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Just my opinions and outlook on life |
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The end of 2020 The very first entry I made for The Writer’s Cramp was my best. It tied for the win and I was happy about that but it really made no difference to me. It was a poem written after Thanksgiving about my own recovery from addiction. That was 26 years ago and it totally changed my life. I checked myself into Drug Rehabilitation when I first realized that I might have a problem with substance abuse. I had no idea what changes that one incident would make in my life. When I was discharged, I had a lot of major decisions to make and the poem spoke to how conflicted I still was. The prompt was Closely Watched Trains. It was easy to take that one and run with it. After all, trains take you places and where you go can change your life forever. My journey had just begun. Closely Watched Trains I stand alone in blinding rain, waiting on an unknown train. My future life, a choice to make. Only one I can take. Two tickets lay in my hand, don’t know where to stand. One path leads to a familiar past. Comfort once lost; now peace might last. The other takes me far away. Unknown future, a bright new day? Strangers can become friends. A new life, old wounds can mend. Last time I waited on a train, a filthy walkway, urine stains. Crying frightened, shameful tears, burdened with pain, unknown fears. The smut on me wouldn’t wash away. In pores so deep, I had to stay. If I hung in, worked the steps. A cluttered mess might bring rest. Been running too long and fast, towards a certain fatal crash. Smoke the gin, drink the powder, Alice of Wonderland in troubled water. I did hard work, washed my stains. Princess in a castle, I glow, no shame. I found answers for all asked of me, climbed the Magic Beanstalk tree. Now, I wait on my wish filled train. I pray a light shines true in dark rain. God, I have come a long, long way. I need to love myself enough to stay. By Kathie Stehr 11/27/2020 Learning to love myself enough to make necessary decisions was the key to future happiness. If you don’t love yourself enough then you cannot love other important people in your life. I left a marriage that I knew was over after twenty years. We had two children together and were happy for many years so it was devastating to even think about starting over. Our lives had changed so much over those years. Now, instead of working together, we were destroying our lives and it was affecting the kids. I also ended up leaving my job as a registered nurse because the stress of all of it: the marriage, the job and no time for my children was taking a terrible toll. I had been diagnosed with a neurological disease that was painful and hard to deal with for me and my family. The final straw was taking medication for the symptoms and making the potentially harmful mistake of mixing it with alcohol. Thankfully I only did this when I wasn't working but if I had continued, I would have made mistakes at work and could have hurt or killed someone. Working with the hospital, I tried different areas to go back to work but could not physically do it. I applied for and got on the hospital's disability benefit. This step began a whole new way to live an even better life. I helped with the national organization for dystonia, became a support group leader, I also was a motivational speaker that traveled the country to talk at our national symposiums with physicians and scientists. It was a different way of being a nurse/caretaker by taking caring of me first then other people who needed information and guidance. I loved meeting the people and the symptoms, that I was trying to cover up at work, showed others I was just like them. I could give them hope. I remarried, in time, to a man who loves me and helped me with my volunteer work. He has been by my side for surgeries and many painful procedures. Of course, I have reciprocated for him but it is hard to deal with a partner with physical disabilities. We have been together for over twenty-five years and have a large combined family who love each other. I will be 68 in 2021 and we are enjoying a more laid back retired life. All of us should constantly take an inventory of our lives. How are we living them? Are we serving ourselves or others? I believe we are put on this Earth to help others and we must be willing and honest to do that. I follow the principles of AA and NA and it hasn't let me down. It is progress not perfection, like a marriage. If you make a mistake, you own it and begin again. I hope any future entries I make are as true to my convictions as this one was. Fiction is fine and I enjoy it. All writing comes from the inner well of wisdom that says so much about its’ author. I try to end all my writing on an optimistic note. I want to grow in my writing, sometimes I touch my inner feelings more than others and this was one that did. It was a great prompt. 2020 has been a very hard year for more people than I can ever remember. There are so many people out there that are ill, have lost someone they love, can't feed their families and are falling into the darkness of addiction. I pray for all of them and do what I can. I wish for the judges and all the people that belong to Writing.com that they are at peace within themselves and bring more joy to this planet than they take from it. I know I have to make that choice every day, to spread love and remain sober. I wish you all a happy new year, may it be a much better year for all. Thanks for letting me be a part of this family. Kathie Stehr December 31, 2020 ** Image ID #2267445 Unavailable ** |
