I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO FUCKING THERAPY not shit on for having a dirty room or not loading the dishwasher correctly. I shouldn’t be called “lazy” because I was a depressed teen and that somehow suggests that I can’t actually possibly be really for real sick with a chronic illness. I’m still “lazy.”

And then I have my kid’s father who lets his wife call our son “princess” because he doesn’t meet her definition of manliness, who won’t take up for him because he’d rather his child have to deal with her than argue about it. I refuse to discuss my son’s personal stuff here even with a made up name, but generally speaking, his father decided it was best to hide some things from me that could have led to serious consequences just to have one over on me, I guess. I’ve literally begged this man to spend more time with his kid, so if he really wanted to have a better relationship with him, he’s had ample opportunity to do so in a way that doesn’t include A—keeping secrets and B—treating our kid like his buddy instead of his son, but he’s never done so, and my kid shouldn’t be put at risk because for once he knew something that was going on and I didn’t. By chance. Who does that? Who puts their own kid at risk just to have a fucking secret then gets to call me angry and a shitty mom when I call him out on it? Am I perfect? By no means. But I would never dare put my own ego over my kid’s well being. And I damn sure wouldn’t do it with a partner I didn’t even want to be with and talks terribly about all the time. I’ve had to be contacted twice for a “reference” from child services for these people because her daughter from a previous relationship lies about them when she is angry, but when my son tried to explain something she had done to him recently on the very same day I was contacted by child services, HE is the one who was aggressively called a liar and even when proven, his stepmother refuses to apologize, and his dad won’t say a word about it. When I pointed out that he gets treated differently, I was told, if anything, he has fewer rules. Yeah, I fucking gd know. That’s part of the problem. Going down there with a dad who treats him like a friend instead of being his actual dad, who has no chores and no rules set for him means I get that much more attitude when he comes home and I do have more of a routine. I’m his teacher, his parents, his counselor, and his confidant. But I’m not his buddy. We have a good relationship even through the teenage attitude. I love him. We talk about things and work on art together, but we aren’t besties. He has his own friends. What he needs from me is love, support, and guidance. He needs the exact same from his dad. Not friendship. So not getting treated differently means he has no rules but gets bullied by his stepmother and his stepsister gets away with everything. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

I think that because of my own issues with my mom that I thought so much of our strained relationship was due to her own mental health and mine as well, and I guess I expected none of the attitude and tension that comes with raising a teenager. AND BOY WAS I WRONG ABOUT THAT. That was kind of my bad though. I underestimated the full veracity of puberty hormones and the changes that come with that. We get along fine most of the time. We had some issues for awhile, but a lot of that was deeper rooted, and we’ve talked it out and been more open with each other. It’s not perfect. I don’t think there is a way to refer to life as a parent as perfect when you’re raising a teen especially when the other parent isn’t doing their part and never really has, but considering we’re around each other all day every day because I homeschool, we do alright. It’s hard not to take the attitude and the angst personally sometimes though, and I have unabashedly cried in the shower many a day.

My home life, then, has been less than ideal especially considering I don’t have a lot of outlets because of my illness and needing to be around the house every 8 hours. I can’t go on vacation to escape it for a little while. I can’t even be gone for more than a few hours at a time without paying for it for days afterward. I can’t even go out to eat at a restaurant because of my food issues. A lot of my living is done through social media and books (when I can focus on reading). What fun I do have is time spent online with people I’ve never met who are more considerate of what’s going on in my life than most people who’ve known me my whole life. Funny how that works.

To end on a better note, though, I have started some art stuff and my own etsy shop selling enamel pins. I used to think I could screw up a stick figure, but it turns out, I’m not all that bad for a beginner. I’ve collected enamel pins for a long time now and really enjoy them. I wear one every time I leave the house and make it part of whatever outfit I have on that day. It gives me an extra way to express myself through style and show off some of my geekier tastes, but I had some trouble finding things I really wanted, so I decided to try and make my own. I have a manufacturer that actually molds and produces the pins themselves, but they’re completely my design, and having people buy something with my artwork on it has been a lifegiving sort of feeling. It’s amazing. I don’t really think I can put it into words. I love when people connect to a piece I write, but I’ve always been scared to put myself out there more than a blog or occasionally a free e-zine. This is something different entirely. I’ve laid my own creations out there for people to buy and review, to reject or love, and they’ve kind of been a big hit so far. I’m over the moon about it, and honestly, I need this. I need something in my life I can sink into and be proud of right now or all the bullshit from everything else gets too heavy.

