Hello

 Hello

See ya later, alligator

 I don’t have the taste for being fucked off anymore. That was very British of me, thanks for that , Robb!

As I was saying, I’m not hanging around for people who don’t give a fuck. So, adios amigos, sorry to regular readers but I don’t have the time for a bear in my life. I’ve got too much going on to sit on my hands waiting for just a wee spot of sunshine every few months. I’m worthy. Always have been. Always will be.

And for the regular readers, maybe I’ll start a new blog and send out an email.

Night, Tracy 

Rage

 I’m just so fucking mad. I’m living in a constant state of rage and trying to shove it down but it boils over and drips from my eyes in the form of tears. Catching my breath. My chest heaving while I try to pull just a little more oxygen from all the thick air around me. Hands constantly shaking. My body trying to release the anxiety buzzy through me like the power lines on a silent night. I paint and paint while listening to sad songs to feel something other than resentment and pain and rage. 

Rage is like a forest fire, it doesn’t care about the damage it’s doing, in fact it eats up everything in reach feeding on the heat to keep going. 

My daughter, this won’t be hard to figure out which one, the daughter who punched me when she couldn’t tamp down her forest fire and who yelled words that come from a place of burnt feelings. The daughter that felt like a tornado while growing up. Skipping from here to there destroying feelings lashing out the as the debris flies into my heart. Does she feel anything other than rage? Is she capable of compassion and empathy? Is her path to destroy me? 

My thoughts go on and on and on …. Why? What happened? Has she finally shed the last remnants of the parts of her that were fiercely loyal. She had that quality. She got that from me. A firewall of loyalty. If nothing else she could be depended on to focus that rage towards the one who hurt the ones she protected. It’s been left in a pile of ashes still smoldering, her foot print firmly pressed into the residue after the crushed the bits that remained.

She’s telling people that she was abused.  Traumatized to the point of having memory loss and unable to function. She’s gone yet I’m still surrounded by rage. My own. She told me once that she could do and say the things to me that she did because I was the one person who would take it and still be there.

That isn’t true anymore. I have to remove her from my heart. Surgically with fine precision before I rip her out with my bare hands. 

God, I’d make different choices if I could go back. I’d protect my heart and make different choices to hold onto my peace. I know that parents aren’t suppose to feel that and especially don’t say that out loud or write it down.

This is my private place. Maybe take a lighter and burn it.

Me

Hey.

 So the fun news is that I’m struggling with depression. I hate the word ‘struggkin’…. I’m DEALING with depression. I feel like maybe it’s situational, is it? On top of that my recently diagnosed Auto Immune disease is jerking my chain. I couldn’t swim for 6 days because it was raining everyday, which normally would make me swoon, but I haven’t been able to be in the water and that has made it rear it’s ugly head. 

The thing about water is that full body compression from the water not only helps keep the pain away but is great for lymph draining. It’s the perfect exercise in every way, all muscles are used and it’s great cardio and the compression is fantastic.

 So we went swimming on Thursday, me and Joshua, but the water was too cold for him to get in. Puss! I swam for 2.5 hours and it felt so great… until I get out and gravity hits… then it rained Friday, went today and the husband wouldn’t get in because it was too cold… ps: 90 degrees outside… but somehow the water manages to be cold. I swam for 1.5 hours and the laud in the sun. First time that the lounge chair didn’t try to burn my skin off. I usually have to put it in the sun deck part of the pool and soak it for a second

I have so many scars from swimming this summer! Scrapes in my feet, my calves, my elbows and my knees! I haven’t had scrapes on my knees for DECADES. Good times.

I’ve been asked what my diagnosis is for me new disease friend but I’m intentionally not posting it because I investigate everything until it’s just a powder I can blow away and have done that with this. I, kindly, don’t want or need advice. Sorry. 

I have found some new music that I am LOVING!! 

Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things and Pretty Slowly are so fucking good! Pretty Slowly will break your heart. You will die. 

Kaleo: Way Down is so good!

Olivia Rodrigo : Vampire… probably an acquired taste but I love it

Post Malone : Pour Me a Drink ( country music) I love PM! If you’ve never watched him in an interview, do. He is so soft and teddy bear and sweet and kind. Just adorable.  Such a good person. I guess that’s why we don’t judge a book by its cover. 

Hozier: Too Sweet… omg. So good!!! So so good. 

 Funny because I’d added it to my playlist several weeks ago and then went to the pool and there was a man already there( probably my age) playing his music and this song came on. I said, ; I love this song! And then we bonded over music. My son has been sitting in the cabana but after a few minutes of this guy and I talking Josh came into the pool. So sweet! He’s protective… of his daddy 😂 although a couple of months ago a Trump supporter and I were discussing politics in the pool and Josh came in to “protect me” which I don’t need by a long shot but Josh was being sweet. I, on the other hand, said sternly… “ He’s a fucking rapist” and just as I said it, to put the exclamation point at the end, I fell off my floaty. That pretty much sums me up. 

Jax: I Choose Violence. Maybe just a girl kind of thing.

Molly Hocking : I’ll Never Love Again. Omg! So good. Cover of  A Star Is Born song  by Lady Gaga. So good. It will kill you.

Sabrina Carpenter: Please Please Please. It’s so good but also fucking funny. 

Chappel Roan: My Kink is Karna. Also, maybe a girl thing.

Lewis Capaldi: Before You Go. Heartbreaking!!! You can feel it in your soul. 

Well, just listening to these songs while posting has been good for my soul. 

