Today waa my follow up appointment with the Dr who did the shots in my back on Tuesday. I didn't remember him being so good looking. But then I first saw his MA for the intake appointment, and then at the surgery center I was on my way to LaLa Land by the time he arrived. So, yes; very handsome. I was ready for good news and seems the good news just isn't ready for me yet. I wonder what it is that I've done to deserve this? I only felt a small fraction of improvement after receiving the shots in comparison to what they wanted so now he has referred me to a surgeon. This could be the beginning of the end in some respects. I know that we are "dying from the minute we're conceived" but at almost 51 the reality of death sets in a bit deeper, firmer than before. I don't expect to die anytime soon; of natural causes anyway. But, this has caused me to realize that I have become that person who someone somewhere is saying, "Oh, you should hear...she's not doing well at all." For some reason I just didn't expect this yet.
I seem to set out with the best of intentions only to do something or be the victim of circumstances that persuade me off of my path. Then it takes what feels like forever to return to what it was I was trying to achieve for me. I am an optimistic to a fault. What the hell is that all about anyway? It's just a slow motion firing squad for me. I really have only tried to be of help to others and I get stomped on anyway.
This is really starting to sound like "boohoo" again and I REALLY hate that! It's actually just my thoughts "spewing themselves" everywhere in my attempts to understand it all. I guess a little organization wouldn't hurt get that in order.
I am not so worried about the likelihood that I will end up disabled by the medical procedures that are left as options for me. I don't care if I'm considered "disabled". The part that scares me is what happens between now and the day they approve the disability income and it is actually in my hands for my bills. That's the abyss. If I fall in it may never matter.
I was thinking earlier about the "snippett" I posted. Mac was one huge mistake but then again it helped determine which road to set out on, what my goal was, etc. It made me realize how much the law affected my thinking and how I somehow just knew what I needed to know when I needed it. Had I known that after leaving Mac for the fourth and final time that he would stalk me for five years of my six years in college I may have picked a different road to travel. My fear of going back to him during a moment of weakness might have been enough to convince me. I have been in court several times but only once with an attorney that I actually paid for services. Otherwise, it was just me defending whatever position I held. When the boys dad, Dan found out I was married to a prison inmate he immediately filed for custody and the battle was on. I don't actually believe that he ever wanted to take the boys away and hurt my heart that way but his new wife sure did. She was younger and when she had the nerve to tell me to my face that she and he weren't planning to have children and that my sons would be hers.......Oh honey, you have no idea the mistake you just made. Dan arrived at the park where we dropped off/picked up kids just in time to peel my hands off of her neck so she could gasp for some air. I walked away telling her it would be over my dead body. We continued this type of dislike for each other for a very long time.
The custody case lasted forever it seemed. When we got to the actual trial Dan and all his family arrived ready to take some kids home. I arrived with kids ready to kick some legal ass. All of the questioning and answering came down to one request from me to the Judge. I told him that if the boys wanted to be with their Dad fulltime that we would not be in court as I only wanted the best and what they wanted. I stated that they had made me aware of their desire to stay with me, life as we knew it and therefore I had been forced to defend that choice. I asked him to take the boys and privately talk to them. I felt that they had been honest with me but I wanted to make sure they weren't just trying to spare my feelings by saying what they thought I wanted to hear. That was not the case. If they have ever been sure of anything it is the fact that they are responsible for their own choices. Which is why they were included in every decision I made when whatever I was deciding affected them. I didn't say "boo" without finding out how they felt about that. The Judge took the next half hour or so to talk to the boys. When they all returned I don't think I've ever been so afraid of anything in my life. What if I was wrong? What if they were just sparing my feelings? The Judge started out with a bit of a lecture to both Dan and I about our file...it was as thick as an encyclopedia yet in our divorce we had no property division, no money to split, no issues. The file had increased over the time since our divorce by petty arguments back and forth. Dan had drug me into court for everything under the sun. I had responded to every filing. The Judge finally said that he had talked with the boys and that "...someone has done a very good job raising these boys; and someone hasn't helped her." I instantly began to shake inside. He asked Dan if he thought that the court