Here’s my shop if anyone is interested in looking:

Pintagram Collectibles

Thanks for letting me vent. I was dreading this when I first got the prompt but I think I needed to vent more than I realized.

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Baking In A Tornado  https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2019/06/fill-er-up-secret-subject-swap.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/2019/06/pet-peeves-sss-june.html

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

Bookworm in the Kitchen https://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

Never Ever Give Up Hope https://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2019/06/secret-subject-swap-step-up-guys.html 

Thanks For The Memories

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 9 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

Your uncle you never knew you had left you a fortune. What do you do with it?

It was submitted by: https://www.southernbellecharm.com

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It's interesting I received this prompt.

A few months ago my paternal grandma passed away. We hadn't spoken in 10 years. I'd say it was mostly my choice, and she would have said the same, but in all those years, she didn't bother to call or check on me or reach out in any way, and that says as much as anything doesn't it?

I grew up with her in my life. My brother and I spent a lot of afternoons afterschool at her house. We spent summer days helping her fix lunch for my grandfather's fence crew (he had his own chain length fence business). They had a weekend retreat on Lake Seminole that we often spent time at with them. It wasn't much--a smallish mobile home with a dock on the lake--but it was better than being home. The few fond memories I have of childhood are mostly times I spent at their homes, but it wasn't so much that my grandparents were really the loving, doting, spoiling kind. They just left us alone enough to be kids. They didn't care if we built blanket forts if it kept us out of their hair. It was an escape, being with them. At least until I got old enough for both of them to harp on my weight, my looks, the way I dressed... "Diet" was a constant refrain that only got worse the older I got, the softer and rounder I became.

After my parents divorced, I lived with my dad for awhile getting even more grief from Granny about how I chose to dress, what I ate... Eat, diet, eat more, diet, you're getting too fat, here's some more dumplings, I made a salad for you. But she also blamed my dad's increasingly erratic behavior on me not trying hard enough to control him especially when she argued with him, and he got violent. What grown ass adult tells a 13/14 year old kid she is responsible for stepping in and stopping her 6'4, 250 lb father from doing any damn thing? That's the way it was though, and by the time I left his house, my relationship with her was really beyond repair.

I tried. I called when she didn't, but it was never enough. I dieted, but it was never enough pounds to be valued. Nothing I did had any worth, I didn't have worth, unless I was a weight they found acceptable. I bounced between a 10 to a 16, and none of it was ever enough even when I made myself sick and battled eating disorders to get smaller. Not once in my entire life was I ever enough, and the worst of it is that their obsession with weight, even though both of them were larger themselves, led to my aunt's brain aneurism and death. Even losing a daughter by focusing so damn hard on making her thin didn't stop them from devaluing me the same way.

Still I hung in there. I hung in when I was chastised for not having a better relationship with my dad even though he blamed me for my own sexual assault, abused me, and made my life a living hell. I hung in through the criticism and the hurt. I made an effort through all of it to still call and stop by, but it was never enough. I was the worst grandaughter. Fat and weird and uncaring.

My dad remarried around the time I left his house for good, and my new stepmother gleefully latched on to this dynamic and found a way to work herself in their good graces. Say the right things, criticize us, eat the right food, take her to a few appointments, and she was set. So that's what she did.

When my dad died in 2006, my stepmom moved on pretty fast, but she still kept up appearances with my grandparents. She begged for start up capital, land for her kids, down payments, car money, lawyer money, and she got it. She'd found her niche after all. I kept trying, though. Calling to be compared to the woman who'd burned our childhood things and made any reconciliation I could have had with my dad out of the question, put down for not doing more all while still being shit on for every decision I made and what I looked like on any given day.

When my grandfather died 3 years later, my brother and I both left our jobs dropping everything to go be with her. I cleaned the bathroom he died in just hours after he was removed while she greeted guests, and still once we were gone, my stepmom convinced her we were only ever there for money. That was it for me, for both of us. There was nothing we could do to stop that train from rolling, and it had been a lifetime of abuses at that point, so we got off it.

