Category: toxic relationship

I hit Einstein with the car

~ msgracefulnot ~ 26 Comments

True story!

and not once but twice!!

I know it sounds terrible and it probably is, but now it is something we try to laugh about.  Maybe the story will make you fear me, but I truly hope you will chuckle instead, since no one was ever actually hurt.

Back in January, I talked about almost hitting Einstein with a car for the 3rd time.

Fortunately it never happened.  Well THAT time it didn’t happen, but on one occasion, almost 30 years ago, I intentionally hit him with a car.  That’s the only time I did it intentionally, but it was not my intention to kill him, or even hurt him seriously, it was to make him go away and to stop hurting me.  Other than to say there was alcohol, bad decisions, and police involved, I’m going to leave that story there.

Several years later, when I dropped our then teenage daughter off with him for visitation, she was wearing a bright red Tshirt, like the one pictured above.  I found it funny, he didn’t.

Several more years later, the three of us were looking through Thing One’s old photo albums and found a picture of her wearing said Tshirt.  Neither of us laughed at that point.  Actually we both got quiet, quiet enough that Thing One gave us a questioning look for an explanation.  We revisited that bad time with her briefly reminding her that good people make bad decisions, and that we had both changed and had many regrets from our past.  She shrugged it off, because she fortunately had never been witness to that part of our lives.

Maybe seven? years ago, Einstein had to take his car into Discount Tire, and asked me to meet him there to pick him up.  This was the “alleged” or 2nd time I “hit him” w/the car.

sherwin drawing

When I pulled into the cul-de-sac ( my path in blue) Einstein walked from the store to stand approximately where the red X is.  As he was walking out, I continued past him and did a U-turn in the culdesac.  Before I stopped completely, HE WALKED into the front of my car.  He says I ran into him, I say he walked into the car.  (Contact was at Two miles an hour and bumper to pant leg…not even touching skin).  We both stopped dead in our tracks and stared at each other.  What the hell just happened?!??! 

“Why did you keep walking?”, I shouted.

“Why didn’t you stop sooner?”, he retorted.

I don’t think either one of us said anything for many minutes.

My phone started ringing and I answered over the Bluetooth in my car.  It was our daughter, Thing One.  Before she could say anything, I said, ” OMG, Thing ONE, I just hit your dad with the car”.  Her response was………wait for it…… “again?!?!?”  Einstein exclaimed, “Seriously kiddo, that’s all I get?  Not a is Dad ok? Why did you do it?!?!?, really just AGAIN?!?!?”  She laughed and said, “Well you know how mom drives, and if she did actually hit you, you probably deserved it”.

Please be chuckling at this part!!!!

I know that it’s not a FUNNY story, but it is true.

At the beginning of this post, I said that I ALMOST hit him for a third time.  Here is another picture.

parking drawing

So back in January, Einstein needed to do some work on his car, that he kept putting off, because he had my car to use as a back up, or me to drive him to and from work.

Usually, I got there 15 minutes before he got off work and sat in the parking lot waiting, but as I explained in my earlier post, MScog fog,slump week, and grieving, I had overslept.

When I arrived in the parking lot, (again me in blue and Einstein in Red) we both just stopped.  Neither one of us moved for a few moments, until I moved the car along the green path and parked.

This time when he got in the car, we both said, “It really shouldn’t be this hard.”

The following month I moved out.

At the time I moved out, I foolishly thought that would be the end of US…whatever US was.  At the end of the post I wrote in February, The Elephant in the room, I stated, “Can I please get off this roller coaster now?”

Moving out was the best thing I could have done.  It did allow me to get off that particular roller coaster of emotions and start focusing on myself.  But I didn’t leave the “theme park” entirely.  Our daughter’s wedding, the upcoming birth of our grandchildren, the death of Einstein’s best friend, and many other things have brought us together again repeatedly, with the most recent being my needing help after my surgery.

Why am I writing about this?    For many reasons.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that it had been almost a year since I started blogging.  I decided to take this time to reflect on how I survived last year, which areas I needed to improve on, and what goals I wanted to accomplish in the upcoming year.  Einstein has been a big factor of my life for many years.

Living apart has been beneficial to us both.  We no longer rely on or depend on each other.  When we choose to spend time together, it is because we choose to, not because we have to.  I am comfortable with that.

