December 30th,
2016
This is my 101st post. Wow! I
can’t believe it, and in a way it is the end of this blog. Oh sure I will post when the fancy strikes,
or when I need to say something important, but for now I think this blog has
worked it’s magic.
Those of you who have been following along have no doubt
noticed that I have only posted a few articles this year. There is a reason for that, I have been
working on my first novel and completed it in November. We are now in the editing phase and I hope to
self publish by this summer, Goddess willing.
Of course I will post when it is available. It is called, “We are all a little
broken.” It is a really good book about
two women’s struggle to overcome their abusive past and find their voice with
the help of a loving family, as they come to terms with what their mother has
done to them. It is set here in
Northwest Louisiana. I think you will
enjoy it. I hope to start major work on
the next book next week.
As for me and Jay, we are well. Jay is trying to get his sugar under control,
it is out of wack again. I told him I
think it is the stress, and hustle and bustle of the holidays. I think it will calm down after the first of
the year. His sugar had been doing
really good, but I think he is frustrated.
Team Ilsa is currently in hiatus, every time I start back
up, I get sick. Team Plaisance never got
off the ground. But I am still busy,
cleaning house, and doing my thing.
Our food trailer, Garson duBayou, is doing great. We are
busy, and making good money. Working
lots of events and I have been helping out a lot. In September we were in the local food truck
rally. We were ecstatic to take home
second place, especially since it was our first year to enter.
This fall I started putting in applications for work. I have started with a state program called Louisiana Rehabilitation Services. They help people who have mental and / or
physical disabilities get and keep a job with the accommodations they
need. I have had my orientation, my
intake interview, been sent to a specialist, and at the moment I am awaiting to
hear back on whether or not they can help me.
I am hopeful, but I still fear that my past will come back to bite
me. We will see.
In December of last year Juno left us. She fell in love with a nice man on line and
one night he drove down from New York and came to get her. I have not told you this, because I didn’t
know how the situation would end, and if she would come back to Kay. So we waited.
Juno is happy and has yet to come home.
We wish her the best. Kay
remained in the house and in October we asked her to leave. She did.
The house that was already falling apart, is now beyond what Jay and I
want to deal with and we are in process of tearing it down and turn it into new
and better things. I will let you know
how it turns out.
In late September we made the heart breaking decision to put
Princess down. You can read about all
that went on here, in Homage to Princess.
In May I made the decision to go “No Communication,” with my
mom. You can read about that here in All her sins laid bare. It has not been easy, and there are times
that I miss her, or the idea of a mother, greatly. I was not sure what would happen between me
and Daddy. It took seven months before I
got a response from him, and it was only to ask for my change of address. He didn’t want to start back a relationship
with me. On the phone messages he left
when he said, he loved me and he wanted to visit with me, it was as if they
were after thoughts. As I always do with
these types of major events and decisions in my life, I sought the council of
those wiser then myself, as well as searched my own heart. For what I wanted, and what I needed to do
seemed to be a step too big to take.
I know threw now fault of his own, my mother uses my dad
like a spy. He told me so himself. In those two and a half years that mom and I
did not speak, about nine months in Daddy came back into my life. We would go to dinner, and visit. Just us two.
Dad told me he had to come home and give mom the report on what I wore,
how I looked, how I seemed, what we talked about. Everything I told him I might as well have
been telling her. I made the heart
breaking decision to sever my ties with Daddy, for my own mental health, until
she is either dead or he leaves her. In
my letter I spoke to him as if it was the last thing I would ever say to
him. It was one of the toughest things I
have ever had to do. My pain is still
great and it is not easy to talk about.
Sometimes what we want is not good for us, and it is best for me to stay
away. Self care is an act of survival,
not selfishness.
Your saying to yourself, ‘well maybe he wanted to send you a
letter.’ No, it was a tax bill he wanted to send me. My mother is crazy about mail. So once I gave him my address, she would have
it. She will hound you with cards, and
packages of gifts that you don’t want, and then tell you she has no money for
food. Once you open that flood gate you
can’t go back. We have done this
before. I would tell Dad, “I only want
mail from you.” I would get cards from
her. I would refuse them. Finally I told him, it’s not your hand
writing on the envelope or inside. So he
would address the envelope in a card she had picked out, and then sent from
their home, not where he was working. No
thank you. I have been through this song
and dance before. It is not worth the
anxiety every time I go to the mail box.
And then this little tid bit to just make the wound all that
much worse. I was telling this story to
a family member, who said, and I will paraphrase here, “Oh I remember when you
and your Dad would go to dinner. Your
mom bitched about it the whole time.”
Ouch. It was not my mom was pissed
off my dad was spending $40 bucks to take me to lunch once a week, it was that
he was spending time with me. It was not
that they didn’t have money. I know in
those years he paid over $20,000 just in taxes off the money he made. I didn’t ask for gold, or diamonds, or for
him to pay my bills. I just asked for
time. Time she could not even begrudge
me. Another relationship she is jealous
of. Every time I think she has shown me
how black her heart is, she shows her contempt for me all over again. Is it because I am Beau’s child? Because I look like him? Does she remember me before the surgery? I still have no idea why she wants to do me
like this.
When I think about her I am always reminded of a scene from Ever
After. Cinderella asks her step
mother, “Was there ever a moment, even in its smallest, that you loved
me?” The step mother responds, “How can
you love a pebble in your shoe?” Loving
her is exhausting and gets me nowhere. I
just end up chasing my tail. Even a
beaten dog, still tries to please it’s owner.
Until the day it finally has enough and turns around and bites the crap
out of the one doing the beating.
So 2016 has been a year of change, of emotional growth in
leaps and bounds, and of goals accomplished I did not believe were
possible. I hope the next year is just
as good, but not so emotionally taxing.
So this is our goodbye of sorts. I want to tell all of you that I love you,
and send you all bright blessings no matter where you are on this big, round,
blue, spinning ball, that is drifting through space. In the end this blog produced 160,000 words
in a year and a half, and laid end to end is over 300 pages long. I would love to turn it into an auto
biography, but who would want to read something so boring and trivial. “It’ll never play in Peoria,” as they would
say in vaudeville.
But beside what it produced in numbers of words and pages,
telling you my story, the whole story and nothing but the truth of my life,
created the biggest impact on me and those around me. It made me give my own thoughts and feelings
validation, and I saw so many things from another perspective, and was able to
give forgiveness where it was deserved. It
gave me the courage to establish new relationships, try again at others, and
let go of several toxic relationships. I
think the biggest person I finally forgave was myself. I began to see myself as a survivor, a
thriver, a writer, a mother, a wife, a daughter to two great men, and an
incredible resilient human being who is broken yes, but still has so much to
give.
So from all of us here on my little hill, we wish you a
blessed Yule, and a Happy New Year.
Bright blessings to you and those you love,
Our love,
Ilsa
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