His last pedicure

I had thought I'd thought of everything. Until we were swaddled in Paw Patrol fleece on our way to dreamland.
He asked me why his hair was getting wet. "Mommy, my hair is wet. Can I have a pedicuWa? Are you feeling a little sick? Is it the gerwm?"
Can I get some more of those 4 year old, East Coast "R"s?
Can I live long enough to hear if they are always W's or will I die, alone, hot and forgotten, drowning in sounds and fluids, the beeping reminiscent of those years I spent assisting in cardiac, compressing and ecmo-ing...wishing I were swaddled in his blankets...Can I still add that to my advanced directive? Did I really enjoy the rush? Yes. I lived for it. The high, the comedown, the rush, the helping, the recognition and camaraderie.
Until I felt this love, this pull, this obligation, this drive, this warmth, this constant frustration that is motherhood. I don't want to die. I want to feel frustrated every day. A 4 year old is stronger than I am.


Back to reality. I'm home, not in ICU, yet. Jay is looking at me, as if I am stable. But, for the first time in my life, and I mean career, I am not stable.
I threw instruments at a doctor today. 
"Here! I can only do 14 things, what do you want first, this should not be a priority right now, you didn't do the thing and the other thing! You're asking for something you don't need AT ALL. (His response was simply, "ok. yeah, thank you, always keeping me on track. i'll get this and you get that and hold this").
What can be more stressful than closing the operating rooms for electives, then scheduling horrendous total revisions and asking me to "be sure i'm there, I'm your favorite, your cases go so well, you need me to punch all day" and I leave my child is in the care of someone I've never met, in my house, who cares for 3 other nurse's children each week, at a rate of nearly my whole day's pay?
I'm asking for infection. I'm putting my family at risk. For what? For patients who need me? I'm not a nurse, I've assisted in surgery for 20 years. You don't want me to start an IV and suction someone's...no. no. Airways are my biggest fear. Get away from the face. Blood, bones, yes. I do not want to wathc someone die the way my dad died. Suffocation looks awful. Cancer & lungs and not breathing, nope.

Back to bed...

No, baby, mommy was sobbing silently on your pillow, wishing this reality wasn't really happening to us, to everyone, worldwide. And, of course we can go trim your baby toenails. I may not get another chance. I tickled those baby feet, his little "kickstands" and back to bed we went. I wished I hadn't been so insistent on getting him to sleep in his own bed. I'll always regret that I didn't just hold him every night of his life, in my big bed that I so selfishly needed to myself. I'll always wonder if I could have possibly loved and held and kissed and read and played and stayed home instead of working.. should I be staying home rather than working? Do I care about consequences? I've never cared about money, as long as I can eat what I want and spoil my friends. I would give money away... Can I just live inside?
I had signed my will only hours before. Before I planned to get a studio apartment by myself and reduce the risk of exposure. I'd spent years obsessed with reading about pandemics, fascinated, curious, and willing. I'm not sure i'm willing to help anymore. I need to be here for random stall tactics, pedicures, and those 2, 4, 6 am "mommy, is it morning yet? screams.
I took a 2 week furlough to think. I don't GAF about money.



I have never been happier to get out of his blankets than I was at that moment he wanted a pedicure. Should I bring Paul in to show him how to cut Jay's nails? Will he always try to stall this way? Does he know I'm crying? I told him I'm not sick, it's not the germ, and yes, Mommy gets really hot at bedtime in the Paw Patrol fleece.