I really feels good to say I am comfortable.  I am not looking at the future with or without him, I am just letting things be and for us, for me… THAT is progress.  I am focusing on me.  Focusing on improving my health both mentally and physically, FOR ME!

As I have spent the last couple of week rereading posts, one thing that continually proves itself is that I have found a wonderfully supportive group of friends in the blogging world and words alone can not convey my gratitude.  In fact, if you have another minute I want those of you that have stuck around and keep coming back to know… You are one of the “resources” that keeps me going.   THANK YOU!!!!

( Remember this part in the upcoming weeks)

FREE SOS feature on your phone

~ msgracefulnot ~ 20 Comments

Recently, I had to start doing research on devices that would allow the user to activate a panic or sos button that would notify friends or family that they needed assistance.  While I still have not found the exact device to suit my needs, I did stumble across some very useful information about a FREE feature included on ALL cell phones  regardless of model or provider, without having to download an app or pay for a service.

If you are interested in hearing more, please keep reading!!!

Let me start by telling you what this feature does, or how it works after you do an initial setup and then I will post screenshots on how I set it up on my phone.

Once you have completed the initial setup, if you need to send an SOS message, you simply click your power button 3 times quickly.  Doing so,  enables the front and back cameras on your phone to take a picture.  It also makes a 5 second audio recording, and sends all of this information including your GPS coordinates to a pre-selected contact.

Too good to be true?  I thought so too.  So of course I had to test it out numerous times to try to find a flaw.  I’m happy to say that I couldn’t find any.

Each time I tested this, either myself or my contact received the message within 30 seconds.  The camera does not use the flash, so their is no indication to an outside party that you have clicked an alert.  The GPS coordinates were accurate to within 200 feet.

The steps I used to set this up on my phone are as follows:

  1. Go under your settings tab
  2. scroll down to privacy and emergency
  3. turn on send sos messages
  4. select a contact
  5. on the final screen you have the option to attach pictures and/or audio

From what I can tell, this feature is available on all makes of phones regardless of your service provider.  While each person I have talked to about this, has been able to set this up on their phone, FOR FREE, the steps were slightly different than the ones I used.  If you are interested, Google… ” how to set up sos messaging on your phone”.

Let me know if you tried this, and any opinions or concerns you might have that I might not have thought of.  I am very curious to know if it also works in other countries besides the US.

Better late than never

~ msgracefulnot ~ 11 Comments

I’m sure by now most of you have seen, heard, or been nominated for the 3 day quote challenge.  Way back on April 18, 2018, my dear friend Steve Markesich nominated, challenged, or otherwise taunted me to participate in this challenge.  As with most things, I promised to get around to it as long as I could adjust the rules a bit.

The Rules as they have been explained:

1. Thank the person that nominated you.

2. Write one quote each day for three consecutive days (3 quotes total)

3. Explain why the quote is meaningful for you.

4. Nominate three bloggers each day to participate in the challenge

My translation of the rules:

1.  Thank the person that nominated you.

Thank you Steve.  BUT, not only for the nomination.  Thank you for being a great sounding board, my being a friend, for being an inspiration to other “MSer’s”, and thank you for the cup of coffee you will be buying me for “participating”  😛

2.  Write one quote a day for 3 consecutive days.

I can barely commit to taking a shower every day for 3 consecutive days in a row, so HAVING to write for 3 days in a row…not gonna happen.  BUT, I will say that I really liked the quote you used and your explanation of why it’s meaningful to you.

You can either accept your new reality, confront it head on, and make the best of a bad situation. Or, you can curl into the fetal position, say whoa is me, lament about all the things that you’ve lost, become obsessed with the shitty hand you’ve been dealt, and wither away. In other words, you can get busy living or get busy dying.

I did watch the movie, and I really enjoyed it, so THANK YOU again for the recommendation.

3.  I don’t know if it qualifies as a quote, more a clip from the movie, “The Green Mile”.  “I’m tired Boss”.  Why it’s meaningful to me is because I AM TIRED, as John Coffey says in the movie….

Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head, all the time… Can you understand?”

4.  I’m not going to nominate 3 bloggers to participate in the challenge, instead I am going to challenge EVERYONE (well anyone who reads this)…. If you can’t be part of the solution, please don’t be part of the problem.  For one day, if you don’t have anything nice to say, Don’t say anything.  I am convinced, if everyone could do this for one day the world would not only be a better place, but it would also be a quiet one.

