Whoo, long time gone! Well, Toledo Ted has been on hold for a year now while I went through the wringer. The first edit of the novel sits on my hard drive, and notebook drive, and at least one backup, but I have done little but look at a few notes. I knew that much work was required, but I could give little. A similar problem ended my first college try - lack of funds.
As expected, and it does make a certain amount of sense even in my not-quite-grounded brain, with no income I could not stay in Sidney in a house with payments. With more than $1,000 due each month for mortgage and taxes, my bank account was like a tub with a large drain and no stopper. I held out for a miracle, God showed me another way.
In 2001, I moved into my new house and after the moving in was done, said that I would not move for at least ten years. On April 16, 2012, eleven years to the day after my closing date, I looked at my tax returns and knew then with no miracle from God that I would have to move, and in fact should have moved some months previously. I still maintain that God has a wonderful sense of humor, eleven years to the day, yeah buddy! Even I can laugh at that timing.
The housing market in Sidney recovered as the main employer began hiring again. I sold my house at a good price, but that very market also determined that the downwardly mobile could not afford a lesser home in that same town. With my real estate agent we looked at every home available in my price range, and we looked at some frightening places too! As of now, most of them are rented out at steep rates. Sidney is booming and I had to leave. I like to say that I lived in a tough neighborhood... to go broke in.
As I put my house up for sale, one neighbor bought a Jeep to play with. Another went to the lake in their long fifth-wheel camper with the boat trailing behind, almost a road train. A neighbor across the street bought a new boat and then sold his house and moved into the McMansions across the way. Construction projects went on all around my house from the hail damage, most were upgrades: I sold all my rifles to make the insurance deductibles. As I sit here crying into my blog, I had to laugh at it all this morning.
The stress of selling, buying, and moving this summer came crashing down on me in October as the seasonal change began in the daylight. The depression from PTSD tends to go through good periods and bad, more of a month to month basis than a day by day. I am affected by the seasons, though I do like autumn most of the four. It seems a bit unfair at times that the season I like best would also be one the PTSD tends to hit me harder. How do I describe this thing, this post-traumatic stress disorder?
Describe a new restaurant with people waiting in line to get in so good is the food produced by the chef, and I am likely to literally take a step back in terror. Lines are something most folks put up with to eat in their favorite restaurants. Both can trigger panic in me. Guests to my home are an invasion, and we speak of people that I know and love, not strangers. Dining in a friend's home for the first time, I may not be able to eat so anxious am I. Yet, I will go home and make up for it in a comfort food binge. Anxiety over imaginary situations beats me during idle moments, if I give free reign to my imagination. I can be anxious about being depressed, or turn it around and give in to depression over my anxiety. How can a person live this way?
Growing up in a church, I often wondered that same thing. Some persons it seemed were always on the prayer list with this ailment or that surgery. They got by in the same way I have discovered I'm sure. Day by day, prayer and trusting in God. Which brings us to the laughing. With all of my crying breaking out this morning, my electric griddle refused to give up my fried egg. That's what I had to laugh at! I don't believe that I have it so bad, if a stuck egg is such a noteworthy event in my snivelling.
Marine veteran of Grenada-Lebanon, survivor of a terrible auto accident that cost my friend Mike his life, terminated suddenly from a company I helped grow for almost 20 years, of course I have PTSD, or as I sometimes call it post-traumatic distress. I mean, why wouldn't I? I'm like that damsel I wanted to rescue in my youthful dreams of love and marriage, only it's me that needs the rescueing. I can laugh or cry over this thorn in my side, to use the Pauline expression, and if I have the choice I'll take laughing. Sometimes the tears catch me by surprise and I have to laugh later as with the little basement flooding that came up the other day in my new home.
Yes, with the proceeds from my house sale, I was able to buy an older home in a smaller town that isn't booming. The creditors have been satiated for the time being, though the howling and snapping is never far from the phone. The good news is no mortgage and the taxes are much lower across the state line. The house is much smaller, but I had to sell quite a few things to get by anyway, so there was less to fit in. The cats have made their adjustments, and most of the wailing and moaning stopped after a week or so. The cats remained mostly quiet after the move.
Is it time to take up Toledo Ted again? Something in this experience must be what God would have me to write. I choose to give God the glory in my weakness. I may not be able to hold down a regular job, but I can write. Perhaps my affliction is the only way God could keep me at home and writing. I don't have all the answers, but at least I can feed the question pawing at my jeans right now. He wants his kibble and writing to you is secondary. Without the cat I would probably sit too long and get too comfortable writing.
God bless you,Bucky
