Economic Times

I ran into someone that I have not seen for a while. He is a social worker for a non-profit organization here in town. He is a pleasant enough fella and we have always gotten along. He has gotten his clinical social worker license and is beginning to branch out with his own practice with a another set of practitioners although part time. He was very excited about the prospect of self-employment although the competition is very stiff. He was looking into the future of some day working full time on his own. There were times, he chaffed at working under people who did not have the same point of view of social work as he did and his present employers were very much caught in the past of where social work was 50 years ago. For instance, they did not work cooperatively with other agencies and groups such as the 12 step programs which my friend liked to use.

He was ill since I last saw him but well on the road to recovery. He said his wife was still teaching school at a small school in the mountains and they decided to live closer to her job than to his although she had been working there only for a short time. She is a special education teacher and at the time they thought her job was secure, but now they are not so sure and are worried about it. She is a specialist in working with children who have troubles with reading problems especially those with autism. There are still plenty of students who need her help, but there are funding problems due to the economics of the times. The house that they bought really needs two salaries to maintain which is another reason he had to work part time, but it does not pay very much. They don't have children.

Times are hard here in this area and all over the state of California. There are many places all over the United States that are in trouble. If my friend's wife loses her job, there is a chance they might lose their house to foreclosure. There are many houses for sale in my area that are in that situation. No one has the money to buy. The price of the houses are not enough to pay off the note. My friend bought his house when times were good. One person I know has a wife who might join the Army just to make enough money since she can't find work here. Her husband is making money at his job but it isn't enough. It takes two people to make enough to support a family now. Many people are sitting on their hands and hoping that the president can pull off a miracle but he is fighting the GOP and the realities of a bad economic situation.

As for my friend, he has hopes for the future if he can hold on long enough in his present situation. I do too. It is a matter of living one day at a time. In order to help balance the budget programs such as Headstart, Planned Parenthood and other such programs are taking a hit. It isn't just the people they serve that will suffer but the people who work for them. Schools are taking a hit. Everyone who lived on the edge of poverty are taking a hit. Seniors are taking a hit since their programs are in trouble too. I heard the president of the local community college said that he finally got some buildings up but now faces the fact he has no money to pay for the new classes he needs to get going to train people for new employment. I see the wheel of poverty growing bigger and bigger and it is grinding more and more people down.

There are good things happening out there. Gay rights is better than it was two years ago. The economy was saved from disaster two years ago. It isn't over yet. On a personal note, I am healthier than I was when I started this blog, but I gained some weight back although not much. I am fighting the Veterans Administration for help in this. I am working out at a gym. My friend is working each day at a time as that is all any of us can do.

Facebook

I go to the Veterans Clinic for all of my medical needs and have since 1970. I have been more than satisfied by the medical services of the clinics and hospitals, but the mental health part of the VA really sucks. When I see the VA trying to reach out to those with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which I have, I see red. I have written letters and did everything I could not to get money but to get therapy. I have done most on my own treatment with journals and reading of self-help books and paid for my own therapy. I have been fighting them since the Viet Nam War without success. The claims that I filed were so bad, they became traumatic in themselves and I will never attempt them again. Even my sons and friends who were with me agree.

On my Facebook Page, there was a statement from the Veterans Administration that they are really having success in reaching veterans. I had once said that I liked them which I do for my medical needs. I said they were horrible in reaching out to veterans. Well, for the last few days I have been getting phone calls from my doctors here in Redding asking me if everything was alright. It seems someone read my statement. They did not read my letters nor anything else I did in official channels but did read my Facebook complaint.

I still have not resolved the problem, but I did get a suggestion from one of my doctors which I will follow through next week. I will also look up the Veterans Administration on Facebook and let them know that I love my medical treatment there and in fact they saved my life on more than a few occasions. Who would have figured the government reads my Facebook statements?

Cold sex vs. friendship

A friend and I talked about the subject of sex and the senior citizen. Many people think that seniors don't think about it and don't enjoy the occasional romp between the sheets anymore. I thought that it was something of the past for me and never did think about it regarding others. When I started to date lately, I was astonished to find that some senior men are pretty frisky in bed at that age and that I was still capable of enjoying myself.