| PROMPT November 29th Imagine for a moment that you are near the end of your life. What do you want to have done that would make you feel satisfied? I have had a wonderful life and I don’t have a bucket list. That is true but if I could do anything about it I would repair the strain between my biological sons. I adore them both and they truly have a lot in common but right now their political views are getting in the way. Life is much too short for this kind of stuff. My youngest has one child and works at home and my oldest works from home. They are both in the computer world. I don’t think it is a wonderful idea to work from home for some people. They both have given up on their social life and with the Covid crisis tend to even order their groceries in. I can understand the mental health crisis that our being shut in has caused. Hopefully time will change this. I have two stepsons also but they are much more involved with their children and life to get too dragged down in keeping up with the news. Besides peace in my family, my husband and I have already made arrangements financially to support the person remaining whatever should happen. When you are almost seventy I believe you should have those affairs in place. I have been giving various family heirlooms as gifts lately so I can make sure those that appreciate them get them. The only thing that I can think of that I really want to accomplish is finish the family albums so the kids can put all of it on line. I have many pictures to catalog from my parents and grandparents. I love my life right now. I can read and write if I want to and have gotten rid of a lot of stuff that was clutter. My husband and I are enjoying retirement. So I am satisfied. After all, my children have to solve their own problems. Kind of boring, I guess. I can’t achieve world peace, fed all those that need and deserve it. I can only care for my little part of the world and live each day to the fullest with gratitude. |
| PROMPT November 27th Things have progressed well in your town/city with the Pandemic. So well that you've been allowed to return to the office instead of working from home. Your co-worker Karly, is sneezing and coughing and refuses to wear a mask. Who do you call, or do you let it slide. Tell us why you would act that way. Being an RN working in a hospital, (but now retired), I would have been working the whole time. The Hospital I worked for is now a huge corporation with numerous hospitals, urgent care centers and specialty units spread around the metro Atlanta area. If I had been working I would have been exposed from caring for Covid patients. All employees are mandated to be vaccinated, as they should be . Now if I worked in a different situation, like you have here. Since I am a believer in masks when you might have an airborne illness, I would be upset. This would be a Human Resources or health care problem so I would call them and let them handle it. I would stay away from that person and consider them to be a health hazard. I am just used to wearing a mask when I was working. I did if I was ill, changing dressings, protecting immunosuppressed patients or with certain procedures so I have a hard time understanding medical workers that refuse vaccines/masks etc. It is a selfish and reckless behavior and I don’t have tolerance for it. |
| PROMPT November 24th In a previous prompt, I asked you to write about your best, or favorite teacher. Tonight write about your darkest teacher. Note from me: The following is something that happened to me I actually learned from. I am not saying there is anything wrong with any type of religion at all(freedom of religion is, after all, something I deeply believe in). It was just so unusual in that time period and in Georgia. I wanted to graduate from high school early at 16 so I could begin junior college so I took a Literature and advanced Algebra course in summer school. The teacher was a new one out of college, I guess someone figured summer school would be an easier way to plunge into high school teaching. It tends to be less difficult anyway because most students are making up courses they have flunked. It was 1970, and this woman was very young, probably 22 and I believe she thought she was doing something interesting. Now you have to understand, I live in the Bible Belt and it was very conservative then. The teacher decided to introduce different types of religions to us. She had someone speak to us about Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, and finally of all things, the group that had members handing out flowers at airports etc. A group of six came in their robes and bare feet and sat in a circle showing us Transendential Meditation complete with beads and Hare Krishna chants. Now I thought this was all fascinating, after all the Beatles and Stones had gone to visit the maharishi in India and that it was cool. She wasn’t really dark ,just different and strange, compared to what we were used to. But this was a group of kids whose parents thought the Ouiji board was satanic. Of course a couple of the kids went home and told their parents. We got a replacement the very next week. I often wonder what happened to her. She made the class interesting, that is for sure but Chamblee, GA wasn’t Berkley. I believe this was the Moonies (The Unification Church of the United States) that came out to talk to us. They were quite famous then for their leader, the Rev Moon that had huge marriage ceremonies for a hundred couples at once. He also supported President Nixon against the Communist “problem”. I remember parents having their children removed from the group and deprogramed. |
