Hands….

Recently ,i returned to the world of caregiving. I love doing it and its the most rewarding job i have ever had. I have been feeling the call back to home health for sometime now. I have been having very lucid dreams about being in such environments. I truly believe its important to try and help the elderly and handicapped maintain any semblance of independence possible in order to prevent them from having to move into a longterm nursing facility. There needs to be alot of reform from the government regarding nursing facilities. They are always understaffed because the demands of such jobs on your family life and the schedule demands as well as the job itself are far too intense to justify the wages.  People in general cannot honestly maintain the design of these careers and juggle the demands of their families. The crazy thing is that the school system is set up the same way. In total contradiction of the average healthcare workers schedule and the unexpected emergencies regarding ones family. Moreso than the demands of the caregivers delatariously affecting the quality of life for our elderly folk in nursing homes, but also, are the design of whole concept of longterm care nursing. We take our elderly from everything familiar, we put them in a facility with a roommate they have never seen before. We have strange faces come in one them to give medicine and keep the residents dry and repositioned to avoid pressure sores. We feed them strange food and expect them to eat it with bibs on in strange rooms with lots of people they do not know. Many of them could be drooling on themselves or making strange sounds which only takes away from any already deteriorated desire to eat. No more privacy, no more familiar smells from the house they most always lived in for many many years. It really does have a strong effect on the elderly when uprooted from all they know such places. No matter how sweet the staff is and no matter how much family visits, they still lose a shine(unless its an assisted living place or retirement community as they usually have more independent people living their who tend to improve their quality of life by living in  retirement centers. The longer we can keep our elders out of nursing homes the longer we can offer a more vital life.  The pay is even worse in home health than in major nursing homes around any given community. The demand is not about carrying fifteen patients everyday and answering call lights nonstop,  But I always get such a great feeling when i leave someones house after helping them or caring for their momma or daddy or whomever.  I fall in love with these sweet old people. For privacy sake i shall change names but i feel there are some amazing and very touching stories to share about my blessed life a  caregiver. I know you will be touched by the stories that are shared with me or i experience with people in my job. Its very late and i have a long busy day then a long busy night caring for clients so i will have to share some tomorrow.  I will say that I am so lucky to get to know these magical people and i will never be the same from every minute i have spent with them. I have become a better me. I am still becoming a better me and each and every one of them help me get there in its own natural path as it began since the beginning.I go to bed thinking of these people. I am extremely blessed to now have a husband who to carry the load so that i can have the opportunity to work in such a low paying job yet a richly lavishly rewarding job. He appreciates my heart when i express things about my day. I can tell that it truly touches him to hear about how truly beautiful people are from the inside out. sometimes i get angry and i am ashamed of the way our nation, our culture has chosen to treat our elders in such a modern society wealthier than most everyone else on the planet in opportunity. Most families could not work this job because it wouldnt be enough to pay rent.  Much less daycare, or gas and daipers and daycare. If these caregivers were paid more feasible wages to consider living by than you could get more dedicated and caring workers who do not quit and who you can count on to further the cause of independence and quality of life for our elderly. I am feeling a tug also about getting involved on a political level on a campaign to champion the needs of the elderly in our world. For now i shall try my best to work as hard as i truly can for these people and try to be the brightest light i can be for them. Some of the stories i will share are hilarious and some of them are sad and many are brave and impressive and wonderfully surprising.  But mostly they are a connecting of hearts. All the hearts who hear the story will be connected.  I hope to challenge others to see the beauty in everyone . In all things. May they all inspire you to be better in your efforts as well:) Wait til you hear about Sophie……

 

