Just Cyd.

Stage banter asked "what are the five stages of grief?" while introducing a new-to-me song. We shouted out "anger!" and "denial!" and "bargaining!" and made it to four when he suggested Buc-ees as the fifth stage of grief. we all laughed, at least some of us familiar enough with roadside haven to get the joke.


I was filming, my phone battery low, or I would have googled it for him. I think that was closest he got to ever saying his wife got sick and died, but i'l have to listen to it again to be sure. my phone completely dead about 5 songs from the end, I wasn't able to to fill in the blank as we grudgingly said goodbye. back at my hotel, he was online so I googled it and let him know:

ME:
We missed depression

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Not that I ever follow directions

HIM
I knew there were more than four!

ME:
I guess when depression is the default setting, you kinda forget about it?

HIM:
yeah, kind of a 60-cycle hum going through the whole thing

I should've stopped there. I didn't. too wound up, too thrilled to be chatting, too high on the thrill of whatever this is

ME:
for nearly 25 years now one of the tags I use in my online journaling is EKRcanKMA - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross can kiss my ass.

i'm currently too manic to notice any depression. like a toddler with the zoomies at bedtime.

-----

sleeping away my day, it occurred to me that Buc-ees is a good substitute for Depression, as it offers all the things Depression robs from your life: clean bathrooms, an amazing selection of food and drinks and toys and impulse buys and light, such violently bright light. I'm told the Richmond KY store can been for miles at night by the glow of the lights, an oasis in the dark hills of rural Kentucky.

They're also overrun with tourists, and there's nothing tourists love more than swarming in on a tragedy, dispensing pleasantries and platitudes, and then scurrying back to the bus for the ride to the next stop.

Dreams of a similar sort speckled my slumber - running away, by bicycle not car, in familiar cities changed by perspective of mode of transportation. searching for help and not finding it. Eventually running into him, the tractor beam of i-still-don't-know-what pulling me into his orbit, into his arms, into his promise of a steady, solid something. A message, in my ear, via his lips directly or via voice mail, assures me "I'm OK. We're OK. It's all OK." The tone is one used with an inconsolable child, a distraught friend, someone on the brink, someone who prefers the alternate ending to Cocoon. I took the "we" to be us two, not any other obvious groupings (his band, his family, his community), because that's what fits my delusional waking narrative.

-----

At the end of the night, he told me didn't know I was there until several songs into the show. Aghast, I exclaimed "I was sitting right in front of you! How could possibly miss all this?!", gesturing to my heft, my girth.

They took a break a good hour into their set, Jess's request. I stood up to move my aching bones, and he found me, said hello, and then offered a hug in case he didn't get to do so later, but then promising he would see me. I assume(d) that I was the cause for these decisions. don't rock the boat, don't anger the highly unstable woman. He hugged me again at the end of the night, and with both, I felt more the warm fuzziness of his velvet blazer against my cheek than his arms around me, disconnected from my self. We held on tightly, but briefly. The promise of Saturday's show giving me hope that it's not a "goodbye forever" but just a "farewell for now."

up until I set foot in that decommissioned church, I was a Very Hot Mess, on the very far end of the Scoville scale, crying multiple times over songs and scenarios my brain would conjure up and the brainweasels would run off with, leaving me bereft behind the wheel and nowhere to pull off. Once in the door, though, I had A Purpose - feed everyone! - and the music either melted away my worries, or threw me deep in denial and held me under for two-plus hours. I fully expected to cry at least one song more if they made the set list (not knowing the set list and show was fully Australian Rules music - "the rules are THERE ARE NO RULES!"). driving back to my hotel with a phone that was just being resurrected, but not willing to provide direction, I did mostly fine, as it was just two turns and a long dark road back to the interstate, and I roughly knew how far and which exit. back in the hotel room, well, scroll up to see what happened.

It's a beautiful saturday in late september, and rather than being out there enjoying it, I'm here, at home, fighting off a headache and angry that once again I find myself heading into Q4 behind on bills with no money to put towards birthdays and holidays and the general living of life.

I blame my parents, I blame public schools of the 70s and 80s, and I blame society at large.

I was always a high-strung, anxious child, while also very energetic and hyper. Any idiot could see now that i had anxiety and adhd, not behavior problems that required punishment.

There was some pretty hefty separation anxiety when mom went back to working day-shift when I was in 3rd grade. prior to that, she'd worked 3rd shift, so the getting to and from school was never an issue. but we were now latchkey kids, walking the 8/10th of a mile to and from school unsupervised. But late in 3rd grade - Spring of 1981 - any time there was an afternoon thunderstorm, I'd be in the hallway in hysterics, and the best I could eventually articulate was "i don't know how I'm going to get home". I still can't say why I freaked out like I did. I also get upset to the point of tears thinking about it. I wasn't necessarily scared of the storms, but the conjunction of storm and dismissal time sent me on a spiral that I to this day cannot recall the ending of. I know it happened more than once; maybe 3 times total. But, like everything else in my life that was called out as "abnormal," it's stuck with me like a Harry Dresden soulgaze that I can NOT un-see.