My friend said that many married women in their latter years have to make do with no sex at all from their husbands for a variety of reasons. When I said that I was not happy with the sex I was getting from my new beau, she collapsed against a wall and said she really envied me. She also said that most women would envy me as well. I can still see her, and I wonder if she really would if that sex was cold. Cold sex is great sex but unemotional sex and there is no romance in it at all. There is no love. I would rather date my hand.

I am a writer and write about sexual themes and it is enjoyable. I like to look at good looking men and flirt with them within reason. They know I mean nothing by it. I enjoy remembering some good times in bed and I always like watching actors that I like in movies. I have my favorites such as Sam Neill and Terence Stamp (whether he is playing a man or a woman makes no difference).

But if I am going to have sex again, and I never know at this age when the next opportunity will arise, I would rather have some warm loving and fumbling sex than masterful but cold sex anytime. Cold sex leaves the body satisfied but the heart empty and cold. I think sex is more than exchanging bodily fluids. It is a sharing of the things that make two people feel alive no matter what the sexual orientation is.

Be careful what you wish for...

I wrote about this before. I wished for more adventure in my life and then I was on my way to Korea. Then I wished for more friends and then not only am I meeting wonderful people but I have been dating a delightful man. The only downside is that I need to establish boundaries so I can have time to do my writing. That has been suffering of late, but my love life has been wonderful. I thought that part of my life was over. Again, be careful what you wish for.

I checked some books out of the library and they have been useful in helping me learn to establish boundaries instead of building walls. I think that is what I have been doing for years. Also, the books which I will list later are wonderful in helping me learn about anger for past events in my life. Thank goodness for the library and the Internet.

I have been looking at people and beginning to see them for who they are and not for who I want them to be. I did not even know I did that. Gee, it took so long for me to learn that. Being retired gives me the time to learn so much about myself and others. I can see why the independently wealthy were the ones who could become the philosophers and thinkers. Everyone else was too busy trying to make a living.

I think I saw my new boyfriend with someone new today, and I think I was relieved as I need the time to do the other things I got going. He is a very nice man, but he does not like being alone. That was beginning to be a problem for me. I need the time alone to get some work done and I am expanding my interests in other areas such as League of Women Voters. I have been making friends with some wonderful women who share some of the same interests as I do. I think I have been gaining weight because of the dinners the new boyfriend has been taking me to. I only eat one meal a day and I have been eating more than that. Well, you know what they say about men at least for heterosexual women, they are like buses and there are always another one along. Of course the last bus I caught was in Korea and that was a surprise as well. I am not going to worry about it.

Question Authority

"Let me listen to me and not to them."
– Gertrude Stein

This is a theme I return time and time again here on these blogs. I wish I could tell everyone this one message and stress the importance of it. We must and should not listen to anyone else but ourselves. I am not saying we should not consider other people's words and messages, but that is the point. We should consider them and then evaluate them and either accept them or throw them out. The one person we should really listen to is ourselves. This also means we should question authority, anyone's authority.

I know religious people who run everything through a Bible or a person in that community, a person of authority. Yet, everyone has a Spiritual Center that ls living inside of them and these same people don't even consider using this living link with the Almighty. They look at the words of some old men written, mistranslated and then mistranslated again over centuries as their answers instead of using the living connection they themselves have. I am not saying if one is a Christian one should ignore the Bible. I am just writing here that one should not ignore what is alive and living within oneself. Martin Luther nailed a series of statements on a church door and one of them stated that no man had the right to stand between a human and God. That means no man should stand as a person of authority and tell another person what to believe. We all have a direct connection to the Spiritual Center.

I write all of this down and yet I forget it too. I wonder how I am going to deal with this problem or that such as my son and getting a system going of dealing with my financial situation. I have the answers within. I need to listen to myself first and then to consider what others might suggest, but I should not leave myself out of the equation.

I think the reason so many of us don't trust ourselves is that we are taught to do that. We are taught that teachers, members of government, parents, anyone with authority know better. That is how society stays in power. I think we should live as well as we can in the group,but as the bumper sticker says, "question authority" by listening to ourselves.