One more thing! Football started so I get to hang out with my dad! Ya, maybe the depression is situational. 

Killing me to see pictures.

Me.

The End is Near

 The end of summer that is. This is the first summer in like… 30+ years that I’ve squeezed the max from. Swimming nearly everyday and it’s been amazing. The water is warm, of course, it was 117 degrees out the other day… today was 98 degrees, so while the season is leaving the heat is not. It’s supposed to rain ever day this week coming up and that will keep me from the pool, which sucks. I think they close it sometime in September anyway so, I’ll be going back to riding the bike or running on the treadmill, both of which hurt my knee. Ugh. I’m going to really miss summer and that hasn’t happened in decades.  I even bought some bikinis this year. 

Anyway! My youngest child will be turning 22 this weekend. His birthday will be in the actual day of the week that he was born too! My Labor Day baby… he was due on Friday the 13th. I bought my first house at 22 years old. That was either really brave or really naive.  Gonna go with brave. 

That little house on Courtland saw so many major events in my life. It saw the tail end of me letting go of a bear, it saw me become engaged, twice 😁 it saw me deeply depressed and suicidal. It saw me learn how to grow from that. It saw a whole new life start for me when I moved in. Completely new friend group. Completely new activities from softball to darts to poker… it saw roommates and meeting Doug. It saw parties and me get married and a few months later become pregnant and at the same time it saw Cheryl get pregnant and Doug and his girlfriend get pregnant and between the three of us we waddled on walks and sat in my steps sharing a hose to cool us off during a record breaking hot summer. Then it again saw a whole new life. I then had baby number 3 in that house, my mom died, Cheryl’s brother was murdered in the parking lot of a downtown Arby’s… Two sister in laws struggling with pregnancies , one miscarriage , one still born. Both women were true soulmates. It saw us outgrow the place even after remodeling her. It watched as we drove a massive moving truck away to another life starting, one more child to be born, Doug dying, no more of him sitting in his porch swing keeping an eye on “The Old Girl” for me. Promising that he’d never become friends with the new owners 😂

My son could not be further from my 22 years old. I’d experienced so much by that age. At 24 I stopped going to clubs because I felt too old for that! 

What a trip to see him, my last child, turning 22. My oldest will be….. Wait for it…… Fucking Forty years old! Damn! He’ll be in his 40’s while I’m in my 50’s. How weird is that!?

Anyway, just rambling on. I got my Etsy store up and running. I’ve started my programming for the 31 days of Halloween. I want to get the videos locked and loaded in their queue so I’m not pressured in October. It’s been good. I’m good. 

Tracy

DEATH

 I can not process the idea of someone dying. Like, it breaks my brain to imagine a clicking clock- Tick Tock-Tick Tock- counting down. 60, 59,58,57 seconds until it’s over. 

I’ve lost many people in my life, grandparents, parents, three best friends…

But last week I lost one of my Birds. A 21yr old girl whom I had coached from the age of 8 through 18. Sharing a name with one of my daughters. 

If anything is true, I loved my birds. With my husband traveling I’d spent more time with them in a gym playing and practicing volleyball then I did with him! I love my birds.

She was trying to pass a truck and hit another truck head on. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Nobody else was injured. 

There will be a “ Celebration of Life” in a couple of weeks. So we’ll be taking the drive up there then swinging by somewhere in the Falls. The incredibly sad thing is that my girls won’t even know that we will be there. How stupid is that. Things like this happen in the blink of an eye and I just cannot imagine families breaking up over nothing and now our close friends don’t have their daughter.  My kids should remember what’s really important in life. Such a loss.

Look to the moon’

Me.

Q&A

 I’ve had so many emails asking question that I thought I’d do a few:

1) you used to talk about makeup a lot. Do you still like makeup?

You have a good memory!!! I LOVE makeup and now I’ve added perfumes and serums. I’m a junky and it brings me joy!!

2) haven’t heard you mention your brother in ages. Talking to him or no?

I don’t think I’ve spoken to my brother for …. 7 years? 8? Long time. Can’t have him in my life. Wish I had a “normal” brother… in the meantime, my friend Robb fills in.

Speaking of Robb…

3) Haven’t heard you and Robb do a podcast in a long time. Still friends? Will you go back to Exit Light?

I speak to Robb almost daily… well, nightly for me. We’ve been friends now for close to ten years and we still find stuff to talk about for hours. 

I’m not sure about Exit Light’s future…. I do miss it a lot though. I know that Robb and I will be doing a podcast soon to ramp up for the 31 Days of Halloween. I’m excited about doing that for my .. 11th( ?) year in a row. I’ve been stock piling stories all year. I had an offer to buy my channel. Sometimes people do that, there’s a channel I watch call EWU. Started out as a guy and his daughter and then they sold it and its content changed, still about crimes but super put together like Dateline. I don’t think I could do it. All my written stories, I think there’s something like, 300(?), would then belong to someone else, I can’t see me doing that, plus I’d feel like I let my little community down. 

3) How did you break your foot?

Long story short. My husband accidentally dropped a hammer on it from about 7-8 ft above. It’s not healing all that well. My orthopedic surgeon just keeps telling me to wait it out but I think it will never be the same again. Shoes are an issue!!!! And I LOVE shoes!

4) you must have been pretty young when your oldest was born. Is your husband his father too?

RUDE! I was young. My husband has been his dad by every measurable way.

5) you’ve seemed much less depressed lately. You good?

I’m really good. Feeling my spicy feisty sparkly self. 

Ok, must be going. Night luvs! 

Me