2014

Written in late 2014, edited in 2024

The teens ended up being the worst years of my life, especially mid-2014 through 2016, and then beyond.

2014 was both great and horrifying. This time, the scary part had nothing to do with money but with my health. I came to realize that the number 4 was indeed unlucky, and then later learned that many Asian cultures believe the same. Once I realized it wasn’t my imagination after all, I was concerned when 2014 arrived. Since the year started off great and we got to the summer without any catastrophes, I was just about to relax and let my guard down until July 9th rolled around.

In late January, I found a new primary care doctor—a young and gorgeous 32-year-old I’ll call Dr. C. She was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, which is not my usual type, but her sexy smile and compassionate, personable nature won me over. I’ll admit, I developed a crush on her.

Dr. C diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s disease, which explained why my body wouldn’t respond to diet and exercise. I’d suspected either that or diabetes. Bloodwork also revealed I was low in vitamin D and had high cholesterol, the latter likely driven up by hypothyroidism and genetics. She started me on vitamin D supplements, 50 mcg of levothyroxine for my thyroid, and simvastatin for my cholesterol.

She referred me to an endocrinologist, Dr. D, who was my age and from Venezuela. Due to her packed schedule, my first appointment wasn’t until April and I can’t say I liked her very much.

Before seeing the endo, we had the trip of a lifetime! In late January, we spent a week in Ka’anapali, Hawaii, on the island of Maui. It was the BEST vacation ever. Flying first class was great.

We stayed in a $500-per-night room with an ocean view and loved watching the whales that had migrated from Canada.

We packed so much into that week: swimming, snorkeling, catamaran sailing, a luau, and even a submarine tour where we saw a sunken ship (deliberately placed for fish and sub-riders). The beaches were breathtaking, and swimming in the ocean was so much fun. The waves were huge, and timing was everything to avoid being knocked down. Tom wasn’t so lucky one time, and I laughed so hard, as did a woman nearby.

The luau wasn’t as fun as I hoped, but the catamaran ride was great, even if the food was bland. Snorkeling, though—that was magical. At first, I didn’t get the hype of looking at a sandbar, but once I ventured farther out—wow. The vibrant tropical fish and coral were like nothing I’d ever seen.

In April, I finally saw Dr. D. A normal TSH level is close to 0-4; mine was a staggering 32. After starting on 50 mcg of levothyroxine, it dropped to 12. Dr. D raised my dosage to 75 mcg, and I was okay at first, not realizing the stuff takes time to build up in the system.

Between the trip and the summer, we focused on home improvements. We painted, recarpeted, replaced old curtains with blinds, installed a new dishwasher, and swapped the dark brown carpet for a sandy beige shade called “Nomad.” We got new furniture as well.

Life was great—until one day shy of our one-year anniversary in the new house.

That morning, after Tom left for work, I found myself highly wound up. I had been for a couple of weeks, as well as short of breath, and figured it was simply me adjusting to having normal thyroid levels. I tried to calm myself but just minutes later, my heart began racing and pounding like crazy. Utterly terrified, I feared I’d accidentally overdosed. Though I wasn’t sure if it would kill me, the possibility crossed my mind as my head spun and fear consumed me.

I knew I needed to act. First, I had to call Tom to let him know in case something happened. Then, I opened the back door for the paramedics, just in case I passed out. My shaky hands somehow managed to work my new smartphone, and I called both Tom and 911. The dispatcher stayed on the line with me until help got to me. The paramedics arrived quickly, hooked me up to a cardiograph, and reassured me I hadn’t had a heart attack or taken a lethal dose. Relieved, I called Tom to tell him he didn’t need to rush home after all.

