❈Jo's Original Shorts❈

On the ledge

02 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment

by Jo Le'Ghard in Topic of Discussion

Imagine for a moment the end of the world.  Yeah, you’re looking at nuclear, and biological war fare gone mad, or natural disasters, working to wipe man kind off the planet,  perhaps you’re a religious person and you’re imagining biblical ends.

But I’m not talking that kind of end-of-the-world.  The end of my world has come and gone.  One after another, things fell apart,  I lost my brother, sister-in-law,  and my precious nieces.  (One unborn)  You sit there aghast I’m sure,  I fell the need to tell you, they’re alive and well.  But because of something so entirely stupid, they kindly dispatched us from their family unit.  There are excuses a mile long of course.

I managed to keep it together, after all the grief doesn’t belong to me.  I only just got a brother,  and I thought I had a friend in my sister-in-law.  But my little niece, she’s the most exciting little thing to enter my life.  She and her soon due little sister are likely to be the only babies I could have has in my life.

Life, it’s a funny word.  My life consists of fighting a continual list of of orders.  Nobody truly gets what’s going on with me, because I can’t put it to words, I’ve tried relentlessly over the years, but it’s ignored, brushed off, or written off.

I don’t go out to make friends, because I live in a shit-hole of a town, where the first night I go out to earn a life, I’ll likely be shot.  Or maybe that’s just the ingrained paranoia.  I don’t trust people, thank you very much,  and I don’t know how to be social, so it’s a mute point anyway.

I’m getting ‘suggestions’ right and left about how to handle my practically non-existent social life.  The one I like best is: “Get a job.”  Here’s why I like it so much – it’s been a constant, ever present suggestion, and even an order most of the time.  I’ve tried.  Not that anyone believes of cares how thoroughly I’ve done so, but I have tried continually.   Nobody is hiring.  Even the people who say they are,  or maybe it’s just me.  Maybe my fat ass is just not hirable.

My brother’s sweetly dropped suggestion of a book club, is bull shit.  I can make my own decisions, I don’t need to sit in someone’s living room while they discuss a book they liked that they think I should read.  It’s more “suggestions” that I don’t want.

Besides,  that was a ruin in the end of my world.  I saw my brother and his girls above me,  as we all clung to the rope that was our connection to them.  He didn’t hold a serrated knife, or even and axe.  He held a blow torch.   Knowing that the only way was down I had to let go,  my dad and mom held on for dear life.  Or perhaps they never saw the torch  The hemp of the rope smoked and smoldered, until it finally snapped and the rest of the family fell around me in a resounding thud.

The visual is enough, I hope to show you how I felt.  I wasn’t shocked by the discourse,  I saw it coming, be it bullshit or otherwise.  However the event sent a shiver of many resentments.  I resented my brother from taking my niece away from me, I resented him for leaving me to clean up his mess.  I resented my mother for the constant cleaning she made me do (later to inform me that she did most of it) I resented her for not allowing me the downtime to recover from being sick before a whole new world of cleaning began.  I resented my father, because while I understood his taking care of her,  he stopped seeing me a long, long time ago.  My fault,  I know – but still.

☑ Family

I resented the innocents,  my animals, whom I love with all my heart, but constant, fur, litter dust and, hay made sicker still.

☑ Family
☑ Animals

I tried to get over it, using my usual methods,  I tried to write – nothing came.  When it did I’d delete it all before I managed to get to the second paragraph.  I grew angry and resented the fact that I couldn’t write any more.   Then I resigned myself to it.

☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing

Standbys were always waiting of course, and they lasted a while, but slowly,  everything that had ever once made me happy, or kept me occupied began to die.
My music was annoying me, I couldn’t stand to turn it on anymore, it’a all so redundant, even cliché now.  It’s only on in the car to keep me lucid while I drive.

☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music

Drawing did nothing for me, while I was glad I finally finished the design I had been working on, it held no meaning anymore.  There was no pride, or relief at the end.  It wasn’t like when I finished Tribute – it just didn’t seem to matter.

☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music
☑ Creativity/Art

The most devastating blow is fresh, barely moments old,  it’s still open and oozing blood and pus.  The one thing I could always turn to,  the one joy that always held me together, even at the worst of times, had become mechanic, I realized I was only doing it to occupy my mind, there was no joy, no feeling left in reading.  It’s gone…  I can’t help but feel my tenuous grasp slipping.  I let go of the rope,  but I have been clinging in futile hope to the cliff’s edge, and it’s a long way to fall.
I gave up on wanting love, a future filled with happiness – and all that was left is crumbling to pieces around me.  It isn’t simply one event, after all:  who am I to place blame on anything, or anyone.  It’s not fair.  This is just the path my journey has taken me – I stare at the chasm below, and wonder if it matters.

☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music
☑ Creativity/Art
☑ Reading

☐ Hanging on…

When there’s only one thing left to do, you do it.  I fear however that the slightest pressure could crumble the earth at my fingers, and send me spiraling down somewhere I shouldn’t have to imagine.

Contradiction

05 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment

by Jo Le'Ghard in Topic of Discussion

Sorry, everyone.  I know it’s been a while.   There’s been a lot going on.  Well, not really – but my head has not been in a place to write much of anything.  As seen by the idiot fictions.

Today I want to discuss psychology.  Okay maybe not entirely, but in a sense.  Here’s a typical rant a’ la Jo.

As most of my readers are aware,  I can’t get a damned job anywhere.  I’m expected to stay in town.  Well the crux of it is,  there is nobody,  and when I say nobody I mean NOBODY hiring.  The new hospital’s opening has been postponed once again – because, surprise surprise, LA County decided to go cheap.  And not to CODE.  So I’ve been told to chuck my training, my licensure,  everything.  I applied at In’n Out  (Which, for those of you who don’t know – is a fast food joint.)  Unfortunately given my licensure,  I’m over-qualified for that now.

This matter has caused a riot,  a very small one person riot.  Apparently since my mother has always wanted to be Dr. and Mrs.  She wants me to work to A) Pay my own (which I’m fine with by the way)  and B) To help my father go back to school to get his doctorate.  Basically she wants to follow the pattern she held my last two jobs.  She takes all the money I earn – hide it away,  so I never know what the hell happened to it.

About a month ago we brought home a new bunny.  I’m against this until I get attached – It’s my job to clean the cages (Hay and asthmatics don’t mix, I regret to inform) I must feed and water twice a day.  I have to clean up the shit that gets stuck in their fur,  and when a rabbit doesn’t feel good,  their shit gets squishy and smells like a skunk.  I love my animals, all of them.  Even though technically I’m not allowed to as: “They’re not your bunnies, they’re mine.”  and “He’s supposed to be my kitty.”

Anyway,  when the last bunny who passed away died – I left her cage in the back yard.  It got rusty after a few weeks in the weather.  So the following story is just a piece of this tale,  but I’m pretty sure it revolved solely around the damned cage.

I woke up at 6am to head out pounding pavement – it was damned hot.  I drove all over hell and half of Georgia, only to be told that nobody is hiring in my field.  By 3pm I was beat, and starving.  So I went home.  The moment I walked in the house I was told to go find a bigger cage for the new bunny, as she’s growing rapidly.

In the heat and unhappiness of the morning, I forgot I had told my father that I was going to go to the school to talk to the office manager.  After throwing a fit about the cage in the backyard, she sent me out with a bottle of bleach to scrub it down.

15 minutes into the scrubbing she comes storming out  “Is there something you forgot to tell me?” Well here’s me I’m figuring she’s still pitching a fit over the cage. “Um,  no?  Is there?”  Bad response Jo,  questions are attitude.  But how is one to know?

“You told your dad you were going to the school today.  You didn’t go!”

This is officially dicey.  She yells at me over a simple matter of forgetting something – as she tends to do.

After she storms back inside I finish bleaching the cage,  trying to shut myself off.  Once she gets started she keeps going.  The only way to get through it is to clench your jaw and shut yourself off.   Once inside she demands that I sit down on the floor in front of her chair where she tears me down,  it’s my fault that she keeps bringing in new animals we can’t really afford.   It’s my fault that my father has to work so much overtime.  After blaming me for war, famine, disease and death – I’m sitting there grinding my molars,  trying not to be hurt,  trying not to let the tears welling in my eyes fall.  Then I’m told I have no right to be sad or angry.