hadn't noticed his record of never paying any of the court ordered child support UNTIL a legal action was filed?? During the duration of this custody case he had paid the (hideously low) $200 every month. And on top of that then informed the boys that every month he sent them $200 and they were directed to ask me for their money. Which I don't remember ever happening in the way that Dan had hoped. The boys were so finely attuned to our situation that they would bring their brand new Christmas boomboxes they got from a grandparent and tell me that they knew we needed money and that it was okay for me to pawn their belongings until better times arrived. I had already traded some of the better pieces of our furniture to an attorney who I thought would represent me in the custody case. Unfortunately a couch, oak tables and an "arch" lamp that all amounted to a small fortune weren't enough to get more than an "answer" filed. As for the trial, I was on my own. In hind sight I'm glad that is the way it went. The court has the responsibility of making sure I understood all of the proceedings as a pro se respondent. And this court did. He also saw a woman who regardless of money had raised two wonderful kids. He also saw that my husband being in prison was exactly why the Judge did not allow that as a foundation for taking my kids away from me. He said that until the husband was in the home, no one could judge what kind of step parent he would be. Well, that came later but he had me fooled. He had fooled the boys too. I don't believe that Mac ever had malice in his heart. I just think that he, like all of us at times, goes with what is "comfortable." We tend to take ourselves into situations that we are familiar with, that we know how to cope with and survive. My question is this; how do we get there in the first place? I know I pushed myself into the relationship due to my cousin's wife. Her brother had done time and knew Mac. When her brother was paroled she, her sister and I drove up to take him and his girlfriend out to dinner. Mac called the next day from inside and all of a sudden I was being handed a phone and told to just say "hi" to some guy on the other end. He only asked that maybe I could write as "mail-time" was kind of special when you get letters. Me being a huge letter writer (remember, this is Pre-WWW); I agreed to send him a letter. I didn't realize how easily that would then escalate into collect phone calls that he promised to pay, drives over to the prison about 50 miles away to meet and eventually a move from my home town to the city the prison was in. When I married Mac I didn't tell anyone. When my mother pushed me to return to my home town I finally told her I couldn't because he was my husband and I was going to correct the errors in his file. During the course of my correcting his errors I experienced some of the most unprofessional conduct by state employees ever. The prison guards who would drive me from the gate to the building Mac was housed in would take "wrong turns" and it would appear we were driving off into no where when I would remind them they didn't want to mix it up with me. I would take them down and they knew enough to be wary of that. I had become that woman who didn't allow the system to drag her through what a lot of other "inmate wives" allowed. I was the wife that attended legislative sessions and stood in line to speak to the legislature about conditions at the prison. I was the woman that although "public documents" at the Office of Financial Management (OFM) were supposed to be accessible to all, was kicked out of the OFM as someone had called someone else and let them know I was there looking over the books for the prison. With the prison on the extreme East side of the state and the Capital on the extreme West side of the state the leaders rarely saw the product of their decisions. And this also meant that the leaders rarely saw the true conditions that existed. One of the "legal beagles" in Mac's housing unit had filed a case that was climbing it's way to the State Supreme Court. It was a suit that contested the usage of two different sentencing guidelines for the calculation of time. There were the "old timers" who had been sentenced and then came the new inmates, same crime but LESS time. So, as it went up the system ladder I became more and more involved in the politics of prison. I attended the State Supreme Court hearing when it was heard and it was so exciting I could barely stand myself. We won. Nearly 1,500 men walked out of prison because the sentencing guidelines were either rejected or applied to all. That was an amazing day. I had been in the Department of Corrections office so many times prior to try to make them understand the errors they had made and the price that Mac would have to pay in years that I finally decided that I would go over their heads. That was the Governor's Office I soon found out. The governor at that time was Booth Gardner; fondly referred to as "Goof Gardner" by the prison population. I started my "attack" on the Governors' office and worked my way up to the point where I actually sat down in the Governors office and discussed what had gone on the past three years in reference to Mac. The Governor's secretary was directed to find someone to assist me in getting this mess cleaned up. I had used the