Months ago, I didn’t know nearly as much about Hashimoto’s, the medication used to treat it, or perimenopause/menopause. I knew in my gut that it wasn’t normal for me to feel that degree of epic anxiety, going into menopause or not, and that it was mostly connected to the medication. But what frustrated the shit out of me was that none of the doctors seemed to believe me. My primary care doctor was so sure that I had developed a severe case of anxiety out of the blue and prescribed a low dose of lorazepam to help. It helped to a degree but I also still knew my own body better and what was normal for it. If I hadn’t felt that way during the worst times of my life, why would I suddenly feel like that when things were at their best? Still, the anxiety was so overwhelming at times that I was grateful for the pills to take the edge off.

I continued to have the most god-awful feelings: my heart would race, I’d feel suffocated and dizzy, I had constant diarrhea, started losing weight rapidly, panicked, and felt like I was dying. It was the worst experience of my life. I’d rather gain 100 pounds than go through that again!

Eventually, I stopped taking all my medications, including my cholesterol pills. By then, I was terrified to take anything—vitamins, painkillers, nothing. While my primary care doctor was okay with me pausing the medication until I could see my endocrinologist for adjustments, she was adamant I needed to see both a psychiatrist and a counselor named Dana in Folsom.

Tom raised a valid point: I didn’t need a psychiatrist because I wasn’t crazy; I needed a lower dosage. Seeing a counselor was one thing, but being sent to a psychiatrist just to be given medication to tolerate another medication at the wrong dose was absurd. We realized we’d been too accommodating and had had enough of the incompetence, phone tag, and bureaucracy. That medical group, as a whole, was terrible. My endocrinologist was overbooked, her staff was incompetent, and while my primary care doctor was kind, I needed someone who would listen to me. After all, we found numerous complaints online from people taking the same medication. They certainly couldn’t all have suddenly been “just anxious.”

In November, we switched medical groups where I got a new primary care doctor, a new endo, and the same problem of not being believed and told that the medication can’t make you anxious because it’s the same stuff your body makes anyway. Don’t take my word for it though. When I say otherwise, look it up for yourself. Some people really are sensitive to this stuff, like it or not. I think a lot of doctors brush off side effects to make their jobs easier, which is a shame.

Dr. A, a young Ecuadorian physician, put me back on levothyroxine but at just 25 mcg for starters, since as she explained, the best way to deal with PTSD is to slowly expose someone to something they’re afraid of. Oh, I was definitely afraid of it all right, and had definitely acquired the case of PTSD!

Andy visited us in late November. It was wonderful to hug him for the first time in 15 years. While he talked too much about topics I didn’t care for—like celebrities, news, and God—it was still great to see him.

I’m no longer friends with Maliheh or Nane. Maliheh dumped me after feeling confident I’d keep her name out of my story. She befriended me under false pretenses, which shouldn’t surprise me considering her past behavior. I’m better off without phony people like that. As for Nane, I cut ties with her because of her hypocrisy and judgmental attitude.

I almost ended my friendship with Alison for a couple of reasons, but realized she has many more good qualities than bad, and the problems weren’t anything major.

I’ve been troll-free for over a year now, though I can’t say whether they still check in on me.

The park remains noisier than I’d like for a retirement community, especially during the weekdays. The constant landscaping and loud vehicles are a major annoyance. Another frustration is Bob turning his garage into a workshop. While I understand his need to stay active, the noise from his woodworking projects is still intrusive. Still, he and his wife are the best neighbors we’ve ever had.

Our rat, Romeo, passed away a few days ago. He was very old and, while not one of our favorites, he’ll be missed. We’re surprised Sugar, who had a stroke last May, is still with us.

2013

Written in 2013

This may be one of my shortest yearly reviews, even though 2013 turned out to be one of our best years yet. We became homeowners again! Part of the funding came from my inheritance, though I can’t say I miss my parents or my brother. It feels a little strange not being able to call them to share the news about the house, though.

After half a decade squeezed into Pesky Jesse’s small, rundown trailer, we finally moved out on July 10th. I didn’t think we’d be leaving that place in anything other than body bags for a while there, so it was an incredibly emotional day for me.