10 years.

For 10 years, we lived our lives doing our own thing. I didn't miss any of it. What I did miss was something I never had--unconditional love from a grandparent. For 10 years, though, my stepmom bounced between new men but sticking around my grandma just enough to stay in favor through DUIs, lost businesses, and bad decisions. She spent every dime that was given to her and put up with shit I refused to endure for 10 years and spent that time telling anyone who would listen that WE were the ones who were all about the money. Poor her...she had to step in and take care of her former mother in law because no one else would while denying even to herself that she made it that way for a reason.

Projection is a hell of a drug.

A couple weeks ago, I got a notice in the mail that I had been disinherited by my grandmother and that my son would have gotten a small sum of inheritance (not my brother's kids though) IF my stepmother hadnt already spent every dime my grandmother had left while she was aging and dying.

So if I got some inheritance from an uncle I never knew, I'd be sure to send some to her. She obviously needs it more than any other person on the planet, certainly more than I ever did.

I just hope someone tells her money can't buy class.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado  https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2019/05/love-you-like-crazy-secret-subject-swap.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Cognitive Script  https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/2019/05/growing-up-sss-may.html

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

Never Ever Give Up Hope https://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Southern Belle Charm https://www.southernbellecharm.com

Bookworm in the Kitchen https://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2019/05/secret-subject-swap-chocolate.html

A Krampy Holiday Part 2

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.

I'm using: meaningful encounter, holly, creature, pod, clay, hidden treasure

They were submitted by: https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

I wasn't sure if I'd be writing a second part to this. I felt okay with leaving it as a standalone drop-in kind of story where we see a few moments and never get real "closure" or an ending, but I had a couple of asks about the rest and the words I had really lined up with a second part, so here we are. I like Estelle as a character. I'm glad I got to write her a little more. 

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Estelle was a little rough around the edges and had a tendency of isolating herself. She hadn’t had the best life. Throughout life, whenever the chips were down, she had learned she was the only person she could count on…which, she also knew, was, at least partly, because she was terrible at asking for help. It was a tough cycle to break. But things had kind of changed when she became a Memaw. She had a different outlook on letting people in and not pushing them away. Things in her life had finally fallen in place, and when she’d looked on their little red faces in the hospital, she felt things she hadn’t even with her own kids.

She snuggled them a little harder thinking back on that moment. Lucy, half awake, sighed and demanded, “Memaw finish telling us about when you met…when you met that creature.”

“Child, you fall asleep every single time before I finish.”

“I do NOOOOOT.”

“Oh yeah, then why were you sleeping just now, missy?”

“memaw, my name is Lucy not missy. And I was resting my eyes like you do after lunch.”

“You mean your name isn’t HOLLY? I thought it was Holly this whole time!”

“MEMAAAAW! WHAT?” Lucy giggled loudly making Leo stir a little, but he fell right back asleep with his finger up his nose like he was digging for buried treasure. These two, night and day, made her heart so full.

She took another sip of her cider, cleared her throat, and got ready to finally finish this story for at least one of these kids when she heard Lucy snoring lightly. She couldn’t help but chuckle. It was kind of tradition for her to not be able to finish the damned thing now.

She slid slowly out from between the two, lay them on either end of the couch, and tucked them in. She had a feeling that sleep would elude her like it often did lately. She wanted some coffee, one of the caramel vanilla pods she bought for the fancy Keurig her kids had sent for her birthday a couple months ago and headed for the kitchen.

She was a bit lost in thought about that day, the day she saw the Krampus. She’d really thought it was the end of the line for her when he jumped off that bus. He stood there pushing hot air through those flared nostrils staring her down. She was too terrified to scream, too terrified to move. She sat there in the snow, ball melting in her hands soaking her gloves while waiting to be eaten.

He hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoke. She had spent time taking in all his features, hyperfocused on him, memorizing every wrinkle. The lines in his goat-like face had been so deep she could have sworn he was carved out of clay. His ears had been pointed like an elf’s, and she could see the tips of sharp, serrated teeth through the small parting of his lips, lips that didn’t look much different than her own. His fur had been a deep brown with grayed streaks especially in the thicker mane that surrounded his face. His coat looked like the rough, wiry fur of the Bergmans’ dog that had lived down the street from her house. Toby was his name and petting Toby had kinda been like petting a dish scrubber, but he had been nice and had licked her face sometimes even though her mom hated that. The creature had no clothes, but like Toby, he was hairy enough, shaggy enough that his fur looked like pants hanging down over part of his hooves in the snow. She had been horrified even more when it had finally dawned on her that she was staring at the Krampus from that old story her mother had told her every year ‘round Christmas. Santa would bring her gifts if she behaved, but if she didn’t…the Krampus would come and take her away.

But she hadn’t been bad. She knew she hadn’t been bad. She hadn’t been spanked all year at school or my her mother. She did her chores and made good grades and never talked back even though it almost killed her, and the more she thought about it, the madder she got.

“I HAVEN’T BEEN BAD YOU MEAN OLD BULLY YOU CAN’T TAKE ME SO THERE!”

He turned his head to the side like an animal hearing an unfamiliar sound curiosity getting the better of him. “You have not?” His voice was deep and grumbly sounding both human and animal-like at once.

“I HAVE NOT. I’VE BEEN GOOD. VERY GOOD. SO NOW WHAT?” She’d felt braver than she ever had before in her life. She had cried all the way up to age 8 every time they saw Santa at the Christmas parade.

“Who said you have been good?”

“I SAYS.”

“Well, I suppose bad grammar is no reason to have you for my dinner.”

“I’d probably taste bad anyway. My mother made asparagus last night, and it makes your pee smell funny. Maybe it does that to your blood, too, and taste funny.”

“I suppose you have a point there, Estelle Kalinda Sizemore.”

She shivered when she heard her name but held her gaze on him steadfastly. “Um, am I supposed to wish you a Merry Christmas or not?”

“Actually, I’m not quite sure. No one ever lives this long.”

“Well, it seems rude not to, so Merry Christmas, and thanks for not taking me.”

“Welcome.”

She had waved until he was out of sight, and of course, not a single one of her family had ever believed her no matter how much she had cried and swore she was being truthful.

Estelle had almost finished her cup of coffee by the time she snapped out of the memory. Reflecting back on that story always made her feel…like some kind of badass. She’d faced the Krampus and lived to tell about it even if it hadn’t really been a meaningful encounter. It didn’t change the course of history, but it did change her. She was certainly no scaredy cat after that. When she wanted something, she went for it. She stopped sleeping with a night light even.

As she washed her mug still reveling a bit in the memory of that day she thought she saw a little of herself in Lucy, that same sassy bravery and loudmouthed way of getting answers at least, and she smiled. One day they really would have to hear the rest of the story.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2018/12/not-cool-enough-use-your-words.html?fbclid=IwAR2GuHAMYzi4Uk5zvRF0FcoZwtyFa8MpbCPKNPutskTPLT9gN-qLKHMuLeM

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/2018/12/left-hanging.html?fbclid=IwAR0mLexS_9AiJ16mAfyc0jploBbL127KWsVxP4afoNlzeC8i9Ov8qk-Jfl0

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

The Blogging 911 https://theblogging911.com/blog

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/2018/12/dollhouse-blueprints-uyw.html?fbclid=IwAR15Pxkd5-pVP9kcsYmy3uF-EQDqPduVtHJe9p1wlauPHK7eVzZpC8ICnrc

Part-Time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/

New Definitions

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.


My “Secret Subject” is:

If you had to describe your family what would you say?

It was submitted by: http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/

Oh what a week for me to get this prompt. I think I handled this with all the grace I could muster though. 

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Family is a difficult subject for me. I need to be upfront about that from the get go.

I’ve talked about my family, or at least my old family in the past on a few occasions on this blog. I talked about my father…the hellacious childhood he put me through (and not just me) and the way I found forgiveness after he died, closure for lack of a better term, in the pieces of him I see in myself. And I talked about my estranged relationship with my grandmother who did nothing but bring me down as a kid and young adult to the point where it was no longer healthy to be in her life or have her in mine.

I don’t really talk about my family in the present because I don’t really know how to express the way I feel these days.

For the most part, I am estranged from most of my actual relatives, blood relatives, and I am okay with that. It makes my life easier not having to deal with all the drama that a family like that brings to the table, and really I am just not the kind of person who enjoys faux pleasantries on holidays. Love is a difficult thing to fake.

