My Bio - Part 41

NOTE: This section updated in March 2010.

It has been nearly two years since we left the motel and moved into the secluded little trailer in the woods. I was battling a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder, while he held onto hopes of a better future for us. It wasn’t that I lacked hope; I just approached it more cautiously, knowing our plans rarely materialized as envisioned—sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Living in this trailer with Jesse as our landlord has been both good and bad, but mostly good. Until November of 2008, it was the quietest place we’d ever lived, with only a few scattered barking fits, engine-gunning sprees from Jesse, and occasional gunshots. The neighbors’ pit bulls were a problem until complaints forced them to keep the dogs tied up after they tried to attack one of Jesse’s dogs and someone’s goat.

Jesse can be a pest, and his dogs, Whiskey and Brandy, drive me crazy. They weren’t much trouble until November, when they would go crazy whenever Jesse left, barking for hours. This persisted until mid-April, quieting down only to repeat the following November.

During our first four months here, Jesse was a constant presence, always coming down to tell us something, work on something, or address plumbing issues. I wished he didn’t live here, especially when our repeated requests to call first for non-emergencies were ignored. Though he still visits more than I’d like, it’s less frequent now.

Jesse went from always being home to never being home, with his incredibly loud motorcycle being more disruptive than his dogs. I have to crank up the sound machines to sleep during the day.

We’ve made some progress since moving to California, but we haven’t achieved what we came here for. We’re still broke and uninsured. Obama’s healthcare reform bill was signed into law today, but we won’t benefit from it for four years. Few jobs offer insurance, and Tom, despite his optimism, remains jobless in a collapsed economy. He thinks the election year will bring jobs this summer, and I hope he’s right because, without jobs, we’ll never get ahead.

The recession changed things. I stopped winning sweepstakes and contests, despite my efforts and spells. I felt it was time to move on to something new, which happened when Tom read about a site paying people to perform AI tasks. We started relying on these tasks after he was laid off, initially fearing a bigger nightmare than the motel ordeal. Despite our efforts to pawn items to survive, we never seem to get ahead, no matter how hard we try. We’ve had to accept what we can’t change. Even though we haven’t saved money or bought a house, at least Jesse lets us pay rent when we can without late fees, unlike a management company. Nearly a year later, we bought back the TV and iMac.

I grew tired of collecting dolls, a habit I was glad to let go of since they were expensive and a pain to dust. So, I retired my collection and even sold some of it off.

After reaching a record high of around 150 pounds by the time we left the motel, I started dieting and exercising, dropping down to 125 pounds—not the 110 I’d ideally like, but good enough for now.

I cut my hair to shoulder length, tired of the weight of overly long hair that had started creeping past my butt.

I found out that my parents hadn’t cut me off entirely. After months without hearing from them, I received a reply to one of my letters. I wouldn’t have minded if they had chosen not to associate with me since I wouldn’t want anyone in my life who didn’t want to be there. But as long as they don’t drive me crazy, they’re welcome to stay in touch. I think we get along better by not “mixing” family members and thereby avoiding he-said/she-said conflicts. My sister and nieces nearly drove a wedge between my folks and me until my father confronted her, and she backed off the cyberbullying. I try to send my folks a letter each month and call every few months to let them know we’re alive and see how they’re doing.

Despite the economic struggles, we found ways to have fun. I started learning Italian through a language site someone recommended and even took their Portuguese and German courses. Now, I’m fluent in three languages and am slowly gaining fluency in three others.

Social sites became a major craze. Initially, I joined sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Kiwibox mainly for their occasional contests.

One day, while entering a contest on an old social network, I noticed they had a section for journals. Wow! I thought to myself. People actually shared their journals with the world?

Then again, why not? This wasn’t the 50s. It was the 2000s when most things were aired out in public, and few things remained private. Most topics were hardly unheard of. People didn’t gasp in shock anymore if a gay person walked into the room, as they might have 40 or 50 years ago. People discussed sensitive topics like sexual abuse as casually as Christmas shopping. This openness suited me, as I saw no reason why life should be kept secret. Life—everyone had one, and we all experienced ups and downs, made mistakes, celebrated achievements, and had regrets, embarrassing moments, fun times, sadness, happiness, and fear. Did we really need to be ashamed of it? To each their own, but I saw nothing wrong with public journaling, so long as no one threatened anyone or revealed private information. The idea of sharing my entries with the public amused me, though I’m not sure why—it just did. But I would write for myself, as always, and not cater to an audience. The audience would simply be an afterthought. If anything I wrote happened to enlighten, inspire, amuse, or give someone food for thought, that was fine by me.

So, I went “live,” sharing my daily life and sometimes some of my short stories. In the last couple of years, I’ve met many people online. Some have been kind and insightful, while others have been rude and obnoxious. But I understood that in a network where millions interact, there would be some bad apples along with the good, which was to be expected.

I knew there was always the chance of being contacted by someone I didn’t want to hear from on major social sites. And I was.