Light a candle

This weekend, I was sick, real sick.

So much stress at times it has been unbareable. My daughters health insurance ends through the state when she turns 19 in less than 60 days. She has one surgery scheduled for her jaw..and for three months it will be wired shut.

But, that is not the issue. She reinjred her back where she has surgery. From the mri results it says she has a new herniation as well as reherniating the disk where she had the surgery. Medicaid here only covers if you are an adult female that is with child or that has children, which she is not. So in order to make sure she gets the care she needs I am left putting her on my insurance with a 5 k deductible and will take 380 out of my monthy paycheck.

So I got sick to my stomach. I dont know how to make this work. Her father has stepped out of the situation completly...but im tired of my emotions taking hold..my brain is on overlaod, and my soul aches. So I just unclenched my hands and let go.

Today...I just stepped into the land of acceptance, instead of making myself ill over it. I dont have all the answers, I dont know how its all gonna work...I dont know, but I will do what I know how.

I cleaned all Kaylas laundry, hung everything up so it is easy to reach, rearranged her drawers so everything she need is on the top drawer since she cant bend to get to the others. I lit a candle in her room, and I prayed as I cleaned. I made up the bed on the couch since her old lousy mattress causes pain. I shampoo'd her hair since it huts to much for her to do it herself. I keep the icepack cold in the freezer and keep her medicine nearby. My pugs keep watch, especailly cosmo who is usally my lap dog, he has turned into hers, not leaving her side.


My son is on new medication where he wants to sleep all the time, which Im hoping is healing for him. So I cleaned the clutter in his room, fluffed his pillow and made his bed so he can find rest. I lit a candle and prayed while I cleaned.

My other son is feeling lost in the shuffle, so I organized is clutter hoping he can find himself again..and I lit a candle, as a cleaned I prayed.

This is all I know to do.
I feel so empty, so I wait to see if Ican hear my soul speak..instead of my brain being in overload.

So I pray, and clean, and wait, and see what will happen next.

Almighty Heidi

Glacier Bay

I read a quote today

"Im standing on a line between quitting and seeing how much I can take.."

Well I have no choice but to take it..I mumble to myself.

There is no quitting in the place where I stand, so I cross over to place where I feel blow upon blow, jolting my soul till it shivers on the bathroom floor.

My daughter re-injured her back. We get the results on Wednesday to see if she needs another surgery..on top of a surgery she is having in 5 weeks where her jaw will be wired for 3 months.

My middle child has severe OCD and anxiety...

Doc: What do you think is OCD Nathan:
Nate:I clench my hands, or my toes or my eyes. I cant stop,

Doc:What happens when you stop.
Nate:I cant take it..I want to die.(my heart is in my throat)

Doc:So what do you do when you cant stop?
Nate:I Keep going to the next level. I see letters.
Doc: Like the alphabet?
Nate:Yes..Mostly t and f..I try and focus on them..lower case.. lower case..but then if I cant get it It goes all the way through to upper case then lower case to t..and f...t...and f. ( and I look at his face and I know he sees the letters as he is tracing them with his finger in the air)

Oh man..oh man...im thinking. ..ive never heard he wants to die..or he is having hallucinations.

Doc: Do you hear things?

Nate: No No no of course not..hearing things is like schizophrena..ive read that Im not like them..no I dont hear things. ....

This is not ever how I dreamed my childrens lives would be...never ever never ever ever.


Then..the same day as this doctor appointment my youngest son tells me he has been smoking alot of pot and would like to get counseling too, he is depressed as he is becoming more and more concerned about their dad who is in the hospital...and his brother and sister.

After all the kids were tucked away in the rooms..

I turned the shower on and cried on my bathroom floor and wanted to puke ..so I hugged my new best friend..Glaicier Bay.. Glacier Bay sounds like such a lovely place...

that is the name of my toilet...

at least thats what it says near the lid.

Glaciers made me think of Alaska....maybe I just need to jump in my car..to Alaska...I hate the cold, I live in Florida..but maybe it would numb my insides.

In all seriousness..it would be nice..to just pause so my heart can breathe...and I would ask for my emotions back as they seem to belong to whatever situation happens to come along as of late.
Oh and whoever said that god never gives you more than you can handle..is a fucking liar...just putting it out there...my 2 cents.

Almighty Heidi

Touch

I was reading a blog about a person who was violently ill on a plane. The woman next to her, a complete stranger could not speak her language but offered her coat, and stroked her arm through the flight…Shhhhh she would day Shhhhh as if she were a child. I was really in awe over this. Most would people would want another seat. Here is her link she allowed me to post.

http://www.oriahsinvitation.blogspot.com/

So I started writing..

There are no words

To heal my wounds

I cannot hear you

The hidden places that do not show

Bruised and blistered

Blind my ears

But you know
You understand, you’ve been there before

And you cover me with your coat of compassion
Protecting the fragility of my soul

Stroke my hair
With the hands of affection

As my emotions cripple my insides
Wrap me in your arms of comfort

Like a mother to its child
Shhhhhhhhhh

And you let me rest for awhile
As I find my way back

To unbroken.

~Almighty Heidi

Grasshopper

When I was six I would pick dandelions. I did not know they were weeds. In my world they were beautiful yellow flowers...and these same flowers you could blow on and make wishes with.

About four houses down there was an elderly lady named Ms. White. I found out real fast if I brought her my treasured flowers, she would get wishes, I would get cookies!

I loved her..

Sometimes though, Ms. White’s great grandson would be over to visit. When I saw him behind her at the door, I wanted to run the other way, but she looked at me with relief..like somehow I could tame the wild animal with my magic powers.

Not so.

He was very hyper and it drove my little self nuts.