Listening to myself

"Let me listen to me and not to them."
– Gertrude Stein

Boundaries

I have always had boundary issues, but several years ago I had done some voluntary work for a senior citizen non-profit agency. It all started when I said I would help teach computer classes to the seniors and ended up in charge of the program. Then I was asked to help with keeping the meetings in line with Robert's Rules of Order since I knew them so well because I had years of service in an union. One job kept multiplying into another, and I ended up in the midst of a political nest that I thought I left when I retired from state service.

It seems for many people when they retired, or at least this is my impression, they do not have enough to do. Volunteering is a serious business and I live in a very conservative town and thus the agency I was volunteering is very conservative. People were fighting for every job they could get even if they did not always know how to do it. By my doing those jobs that I was asked, I was taking away from those who saw them as their life's blood. No one was being paid. I was seen as not fitting in and taking away from those who did. It did not matter that I knew how to do the duties that I was asked to do. I did. I taught computers and ran workshops for years.

There was a third factor, I retired from state service because I was tired of fighting the system and wanted more time to do the work I wanted to do. I was tired of politics. I did not know how to get out of going to work at a non-profit agency in which I had to fight to do work I did not get paid to do. It was on a Valentine's Day that I decided to write myself a Valentine's Letter and to quit that agency. What I did not know was there were several other people in the same predicament as I was. When I handed in my letter, they did as well. I never went back and I have seen some of them from time to time and they said they did the same. They said they wished they could have all signed my letter with me.

We all give Valentines to the ones we love, but sometimes we forget to give them to ourselves. It was the best Valentine I ever gave myself.

Update

I have been running around and not staying at home. I can't blog when I am not home although I can read posts from my phone. I just read the news and that is about all. Many things happened while I was running out in the woods and mountains of California. I needed the break, I think. I listen to music for the most part and wrote in my journal and read. I also did some sketching.

I made some friends at a meeting I decided to attend at the local public health department this past week about making healthy choices. I thought the material being presented was pretty good. I had met someone who was there before when I was more politically involved but she forgot which is understandable. She is still active in politics although I am not. I am far more active in writing now. I admire her stance on many things and her sense of freedom that she exhibits in doing what she wants to do in her life. She has mentioned going out to lunch again which we did after the first meeting I attended.

There was another meeting I decided to go to regarding writers but it was a workshop for those who never started their writing careers. There were a few people there that were on the same level as I was and left at the break. I could tell it was someone who made her living doing workshops as she was a poet and poetry does not pay. It is a shame but it doesn't. It never did. Poets were those who had independent means. Many people think it is easy to write verse, but I know it is not. I did not pay any money for the workshop so I should not have felt angry or depressed; but I did. I had high hopes of getting information I needed and wanted. There was one man there who was self-published and I told him that there was no reason for him to be so. He was a Christian writer writing in an area where there are good strong markets. He should submit and educate himself how to do so on the Internet and Writers Market at Barnes and Noble. He needs to do what all writers do. He said he was going to do that.

It was that meeting at the public health department and the lunch that got me thinking about my own choices. I need to stop my decent into inactivity which has been happening of late. I don't know how to do it. The woman I had lunch with has a husband but does not use that fact as a excuse to stop her from living her life the way she wants to. As for where I want to go, I know. I want to go deeper into writing and to stop this trend towards inactivity. I think I need to make more plans and follow up on them.

The good thing is that I am not at square one as I was a year ago so that is good. I need to get a plan going and the classes that the local public health department is doing is very helpful and listening to the woman who forged her own pathway is another way of doing that. None of us are alone out there. There are other people who have gone before us and there are tools out there to help us. I just have to ask the Cosmos for help and I will get it. I should know that by know.

Gratitude Glances

Gratitude Glances

Many years ago as a teenager, I read a book or an article in a magazine about looking for something to admire everyday that would make it worthwhile living up that day. In those days, life seemed endless and the days ahead of me stretched out into infinity. Still, I thought it was a nice thought and did it from time to time occasionally registering one scene that was spectacular in my journal.

In middle age, I began to do it more often and with more of an earnest application. I had already seen many friends that I used to have over the years make that final journey to the cemetery. I had narrowly escaped myself. Living up to a certain day began to mean more.

