Nothing in Common
After 19 years of marriage I decided it was time to try living on my own. It took another year and a half for me to actually do it. I had married my husband when I was barely out of high school and promptly gave birth to three sons in rapid succession. I won't go into the details of those 19 years. My husband was a good husband and an okay father. After about 10 years I realized that we were two completely different people with absolutely nothing in common except for our sons.
Moving out was the most devastating and liberating thing that I ever did. I first set myself up in a small above-garage apartment. I had no furniture except my bed and my computer. My first night there I sat in the empty living room listening to the sirens in downtown Lake Worth, a far cry from the peaceful cocks crowing in Jupiter Farms. The emotions running through me were a strange and horrible mix of elation, sorrow, and fear. What had I done?
After a few weeks I began to settle in. I had a full-time job with FPL, I saw my sons often, and I discovered the joy of solitude - something I hadn't known in a very long while with three boys and their friends always under foot. In the mornings I would have a cup of coffee on my balcony and then take a walk to the Intercoastal, which was only two blocks from my apartment. My chaotic soul started to slowly heal and slow down to a peaceful pace.
In the silence of that apartment I had plenty of opportunity to look hard at myself. I took advantage of the silence and finished writing the two books on healthcare and childcare in the late 1800's that I had barely begun a few years before. Those two books were published a year later. I renewed my love of poetry and spent hours reading the works of Pound, Rich, Atwood, and others. I decided to return to college.
I spent four months in my sanctuary over the garage. Then I went home. Everyone thought I would be the same, that life would be the same.
The U.S.’s relationship with Cuba has been arduous and stained with mutual suspicion and obstinateness, and the repeated U.S. interventions. The Platt agreement and Castro’s rise to power, served to introduce the years of difficulty to come, while, the embargo the U.S. placed on Cuba, enforced the harsh feelings. The two major events that caused the most problems were the Bays of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis.
I began to go to therapy, I found healthy patterns of taking care of myself, safe ways to take risks, I found communities I belonged in, and the list could go on. After therapy had gone on for awhile, my psychologist and I found it in my best interest to have a psychiatric support/service animal, which soon after she advised and I garnered all the paperwork necessary to have her with me wherever I may wish or need, I did. If you're wondering if I named her what you're thinking, you bet I did, her name is Kuroi. Adopting Kuroi was the biggest positive change in my life, I noticed after that living with depression, with anxiety, with bipolar disorder, with this long list of problems going on inside my mind constantly, that life isn't so awful all the
The Cuban revolution was one that transformed Cuba into an independent socialist society. This revolution sent a message around the globe. The message: “ Socialism can be achieved and capitalism, with its culture stripping mechanism’s can be supplemented”. However, the revolution did leave its mark on Cuba. This can be seen in the events that took place during the early stages of the revolution. The effects of the revolution were positive for certain sections of the population and negative for others.
Before the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. military ruled Cuba when the island became a republic. Throughout the 1800’s, Cubans were revolting against Spanish rule, and in 1898, America helped defeat the Spanish. Since the United States and Cuba were so close, the U.S often intervened with Cuba’s domestic affairs. In 1959, Fidel Castro influenced a revolution, overthrowing Batista. Fidel Castro then switched Cuba’s government to communism and became close with the Soviet Union, which restricted ties with the U.S. Soon after, the United States terminated diplomatic interactions, minimizing their economic relations with Cuba. After the Cuban Revolution, Raúl Castro Ruz became the new leader of Cuba- and still is today. Relations between the U.S. and Cuba are still sparse. Travelers from the United States are still not allowed to vacation to Cuba du...
things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or
The Cuban Revolution created great changes to Cuba’s government and world relations. For a long time before, Cuba had wanted independence from Spain, and after it was acquired, many reforms ensued. To today, the Cuban Revolution changed the U.S.’s stance on Cuba, Cuba’s world relations, and it’s present-day government.
Suddenly, I was put out of my “comfort” zone. Because my dad got a new job, I moved from a small city called Eugene to a big city called Portland. Me, along with my four other siblings, were put into a tiny private school with
Although the comparisons are well hidden, both today’s society and the story ‘Harrison Bergeron’ share similar qualities. They both deal with equality, which leads to problems and consequences. A second similarity is the struggle of competition and trying to prevent it from occurring, which also leads to problems. Lastly, both struggle with normality, and the fact that it’s hard to accept that different is okay now.
