Externships are Out

In 5 weeks, I am heading to a hospital pharmacy for my 6 week externship. A coveted spot that could open doors to hospital positions across the valley. Or perhaps, there if I am a good fit and do well.

Not About Me, Well Okay its a Little About Me

AWOP- Butches

But then there is Margo Moon and the Left-Wing Nuts READ HER FIRST

Its Not Just Shakespeare

I have been married twice. 7 years to the father of my first two children. The divorce had nothing to do with my sexuality. It had everything to do with verbal abuse, the need to create lame explanations for bruises, and because I was tired of finding drugs hidden in stupid places, like under our claw foot bathtub. I finally had enough and I filed for divorce.

My second marriage was 8 years, and he gave me two more beautiful children. That divorce is all on me. Regardless of all his quirks and imperfections, it had nothing to do with him. I am a lesbian, I didn't begin to figure it out until after our second baby was born and truthfully, I would still be married to him if I hadn't realized that my deep unhappiness and disinterest in being intimate wasn't because I was emotionally broken and unfixable. Why I couldn't have had this revelation at some other time in my life, I don't know. Believe me, I have asked the universe more than once. And to clarify, when I use the word revelation, I don't mean it was a sudden knowing. It had layers of discoveries and insights. Late blooming lesbians are like onions, and ogres I guess.

Regardless of why the divorces happened, I grieved the loss of the "happily ever after" that always comes with the promises of the love and cherishing parts. I grieved the fracture in family dynamics. I grieved for my children who would have to learn lessons which even grown ups are often not ready to learn. I know my children grieved and I believe both my ex-husbands grieved as well.

Many have said that leaving my first husband was understandable and reasonable but they hold back with their absolution of my decision to come out during my second marriage. They accuse me of dishonesty in my decision to be married again. Even when I explain to them that I had absolutely no idea I was gay before the marriage. They don't buy it, I can tell. Sometimes people attribute my tendencies to just having a one time crush on someone, it didn't mean I was REALLY gay, rather just a bored housewife. I can't convince them I had been peeling layers off my onion long before the word lesbian even entered my vocabulary let alone having an actual woman enter my life. Then of course, I have been told that if I had just put more effort into my marital bedroom activities, the word lesbian would have never entered my vocabulary in the first place. "Fake it 'till you make it." I know its a saying. I know that it can apply in some areas of people's lives. But sexual orientation is NOT one of those areas. At least not for me. I have faked sexual pleasure for decades, I never made it.

Was it the right decision to come out while I was married? Should I have waited until the children were all grown up? ~or~ Would it be the right decision to live closeted and make my husband endure a life without the full experience of being married to a woman who wanted him the way he deserved to be wanted? Would my children be better off with a mother who struggled with such a deep internal depression that it would seep into every area of her life, including parenting them? I guess its all in the way one asks the question and where an individual holds their convictions, exposure, GLBT education and compassion.

Finally, I have arrived at a place in my life where I have settled some of those questions for myself. I accept the responsibility for all the pain I caused my husband, children and extended family by coming out and causing the dissolution of my marriage. I will also take the responsibility for teaching my children that "to thine own self be true" is not just Shakespeare, nor a sign of selfishness but instead, a matter of survival of their spirit. I will take on the responsibility to teach them the importance of compassion, acceptance and forgiveness. And ultimately, I want to teach them it's their own responsibility to find happiness in their lives so the less time they have to spend peeling layers off their onion, the less tears they will have to shed and the more time they will have to be happy.

~nina~
*my muse sat in the car with me one early morning and made sure i was paying attention to Niccole Blaze singing this song. inspiration is a spiritual connection to you and the bigger circle that is a collective of heartache and joy in the hearts and minds of all people.






Fairytale Land

Walked into a pawn shop and looked beneath the glass
Were all these wedding rings, promises of the past
Each one told a story, a moment of true glory.

The woman that gave it the shine
The fella that spent his last dime

I want to know where they are now
Did their hearts ever mend?
Does time get you over the pain
Or does a piece of it linger?
I stare at my own naked finger

How can something so precious
Completely go to waste
And wind up under the glass
In some display case?
And all the smiles that ring
Must have brought
Doesn't matter a thing
For the price and the loss.

And I want to know where fairy tale land really is!
And happy ever after
I want to know who the prince is
That kissed the lonely frog

REPEAT

Does he have time for one more kiss
One more kiss?

Niccole Blaze

www.blazenkelly

525,600 pages....

525,600 pharmaceutical terms,
525,600 pages,
How do you measure two years of my life?




12 weeks this book will be my companion until I take my National Certification. 12 weeks and this book holds the key for a passing grade on my National Certification and I will finally, at (almost) 50 have letters listed after my name. Unless you know my story of fear of school, and my overwhelming solid belief that I was not smart enough to pull this off, you will not truly appreciate the personal hurdle I have jumped over.

