Hi Darling Ones,

Like a good GenXer Sister #2’s laptop is filled with personality-defining stickers. The one I’m most envious of is the duck-duck-grey duck one.

Like a total ding dong who lacks any real, concrete spirituality I get a lot of life guidance from those stickers.

One of her stickers is a the James Baldwin quote “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” It’s a bit from his 1966 essay “A Report from Occupied Territory” that ran in The Nation.

I love this quote. I love it because it goes really well with my favorite piece of writing advice that also works well as a principle to use in guiding your life, “Show don’t tell.”

The Baldwin quote is always rattling around inside me, but today it’s a little louder because it’s his 100th birthday and the Internet is filled with celebrations of his genius.

It’s also giving me some peace around a decision I made recently about the end of a twenty-two-year friendship.

After months of abusive texts and the return of gifts disguised as a belated birthday present I got a very generic “I’m sorry” text. Every bone in my body melted and as I deflated something in my soul shouted “NOPE!”

Even though I hadn’t responded to any of her attempts to bait me into drama, I was still giving her so much of my brain real estate. As they say, she was living rent free in my head. But after that limp apology I was done.

As soon as I had the inner moment of nope I felt good, resolved, at peace. Yet, despite the feeling of resolution I had a small, nagging worry that I was not approaching life with joy and love whenever I could. I was worried I was being cold and unforgiving, that my icy robot heart was taking over.

But then James Baldwin turned 100 and I spent some time reflecting on his words and boy, howdy, I feel totally at peace with my decision.

I can’t believe she’s sorry because I saw her give me zero grace for making a mistake five months after a life-altering stroke. I saw her continue to make baseless accusations throughout the year, and most damningly when I told her I loved her and missed her she said, “thank you.”

Thanks, James. Happy Birthday.

Showing instead of telling, hopefully,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

I like to do big deals on the 6th of the month. Be born (June 6th). Have a stroke (March 6th). Face cold, hard facts (July 6th).

What? You might be asking yourself. What cold, hard facts? Today is July 6th and I’ve seen exactly zero facts faced. Cold, hard, or otherwise.

Well, I’m here to tell you about not 1, not 2, but 3 cold, hard facts I am facing.

Cold Hard Fact #1

I have to apply for Social Security Disability.

Just typing that sentence makes my stomach roil. I’m both scared and kind of ashamed. What if I don’t get it? Am I disabled enough? Will they just think I’m lazy?

I would love to be able to work at full capacity. But the distortion caused by my macular edema makes spending hours trying to read a computer screen exhausting and difficult. Having to blow up my screen to 200% makes web design so slow.

Neither of these things make work impossible, just slow going. I’m still working for my most loyal clients and it makes me so happy. However, I don’t have enough work to support myself nor do I have the visual capacity to work more hours.

And physically, I’m kind of a nightmare. I can’t stand unassisted for more than 90 seconds. I can’t walk without my walker. And with the tremor in my right arm, I’m ill-suited for any work I can think of.

While it might seem I’m trying to justify this to you, Darling Ones, I’m really justifying it to myself. Not being able to support myself is humbling, but then so is begging the Internet for money, which is not the keen financial strategy it looks like.

Cold Hard Fact #2

I’m not going to finish my State Fair Blanket in time for this year’s fair.

Ugh. I hate failing. I also hate when reality interferes with my magical thinking.

But, I’m just not going to be able to create a bitchen, blue-ribbon worthy blanket in the next 24 days.

What was I thinking? For all the reasons work is difficult, crocheting is also difficult. Not impossible, just slow.

Plus, I vastly underestimated how long it would take me to translate my idea into yarn. It took me six weeks and many failed prototype just to get a single motif for the blanket to work. I’m being purposely cryptic here because I want to final reveal to b e a surprise.

So, next year will have to be my year. Thankfully, the State Fair accepts submissions that were made within three years of the submission date.

Cold Hard Fact #3

My twenty-ywo-year relationship with the woman who was my best friend is over.

This is the toughest, coldest fact to face. Last July 6th, I wrote this about her, However, I did repeatedly remind her what a good person she was while murmuring out loud to myself that she really is the best friend.”