At the same time, I was the hyperactive kid who could not sit down and shut up to save her life. I was impulsive, I was easily distracted and impossible to re-direct if I got my mind set on something. I was "messy" and "disorganized" and while I was smart, all of this "behavior" got in the way of me being a star pupil. I did NOT get to participate in the 5th grade gifted/talented program, and in between ping-ponging all over the place, i'd be mad about it. I suspect it was decided by teachers and parents that I would not be a good fit. I still don't know what those 8 classmates did one day a week when they'd be bussed off to an alternate location for "special instruction".

During my hysterical crying fits, did anyone try to comfort me? I don't think so. Perhaps a classmate sat with me, or the teachers conferred in whispers about what to do with me. I do know that when this level of hysterics hit at home (and oh boy, did it), it was a behavior to be punished. or mocked. Because clearly, a child who is inconsolable, no matter her age, is going to best respond to being beaten and/or mocked. But then, if the only tools in the parents' toolboxes are beatings, mockery, or avoidance, well, then *gestures at my childhood*. It might be easier to forgive, or at least move past, some of this if the surviving parent would admit -or hell, even acknowledge- their part in this. (my stepmom defends my dad's behavior because of what HE went through as the youngest and probably-not-wanted-and-certainly-not-planned-twins, while my dad continues to regress in his recollection of my childhood)

Some of the issues were that we didn't speak the same language, and the adults didn't know how to translate for the kids. The words "clean your room" still send me into a mild panic, because those words always preceded screaming, beating, and quite possibly loss of privileges and/or possessions. to mom, "clean your room" was simple. To me, it was a mystery. No matter what I did, it was never right, but she never once defined her expectations or broke it down into simpler terms. Yes, I was (and still am) a hoarder-type and very much the type that needs to have things in sight. Lots of stuff coming in, very little leaving. Yes, I very much NEEDED to keep that empty tissue box because it was pretty!! No, reducing it to a single panel of the pattern and throwing the rest away will most certainly NOT be the same thing, and now you've ruined it tyvm. (true story) mostly I don't recall being given the tools to do what was expected. As the adults, they should have worked harder to spell out what was expected; rapid-firing verbal demands at me is NOT an effect tool, fyi.

Yes, ADHD in girls was virtually nonexistent in the 1970s and 80s. ADHD in boys seemed to only occur at school and in those with bad grades. My brother struggled academically, as well as having a stammer in K-3, to the point he had speech therapy at school and seemed to get extra attention from parents and teachers (often in the form of extra conferences, since parent-teacher communication was so limited back then). Don't think I didn't notice. He wasn't stupid, and neither was I. He wasn't reading at a college level at age 12, but his monster truck drawings were incredibly detailed, and that kid took in a whole lot more than anyone ever realized. That we do not share the exact same memories still annoys the shit outta me, but again, different people, different ages when things happened. I was the "smart" kid who could do so much more if she could just apply herself. So when my brother's HS graduation was met with a level of parental fanfare and celebration beyond anything I'd ever experienced, to say it stung is a gross understatement. my graduation was EXPECTED; his was not. my post-HS plans were nebulous, and my grad gifts were a variety of makeup and jewelry and luggage and lots of pretty but not at all useful crap. My brother, bound for tech school that he'd arranged all on his own until the financial aid paperwork needed parental info, received cold hard cash to buy the tools and stuff he'd need.

When it comes to money, it's more of the same. I remember being told to save money, but never shown how. Don't recall having a savings account as a kid - it might've been one of those UGMA/UTMA ones if I did, meaning it was my parents money until i turned 18. I know I opened a bank account when I got my first real paycheck job at 16/17, but I'd been babysitting a ton before then and making serious bank, and I can't tell you what i was spent on other than candy, music and magazines. There was never any discussion of short- or long-term savings goals. that if I wanted a car, I'd be required to pay for it myself, and here's a plan on how you can make that happen. If I'd saved even half of what i'd brought in babysitting and through work from age 12-18, I'd have had a nice chunk of change and wouldn't have headed into (not-optional) college already behind the 8-ball. That's another thing: attending college was NOT optional, yet there was no discussion on how to pay for it. my "college fund" paid for the first 2 quarters at community college (12 cr @ $29/hr, plus fees & books).

Mom had a credit union account. she never explained what it was. it was just some far-off bank-like place where special money came from. I realize now it was a payroll deduction through her job, either for her own safety and sanity, or to pay for vacations or whatever. Why, as teenagers, did she not explain the concept? Why did I have to learn THE VERY HARD WAY how to deal with bills that aren't paid on a monthly basis? Mom's work was in accounting-related stuff (but fairly low on the food chain - AP processor, etc) so she was all about numbers and stuff. I guess she just assumed we knew everything she knew? Dad, well, he was worthless. He made the bulk of the money, but mom handled the bills. before she died, she had to teach him how to pay bills. He was about 55 at the time.

Now, I know that the 70s/80s were rough times financially - high interest rates (11% on a mortgage?!), there were job shutdowns that had dad laid off from GM, and lots of other things that i've not really researched but should. but to get -zero- education from home is a disgrace. I assume we were middle-class. We always lived in a house with a mortgage. the first house bought a month before I was born, the second about 12 years later. both parents had cars that were bought new, but those purchases were a big affair and infrequent. GM had a relatively lucrative family discount back then, which made those purchases far more affordable. This is when you ordered your car, not pick one off the lot.

Which is how I find myself, age 51, with zero savings, more unsecured debt than I'd prefer, and no clue how to turn this sinking ship around.