My brother, mother, stepfather, nieces and nephews are in my life, but those relationships are fairly limited. I see them on holidays and we get together once a week typically for a family dinner at my mom’s house, but even those are strained these days for a myriad of complicated reasons that, for once, I probably shouldn’t discuss on a public blog. I don’t want to make things worse nor do I want to hurt anyone’s feelings which is pretty much synonymous for exactly how things go on those weekly dinners. I show up, give hugs, stick to myself, and leave as soon as dinner is over. The tension is often palpable, and I leave feeling anxious and hollow and foolish for having stayed in this town for as long as I have.

But…oh thank god there’s a but…

My kiddo and I are our own family most of the time which often includes one of my best friends in the world, one of my only friends in the area. We have disagreements and tension like any family. The kid has an honestly gotten smartass mouth and he has a tendency to tell some fibs at times, and oh god is he such a little messmaker, but he’s my everything. There’s no strain in that relationship. Even on the worst days and in the worst moments, I want nothing more than to see him smile even if it meant barfing a glittery rainbow of unicorn shit at his feet for his amusement. We can name all the clichés right here and now and they still wouldn’t hold a candle to that kind of love. It’s like nothing under the sun…no romantic love can touch that mix of protectiveness, nurturing, nostalgia for the baby days, pride, love, and adoration. Nothing. Not a thing. That love makes all the dysfunction and tension oft associated with the rest of the family a bit easier to swallow.

He’s not my reason for waking up every day as I have heard other parents say. The beauty of life itself gives me plenty of reason to wake up, make my coffee, and gaze out the window over the kitchen sink, mug in hand, relishing everything being alive has to offer—the little things like sun-dried sheets and maple syrup and cola candy and cats purring on your feet while you write. But, he makes waking up that much better and a fuckton more fulfilling.

Add in the best friend that makes me laugh and shares my love of movies and music (even if he should read more!!), someone to hold my hand when I need it and give me adult conversation about politics and social issues and a post apocalyptic landscape. He’s lovely and bearded and silly when I need it sometimes to his detriment but he puts up with me and knows how I take my coffee and what I can and cannot eat and what my favorite bands are. Perhaps it is unconventional, but family these days doesn’t have a normal definition to most of the population. Family, now, doesn’t have to come with traditional blood ties and a cookie cutter image of nuclear and extended relatives. Family is what you make it, the people you choose to surround yourself with and love unconditionally. Given that definition, I think, despite the madness of my blood ties, I am one lucky lady.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com Not That Sarah Michelle

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family Blog

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

Thanksgiving

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: 

money ~ turkey ~ clock ~ light ~ garbage

They were submitted by: http://www.renasworld.com/

The title may be a bit misleading. 

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She picks up the garbage strewn around the room and chunks it in the bin. It’s been a long day, and the last thing she wants to do is clean up, but she has a compulsive streak that won’t let her get any rest until everything is set back in its place and the cleaning is all done. The turkey or what’s left of it has already been tucked inside plastic bags and set in the refrigerator for tomorrow’s lunch, so all that’s left to do is wipe the counters and get to the mound of dirty dishes in the sink. It might take two runs in the dishwasher to clean them all.

She stands at the sink washing the leftover grime down the drain lost in thought over the day--the way the tension always hung in the room whenever the family was together, no affection or warmth. Everyone was mechanical. A family of androids not programmed with any semblance of human emotion.

Sometimes she lays in bed at night staring at the wave of royal blue light coming from the digital numbers on her alarm clock on the little table beside her wondering if she actually knows what love feels like. Has she ever been loved? Does she know how to love? Is that a natural occurrence or does love have to be nutured? She thinks maybe you have to be loved to learn how to love and marvels at how broken she is, how desperate to feel something, anything other than numbness.

There’s not enough money in all the world, she guesses, that could fix that sort of void, to breech that harbor of nothingness. How do you teach someone to love who has never felt it?