Here’s where it get’s fun,  I’ve got to quote this – and for reference,  Bob is the family therapist, whom I haven’t seen since I was in high school.

“We know there’s something sociopathic wrong with you. You keep hurting people and you just don’t care.  You know, Bob’s been telling me I should start making bills for you.   For everything you cost us.  But I’m not going to do that, because I love you. But you know what,  I just don’t care anymore.   You come to me saying “Oh I’m depressed,”  well,  too bad,  so am I.  Get over it.”
Of course I’d rather be out on my ass regardless,  so I tell her:

“Well,  tell you what.  I’ve got someone telling me their couch is open.  I can be out of here in two weeks.” It’s true,  and I’m too tired of life to fudge it at this point.

“You’re not going anywhere,  you’re not going to go an be a burden on someone else.  Besides,  they don’t want you.” She doesn’t know my friends.  Hell she doesn’t really know me.   She continues ranting for an hour about how I’m simply not trying because I don’t care.  I’m not allowed to speak while she tears me down.   The she sends me to my room to “cool off”  only to call me back down ten minutes later to do her a favor.

Look, I know some people have it so much worse.  And I’m grateful for the roof over my head,  don’t get me wrong.  But this shit hurts, you know.

So things go back to the usual household slavery,  which I do,  but apparently don’t do.  Yes, I do know how confusing that is.   Then yesterday I was rolling through Monster.com looking for something, ANYTHING.   She called for me to help her with something – I tried to get the point across,  so I took my computer with me.   I sat on the futon,  rattling off the only cities in California that seem to be hiring.   Then she informs me, quite out of nowhere that she’s made an appointment with Bob for me.  Bob who has given her ammunition to make my psychoses worse than they already are  Because, and I quote: “I’m worried about you.   Won’t it be nice to talk to someone.”

I have to be honest,  for man who died three times two months ago after a heart attack – I really don’t think he wants to know what’s going on in my mind.  I don’t think he wants to know how pissed I am at him.

To those psych majors out there piling on the diagnoses,  let me clear a few.  I’m here for two reasons.  She has all my money and has managed to help me push away any friends who might take me.  And because I actually DON’T suffer from Clinical Psychopathy,  I worry about where she’s going to place all her frustrations when I’m gone.  My father is too sensitive to take it,  and the animals are animals for crying out loud.

I concur to possible Bi-Polar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,  Anxiety Disorders, and Disassociation.  (I’m smarter than I look, I’ve taken classes too.)

Here’s where the OCD comes to play.   I know I have to go see the shrink, and I have to keep my head. But I sit here playing out possible scenarios,  and keep pulling out crying and shaking with anger.   I’m not so docile as he remembers.  I doubt my language will be very ladylike.  The key aspect of psychology,  is trust.  Sorry to say in the last eight years I’ve only put all my trust into people who are too far away to hurt me.  Even now I know – someday I may piss off one of sisters and I’ll be broken.  Clearly I don’t hold much store in trust in humanity.  (Though my sisters should all know,  since I’m not what I am accused of being,  I will NEVER do anything with purpose to hurt them.)

I’m writing this at 4am because I don’t know what to do with myself.  Everything in me is just screaming to cancel the appointment,  because I know it won’t matter.  It never helped then, and things are 200x worse now.   I think it’s possible I gave up on hope a long time ago.  It fails me every time. I don’t even know if it’s mind games anymore.  I wonder if she’s being honest when she says my grandparents think I ask to much.   Maybe she’s right that no matter where I go,  I’ll just be a burden on someone else.  I have no faith in myself anymore.

So what’s a girl to do.   When she has to continually sing Eric Idle’s advice, and look on the bright side of life, even when she can’t see the light?   BAH rant.  I’ll wind up deleting this in a day I’m sure.

Psychology huh?  Family, eh?

J✪