Living in the Matrix

There used to be a time when i put forth great effort to try to “fit in”. Now that i am older i see that i spend more effort trying to avoid most people. I do not wish to sit and talk about stuff like what is on prime time television networks. I do not wish to listen to people talk about how they are fat cause they have thyroid issues. Most people have thyroid issues because they take shitty care of themselves and it jacks up their thyroid. Most of what people want to talk about i truly do not care to hear. I do not care what is going on with Fox News. I do not care whats on sale at the Mall or what is going on with Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan or Angelina Jolie Pitt. It takes much self control to sit back and tolerate this kind of conversation which is typical in almost any given social situation in America.  Its not ok to really speak your mind as it now goes against the general masses as they all believe in whats trending as if Americans have become androids themselves. My step daughter was over recently and it was an anxious time. We were celebrating her birthday and a few weeks before that there was turmoil with her regarding her condo.  She is 19 and lives in a luxury condo just 1 and a half miles from us. My husband is bound by a divorce decree to pay for all college expenses. To me there is no expense for housing if you live just miles from campus. But She chose to take the spending money and use it all on a condo just down the street from us. She was very upset because several months ago she received a letter from me telling her we were not giving back any of her scholarship money and if she did not take classes in the summer then we would surely not be paying for her housing when she was capable of working to pay for it herself since she was planning on NOT taking classes this summer. My husband is weak when it comes to his kids and his exwife. He carries too much guilt from over the years and they manipulate him fiercely using his guilty complex. Most people worry about how they are going to pay for school. Most people worry if they will get the hours they need to pay their share of the rent. This child has made a huge dramatic display about how her family fell apart since we got married. Her parents had been divorced for nearly twelve years before i came along. She just wasnt used to hearing “NO” from her father. And since hearing him tell her no she has tried hard to turn it into something of a soap opera.  She had not come around her father hardly at all for over three years before i came along. She lives out west. Twenty minutes away from us but in her eyes our place was something to be ashamed of as she was raised to see that she is deserving of better fancier things than the average bear. When we decided to move in together, my husband wanted to build a bigger house to fit all of us in. He already had a whole upstairs floor dedicated to his 20 year old even though he didnt live with us. And when it was announced that another room would be built, my stepdaughter insisted on getting it. She didnt live with us but promised her Dad she would come around more and have slumber parties if he built her that room. He built it and let her choose all the fixtures and paint. She never moved in. She graduated high school and then moved down the road from us into luxury condos. The very same condos that our friends tried to stop from being built. They ruined the drive  on cherokee trail. It doesnt have the magically soothing effect it once had as you drove through.  It takes alot to put yourself in front of bulldozers to keep them from cutting the trees down. Not only does my stepdaughter not care about this but she leaves a brand new room empty here at our house.  We pay nearly six hundred dollars every month for her to live a mile away while her brand new room sits?  The closet isnt finished but it would be if she were using it. It just needs a rod to hang clothes on. Taking all of this into consideration, it perhaps seems understandable one some small level why i have resentment about this situation.  Its not the kids fault necessarily. If my husband hadnt been handing her everything she ever asked for without and expectations then surely this could have been a behavior we were not seeing out of my stepdaughter. The area over there is plastered with trash now.  Many people live there on their parents dime while they attend college. Its not all college housing. But knowing that the majority of the residents now residing in these luxury condos are UT college students, i am appalled at the apathy of these people to bring so much trash through more traffic and not feel any responsibility to keeping this newly developed woodland clean and litter free. You never see any of them out there cleaning it up. They have an opportunity to bring attention to the issue and support from a very supportive community just by the luxury of being a student at such a great university. I saw a billboard sign the day where Peyton Manning was telling us all that Fort Sanders had an exemplary heart team. How does his playing good football automatically make him an expert to trust when it comes to heart health? The advertising agency knows of the loyalty of this community to the sports and many other events offered by UT. My point is that the students would not have to look hard to find willing participants in at least keeping the area cleaned now that they have moved in. If you drive up the road from my house to Log Haven , they still have signs posted NO WOODLANDS. all over. They are faded but if you look close you can read the words. I have becomes very challenged by keeping company with her because of her blind eye to our environment over her desire to live somewhere for image. I surely was NOT going to be ok with her rent being paid by us after she chose not to sign up for classes this summer. We are to be stewards of the land. Every ancient script or text has written this very thing. When you could care less about the lawn at your curb and support companies who violently extract massive amounts of resources from our planet at astronomical rates then how can i expect to even balance on the same vibration as you? My husband doesnt stand up for the environment when she is around except for recycling. He plays into the matrix along with her and i am the oddball out if i choose to live by my persoanl standards. She had her shoes on and her feet were up on the couch when she visited. It was bothering me because i knew she would never unknowingly put her shoes up on anyone elses couch except for ours and even moreso she would most assuredly have enough mindfulness to not put her shoes up on her moms couch or her moms parents couch or her boyfriends parents couch. I could not tell her because in this matrix it would get turned around on me. LIfe is not about what happens to you but how you choose to react to it. I get this. I also feel though that there are standards one can expect and others support regarding this lack of mindfulness about our money, our home and our community.  I tried my very best to make cheerful conversation and show genuine interest though in my heart i was playing the game they all wanted me to play. obedient, dont ripple the waters by speaking of the elephant in the room wife/stepmom/mom/friend.etc. I think how i could do so much by giving away 600 dollars a month to Haiti where millions still live like shipwrecked foreigners on stormy beach. I think how in some way i could change the world if i could spend the money she frivolously spends on that condo , if i could buy food for victims of all the recent storms in the U.S. who lost power and food  for over a week.  I wanted to say please dont put your shoes on the couch but i knew that it would send my husband and my stepdaughter into their anxious state. I didnt feel my position would have been taken well by either of them though i am sure her boyfriend would have thought nothing of it. There is a growing epidemic of kids raised with a sense of entitlement and undeservedly so.  I am blessed to know that i have at least raised my children to know that they will only gain personal self fulfillment when you are doing things for yourself. If you want something then go for it and get it. If you are not willing to work for something then you do not deserve to have it. Whether they comply with this perspective throughout their lives is not yet known. Next time i will speak up and claim my space and not allow people to put shoes on my couch. I guess this is my lesson.