sentencing guidelines given to me by the DOC to recalculate Macs sentence and he clearly should've been paroled at the very least. I had taped all of my conversations with any of the state offices over the phone. Mainly so that I could keep who said what straight in my head later but also as evidence for one state agency that another state agency had done this or that. I recorded the Director of the DOC when he pointed his finger at me and poked me in the chest saying "you'd better back off"; you could hear his finger as it tapped my chest as right under it was a microphone that I was sure was going to fall out on the floor at any time and expose my little secret. I took tapes to the Governors office as evidence that what I was saying was true. Because I had not told the person on the other end of the phone that they were being recorded they were illegal. If I had told them I would have nothing. I have always preferred the more exciting in any choice. Mac had accused me that night in the visiting room of doing nothing, wasting time and money, being worthless......this is how he kept me up to accepting his challenge to prove him wrong. He said I had accomplished nothing when I knew but could not convince him that I had accomplished a lot! How many people do you know who would go this far for a man who deserved his sentence??? He did his best to make me feel horrible about myself again and sent me home pissed off and tired. The next morning he called and souinded stunned when he told me "I just received parole papers"...I said, "No shit Mac" and hung up. I refused his collect calls for several days, didn't go to visits, pretty much made him believe he had no where to parole to now that he had treated me so poorly. But that was the beginning of a game I didn't even know I was playing yet. I would soon find out that to stay sane, safe and secure I would play a lot of games with Mac.
His release date didn't arrive for another 18 months. It had taken me 18 months to get the state to recognize the errors and it would take another 18 months to figure out what the Parole Board had to agree to. Mac submitted five plans in total. Each taking about three or four months to come to a decision. Each requiring a new location, new job, new school, new home, new beginning. Each time we would set up what we thought was "the perfect plan" the Parole Board would shoot it down adding another requirement that was not conveniently not available where we had selected to set up on this plan. The final requirement was "Sexual Offender Counseling." Now, my mission was to locate all of the prior plan requirements AND find a counselor that the board had to accept, that would accept Mac into the program, and that we could afford.....that was all.......
I found a counselor who would accept him even with his record. He was diagnosed previously as a "Sexual Pshycopath" and therefore he required "special" counseling that came with a "special price." I had become accustomed to ignoring the cost of anything and just doing it and figuring out the money later. By the time I started trying to set up a home that would be approved on his plan I was living in my car. When the boys were with me I convinced them (or maybe just myself) that we were "camping out" and when we would see state parks with showers.......oh, wouldn't that be fun to stop and check it out? Whenever possible, I shipped the boys off to either my dads, my moms, my aunts depending on where we were at that time. They missed an entire school year driving all over the States of Washington and Oregon with me. Washington schools were well advanced from those the boys had attended in my home town. When the "long vacation" was over and they were eventually put into Oregon schools they were "at their levels." How much luckier could I get? All of my running, eating, sleeping, breathing parole plan had not injured their progress as I had feared. I was counting my blessings for that.
Once Mac was released it had been nine years he spent in the prison at Walla Walla. He wanted to do everything! I was exhausted and knowing it was all done was what made me happy. No more state agencies, no more denials, no more having to listen to Mac tell me what a worthless waste of time I was to him. Or so I thought. Mac had a lot of things in mind that I had no clue of. I would find out why he was in prison first hand.
Without our paths crossing who knows what I would be doing now. Sitting around some potato shed in a small town where I would be the mistress of the man who has wanted me longer than any other. It's a shame he's married, doesn't plan to change that and is content with where he lives and his life in general. He even tells me that he does love his wife but that she just isn't everything he would like if given the choice. She keeps such a tight rein on him and his wallet (did I mention he has a pile of wealth?) that he could only have a lover like me. One who doesn't expect or for that matter want more than a moment now and then. I am not "wife material" you might say. That bubble burst ages ago. Men are attracted to that until they realize it's there to stay and then they either want to change that part of me or leave, or both. And most do. Unless of course they are the married ones who let themselves believe they have the best of both worlds. Pretty much, they do.
