A Mad Woman Explains All

Yup I planned on posting on here more often but life just kept getting in the way. But I am really going to try to post more as I am taking a break from Facebook. I find facebook can be very toxic and I want to focus on the positives and good things in my life.

So since I last posted I added to my little family. In February I adopted a new cat, her name is the Doctor and she has been an amazing addition to my family.

She has settled in nicely and Bear has adjusted better than I could have dreamed. She hasn’t hissed once at the Doctor and the two of them now hang out and cause trouble together.

She is still her moody self but now I feel like my little family is complete.

I just got home from a trip to Vermont with my niece Ani and once I go through all my pictures I will post about the trip. I definitely fell in love with Vermont and will be going back there again soon.

Peace – JS

A week or so ago I promised my brother if he got me a certain beanie hat I would blog more and blog while wearing the hat. I believe in keeping my promises, so here I am on a Friday night, wearing said beanie hat and I thought… I should blog about this.

But seriously while I am not going to blog about the beanie hat, while it is an amazing beanie, I do want to update my site more. I pay for this domain name I might as well use it.

So lately I have been thinking about 2018 and how I believe it was a year of change for me. I started the year living in Maryland (where I had been living for almost four years) and I had started working at a new job back in October of 2017. I really liked the new place I worked and I was finally getting to a place in my life where I was very happy and content with myself. But I had the knowledge I was going deaf in both ears hanging over me. The more I thought about it the more I realized it was time to go back home. Now home for me is not where I grew up but the town I moved to and all my family now lived in, Rochester, NY. I had left Rochester NY four years earlier, I left for many reasons and I still believe my decision to leave back then was the right one. However, after living in Maryland, by myself with no family and to start no friends nearby, I had found myself. I had grown to realize I liked me and I had proved to myself I was actually ok. Now, this may sound simple but for me, it was life-changing. For years I had hated myself, I had hated every single thing about me. I couldn’t even look in a mirror as I hated the person I saw. But for some reason, those four years on my own in Maryland made me like me, made me be able to finally look in a mirror and not hate myself. I have no idea why it did that, but I am so damn grateful it did. Because when I knew I had ten years maximum until the doctors told me I would be legally deaf, I was ready to go back home, ready to be ok with asking for help. So I took a huge chance and took a position with the company I worked at but in their Rochester NY branch. It was a big step up career wise but I knew it was the right step.

So in June 2018 I packed a Uhaul with my stuff and my dad flew to Baltimore to drive my car back to New York with me. He and I stopped in Pennsylvania for the night at a pet-friendly hotel, as I had my trusty cat Bear with me, going on another 400-mile journey with me. And once again my cat amazed me with the ease at which she handled me uprooting her. I moved into an apartment complex that my best friends and their kids live in, they helped me unload my Uhaul, with my niece Mia shocking all of us with her brute strength basically single-handedly unloading most of the truck while her mother, father, brother and I attempted to put my IKEA bed back together. Then later that week my mom and I took one final journey back to Maryland to grab the rest of my stuff and go to one final appointment in Baltimore. Then I started work at my new job and threw myself back into life.

Over the next few months, I made friends at my new job and reconnected with old friends. I also got the chance to enjoy the small things, like taking my nephew out to eat, having my nieces sleepover and being at family events. But I also allowed my family to help when my Meniere’s disease reared its ugly head. My parents have picked me up from work when I was too dizzy to drive, my sestra has brought me over ginger ale when I was nauseous from vertigo and my brother has made time for me when I needed to talk.

So 2018 was a year of great change in my life and I am hoping 2019 is just as exciting. I have many plans for the year and coming years and I am hoping to uphold my promise to my big brother to blog more while wearing this beanie. 🙂

Cheers bitches…

2017 I had such high hopes for you and to be honest you didn’t live up to them. However, I did change my goals and plans mid-year and while the road was bumpy at times I made it and I am better off for having gone through what I did. As much as I hate the phrase ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ it is true. This year I had my heart tested, my mental health tested and my strength to keep going tested but I made it. I survived. And I am in a better place now. I know what I want and where I want to go. I refuse to settle ever again. So while this past year definitely turned out very different than I planned, I believe I ended the year exactly where I need to be. Working and focusing only on me. I wasted way too many years trying to please others or be someone I wasn’t. But now I know myself better, I can be honest with myself about what I need to do. And while I am still working on myself overall I can look in the mirror and be ok with the woman I see looking back at me. She isn’t perfect far from it but she is me and I like me, flaws and all. So here is to hoping 2018 takes me exactly where I need to go. Where ever that may lead I am ready for it.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

So since I can’t seem to sleep lately, thanks predinose, I decided to change the appearance of my site. I like them and truly that is all that matters. But feel free to let me know what you think of the changes.

i made some changes so this is a test post. deal with it.

I was home today and had CNN on when I saw the President of the United States news conference, it made me sick to my stomach. As a lesbian, I have known the president was not on my side all along. And yes I voted for Clinton and I am proud of my vote for, damn proud! After she lost people told me to give Trump a chance, wait and see if he takes my rights away. Well guess what we aren’t even a year into his presidency and it’s been far worse than I imagined it would be. I dread when I see an alert on my phone, fearing it will be an alert letting me know we just started WWIII.

But when it comes to this last weekend and the events in Charlottesville I have to say enough is enough. Our president showed his true colors today, he is a white supremacist, full stop. The fact is this country is just as racist, homophobic, sexist and xenophobic as I thought, but my cis/white/straight friends and family all tried to say I was wrong. I wish I was wrong. I wish this was all a really bad dream and I could wake up and be living under a Clinton presidency. But that isn’t the reality, the reality is white America elected a racist idoit to our highest office because they are scared their white privilege is waning and they don’t like that. Well guess what it is and it should. And guess what me, other LGBTQ people, anyone who is not-white as the right to exist and to have the same right as straight white america. Nazi’s and white supremacist don’t have a side they have hate. They are marching to say I don’t have the right to be alive or have rights. They want us all rounded up and killed. So no Mr. President this isn’t a problem that has two sides. This only has one side and you sir are on the wrong side of history.

I can only hope this makes straight white America wake up and start fighting with the rest of us. White people created this problem and we need to fix it.

I think the most important thing I ever learned from my Grandpa was you never give up. He was crushed from the waist down with a massive tractor when my mom was 6 months old, told he would never walk again or have more kids. He walked with a cane right up until the end. (I used to steal his cane and hide it.) He also had 4 more kids. The other thing I will remember is how he never changed how he treated me when he found out I was gay. He probably didn’t understand it but that didn’t matter, I was his granddaughter and he loved me no matter what. It wasn’t until he were gone that I realized how much he helped shape my life. I miss him.

Yesterday would have been my grandfather’s 99th birthday… 

Life has a way of kicking you when you are down. I had such high hopes for this summer this spring but I must say nothing has gone to plan.

I am losing my hearing much quicker than I wanted and it has begun to effect my every day life.

My job was effected by this and I am no longer working at my previous company.

I have been dealing with my depression acting up from my hearing issues and work stress and now I am struggling with it for sure.

And sadly yesterday my Aunt Barb died. Not too sure what happened, other than it was shocking, sudden and unexpected. She was very cool. I always enjoyed talking with her and she was just a kind woman. I am lucky to have been able to call her family.

The one thing I have learned through all of this is that my family and friends are amazing. I know how lucky I am to have them and for the love and support they give no matter what happens. I may be a bit of a blacksheep but my family loves to nurture them.

So as my tattoo says:

fall down seven times, stand up eight….