The Truth is…

Truth is the aliens probably want us to keep behaving as we are so we can screw the planet up for us but prepare a new home for their mindful existence. We think we are a superior race above all creation. Why bother wasting energy trying to communicate and convince us of anything? The species more advanced might rather sit back and watch us kill ourselves off leaving a great playground left for only Goddess knows what.

The utensils were floating to me…..

Since i was very young i have had a fascination with dreams. How they work, why we dream, what they really are…. I am still baffled when i have dreams where i can feel the strong symbolism in them but i have no idea what they mean.   Last night i dreamed that i walked into a room where G was sleeping on the floor with a BIG BIG grin on his face. I immediately wished to know what HE was dreaming of.  You could see the joy on his face. It was early morning and somehow i was the one who was supposed to wake everyone up. I went to the big living room where i found myself walking acrossed the large open hardwood floor to the other side of the room. I noticed i was walking towards my friend Tiffany who was working on some dance routine and facing a large stone fireplace. It was very quiet  in this big house wherever i was. I didnt disturb Tiff but instead i turned to leave. I noticed her youngest son was curled up in a ball in a large chair in the corner and he was sleeping.  I went to another room and saw my exhusband David lying on the ground sleeping as if he had slid out of his bed while he was sleeping.  I rustled him awake and turned away again and left the room. I went back out to the large open room where Tiffany was and right behind me was G.  As i turned and noticed him i began to sit down on some chair and as soon as i was seated i noticed behind G was a formation of wooden utensils marching in the air towards me in  perfect time with the other utensils. i was amazed. My ex sister in law Tanya came out of another room and was in awe of what we were seeing. She excited burst forth with” Did you see what he did???!” I was still watching the spatulas, ,spoons and wooden knives come towards me and one came out of formation to plractically jump in my left hand! G came up beside me as i was asking him how in the world he did this and he was smiling and saying something like “I’m just awesome like that baby…” with his charming big smile. I keep getting flashbacks of this dream as its after 2 in the afternoon now and Im so taken by this dream that it keeps crossing my mind. There is something significant as to why the utensil in front came to my hand. perhaps im missing part of the dream even. Like i saw it wrong as it was happening. Something gives me the impression that i had something to do with the utensil that placed itself in my left hand. Its not that important after all. Im only talking to myself again……

learning a whole new way

I have learned alot about people over the years.  Just when i think i have a pretty good perspective on things…it changes.  Growing up in a deeeply dysfunctional home I learned how to be a mind reader. I learned how to almost anticipate the next moves of everyone around me.  It was a great tool to have in order to protect myself. If i could guess what would happen next then perhaps I could by acting or NOT acting alter the outcome of any situation.  I knew by keeping my mouth shut most of the time then i could not be accused of things.  I hardly spoke to anyone until my second grade year of elementary school.  Noone could charge me with spoken words as i learned quickly not to put myself out there by speaking.  Most people i was subjected to or in the communities where i lived really did not interest me anyway.  Books was my doorway into the rest of the world.  I LOVED to read about how everyone else was living or had lived their life.  The world over seemed to be living a far more fascinating life than the life i was living.  As i got older, i knew that i could not avoid speaking all together as people were starting to question my mental and emotional wellbeing by being so quiet for so long.  I had alot to say. I just didnt want to say it to anyone within a hundred mile radius of my life. So much of what i learned really helped me protect myself and stay out of the way of all the volatility that surrounded me.  One learns throughout time though that as our surroundings change, the people in our immediate day to day and time itself changes, what has been working for our lives thus far, no longer fits.  It can be dangerous to stay stuck in a set way of life. We can become so limited by refusing to change with the changing times that we miss out on new growth, new opportunities and undiscovered magic all around us.  I personally, am learning a whole new way at this juncture.I no longer have to try to read others minds for fear of being hurt physically or emotionally.  I no longer have to trust that I can only trust myself. I no longer have to be ten steps ahead of everyone else.   The rest of the world is NOT as dangerous and harmful as my childhood was.  Therapy used to be a good mechanism for learning to let go of that which no longer serves us.  I do not trust someone just because they are a therapist.  There life does not exemplify anything i am striving for.  So i have chosen this blog as my own therapy..  I hope to let go of that which no longer serves me and trust myself and my creator to pick up new ideas and tools that will better serve my path.  I may speak of things that piss people off. I may speak of things that seem totally absurd.  But i am learning to speak and I hope to shed a little light along the way to others who are trying as hard as i am to acclimate myself to a whole new way of life. A whole new way of thinking. I surely do not mean to offend anyone by my words. I am doing this in hopes of getting out the disturbing energy in my day to day life in order to move on to a better way.  Afterall, its not what happpens to you in this world that should be the major event in living, but its how you choose to react to it that matters most.  I want to know that if i cannot change things or people i can learn to trust in the one thing i can change. Me. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Its alot cheaper than therapy. 🙂