To anyone thinking its too late to do it, you are wrong. If you need a cheerleader, email me. If you need comiseration, email me. Then call your school of choice, make an appointment and jump head long into the education you desire.

"Carrie whispers to me

School walls steal my breath
Bullies loom beyond my peripheral
Humiliation echoes, echoes, echoes...

I hardly even hear her anymore"

~nina~

What is Your Sin?

We all have weaknesses. We all have areas in our lives where we fail time and time again. While doing some rather heavy introspection lately I have come to the conclusion that I am guilty of committing one sin more than any other.

The sin of omission.

It is an easy one to get sucked into because there are so many ways you can excuse yourself from not acting, not saying, not doing. And indeed my best and long suffering excuse is that I am weak and shy and I don't do well at standing up in a crowd of already raised voices to speak my mind. It's just an excuse. It doesn't negate the act (or non-action) nor heal the emotional or physical consequence of my habitual "not doing".

So many things I have chosen not to say. Leaving a void as wide as my guilt is deep. A void that people, being human and acting accordingly have chosen to fill with their own interpretations of what they think should go into that nice empty space. Or what serves them best. Not their fault, I left the empty space.

There was a story I was told a long time ago. It's about a woman who had gone about the town spreading rumors and hateful things about many of her neighbors. She felt remorse and wanted to find a way to fix the hurt she had caused. She consulted a wiseman who was known throughout the land for his far reaching intelligence. She told him what she had done. He listened to her story and her sadness. When she was finished he looked at her and said,

"The first thing you should do is take this basket of feathers. Place one feather on each doorstep of a person you have hurt with your words and then come back to me."

The woman thankfully took the basket and began her work. By dawn, she was finished and hurried back to the wiseman. She said,

"I have done what you have asked me to."

The wiseman smiled and said,

"This is very good. Now you must go back to each of those houses and retrieve each of the feathers from the doorsteps. Once you have all the feathers back in the basket everyone will forgive you and your sin against them will be forgiven and forgotten."

The woman stared at him. She said,

"But those feathers won't be there. The wind will have blown them away by now... they will be gone." The man smiled at the woman. "As are your words, like the feathers, gone, blown far and wide and gathering them and taking them back is impossible..."

Now granted, I differ from this woman because I am not in the habit of speaking falsehoods and ugliness of or towards people. But replace "rumors" with "things left unsaid" and I am not so different. I have never been one to weigh sin against sin. I have never been one to say one sin justifies another. No matter what someone else has done to me it does not justify mine done purposely or inadvertently against them. It just doesn't. I am busted. I am guilty.

Where do I go from here? Do I have the courage to stand amongst the screaming and speak my mind? Will I no longer hesitate when a space between me and a friend needs an "I love you"? Will I find the kindness and insight needed to say "I forgive you." when I would rather coddle my pride, furrow my brow and push away an already humble heart? Will I jump to say "I am sorry." before time stretches the chasm hopelessly wide?

What will I do? What would you do?

Under the Hood

Be of good cheer! Here I am making your IV meds. Now, the only question you have to answer for yourself is, "Do I WANT her making my IV?"

I passed my aseptic technique test under the hood yesterday.




This is what happens to those who don't pass. They have to keep coming back until they get it right. This guy has been around a LONG time.



I have 6 weeks of in-class study before I am sent to a pharmacy for my externship. I still have many things to pass in the next six weeks and of course, after my externship I will have to take my National Certification. The current national ratio for passing the test is 2/3. Nerves are becoming less like butterflies and more like jack hammers. Two years of my life I have put my heart and soul into this Associates Degree. I will make a difference in my future and that of my family's. I can't make it working for minimum wage. This is my last chance to achieve the financial security of having a career as opposed to a job. Being almost 50 without any skills to market has been a very scary place to be. It could be just about to change. Keep me in your thoughts, if you see the math fairy please tell her I need her and if you are 20 and reading this... GO TO SCHOOL NOW! I am the poster child for what NOT to do with your schooling decisions. GO NOW!

Fear and Loathing at Bedtime

I should be asleep. Drifting off happily. I can't do it. It seems that thoughts hover over my bed silently waiting for me to lay down, and once supine, it threatens to descend and smother me. I can't let go of the noise of the television because if I do I will be crushed. Crushed by silence. Crushed by thoughts that the noise from the tv staves off for me. I set the timer for 20 minutes thinking that I will be asleep by then. But if my time is running out, I have to give myself another 30 minutes of mind numbing babbling. Tonight, I couldn't take mind numbing babbling anymore, I came out here and ate some toast. I know the tv will be off when I go back in there. What is worse is I know my partner will have fallen asleep before I go back in. I feel rising panic in that fact. I panic every time she does fall asleep before I do. Its as if she has left me, didn't take me with her. I feel isolated from her/us. That's just dumb. But it is what it is, I suppose.