We bought a beautiful 1983 home in an upscale park in Citrus Heights for $28K. This is the very park we had hoped to get into! The house is about 1,500 square feet with two bedrooms and two full bathrooms. The master bath has a sunken tub like the one we had in Maricopa. The second bedroom and bath are small to average in size, while the laundry room has a built-in desk and a spot for an extra refrigerator. The kitchen and dining area are average as well, but the master suite and living room are huge with cathedral ceilings in the living and dining areas.

Though the house is structurally sound and in good condition, we plan to replace the old, worn brown carpet and repaint the walls. We’ve started with the second bedroom painting it pale lavender. I plan to add other colors to different rooms—pale pink, minty green, sky blue, and maybe even sunny yellow.

The windows are dual-paned, and most of the walls, which were once brown paneling, are now painted white.

The previous owners left the kitchen fully stocked, along with various household items. While most of it ended up at Goodwill, we did find a few useful things, like a slow cooker we’d been considering buying.

The living room, with its vaulted ceilings, features one wall that is almost entirely windows. There’s also a large built-in bookcase and a hutch with glass doors and cabinets, which I use mainly to display my doll collection, saving me from dusting them constantly.

Having extra luxuries like a dishwasher and garbage disposal feels magical, and I can’t say enough about the joy of having full-size washer and dryer access anytime we want. I especially missed being able to wash comforters at home.

Since we’re on the corner, our only immediate neighbors, Bob and Virginia, are wonderfully quiet and don’t have dogs.

We’re not very active at the clubhouse, but we enjoy the pool and hot tub in the summer.

It’s wonderful not having to deal with constant barking; we only hear the occasional yip now and then. The only drawbacks are traffic noise and landscaping sounds—there’s more park activity than I realized there would be. But overall, it’s a wonderful place to live.

Having a reliable internet connection is another slice of heaven, though some sites with slow servers are still as sluggish as they were in Auburn.

I also enjoy jogging on the pavement in a safe environment, away from dangerous wildlife and stray dogs. Though I’m still heavy, I’ve accepted that I likely always will be. As long as I don’t gain more weight, I’m okay with it. I work out every other day and only eat when I’m hungry.

Still in touch with the usual people, though Kathy and I are no longer friends. Don’t know what happened, but we got into it and she and some connections of hers trolled me for a bit and that was it.

Tom and I are looking forward to our upcoming trip to Maui, Hawaii, even though we’ll miss Romeo and Sugar during the week we’re gone.

2012

Written in 2012

2012 turned out to be one of our best years, though it came with significant losses. This time, it wasn’t about financial or material loss—it was about death. I find myself almost wondering who might be next.

On February 24th, my father passed away. Then, on September 23rd, my mother followed. On October 15th, my beloved Italian foster mom died, and on December 21st, my brother Larry succumbed to liver cancer.

We also lost two pet rats—first Tinkerboy, then a baby rat we’d adopted to keep Romeo, Tink’s replacement, company. Sugar has since joined us to fill Julien’s place.

In January, Nane and I reconciled and I’m in touch with her, others I’ve mentioned, as well as Becky and Maria from Valleyhead.

In the spring, Tom secured a new job with excellent pay and benefits, even though the hours are tough. With this stability, I was finally able to address my dental needs, getting cavities filled and a bridge to replace a tooth I’d lost back in Oregon.

June brought an unexpected shock: Kim proved to be worse than Molly in some ways. I’d known she was a bit odd and not particularly sharp, but I never anticipated she’d turn into a relentless stalker. Alison and I both cut ties with her. While she’s left Alison alone—likely because Alison has since joined the FBI—she continues to target me anonymously on a question-and-answer site.

Kim’s excessive behaviors and repetitive questions were always annoying, but what truly disturbed me was her lack of empathy and respect. Her fascination with celebrities and role-playing, something we were aware of, became problematic when she started impersonating celebrities on sites like Twitter. This was more than just fondness—it was an obsession. When confronted, she would immediately deny it, deactivate her account, and become highly defensive—a classic guilty reaction, as Aly observed.