10 years since my last post, Coronavirus, marriage, and joy vs. grief

I've never thought about how my writing could ever "affect" anyone. It's simply therapeutic. I dive in, make things up, or I tell the truth, I exaggerate. Often and a lot. I like it. 
I've never edited my work. I just keep "pen to paper" and go on, and on, and on...
The last time I was into writing I was dating, uncertain, lacking creativity because I had always written best during times of grief. At this point in life I will write less creatively and more about a subject. Mortality.
I married the guy I was dating the last time I blogged. We live in Washington, DC. We have the smartest, more adorable 4 year old son, Jay.
A lot of my thoughts are about Jay. What this experience and "lockdown" may do to him, how he will be shaped. Mostly I think about my own death.
I want to keep a journal about our time isolating from the dangers of Sars-CoV-2, Covid-19, Coronavirus. The blog posts to come will be my thoughts on this.
I love you, those who may be in my life.
Welcome back, me. The writer. I'll find my way back.

essays

I'll be writing a personal essay (for class)on one of two things...
Either the topic of how waiting tables (serving) has contributed to my patient care skills
or
an old blog from long ago, more of a fictional piece.
Thoughts? The topic is open as it is our last paper.

Gotta get into the writing mood....

Injured squared

if only it were that easy.
to drift effortlessly away into the nothingness that ive become.
forgotten and alone i sit wishing for my old identity.
what is it about a career that defines who we are? why doesnt anyone remember me?
i made that life my life and then one day my life ended.

and i havent been able to get it back.

i found something else.
something old and familiar and easy
easier than cake and much more stale.
i crave a new flavor and something with frosting.
but everything makes me yawn.
and everything hurts.

i feel like ive been murdered. and i keep reliving my death.
maybe i killed myself?

thinking about writing... again

I have moments.
Moments of inspiration come suddenly. i'm rarely thinking its worthy of anyones time.

school is taking up so much. and it is really all i have right now. i keep taking these stupid jobs that get me by for a few months and then i go away. No one calls no one answers emails when i try to reach out.

i ramble
that is why i keep waiting for the inspiration to come.

but my paintings are going well...

i wish i had a real job or an identity.

futile attempt

futile. incapable of producing any result; ineffective; useless; not successful: Attempting to force-feed the sick horse was futile. Is it also a feeling? I am hoping for the best in this transition. To have made a firm decision, in a real partnership, to leave a talent behind for a few years to take the chance of possibly strengthening it.... tough choice. Nothing worth having comes easy. Like relationships. It would be so much easier to be alone. But I am committed to stick around until one of us can find a way to fuck it up. So I keep rambling, hoping for some revelation and some pancakes. Watching the travel channel makes me want things I don't know I need. But I need 'em. I wonder about my choices since losing my job almost a year ago. I've tried like hell to find another, was complimented on my accomplishments just to watch others get the job instead. I feel that my decision is sort of a cop out. That if I am a student, I can get away with being broke, uninsured, injured and living with pain and hoping for a future. I made some kick ass money. And its gone. I have too many choices and I picked just one. I AM following the dream I've dreamt for 13 years. So I wonder. Do I have faith in myself and what I've done? uh huh. huh. ok. Y. ? I wonder about...

out of practice

It has been 8 months since I last attempted to blog.

To be honest, I think I have lost the ability to communicate. I stutter with words, I lose interest in my own stories. I have heard them all before.

There has to be something out the to inspire me.

But I have nothing but a beginning that I have yet to begin. A story to write eventually.

Fruitless and failing

I can see my happiness growing out of arms reach.
Balancing carefully on his fingertips as I watch him grow taller.

He has transformed from my rock to my tree.
Swaying in the wind I am creating to expose his branches.
He has become something to stare at.
Fruitless and bare.

The climb is unfamiliar on my way up to this happiness I feel he holds up there.
If I shake him it never falls down.

And so I chase after it, wrapping my legs around him one by one.
I pull myself closer and each time I fall I land flat and confused.
Arms scratched and ego bruised, I get up.

I shake him again.

If only I would realize...

He would meet me half way if I learned to stop creating the wind and see that he is not that much taller than I.

quick update

I am finally at peace with the unemployment situation

There are about 4 professional leads that I am super excited about and I have just finished training in a super fun bar/restaurant that I think I will like eventually.

That is all for now, I just wanted folks to know I'm up and on my feet and having a great time in this life, once again.

we did it

We have dreamt a dream and it has come true.