| Day 3301: November 22, 2021 Prompt: “Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly.” ― Langston Hughes Use this quote to inspire you blog entry. I can’t think about this quote without thinking about the source, Langston Hughes. If anyone needed to hold fast to dreams it was this gentle poet activist who lived an uneasy life. He was gifted with a quick and inquisitive mind but as a black gay (closeted) man , he not only saw prejudice but encountered it often. I have read a lot about Langston Hughes and watched videos of him speaking as an activist for Civil Rights. He chose to stay mostly among literary people who believed like him. He was fortunate to have lived during a period of the “Harlem Renaissance”. He went to Columbia with Thurgood Marshall and also traveled around Europe, including China and the Soviet Union. The quote is true but hard for many to accomplish. This applies to every person. Some people don’t have dreams, they settle and stay where they are in life. Some can’t accomplish their dreams for so many reasons that they have no control over. I like to think there is always another dream to accomplish and in that, the metaphoric bird can be patched up and repaired and life does go on. All that said, it is a lovely poetic quote from a man who kept working on his dreams, in spite of the obstacles of the times he lived in. He certainly accomplished a lot of literary treasures for us to read and admire, his jazz poetry and other published works have gone down in the pages of history. |
| You have found that you can do something no one else can do. What is this special talent you have? Would it be considered a 'Super Power'? If you could have chosen this special ability, what would it be? My favorite show when I was a kid was “Bewitched”. I wanted so badly to be like Samantha, to twitch my nose and just make things happen. I would love to have the ability to calm people down and make them less anxious and more agreeable right now. Thanksgiving is a wonderful family holiday coming up that I anticipate, enjoy seeing everyone but also worry too much about. My own family is very divided right now like so many are. Some aren’t vaccinated and they are a mix of religious beliefs and politics. I hope we can keep it all from overflowing at the table. Since I am the matriarch (not me, surely?) I want to throw some magic peace-filled "Bewitched" dust over my family so they can enjoy themselves like they did as kids. I had a dream last night that I was in a tower running down steps that kept going in a circle, I was searching for my own Dad. The sense of safeness right now is something many people crave and they reach out for the wrong things to fill that like guns, even God gets weaponized. Peace to all and have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We do have much to be thankful for with the vaccines available and pharmaceuticals. |
| DAY 3299 November 20, 2021 Red or Green Silver or Gold Blue or White Or any combo of the above colors. What speaks holiday to you and why? Red is the color of my babies hair. Both born with skin soft and fair. I still hang a red stocking with Baby P. My Mom made before our first toy filled tree. Green for all the live fir trees we cut. Beautiful cold days, hot chocolate in cups. Riding in wagons to find the perfect one. The smell and laughter, fun for old and young. Silver bell ringers and choirs to hear. Thanksgiving we all went to Rich’s, my dear. Rode the pink pig over new toys, followed by a huge tree to light up Atlanta with joy. White reminds me of my Persian kitty, sliding over snow, not seen often in our city. I remember a fake tree with flocked white, Meant to be snow, it was quite a sight! Blue is for my boys lovely eyes. How wide they were over Christmas toys. Gold is for the wedding ring I wear, And my love for the man who put it there. By Kathie Stehr November 20, 2021 |
| PROMPT November 20th In your blog tonight/today, write about a story you've been told, or use a newscast story and CREATE a conspiracy theory. Tell us why you chose this subject, and of course, provide 'evidence' that your theory could be rooted in truth. Before I even heard this on the news as something being spread around, a family member told me that the vaccines we were going to be given for Covid would have tracking devices so the government would know our every move. Now I laughed out loud when I heard this person say this. Most of us, adults anyway, have smartphones and you don’t have to be our government to find some techie that knows how to hack into a phone. Then I actually heard this theory on a news cast that I don’t normally turn to. I know tracking devices are put in animals under the skin so I started to actually think how in the world people believe a device is so small it goes in liquid through a 23 gauge needle into your arm and ends up where in your body? Talk about being attacked by a healthy immune system that would make mincemeat of it. I don’t know if any of you are old enough to remember a movie called the “Fantastic Voyage” ? A spaceship was shrunk down with scientists in it to repair a clot in a VIP’s body (don’t remember why he was so important). The ship was made so small with 4 or 5 people inside to pass through a syringe and needle to go into the bloodstream, it was attacked by white blood cells and then had to pass through the heart at the perfect moment and the lungs. Seems like at some point the scientists got out of the ship and one remained stuck in a wall of cells. The scientists ended up coming out of this person’s tear duct at the end. I think the spaceship was left in the body. At the time in the 1960’s, this was a great sci-fi movie. I haven’t watched it in years but if you need a good chuckle I am sure you can find it somewhere. Anyway, some people haven’t traveled very far from the movie studios of that era to the 2000s, I guess. And in the words of the great Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that!” |