She finishes stacking the first load of dishes in the washer, turns it on, and looks around the kitchen. She takes her purple Scotch Brite sponge and a bottle of Fantatik and goes to work on the counter and table washing away every speck that is out of place. She leans back against the counter to take in the fruits of her labor, her sparkling kitchen. If only her soul could be feel this clean, this fresh and shiny… if she could take a sponge and soak up all self-hatred from years of never feeling good enough maybe she could start anew.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:



http://bakinginatornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://www.renasworld.com/ Rena’s World

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com/ Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

And So It Goes

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 16 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My subject is: Tell the story of a relationship or a friendship that you let go and why you wish you hadn’t.

It was submitted by: http://Bakinginatornado.com

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Quality over quantity.

In relationships and friendships, that has always been the most important factor for me—the quality of the connection. I can interact with people who don’t share my values and belief system, but ultimately, the only way I can ever really connect with someone is to share those common beliefs and see in that person a reflection of myself. In a lot of ways, even in friendships I want proverbial soulmates.

Understandably, this makes things fairly difficult at times.

Part of the driving force behind that desire is having been in a family that, most of the time, made me doubt myself and chipped away at me at every turn. When I got old enough to realize the toxicity of a lot of my family relationships, I chose to stop participating in them anymore. I have zero connections to my dad’s side of the family and not many with my mom’s choosing instead to focus on my immediate family and the few close friends I have that I truly do consider family.

But, that doesn’t come without a hint of regret.

When I was growing up, my grandma (Granny) was a constant in my life. My brother and I spent a lot of time with her and my grandfather. We were there almost as much as home learning to cook, making forts, and being scared of bad weather with her. She spoiled us with candy, junkfood, toys, and letting us do whatever we wanted more often than not (like Grandmas are supposed to).

Then, she would turn around and tell us we were fat and needed to go on a diet. Even as young children she would give us a huge bagful of junkfood to take home then comment on our weight. She would play the attentive grandma then turn around and harp on the shapes of our bodies. The older we got, the more she complained about that and other things (like Grandmas are not supposed to).

When I was in 5th grade, my aunt died from a brain aneurysm. It turns out that my grandparents had offered her a not so small lump sum if she lost weight—down to something they saw more preferable. Granted, she was a fairly large woman, but that really wasn’t their concern. Still with her being a divorced mom of two boys who needed college and all that, she decided to take the offer. She had a stomach stapling (vertical gastric banding) to help in the process covered by insurance or worked out with the hospital she worked at or something like that. Afterwards, she would get sick after eating anything even remotely close to the amount she was used to and spent a good chuck of time praying to the porcelain god. That’s where her boyfriend found her one evening—she had gotten sick and the aneurysm ruptured. She was taken in for brain surgery, but things didn’t go well at all, and she ended up on life support, brain dead. My grandparents decided to take her off support not long after.

Essentially, they killed her metaphorically and literally.

If it hadn’t been for their insistent concern about her body, she never would have been so sick. She never would have had the procedure. She likely wouldn’t have needed the brain surgery. It could be that the aneurysm was already in place, but people can manage a happy life for years without ever experiencing the sort of rupturing she did or perhaps preventative measures could have been taken if it began to give her trouble. In many ways, it was on their heads for fixating on something that really wasn’t any of their business in the first place.

Imagine my shock and disgust when the same offer was given to me years later when I was around 19/20.

That’s the kind of toxic presence my grandparents played in my life. My weight was a direct reflection of my worth to them especially to my grandmother. My weight was more important, in fact, than my life. More important than a solid relationship with me. More important than unconditional love and support or any of the things that your family members are supposed to give to you.

My relationship with her (and with him) was strained at best after that. Nothing I did was good enough. Eventually I did lose weight but it was never enough. I was never enough. When my dad was dying with cancer, she would cry to me about how she was going to make it every time I called her, but she never talked about him. She never asked me if I was okay. When my grandfather died in 2009 and my brother and I went through his office just to look at all his old memories and what he kept finding comfort in getting to know him better through the items he chose to keep, through the things he carried from one house to another and one era to the next, she accused us of only being there to look for his will.

That was the final straw of a long string of incidents and a whole lot of bullshit.

I haven’t spoken to her since not that she has ever really attempted to call or seek me out, but it was always on my shoulders to have a relationship with her anyway—I had to make the calls and the visits and request her time never the other way around. I can’t see myself going back into that relationship with all the years of self-doubt and heartache it caused. It isn’t healthy to let someone who was supposed to love me exactly as I am constantly nitpick every fault and flaw she could find, someone who needed every bit of attention from everyone around her… a selfish hypochondriac with a booze problem that turned into a pill problem coupled with a need to put everyone else down to build herself up. Who needs that?