I sat in my friend's Oldsmobile with her three year old in the car seat resting in the back, as we traveled down the street towards my former residence behind the city park. My friend, Sarah, now a MOM, was eager to show me the transformation to the front of my old home. She kept saying, that I would never believe it as we approached the house, I could only see bareness. All of the bushes, flowers, and gardens that surrounded the house were removed. The windows appeared naked without curtains or blinds to dress them. Disappointment and disgust ran through my veins as I thought about the care and attention my mother had given to our home only to be stripped of it all by the new occupants. What a bad sale my parents had made!
Let the stream begin. Some body, some things, life and me, communicated the idea to talk now, not to leave it, to stay, and face up to the past, the places, the people, the pain, the many reasons why I left my home and family, all those years ago, to become a drug addict, an alcoholic, a wanderer, move nomadically from house to house, year to year, to live inside a prison, real and imaginary. I met hell. I met the devil. I met them both inside my head. I found out the hard way that humans could easily imagine evil. The path forward comes from the push to write and to deal. Yes, I felt happy in between the miserable spaces. My family helped me to survive and still do now, even more so than before. Without them, I would not exist, for in the darkest moments I realised that they kept me breathing. I want the virtual picket fence, ideal partner, children and career. They may or may not eventuate. Now as I regroup, look upon me with sober, straight and clear eyes, I can have anything. I walk to a lake, to sense nature, to allow the anxiety to live on these pages, to take shape, and mould into a form that speaks atonement.
For many years I would pass by the house and long to stop and look at it. One day I realized that the house was just that, a house. While it served as a physical reminder of my childhood, the actual memories and experiences I had growing up there were what mattered, and they would stay with me forever.
Katharine Butler Hathaway once said, “A person needs at intervals to separate from family and companions and go to new places. One must go without familiars in order to be open to influences, to change.” In doing this, I broadened my horizons and changed my outlook on life. Now, as I move on to college, I am leaving my family and friends again to educate and better myself so that I am prepared to walk down any path on the road of life.
It was new years day, and the sun had just arisen when I felt this feeling inside me saying, what am I doing here, but even more importantly, how would I get out. The realization was scary, but I know that without it, my life would not have been at where it is now. I feel that with this experience, my mentality grew and now I see the world in a different way. It all started in high school, where I felt that all the attention I got during that time was for the façade that was reverted to the people, and not the real me because no one knew the real me. I had to lie about everything I had done and who I am just because one lie lead to another. The area I grew up in has really impacted my life in both positive and negative ways. For one, it helped
Everything seems like it’s falling out of place, it’s going too fast, and my mind is out of control. I think these thoughts as I lay on my new bed, in my new room, in this new house, in this new city, wondering how I got to this place. “My life was fine,” I say to myself, “I didn’t want to go.” Thinking back I wonder how my father felt as he came home to the house in Stockton, knowing his wife and kids left to San Diego to live a new life. Every time that thought comes to my mind, it feels as if I’m carrying a ten ton boulder around my heart; weighing me down with guilt. The thought is blocked out as I close my eyes, picturing my old room; I see the light brown walls again and the vacation pictures of the Florida and camping trip stapled to them. I can see the photo of me on the ice rink with my friends and the desk that I built with my own hands. I see my bed; it still has my checkered blue and green blanket on it! Across from the room stands my bulky gray television with its back facing the black curtain covered closet. My emotions run deep, sadness rages through my body with a wave of regret. As I open my eyes I see this new place in San Diego, one large black covered bed and a small wooden nightstand that sits next to a similar closet like in my old room. When I was told we would be moving to San Diego, I was silenced from the decision.
At the age of 36, mom decided to return back to college to obtain her nursing degree. This wasn’t a hard decision for her to make. The April before she enrolled in school my great grandmother passed away. This major dilemma played a major role in mom’s returning back to school. She had taken care of my great grandmother for months before she passed away, and decided that she wanted to make an impact on the lives of geriatrics.