Looking for those gratitude glances, I used to wait for those sunsets that would light up the sky with many brilliant colors, trees with fantastic blossoms in a field of flowers under brilliant blue skies, bellowing clouds filled with power and awesome beauty that would life the hair off the arms. Now, it can be a single tree surrounded by the rough hew-like rocks of a cliff, the colors of green pine trees against a very blue lake high in the mountains, a perfect blossom alone against a abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. Those scenes just come out and you look at them and know, your life was worth living up to that day for that one scene.

I have heard the saying that youth is wasted on the young. When I was younger, I never really understood that at all. Now that I am a retired old lady, I understand it only too well. Beauty was wasted on me as a young person too. The 'gratitude glances' have so much more meaning to me now than they did when I was younger. I have plenty of those scenes that I cherish in my mind such as my children playing in the yard in the evening among the fireflies as I sat out there watching them. I am so glad I took the time to do that. I also enjoy my grandchildren now.

It seems the scenes I see now are so much more inspiring and magnificent than ever because they are enriched with the memories of the past. If I watch a flock of birds fly over the railroad trestle under a setting sun, I am also reminded of the first memory I have in my life of the same trestle and I was just under 2 years old. I can throw amazement into that scene. I am very grateful to have lived this long to have seen that. Of course, I am grateful I woke up this morning. One day, I won't. Everyone living on this planet right now won't be here 100 years from now. That is a fact of life.

New hair

My son installed shower bars yesterday and I did something I have been thinking about doing for a long time. I changed by hair color back to the original without the gray and white. I wanted to make sure if I was standing in my shower I could hang onto something as I washed the gunk off my hair. I have not changed my hair color for many years and I was in for a pleasant shock.

Years ago, when I changed my hair, no matter what the brand was if one had white or gray, then part of your hair had a different color than the rest of your hair. I was not looking forward to trying that again. Then a few times on television I saw a brand being advertised just for people like me who was heavily gray and losing that battle everyday to white. At first, I like the small amounts of gray and white; but I did not like it anymore.

I don't know if I like the color that I bought, a medium warm brown, and may go lighter next time, but I am pleased with the overall effect. I also was surprised how different I looked. This morning I looked in the mirror and almost did not recognize myself.

I guess I did not like the large amount of white hair that was coming in. I wasn't ready for it yet. I am lucky in that I don't have the wrinkles. I inherited my mother's skin and that we don't show our age there. Why should I let my hair get older than the rest of me?

I am still battling my overweight and will be heading out to the gym shortly. My foot is still sore but in a different part of the foot which to me is a bit weird. I must be doing something with it that I don't know about. I have an appointment with the foot doctor on the first of March.

I was remembering a girl from my youth who was very conceited about her looks. One of the things she was the most vain about was her hair. She wore it in a long pageboy which was very popular then. It was golden blond. She had beautiful skin, a nice figure, regular features and her father owned a restaurant and bar that made good money. She dressed well. She would be my age now. I wondered if she walked like that old woman at the Senior Center. The old woman walked like a beauty queen except she was 70 years old. With the shortage of men, her husband had long been gone through death or divorce and no man was lusting after her. Younger men were looking at younger women. I could tell she thought all eyes were on her but I was looking because I was looking at a woman who was conceited about something she happened to be born with. She had something that was no longer prized as she was too long in the tooth, so to speak.She did not know it. Hopefully, she never learns. She seems so happy in her ignorance.

There are a lot of people who are conceited about something they were given and did not earn. There are young people who think the world is theirs and that everyone envies them and in some way some do. They haven't realized that youth is fleeting and soon it will be gone. I guess I thought so too. One of the advantages in always having weight problems is you don't miss what you never had. I had two parents who were breathtakingly beautiful and never got over losing it. They never developed what should have been there when the surface beauty was gone. They became bitter.