I believe we can now achieve anything and it can be done.

The man who is now our country's leader may not live up to all of the fairy tales we have created of him to achieve for us, but he will, I believe, do his very best as a human being with thoughts and morals.

And that, is all any of us can do.

And we did.

Peace and Love to everyone.

More truth than I have told

At the end of my search for kinkos/fedex copiers and two printers of my own that do not work I went to the bar for pizza and hot wings... and while I was waiting a little Summit EPA.

How fabulous it was. The only thing worthwhile to crash into on my way home was a mail truck that was not delivering any mortgage payments for me.

I have had it.
This will be one for the passion blog of unedited rants I will delete at a later time..

I stepped onto the sidewalk outside a familiar hospital. I felt I had been here once before or 365 times 5 years.
There were footprints. none of which were mine. I had been nothing but my own shivering memory of a girl no one could recall.
Or were they my prints? I couldnt identify just one, maybe I am just an old memory to myself. No one knows I have ever existed at all.
If I start smoking, someone will notice.
Times long ago and moments past like the one I just had were too quickly forgotten. I am nothing to anyone.

At home it was more of the same.

I came in like I always do. Responsibly one drink drunk and sobbing. I threw things...
coats and scarves and mittens all over the floor.
How could anyone want to throw sauce ontop of pizza? Why not expose every bit of what I came for.

I feel I have been mislead. I paid for gorgeousness and pepperonnis. I have to uncover it all bit by smelly bit.

i dont know what i am rambling about.
i use to have it all
plus story telling ablility.

an existence sent spinning

It's 2pm and my broken ego is some where at the bottom of this bottle of Corona.
Of course there was only one waaaaaaaay in the back of the fridge. You would think I woulda seen it sooner... empty as the fridge is these days.
Losing my job finally hit me last night at about 6pm... it really is a loss...omg. I have no identity after 9 years of being super...

This is my official day off from job hunting. I am all outta shampoo and ready to commit to the cheap stuff.
It, like my life right now, is smelly and not worth much at all,
I'm sure it
is just going down the drain anyway....

but on the upside...

No more freezing, no more tears no more sucky jobs that last for years. No more pain and no more insults... I feel so fabulously free.

Another subject,

i could watch the steam rise up in front of my overslept face and sigh as it dissipates into nothingness.
i envy the simplicity of it all...
up, up and away.

Calgone? Take me away from this. Away from the uncertainty and the pride.

I toss my ego into the recycling bin. Along with my single, ever so refreshing bottle....

there it goes.

i will return to the tub until i spin further down the drain of nonexistence.

coffee shopping and pizza hopping

Anna was surly the kind of girl to find corners in round things.

Like those small, reject pieces on the edge of the pizza when it is cut into squares. She favors the reject pieces and nibbles those first with her fingers while scanning for the best middle piece to save for last.

It was her quirky simplicity that attracted the artsy types of men and the most sophisticated oddballs.

Tim was the oddest of them all.

He had never pitched a tent or climbed a mountain, but he sure did know a few things about survival.
His knack for striking up conversations with the old ladies in the grocery stores was once an admirable trait.
Until it began consuming most of his wednesdays, tuesdays and sundays after church.

Anna first noticed Tim in the parking lot near a Aunt Ida's bakery on the corner of 172nd and Tennista Ave.
She was jogging along minding her own heatbeat when she stopped to stare in his direction.
Tim was stunning. He was dressed as plain as the local folks but carried himself with great confidence. It was impossible not to notice his broad shoulders and light eyes.


to be continued

one more thing

I still don't think it's fair.


Sincerely,
K. Cat

Pointing fingers at knife wounds

I'd have to tell the story again to make it clear to you.

It was a nagging urgency, a familiar feeling feeling and even I couldn't talk me out of it.
So I had to say it.

I knew I'd be "sorry" eventually.

So I took a seat and read deeper into my past

writings.