That isn’t to say there is zero regret in this decision, though.

I don’t want her, the person, in my life, but I do feel like I have missed out on having a really rad grandma that could learn to accept the tattoos and the weird hair and my individualized parenting style. And, for that, I do regret the loss of the last remaining tie I had to my dad’s side of the family. There’s a mixture of regret and relief in having let her go that seems contradictory but also entirely warranted given the callousness of the woman in question.

I want that relationship, that familiarity…the comfort in having a family member, even one, from my dad’s side of the family that could just *love* me for me and be fucking okay. But that’s not a possibility, so while I regret the loss of that part of my blood, I had to let it be and move on with my life for my own sake and for the boy’s. The little girl in me wants her Granny, but the woman I’ve become knows it just isn’t worth it.

And so it goes. 

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Now be sure to check out the rest of today's participants. Should be amazing!!

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Battered Hope

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com Silence of the Mom

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.smalltalkmama.com Small Talk Mama
http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com Searching for Sanity
http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

Sunday Confession: Dear X Love

Today’s Sunday Confession is about Dear X Love. It was open for our interpretation which means it is not necessarily an open letter to an X. Mine is not. It’s a letter to my childhood self. I’m not that same girl anymore. It’s an ex-me. A former me. Even though I never really succeeded in loving myself during that time in my life, I tried to, so I think this is still fitting.


Dear child-me,

You’re beautiful.

No one ever tells you that, but I know from experience that you need to hear it. All the times your daddy has called you “fatty,” “Crisco,” and “lardass” have already made you start hating the way you look even as a young girl, and let me be the one to tell you that none of those names are true. You’re not a fatty or a lardass, Jenniy. You’re a normally developing girl. Nothing is wrong with your weight or the way you look, but there is most definitely something wrong with a parent who will constantly put down his own child to the point where she wonders if he even knows her real name. You wonder that don’t you--whether he has any idea that your name is something other than Crisco? I don’t know why I’m asking. I already know the answer to that question. There’s something wrong with a man who sees you walking through the house, a normal 10 year old girl, and drunkenly sings: Fatty, fatty two by four. Can’t get through the bathroom door before erupting into maniacal cackles. There’s something wrong with grandparents who tell you to eat then tell you to diet. There’s something wrong with a family who tears you down at every turn without ever building you up. They’re the ones who are fucked up. It’s not you. You’re not the one with a personality disorder. You’re not the one who lives for emotional denigration. It’s not you; it’s them. That’s a promise.

As you get older, everyone will tell you that it’s not what you look like anyway and that it’s about what’s on the inside. But, you know, we know, that’s not entirely true. It’s good to be beautiful on the inside and important, but the hard truth is that what you look like does matter to people. You’ll learn that along the way. People do care. People do make a big deal about it. And, people will miss out on getting to know you because of your appearance. I just want you to understand that it’s not because you’re ugly or repulsive. You’re you and you express you in ways people don’t understand. They’re not getting past the way you express yourself to notice that you are, in fact, actually a pretty girl both inside and out. People aren’t getting passed how you choose to look to investigate more about what’s under the makeup and running through your mind.

In the end, though, people will see it, and they’ll tell you all the time, but after so many years of bullshit, you won’t be able to take the compliments to heart. How’s that for fucking irony?

It’ll get better eventually. I promise. That’s where we’re at right now…the getting better part. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the work. We’re worth the work, and that’s why this needed to be said.

It’s not about how much you weigh, what dress size you wear, or even your actual physical features. You can be beautiful at any size, and you will find things about yourself that you love and hate….just like anyone else.

I just want you to know that you’re brave. You’re stronger than you realize. You’re tough, and you’re too smart for your own good (if that’s even possible). People are going to hurt you over and over again--not in relationships as that is to be expected, but your friends and family will (especially family). You know that all too well already, but you don’t deserve any of it. You didn’t do anything to make this happen. You’re not to blame.

And, I want you to know this above all else:

You’re going to be just fine.

Love,

j