None of us stay young. I discovered I can keep the gray and white out of my hair for just a bit longer but the wrinkles will come. Nothing will keep those away. Maybe at that point I will be more like a zebra again except the dark stripes will be less pronounced. It will hurt from time to time to move but keeping in shape helps with that. I learned that in Korea. Eating less helps keep the pounds off. Getting help in managing bills is something that helps too. Laughing at the foolish things I do everyday is better than crying about it or blaming someone else. Being conceited about something I was born with is just plain silly since what comes easily goes just as easily. I know a writer who is very good but has early onset Alzheimer's disease. His enormous intellect will be gone as his medications is slowing but not stopping it. In Buddhism and just plain common sense, nothing ever stops change. Ahh....

Bouncing off other blogs

I do a lot of bouncing off other blogs. Today, I just bounced off one blog in which the blogger said she was having the same old Monday she always has, boring. Well, I guess it depends on the karma trail one travels on because I have never traveled on a life that was boring and that included many Mondays. It is always different and it is always exciting and I never seem to get any rest. Trust me, I am not bragging. This sort of thing gets very old.

All last night, I kept having the same dream in which I was editing it. That, to the best of my knowledge, has never happened before. I was editing my dream. Or I was living a "Ground Hog " movie. That is what happens when I work too late. It was not a bad dream and in all honesty I don't even remember it except that I would dream it one way and then start all over again to see if it worked better.

I learned last year to be very careful what one wishes for. You might get it. That one blogger might just get a more interesting life. She might get up and pull the blinds and see a scene that she had never seen before from her bedroom window that she had been looking out since 1997. That happened to be this morning. Actually, it was a cloud formation that was highly unusual and very beautiful but then our weather here in the North State has been very unusual. The winter seems to have gone East for the winter, so to speak. Summer has come early.

I went to the lake with a friend yesterday and we saw some unusual things there too. It was warm there as well and we had to remove our jackets which was nice as it is early February and there were more people there than usual. In February, Whiskeytown Lake has next to no one out there. We saw a few sailboats out on the lake and a few motorboats. That is not common as the lake is low this time of the year. The sky was blue with a few white clouds. Even the animals which are usual out there were gone except the birds. Both of us were sketching and drinking coffee from a thermos. We saw eagles and hawks which is also unusual and my friend had his camera and was taking pictures. All of this was done on a Sunday that had a big football game. It was very unusual.

I have a few things to do today that I normally don't do and some things I am going to do differently. I am going to the gym but won't be doing the classes as they are too much for me right now as my one foot is sore for some reason. I am going to the Veterans Administration Clinic for a test and then to lunch although I am not sure where.

I wrote in here the other day that I had a friend named Ted. He told me that many people in AA consider their Higher Power, Starbucks. He is a big believer in the 12 Step Program and attends meetings where ever he goes. One time he had to go to Greenland for something that I forgot and found plenty of meetings he could attend. I wish I could remember why he has to go to Greenland because he wrote me an email last month that he was going again. Why would anyone go there? Surely, it is not a vacation spot. I must be having a 'youth moment' because I can't remember.

I went to Starbucks alone yesterday for coffee with my music and had a grand time and might go back today. I took a book I was reading and a journal and did my own thing and enjoyed it along with the coffee. They have refills now for 50 cents. It is next to where I get my hair cut.

In my whole life, life has never been boring or the same for any stretch of time. The only reason I ever hated Mondays was that I had a day job that I hated to go to. I liked my job but not the people I worked for. They had some issues that made them do things that were strange and very unpredictable. My supervisor never bathed and no one wanted to get close to him. He was desperately unhappy which surprised no one. The police often found him asleep in his car in different places of the North State because I guess he did not want to go home. Many of us were afraid he would kill himself at work, and if he used a gun he might miss and he might shoot one of us. He would hear conversations that no one else did between one of us and other people that just did not happen and they were strange conversations. One of them, he complained to me about, was about the man's illegitimate birth. The higher ups would not do anything about him. They had shipped him to our part of the state to get rid of him.

Finally, a day came when I could retire from that job and I looked forward to living at home in sameness but that never happened either. It was one crisis with my sons or friends after another and then I went to Korea where I was kept a prisoner for a while but escaped. Then it was great but not boring.