A lot can change in a year.

This person who so kindly filled out my physical & occupational therapy intake forms last year is also the person who, last week, wrapped every gift she won from Rock & Roll Bookclub Dirty Santa in pastel tissue paper, put them in a colorful gift bag, dropped them off on Sister #4’s doorstep, and texted my mom that there was a “belated birthday gift” outside for and my sister.

Yeah.

Actually, factually, yours,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

Yesterday as my last day of physical therapy and as we pulled away from 1601 St. Francis Ave I was a little sad.

Do you have any idea how much time I’ve spent there in the last 11 months? Hold on, I’m gonna go figure it out.

Between occupational, physical, and lymphedema therapy; gynecology; and orthopedics, I had 76 appointments at 1601 St. Francis Ave.

That’s a lot!

And now, I got bupkus on the books. Well, nearly bupkus. I have my mammogram next week & the eye doctor on July 23, and at some point I’ll have to see my regular doc in July.

That’s all I got. And it feels weird. I’ve spent the last year with at least one appointment a week and to now have nothing for weeks?

I’m adrift. It’s like I’ve been fired from my job, which was going to appointments in an attempt to recover from this stupid stroke.

Now I’m a freelance recoverer and that scares the shit out of me. What if I suck at it? What if I never get better than I am right now? WHAT IF I GET WORSE?

I’ve been especially tender about my lack of progress lately. A few weeks ago I got a text from BFK accusing me of discarding and disrespecting her once my sisters “took over my care.” I did not respond because I refuse to fight over text. Also, it’s not true. She’s the one who filled out all my OT & PT paperwork in July. She got mad at me in August.

The idea of “my care” hit me funny. I do not like it at all. Despite all the myriad ways people have helped me, I didn’t really think of it as care. But it is! It totally is. If it weren’t for all the care I’ve received, well I’d never had made it to those 76 appointments and Supergenius HQ would probably be in foreclosure.

But, now as I write I’m realizing it’s not the “my care” I have issue with. It’s the “took over.”

The thing that has taken the biggest beating since my stroke is my fierce independence. It sucks to have to rely on so many people. It’s also beautiful and heartwarming, but I’m an ogre and used to doing everything myself. I’m an eldest daughter and it’s always been my role to take care of myself and everyone else. So needing help? Needing care? Ugh. Barf. My icy robot heart is so displeased.

While my independence has taken a beating, my ability to ask for and accept help with grace and gratitude has grown three sizes! Still, the independence is strong. I still try to do as much by myself as possible. So the idea that anyone “took over my care” is hurtful and untrue.

You know who made those 76 appointments? I did. Know who made all the other appointments? Know who made sure I had transportation? Me. And while I still can’t get my groceries from the front door to the kitchen, I can order them, pay for them, put them away, and use them to make meals all by myself. Know who does all that with low vision, a floppy scoop, and a right side that refuses to feel like it weighs less than 800 pounds? Me.

So, maybe I’ll be okay doing the freelance recovery? Maybe I’ll need help, and that will be okay too.

This letter did not go where I thought it was going.

Sorry! Blame the brain damage.

Love,
Jodi

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Hello Darling Ones,

I’m dictating this letter into my cellular device because it’s eye day and my garbage vision is extra garbagey.

WARNING. There are going to be 77 layers of irony to this letter, but I’m gonna go ahead and say it anyway cause I it’s on my mind. This blog is nothing if not crap that’s on my mind.

As I approach my strokeaversary on Wednesday I’m thinking about how self-centered I’ve been this year.

This is where the irony comes in, how someone with a 24-year-old blog where she writes about her life and crap on her mind now thinks she’s too self-centered.

Despite my fucking 52 years of self-centeredness, I always stayed pretty abreast of the news, even claiming newsjunkie status until 2020 when I had to stop for my own mental health.

But damn things are bad right now. Every morning I shout at Angrboda, my laptop, “LEAVE TRANS PEOPLE ALONE.” And there’s the nightmare that is the holocaust in Palestine. Then Supreme Court’s shenanigans and Turnip‘s resurgence and things are bad every where, except maybe France where they constitutionalized (not sure that’s a word) abortion. Viva la France.