Once I found It, It flattened me immediately. I shook my head in disgust but It was as clear as the scars on my back.

He existed.

And that fact alone
made me want to vomit.

Finally did find out what it is about me.
There is security in turning around...
never looking back...
getting stabbed repeatedly...
I"ll never tell.

I'll run.
Away from the pain of being found out...
left defeated again...
left spitting out the teeth that hold my tongue in it's proper place...
left standing again on the feet I need to carry me away from you.

I swear I will not crawl to your feet exposing the back I've turned
close enough for you to see the scars you've left me with.

But I will go through with this nagging amend I need to make.

And hope to stop punishing the rest of em who are clearly not holding knives.

I am the grudgeholder pointing fingers and exposing my scars.
stirring my own poison pot as if it will make you die.

The fun fact about being left...
is knowing I will still be standing
and with that...

There can be no more fear.

seeing ghosts

By the time I looked away she had already stunned me standing, remembering her, within arms reach.
It had been a long winter since I'd last seen her.

In nine months I had grown something gorgeous inside even I couldn't identify.

It remains nameless.

But there is this guilt...

Shame is just another familiar feeling and it doesn't touch this that I can't explain...

She was a panamainian princess who no one could reach to save.

And I saw her looking at me, all this time later, in a park, in the daylight,

her ghost will haunt me. because it knows


I wanted it too.

I live with this gratitude, guilt and I'm full of it now. Call me Chickenshit

I can't hide what I carried inside.

LIFE
grows gorgeous inside
AFTER you live through the loss and circumstance

I wish she's seen it.
Before she became this ghost I stood in front of flaunting the lesson I learned in the nine months it has taken for me to grow my own life...





(eh, ill have to work on this later...it too raw to put into words.)

Stuart

Monday, November 19, 2007
Current mood: confused


Stuart

Stu drives one of those mustangs like Sally had when she turned 18.
His testosterone preceded him into the room and I gasped at the sight of him. With a chuckle, cherry coke on my sleeve and tears on my face, I nearly hit the floor.
Oh fuck. Duck, me duck.
Acrid doesnt describe the smoke. It masked the jack something or other, but only if you'd not smelled him before.
I have no inspiration, I am full of shit, and I have fifty bucks I'd like to give to a male prostitute to come play with my hair and listen to me sniffle. Then I'd never have to see him see me normal. If I'd only leave home.
Its been a good year since I've even been this way.
I missed me smelling him.
Like I missed me smelling the floor.
He never existed.
And I am nothing but a lump in a chair.
Do I exist?

If I'd a known then, my friend, what could I say?

Sure
It could have been easier.
But who'd a thunk.
I think that was about all she said before we took off for the coast.

Her hair had a bit more bouncy shine then and mine was more red than blond, but we had a good time despite our shady differences.
I never knew how to explain the easy way I use to make things difficult.
So I never did.

Until he came along.
He wrote it in a letter sometime after 4 am on a Tuesday.
And I am trying to pick myself up.

If I knew how to "remember to let anyone in"... where will I go when they leave?
I swore I'd never, ever, not now, not ever, not again. I promised myself happiness at any cost.


And the price just keeps getting higher.

I swear I've not forgotten to remember to know how.
to put it off one day at a time
until i just cant get hurt anymore.

Happiness

Had I known I could be this happy, I may not have cried...
ever.
But I am uninspired to write...

I'll be back.

Love yas.

ghosts of relationships past

January 3, 2008 7:35 PM
ghosts of relationships past

Current mood: busy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Like a ghost he came and went.
through the wall we had once been up against.
It never seemed so cold at the time...
I never gave into the this that had become us...
poems unnoticed and songs unsung
go unnoticed
because...


i feel nothing
and that is everything again.

maybe its when the weather is bad
i cant get any colder than the wall I've erected to lean on
to replace him.

I felt once.
and a few more times.
some heat. a taste.
the blood on my lip.
a bitter phone call and old marijuana.

i have nothing.
and that is everything.
again.