Aly suspected that Kim was anonymously asking her rude and personal questions on the question site as well. When I realized Kim was likely behind it, based on her activity on the site, she reacted as she usually did when caught and called out: she blocked me on Facebook. I thought that would be the end of it, but I was wrong. Confronting her only caused her to follow and bully us everywhere.

If I’d known that confronting her would provoke this crap, I’d have quietly distanced myself as Aly did. I now see that the woman I once considered a friend held a hidden resentment toward me—and likely toward others as well. Gone are any feelings of sympathy for her and I can see why her older sister has custody of her. She likely has some form of retardation.

Kim has now resorted to pestering me under anonymity, reaching out not just as celebrities but as people Aly and I actually know. Though her questions are often harmless and casual, the fact that she won’t respect my requests to leave me alone is deeply troubling. It’s even more bothersome when she tries to contact Andy. He may not mind, but I do. I’ve had to keep my Facebook friends list hidden and restrict my profile to friends only for privacy so they don’t end up being harassed just for being connected to me.

Molly now lives in a group home and may have issues, but she’s only ever been Molly. Molly seldom contacts me and doesn’t hide behind anonymity.

After four years of dealing with Molly and seven months of Kim, I wonder how much longer this will continue. If Molly becomes problematic again, I could potentially report her to her group home. But with Kim, there’s no one to hold accountable except herself.

With my parents’ deaths came a newfound resentment toward them that surpasses anything I’ve ever felt. Their masks were stripped away, and the false “wealthy” image they tried so hard to project was exposed when it was discovered that my mother—likely without my father’s knowledge—had gone on a credit card spree in their final years. Maybe they were never truly wealthy, but they were quite comfortable most of their lives, and they could’ve done more to help me if they’d cared enough. When I saw photos of their beautiful condo, I felt more resentment than happiness for them. They lived well while my husband and I struggled in a rundown trailer, even though we worked as hard—if not harder—to get ahead.

When they rescued us from homelessness in 2007, I was immensely grateful, feeling almost as if I owed them my life despite their past treatment. But as time went on, I realized they hadn’t always been there for me when I truly needed them. Yes, they helped in 2007, but where were they when I needed rescuing from institutions like Brattleboro Retreat or Valleyhead? Or when I was living in poverty on disability and food stamps in the slums?

In the end, Dad’s heart gave out as we’d expected it might someday, and shortly afterward, my mother suffered a stroke and lost the will to live. They were both cremated, but I refused my mom’s ashes. I cried a little when Dad passed but didn’t shed a tear for Mom or Larry, nor will I ever.

Have you ever suddenly come to a realization about something? For years, I’d wondered whether she gave me up or if the State took me away. Then, out of the blue one day, the answer hit me as I thought back on my last morning at home before the State took over. She gave me up. That’s why she was so determined to get me up for school and out to the bus that morning, even though I insisted I didn’t feel well.

Once I got older, more mature, and able to see her for who she truly was, it all made sense. Her behavior aligned with everything I’d come to understand about her; after all, she never wanted me around to begin with.

Anyway, their vehicle, store, and condo were recently sold off, bit by bit. Despite their shortcomings, it was sad to see parts of their lives being sold one by one. I may receive a small inheritance, though nothing near what they’d led me to expect over the years. I’ve had my hopes dashed about money before, but this time will be the last.

I assumed I would drift away from my remaining family entirely after my parents’ deaths, but life doesn’t always go as expected. Surprisingly, Tammy and I have grown closer, and I now keep in touch with two of my four nieces.

Jennifer has allowed her father’s lies to keep her away, Lisa has some serious issues, and I have a nephew I don’t know or care to know. Only God knows how many children Larry fathered before he passed—he was a bit of a ladies’ man. He married a 21-year-old named Stefanie, and they had a son named Jason. Most would agree that 21 is too young to have a child and 58 is too old, but that was Larry for you—a great sense of humor and quite a character.