I never look for excitement. It looks for me. Ted says that the trick is to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. He says his life has always been like mine. Strange and odd things are always happening to him except he gets to write about it. People sometimes accuse him of making it up. He loves it when they do. He got shot with an arrow once in New York City by an ex-lover in Times Square. He showed one person the scar during a book signing and the newspaper article from The New York Times. People actually clapped when he did. He had to pull down his pants to show his ass and he was wearing his St. Patrick Day shorts. They could have been clapping for that. He put the whole thing in an article.

What did Confucius say was the worse curse you can give: "May you live in exciting times" although he did not say it in English. I wish the Blogger would have an exciting Monday.

Past Lives

The conversation that I had yesterday with Ted really upset me. That usually happens when I hit some of the truth in my life. I don't really want to look into it and overate in the evening after Ted left. That is always a sure sign something very disturbing is being dug up from the unconscious. Why should the biggest unknown be within each of ourselves? Heck with outer-space with its unknown planets and star systems.

It also bothers me that it took so long for me to get to it. Of course, I am doing my own therapy so I can't be faulted that I am wandering around trying all kinds of doors and wondering which door to open. It's not as if I received extensive training on how to do it. What is ironic is the fact that I have been in therapy for years and never got much accomplished except when I am doing it myself. Thank goodness I have lived long enough to get this far. Still, I really don't know what I am doing.

Ted said the same thing yesterday. He does a lot of writing meditation as I do. He keeps writing and writing until he sees the bottom of something and then keeps right at it. The thing he always dreams about is he envisions a time when he will get to the bottom of whatever ails him and wakes up as a well adjusted human being. Unfortunately, he tells me, when he gets to the bottom of something it is always just the top of another layer and there is another one underneath it. He says it is just as well because if he wakes up well adjusted he would have to find another way of making a living since writing memoirs is all he knows to do and he doesn't want to go back into advertising.

I am not as good at writing memoirs as Ted is. Still, I enjoy reading his books. Evidently, many people do. People also interview him on radio and television and has quite a following. That can be a problem since there has been times he gets recognized which is why we end up in my room and not in restaurants. He also has weight issues as I do and can't resist the desert tray. He knows I can't eat gluten and will not have any here.

I envy his ability to put his anger out there where people can read about it. When he first started to write, his mother didn't even relate to anything he wrote being about her. She said she read it but she was also still drinking and never did stop so everything she read of his was through an alcoholic haze. She just told him that everyone thought it was funny and I guess no one told her that a lot of it was about her. She divorced his father as he hated her and the frequent police reports and spells in prison taught her that. Ted really had trouble with the fact she never divorced him for beating up and burning him but for causing her problems. He put all of that stuff out there on paper and he did put all of it down in a very funny way so that instead of being shocked at the extent humans can be cruel to their own children, the readers laughed with the author at the absurdity of life. That is an awesome talent.

I, on the other hand, do not like peeking under the covers of my past lives even if it is for my benefit. I have never written a memoir although I have written lots of journals. I think I have a great sense of humor, but it is hard to laugh at one's dysfunctional family background as Ted can and write about it in an engaging way. That is why his books sell so well.

Ted told me about a man he knew who made darn few friends in his life. He made two. One was a woman who he married and the other was his best friend. He was into his life with these three friends when two of them ran off together. This man didn't know what hit him. Ted said when the guy told him what happened he could hardly contain himself from laughing because the whole situation was so "fucking funny". "Here you have this really awesome doctor who is really good at his job, cares about his patients unlike so many other doctors and thinks his life is going well and thinks he is so fortunate that he has a best friend and a wonderful wife and then they run off together and now he has no one. If anyone illustrates that life is a bummer it is him. It's a damn shame he has no sense of humor. Its so funny. " It sounded like a Greek Tragedy not a comedy routine, but that is Ted for you.

He did like aspects of my situation and did not incorporate any of it in his own story since there was enough of it that was true to use. He did laugh at it which really did help as I learned to laugh at my own situation which is funny too. I told him that the Veterans Administration now has me under investigation to see if I can take care of my own financial situation except they told my son and not me. That is a big hint that they are leaning towards his point of view. I have yet to hear from them and they have my correct phone number and address. The VA is run by men so I never did stand a chance with them anyhow. Medically, they do an outstanding job and that is what counts.