If you have nothing nice to say….

~ msgracefulnot ~ 29 Comments

My parents taught me at a very young age, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  (I may still have the handprints on my face or belt marks on my ass to prove it.)  Although, I don’t necessarily agree with the methods used to teach me this, I do think that it is a very important lesson to have learned.

Lately, I haven’t had anything nice to say….so I haven’t said anything.  This isn’t to say that my life is terrible, but to be honest, I don’t even like being with myself lately …..so I say nothing.  I don’t like that I am getting angry over small things, and more importantly I don’t like that I don’t understand why I’m upset.

A friend said to me today, “Are you ok Grace? I’m worried about you.”  My response was “No I’m not, but I will be.”.  I KNOW that I will be.  I don’t know when, but I will get through this slump whatever it is, just like I have 100x before.

For those of you that use music to relate or express your emotions….the song Downtime by Jo Dee Messina kind of sums up what I am feeling at the moment.  If you listen to it let me know what you think.  How do you handle those days when you’ve got nothing nice to say?

 

 

How did I get here?

~ msgracefulnot ~ 29 Comments

I woke up this morning feeling,  I would like to call it “recharged”, but it is better than that, and I really can’t find a word to “define” it.  Liberated? Free? Optimistic?….I guess the definition doesn’t really matter, but the feeling is INCREDIBLE.

Today, I was “supposed” to run electricity with my dad, but the weather changed our plans.  As I reached for my “to do list” to fill up my day, a thought hit me.  I really LIKE this feeling.  Instead of rushing to fill the “free time” with some other task, I decided to do nothing, just for a minute…. Did I mention I like this feeling??!?!?  I still don’t have a word for it, but I really like it.

codependentyThose damn feelings of CO-Dependency kept trying to creep in.  Someone, somewhere must need something.  I am positive that I am forgetting something for the wedding, maybe I should start packing now, so I can recheck it 50x before we leave Friday morning?           STOP IT GRACE!!!

I looked at the calendar, everything is right on or ahead of schedule.  How the hell did that happen?  The last two? three? weeks are kind of a blur.

Okay so how did I get here?

I reread some of last weeks blog posts.  Oh yeah, I kind of remember doing that…. maybe?  I’ve been living on auto- pilot.  I have been “going through the motions” and not letting myself FEEL anything.

Yesterday, when I arrived at the hospital for my Tysabri infusion, the nurses kept asking me if I was ok.  “Are you sure, you’re ok?”  I replied, “Yes, I’m good, just overdue for this infusion and I’m really tired.”  and then they asked again…”Grace, are you going to be able to drive home after this?” I responded, “I’m not driving, I promise…my parents will be here in a little bit.”…. one more time….”Are you sure?”….. uh huh…..and I was out.

I woke up to my dad’s voice in the hallway calling out my name to see which room I was in.  The minute, I saw their faces, tears came pouring out of my eyes.  What the hell is this,  why was I crying?  It didn’t really matter, it’s not like I could stop the tears anyway.  So I just let them flow.

I don’t remember anything else from yesterday.  I know my parents brought me home.  I know I ate at some point etc etc.  and I slept.  I really slept.  I still don’t have the adjective to describe this feeling and I am going to let that be ok.

In the past two hours that I have been sitting here, drinking coffee and reflecting I have “learned” some thing about myself.

I can “handle” physical pain, but I do everything in my power to run from emotional pain, in fact,  I think I have done this my entire life.  I stay busy all the time.  I go out of my way to try to make people feel better all the time, because I can’t handle tears.  I can’t handle watching someone who is grieving suffer.  I literally would rather go to the dentist, get shot, jump off a cliff, you name it, than to FEEL emotional pain.

My first thought, was “that’s just pathetic”.  But then I asked myself, “Why?”.  Who says it’s pathetic?  Seriously, who’s voice is that judging and belittling me?  The voice was my own.  There is no one to blame.  It’s that VERY FRICKING LOUD “little voice”, in my own head trying to sabotage myself.  When I type it out in black and white, it looks just plain silly.

Ok, so I have some work to do on myself.  (But not today).  Today I am going to just be.  I am not “planning for tomorrow”, or “thinking about yesterday.”  Today, I am just going to be.