Tammy and I have always been different in many ways, but enduring the same abusive upbringing has created a bond between us. She’s let me vent and cry, and she and her husband, Mark, plan to visit us soon.

Even my extended family has reached out. I’m now connected with cousins Philip, Sharyn, Michelle, and Norma on Facebook. My Aunt Ruth, Uncle Ronnie, and other cousins still ignore me, but that’s okay. I only want people in my life who truly want to be there, and I only want to be part of the lives of those who want me in theirs.

The hardest loss was Anne’s, my Italian foster mom. Though I only stayed with her briefly when I was 16, she and her husband, Harry, left a permanent, treasured mark on my heart. They were the parents I never had but always wished for.

The way I discovered Mom’s passing was almost surreal. She popped into my mind out of the blue one day, and I was flooded with memories and dreams of my time with her. I tried searching for her, but it was as if she had disappeared. I hoped that since I couldn’t find an obituary, she must still be alive. Deep down, though, I think I knew otherwise.

Later, while studying Italian, I realized I’d been misspelling her maiden and married names. When I searched again, I found her obituary and burst into tears. I was too late. She had passed peacefully at 81, surrounded by family. It was a bittersweet comfort to know she hadn’t suffered, and I was surprised to learn Harry was still alive. Unsure if he had an online presence at his age, I decided to write him a letter.

I regret not staying in touch and not having the chance to say goodbye. But the night before I discovered her obituary, I had a strong feeling—could it have been her spirit saying goodbye? Was it a psychic moment, or just a strange coincidence? Even one of the rats acted out of character, leaping from my arms as if suddenly startled by something unseen. Who knows if he sensed something I couldn’t. This wasn’t the first time someone popped into mind that I soon discovered recently passed.

Aside from a possible unexpected onset of menopause (I’m over two weeks late), Tom and I are in good health and are excited to buy a mobile home in a 55+ community this year!

2011

Written in 2011

Much of 2011 was not a good year, and I am determined to make 2012 better.

Tom got laid off again in early March. Once again, we were thrust into the endless cycle of poverty with no apparent way out, like being stuck on an endless merry-go-round.

Shortly after the layoff, I dreamed he wouldn’t return to work until September. It turned out to be another premonition, as I feared. We were on edge for a couple of weeks before he got hired on as a temp at $13 an hour in a warehouse. I began to feel that the hardship we endured at the motel years ago was meant to prepare me for more challenges. The day we were told our unemployment benefits had ended before he found another job was almost more than I could handle. I honestly don’t know if I would have survived it without what we went through in 2007.

Despite the fears and anxieties that kept me up at night, I became angry that anything that might be up there would allow us to endure so much despite trying to live good lives. It was one thing to not have much extra money; it was another to wonder if we could afford food and rent.

I was also furious with our government for its willingness to send billions of tax dollars overseas while refusing to take care of its own citizens. Doctors were dispatched to aid earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, Haiti, and elsewhere, but we remained uninsured.

Believing our choices were to slowly starve off on the streets or die more comfortably at home, we even planned to seal ourselves in the bedroom and light charcoal to end things with carbon monoxide poisoning. After half a year of job-hunting, we didn’t believe a miracle was coming.

But it was. Unemployment cut us off on September 16th, and less than two weeks later, Tom was working again. This job seems the most promising yet.

Tom describes the work as physical and some of his coworkers as incompetent, which makes things challenging, but he says it’s not the worst job he’s had. At Christmastime, they had a raffle, and he won a Kindle Fire. I’ve been hooked on it ever since, vowing never to read a physical book again. I love how it doesn’t take up space or collect dust, and how it remembers where I left off.

Another highlight of 2011 was getting books published through Amazon and Smashwords. It was exciting at first, but due to not making a lot of money that way, I decided it was pointless to turn a fun hobby into a job and just write for myself. I still share at times on my blog, though. Plus, there was the risk of pirating.