Ted is Canadian and thinks my original plan to move to Canada is a good one. There I can start a new life and be without all of the problems that I have here. He still thinks he will live forever. I don't. Still, he has a point and I have not made up my mind. I think the focus of action does rest with me as he thinks he is responsible for his life as well. At least no one will be putting me in a home without my consent as they used to do to women years ago. Writers and artists are different enough that we stand out in a crowd. There were always professionals that thought people should act like everyone else.

In the meantime, I do have to do my work and open that door a bit wider and figure out why I do the things I do so I can get better. I know I won't like what I find, but it is necessary so I can get a better control over my bills and the larger picture, my financial picture.

Structure and bill paying

I have a delightful friend who writes memoirs and they are really very funny. He was over at my house this afternoon and saw some letters that were sitting on my desk. None of them were opened. He started to laugh at me. He said he did that all of the time. He had plenty of money to pay his bills, but he rarely opened the bills. He gets his utilities cut off. If he can't put his payments on a regular bill payment schedule on his banking on line service they don't get paid, and he tries to do otherwise all of the time. He lived in a very unstructured life growing up and he is convinced for some reason it gave him a pattern that he could never shake himself out of.

I used to be much worse than I am now. I am better in that I have paid off some bills and do not create new ones. Still, I tend to delay opening bills. I, too, had a life where there was no structure. My father had bipolar disease and I never knew what kind of a mood he would be when I came home and he was there too. He affected how my mother was to a large degree. She could be quiet and unassuming in manner or a raging lunatic full of anger but only if my father was not there. She never said a word of anger to him as he was apt to attack her and he could be very dangerous when he did. He also was an alcoholic which did not help matters at all.

I asked my friend Ted, why that would make a difference. He answered: "Beats me, but it did. My father could turn on me on a dime. My mother never did anything because she was always drunk. Then I had a whole range of funny uncles I was always running from."

"Do you think the only structure that ever made sense was the one we created in ourselves?" I asked him. It was always those in authority who was making trouble for us. I never trusted anyone in authority."

"I agree. Neither did I. "

"But what did that had to do with not paying the bills. I had trouble doing homework too. Anything that had a deadline I just could not do it. Luckily, I cured myself on the homework problem. Otherwise, I would not have gotten through college." I said. "Something inside of me tells me that the homework problem and not doing the bills are related although I don't know why."

"That's because you hate them. You hate all of the sons of a guns. You hate all of the adults that knew what you were going through but never lifted a finger to help. They just stood there and let it happen to you. No one cared that your own family were beating the crap out of you. They were too busy with their own lives not to do the job they were paid to do. Men were in charge and could do anything they wanted to children and wives. If I didn't develop a sense of humor I would have died. My own father tried to kill me so many times I lost count. "

"Ted, I still don't know why I can't open a bill and pay the damn thing and why they are connected. "

"Everyone wants what they want, when they want and they hell with what we want. " He said.

"That was years and years ago. I know I am older than you but you are not that far behind me. Your parents are as dead as mine are. I still don't know the tie-in."

"Neither do I. I guess if I paid all of my bills, no one would want me. At least someone out there wants something from me even if it is the electric company. I often don't think I am real. I lived my life telling myself that my life was not real. I was split into pieces and I did not know what was real and I had a suspicion that if I ignore it it would go away. For the most part it did. I wanted the beautiful part and I lived in the ugly part. That is why I love the country when there are no human beings in it. I had no one in my system that paid the bills. I was split into parts and none of them was a CPA. Everyone was scared of saying no because to say no meant to be beaten. So when someone wanted money, I said yes even if it was a five year old kid. To escape being asked, I just did not open the mail. "

"It looks like both of us have work to do."

"Yeh, it does. I wish I could find a therapist who would work with writers who have DID or different personalities but most are afraid of us. They think we are serial killers. "

"I don't have the money reserves as you do, but no one in the Veteran Administration will help me with this problem. They are stretched fairly thin right now. " I said. "I still can't understand why having a life without much structure and bill paying is related, but I do understand it more now. "

Ted said: "It's like everything else. We have to fix it ourselves or be rich or not sick in the first place. "