I don't have a lot of heavy duty scary things going on in my life right now. Nothing that can't/won't work itself out in time. I'm getting through school, I am paying my bills, I have a roof over my head. Its highly self indulgent to be worrying over my little bag of stuff when there are so many others with so much more "stuff". I am like a child just unable to let go of "now" no matter how freakin tired I am.

I take meds to sleep. I was also put on Paxil for the panic attacks at night. I am titrating off Paxil because I swear, as God as my witness, the 20 pounds I have put on in the last year was not entirely the Twinkies fault. I take anxiety meds to counter the day time carry over of panic I didn't finish playing with the night before.

I fear bedtime and I loath having to medicate myself just to be brave enough to try to sleep. Come to think of it, I don't really care much for banana pudding either.

A World of Progress

Reflections of June (5)

I kissed a girl... and I liked it... *whew*

I will always remember Lydia

Reflections of June (4)

First loves are wonderful. The first break up of your first love sometimes feels as if your heart is being literally pulled out of your body. And although, she was not the reason I came out, she will always be tangled up in all those "firsts" and all those emotions.



Eve of Destruction

Reflections of June (3)

First love, first physical experience with my first love. Its hard to explain what emotions came over me but it was if my body had always known what it desired but it forgot to tell my head. Short poem I wrote, sitting on one of the top floors of The Grove Hotel. The sun was rising, she was sound asleep and I was awake for the first time in my 44 years.

First Breath

Laid bare,
your body and my sexuality.
I tangled my fingers in your hair
and pulled you closer.
I traced your curves from your breast to your belly with my eyes,
Not knowing if I was the lioness or the debutant
you allowed me in,
with teeth and tears
I finally began to breathe.

~nina~

Reflections of June (2)

A few weeks before I ran away from home I spent much time grieving for the things I knew I was losing. Scared to death of what was next. Trying to soak up as much beauty around me before it disappeared forever.



Roses in the Rain
I cut roses in the rain tonight,
it seemed where I belonged.
I was called to be a witness,
to know with my eyes, my breath, my body,
the heavens were weeping regardless of
the exquisite beauty that surrounded me.
The perfect irony, elation and despair,
dancing together each demanding center stage.
~nina~

Reflections of June

June is an intense time for me. I came out in June of 2006 (i have probably said that before, i tend to repeat myself as i age) I thought I would revisit some of the times in my life regarding this. Not all the same year but perhaps reflections of a plethora of "firsts" which any major life change or realization can bring. This post from my first blog in which my emergence began is about the week I ran away from home.

Loving, Safe Homes for Some

Our society screams the importance of intact families. It screams the importance of the protection of children, be it by making sure they have appropriate healthcare, full stomachs, proper schooling, loving and coheisive family dynamics. Parents who love each other and demonstrate this through their own commitment toward each other. Children thrive best when they are raised in a home full of love.

Yet in the same breath they will deny the ability to have those very things to those loving, committed parents which already exist, have always existed in the Gay and Lesbian community. They withold approriate healthcare from children, lowering income levels of our families through withholding marriage tax benefits for us. Shamefully, they would rather keep children in the Foster care system before they would allow us to adopt them.

It is incongruous to advocate Traditional Family Values then pull up short of children’s welfare if their parents happen to be gay.


Higher
by Creed

When dreaming I'm guided through another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Can you take me higher?
To the place where blind men see
Can you take me higher?
To the place with golden streets
Although I would like our world to change
It helps me to appreciate
Those nights and those dreams
But, my friend, I'd sacrifice all those nights
If I could make the Earth and my dreams the same
The only difference is
To let love replace all our hate
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Up high I feel like I'm alive for the very first time
Up high I'm strong enough to take these dreams
And make them mine

Sock Liberation Day

It has finally arrived...the day I have longed for...



Today marks my freedom from those pesky pieces of material we all call socks. Socks no more! is my war cry of the day. I invite all of you to put away your socks and walk barefoot with me. I urge you to throw away any unmatched socks still hanging around your dryer...but you must do it with a big evil laugh...tilt your head back and rub your stomach as you do it... look around your yard, if the neighbors didn't hear you, do it again.

Run to your driveway and stand...let your feet soak up the sun radiating from the cement. Walk in the grass...tall grass so it is soft and welcoming... go swing and see if your toes can brush the sky like they used to when you were a kid. Paint your toes a brilliant shade of something. Find a friend and play "This little piggy..."

Today is Sock Liberation Day! (formerly known as June 1st) its time to dance barefoot!




If you are still,
You may hear the sound of toes,
giggling in the tall summer grass.