| PROMPT November 19th We've all had one or several epiphany's in our lives. Tonight, write about a moment in your life that changed the way you view the world. I know that I am late with this but I really wanted to answer this because it did change my entire life. I was taking care of my Dad the last couple of months of his life. He and Mom had moved from Atlanta about a year and a half before to retire in a lovely retirement community. I left my husband and 2 boys at home and went down to be with them for the time Dad had left . I had to take a leave from the hospital but Dad had transitioned from treatment to Hospice and I wanted to care for him. He had spent most of the previous year in and out of the hospital with terrible side effects from the chemotherapy for Stage four Lymphoma. This was 1988. Dad and I spoke about many things those last couple of months. I had married at 18. I didn’t really know much about my dad except the things he wanted me to know, not as an adult. He wasn’t a man that spoke often just when he had to. We talked about his 3 years in WW2 in the infantry and how that affected his life. We spoke about how my Mom would be when he was gone and I promised to watch after her. I was surprised when he asked me if I was happy in my marriage of 17 years. He had noticed how far apart my husband and had become. He was traveling all the time for work and I was working night shift. At one time we were inseparable. Anyway, My Dad saw something that I knew but didn’t want to face, our marriage was basically over unless we both worked on it. Dad said to me, “Tootsie, life is much too short to be unhappy”. Dad had always opposed divorce and I always wanted to please him, I was surprised. He died a couple weeks after he asked me that. It was pretty peaceful at the end with all the Morphine I was having to give him. He was conscious though and died with a smile, Mom and I held his hands. I decided driving back to GA after the service that I was going to make some major changes. We did marriage and then divorce therapy and 2 years later, we separated when my oldest went off to college. It was sad but it was the right thing at that time. Life is too short to be unhappy. |
| 11 Days until December and the holiday season. Do you think all the grim media predictions will come true? Supply issues, mail issues? Or do you think it's just more over the doom and gloom mentality that's been looming since Covid began? Very simple answer here, whatever gets the ratings up to have more viewers seems to be the driver here. We have actually been in this place before and that was back in the 1970’s with huge gas lines, inflation and unemployment. See, I am that old! It didn’t affect my life so much but I know it did many people. Being an RN, I never had to worry about a job but factories were being closed. I think we, as Americans, are so used to instant gratification, we want to immediately return to normal (pre-Covid) if you could call that normal. For goodness sakes, we are still in a global pandemic so supplies are very behind and we lost over 700,000 people. It is going to take some time to stop feeling the pain. I don’t think enough people appreciate the fact that we have this great vaccine and medications or more people would have died. We are fortunate that there are these job openings for people and we are on our way to decrease CO2 emissions with electrical cars. The prices will have to come down on those due to supply and demand. Capitalism will still be around. The immigration laws will eventually work so people from other countries will take the jobs others don’t seem to want. Right now, it is nice to see the essential workers able to get more money for hard work. I have a lot of optimism in America if we could just work together for the betterment of our country. |
| PROMPT November 18th An easy prompt for tonight. I'm tired, don't want to think much, so an easy one. What did you do during the 'Great Shutdown For The Upgrade' of WDC today? Tell us all the 'gory' details!  I went to get my Covid booster shot with my husband. I watched some television- am binging “The Newsroom” with Jeff Daniels for the second time.Great show. I didn’t do any writing. It was a quiet evening at our house. Nice weather today, the 70’s, in Atlanta. Dinner was a left over buffet with a pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, red cabbage or a casserole that is a couple days old. Always tastes better the second day. Very lazy night but serene. My arm is a little sore. Now I am ready to have 11 people come over for Thanksgiving dinner. Hope everyone had a lovely evening. Thanks to WDC for updating their services. Peace to all. |
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