I wanted to dip my cookies in the milk, and watch the grasshopper in the screen. Ms. White would busy herself in the kitchen ignoring the boy who was in the chair out of the chair, back in the chair, out of the chair, tugging on grandmas apron, lying on the floor, talking to me…

interrupting my wonder of the grasshopper I roll my eyes in irritation and leave.

This is just a memory that brought me into this...

Dear God...the more invisible you are to me, the more I feel invisible to you.

I feel like the little boy who is in the chair, out of the chair, on the floor..trying to get your attention…

If there is a god..you don’t see me

Maybe you are looking somewhere else

Perhaps contemplating the grasshopper

Maybe you are busing yourself making something in the kitchen

Maybe I am just irritating

Maybe your just ticked cause I brought you weeds

I am here I am

look at me..see me…

Can I have a cookie?

Maybe I just need a dandilion and a wish...

Almighty Heidi

Birthday Shoes

Monday..I turn 37. Ten years ago, when I was 27, I became a single mom.

I remember 27 very vividly, there was alot of hardship there..and I guess this birthday marks sort of a ten year anniversary, and my soul is on the floor.

My children were small. I would drop them off at 5 am at daycare so I could get to work as a waitresss for the breakfast crowd. This job was extremly physical, and exausting, and Im sure lead to my three back surgeries six years later.
After one of the wait staff slipped and broke her arm we were told that we had to get "Skid resistant shoes" by Saturday or we could not work the weekend shift.

To finacially survive I had to work the weekend shift.

Friday night I went to get the shoes..I wear size 9, and all they had left was 8 and below. I got the eight lf...I had to work. I did not have the gas money after paying for forty dollar shoes to go some place else..so this..is what I got.

Saturday was a brutal 12 hour shift..brutal. When I finally was cut off the floor, right after I got out the front door I had to take my shoes off. I peeled them off as the flesh on the back of my heels from the blisters wanted to tear off..and I had bruises all over.

I was in tears. My feet hurt so bad. What was worse was the next day, when I had to put them on again...and work 8 hours in agony.

When I went home that evening both of my front toenails were black from being compressed in a space to small. I soaked my feet in cold water all night.

My son wanted to see if his cars would float in the bucket with my feet. My daughter was hungry, and my other son was having a tantrum..so I just sat there silently and cried. Later I lost my toenails..it was gross.

That same year I got mono and tore my rotator cuff. I continued to lift trays, and I would come home and sleep with ice around my shoulder. Looking back I dont know how I did it.

This...this is what single moms do.We wake up in the mornings with 102 fever and get the kids off to school when they are little..because that is what you have to do. You miss feild trips and forgo soccer team..because there is no money, and going to a feild trip would mean missing time off work.

Now it is ten years later..the kids dad has dissappeared out of their lives,when he was present here and there it meant the world to them. It's left a big hole in their heart and has done some emotional damage that I cannot undo.

I am 37 the kids are no longer small.

My daughter was in an accident last year, and she has to go to a special school now because she missed so much time and could not graduate..or go to prom. The friends she had abandoned her, which can be a lonely place as a teen.

My middle son struggles with anger, ocd...mostly just an angry teen boy who breaks my heart on a daily basis...and whom I struggle to get to go to his therapist. He is too big to just put in the back seat and buckle up and make him go.

My youngest son is screwing up in school...and grades are a joke.

I miss the days of the floating cars in the bucket. I miss the day when my children filled the bathtub with tadpoles and made me scream as they were laughing so hard they cried....and when my son picked up a dead squirrel and brought it home..because it was cool. I miss knowing that when I put them in bed at night..they were safe and sound, and where they belonged, instead of out in the scary world. Where I could just kiss the boo boo and make it all better.

I am today as I was ten years ago..walking in shoes that are too small, and it is painful.


So for my birthday I have been served a peice of "Feel sorry for myself pie" with a side of defeat, and try and peel my soul off the floor even though it is blistered and bruised.


~Not so Almighty Heidi

Creative

I want to color outside the lines
sing out of tune in the shower


Curl up beside a warm fire
listening to music
tunes evolking emotion
speaking in the language

we all understand

Writing
words from inside

spilling out

and leaving imprints

along the crumpled pages

and dance
with my two left feet
just because I can

Mediate
dream big dreams
going to the secret places

making wishes
that I know only my soul hears

And becoming the woman

even in the dark places

when its hard to feel anything

Listening
for the quiet whispers
of my creative soul

remembering how to live out loud.

~Almighty Heidi

When Life Hands You Lemons..

Lemons are good..in a long island iced tea. I gave up making lemonaid.

I wrote an email this morning. Me, just like my truck..our alignent is off. IT wants to go right, and I keep pulling left, and Im just wearing out my tires.

I had a financial blow.. a big one, and now..my dream..oing back to school has to be ut on the backburner yet again, there is no way around it. So Im going to quit fighting it, and just..let it go..just for awhile.

This past week I got an unexpected smile in the mail. I had such an awful week, a bad day at work, on the way home..feeling hopless and defeated, I sat in my truck and cried all the way home.
Then I checked the mail..got a card from a freind..just letting me know that I matter.

This got me started on my guerilla art....What you say??

http://www.kerismith.com/funstuff/guerilla.htm

I remember awhile back..I had a dollar bill in my pocket and it said "It's going to work out, you'll see"

Little messages at just the right time are AWESOME. I have dry erase markers in the bathroom, and I leave notes for my kids, or silly pictures..and they do the same. It is just like mom shoving a note into your lunchbox.

There is another site that makes me laugh sometimes:

http://www.foundmagazine.com/

This site has litle notes, or scribbles in books, pictures or drawings found..posted by other people...not exactly Guerilla art..but cute...

So send out a message to the universe somehow...you might get someone thats pretty low..at just the right time.

Almighty Heidi