That’s about as much thought as I give things, because then I get distracted by what’s going on in my own head. Mostly, checking on all the weirdness in my body.

Since the stroke I’ve been a bad friend, a bad citizen, a bad human.

I wish I could go back and apologize to all the people I silently judged for seeming to have their head up their ass, too focused on themselves to care about what’s going on in the world and the people around them. I didn’t know what they were dealing with.

This year has been difficult. I’ve never thought so much about my body and how it feels. As I’ve said before, I treated my body like the trashcan around Oscar the Grouch. It wasn’t like a real place I ever respected, thought about or talked about. Now it’s what I think about the most. I spend so much time checking in with myself. Is my leg still twitchy? Is the right side of my head still hazy? And because I started a new med that’s not agreeing with me yet, does my stomach hurt? And because I think about it so much, I talk about it a lot.

Here’s an example. This morning, my mom and Sister #4 were taking me to the retina doctor. It’s a three person affair. Don’t ask why.

As we were driving there, I was talking about how the tremor in my right arm and hand has gone off the charts since the recrudescence. Before this relapse, the tremor was only noticeable at certain times. Now it’s constant.

So, I’m sitting in the backseat because the back is easier for me to get in and out of and I kept shoving my right hand clenched in a fist in between my mom in the passenger seat and my sister who is driving. My fist shakes uncontrollably when I do this.

I was literally like a three-year-old kid. “Look. Look, Mom. Can you see? Look at my tremor. See, Mom? Isn’t it so weird? In the moment, I didn’t even think about how obnoxious I was being, but upon reflection I feel gross.

I’m so ashamed to admit it, but I’ve lost some people in my life because of my self-centeredness this year. It breaks my heart to have lost one of my very best friends who I love dearly over what I thought was a misunderstanding. It thought this was something I could clear up when I had the mental, physical, and emotional energy to have a taxing conversation. I waited too long and they blocked me on all social media.

Add this 22-year relationship to the L column along with my independence, my ability to drive, walking “normally,” and once beautiful handwriting.

It’s rough. I feel like since I had the stroke some people see me as only a drain, someone easy to dismiss. I mean, I still have value, right? RIGHT?

So that’w what I wanted to talk about today because it’s been on my mind.

Love from the center of the universe,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

There have been a few curious side effects of having a stroke.

For instance, I no longer need to have coffee every day. I kicked a 20-year caffeine habit on accident. In the beginning making coffee, preparing a cup, and transporting it to the living room was just too much work. This was in the need-a-nap after breakfast days. I kept waiting with dread for the bonkers, all-day unkillable no-caffeine headaches.

They never came.

(Full transparency, I’ve been having coffee again all the time because cold brew is delicious, but I don’t NEED it.)

I lost a bunch of weight, which I have some feelings about that we will continue to explore.

For like two months in a row I slept 8-9 hours in a row without waking up to go to bathroom (alas, those days are over).

Still, even with these positive side effects, I do not recommend having a stroke.

For the record, strokes are the worst and stupid and frustrating and awful.

However. . .
However. . .
However. . .

If you do suffer the great misfortune of having a stroke and racking up $21K in medical debt (the only debt I have aside from my mortgage), I recommend being surrounded by and supported by the most amazing people on earth.

The kindness and generosity showered upon me this week has been humbling & overwhelming.

Not only did 100 people share their money with me,, a lot of them said really nice things.

I have not processed it all yet and so I can’t yet explain what it means to me and how it makes me feel. I’m amazed and dumbfounded and so so so thankful. I feel so unworthy and endlessly grateful.

Thank you so much to everyone who donated, who shared the Go Fund Me, and gave me encouragement. I could cry with love and gratitude for each of you. Fucking Darling Ones indeed.

I’ll start working on thank you cards soon. I might creepily look for your address or you could just send it to me! I swear no nefarious intent. I’m lazy and cannot currently drive.

I love you all!

Jodi

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