I’m still in touch with my parents and Tammy, though not her kids or my brother, and I don’t want to be. Tolerating Tammy is hard enough. I do it for my parents’ sake and for whatever inheritance they may want to leave us, but I don’t expect much. I’ve been teased enough with the promise of money to not get my hopes up.

My extended family has mostly shunned me, but I don’t care about them any more than they care about me. There are a lot of bad memories there. Still, I have to admit that without them, I don’t know how we would have made it through some tough times.

Tom’s family doesn’t reach out to us, not even with a simple “hello” from time to time. I hope his mother’s final days are miserable, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty for saying so.

I’m still friends with Andy, Adonis, Maliheh, Alison, Kim, Christine, and Mitch, though Maliheh has been distant, blaming it on illness and busyness. Christine is a blogging friend from Ohio, and Adonis is a nice guy in the Netherlands. Irene and Christiane are friends of Nane that I communicate with at times. Christiane lives in Leipzig and Irene lives in Austria. She met Nane when they both lived in New York. Nane worked on Wall Street and Irene was an au pair.

After 15 months, Nane decided to end things. Andy, Alison, and I think she was toying with my feelings unfairly. When things got rough last fall, she initially seemed supportive. But after two months of silence, she told me she thought I was using her for attention, which hurt and angered me.

On top of that, Kim, Aly, myself, and others are still stalked and harassed by Molly. Last summer, her mother even joined in, making all kinds of bogus legal threats.

2010

Jumping back to mid-2010, in July, my “relationship” with Marie ended. She often became delusional and accusatory when paranoid, and it just got old. She was also very immature in many ways, and I could no longer handle her obsessiveness, the pressure she put on me, and the harsh accusations she’d throw at me when her paranoia flared. If I didn’t respond to the dozens of emails she sent each day within minutes, she would accuse me of plotting against her. Unable to deal with her overbearing nature — and mostly not wanting to — I slowly distanced myself and moved on, leaving her with my best wishes.

I met Marion, who prefers to go by her middle name, Nane, on a language learning site. A German native fluent in English, she has a passion for languages and is studying Greek and Turkish. She’s a beautiful, single, bisexual financial advisor living in Munich.

Feeling guilty for blaming Maliheh for Andy’s pranks, I visited her Facebook page and was surprised to see I hadn’t been blocked. I apologized for accusing her of harassing me on Formspring and explained that I now knew it was an old friend playing with me. They just had terrible timing! I further explained that my recent contact was why I thought she might have been the culprit. I also apologized for a rude comment about her and said I hoped we could move on.

While I didn’t expect to become friends with Maliheh, I longed for that connection. To my surprise, I noticed she was visiting my blog and reading my journal with increasing frequency. I started to open up about my feelings for her, admitting I had handled things poorly in the past but also expressing the hurt I’d felt. Finally, I told her I intended to post the story and asked her to let me know if she had any concerns.

When I began posting the story with us as lead characters a chapter at a time in July, she started checking my blog several times daily. The story was another reality-inspired fiction, like the one I wrote with Stacey.

Over about six months, I left scattered Facebook messages for her, letting her know I was thinking of her, hoping she liked the story, and that I’d love to hear from her. Since she was regularly checking my blog, I suspected she might not hate me after all, but I didn’t expect to hear from her until the story was finished.

But on October 25th, just over five months after my first contact, I did hear from her.

Her first message on my blog explained that she hadn’t contacted me sooner because she’d been advised against it. Then she demanded that while I could keep the story, she wanted her name removed so I changed it as a courtesy to her.

After these comments, I didn’t expect further contact. Yet on November 5th, she messaged me again on Facebook, and to my surprise, we began exchanging emails almost daily. Unlike the exasperation I felt with messages from Marie, I was genuinely excited to hear from Maliheh.

I learned a lot about her, though it was clear she only saw me as a friend. However, she knew I was still attracted to her and didn’t seem to mind.

What’s strange in a cool way about the whole thing is that I have once again jinx-written life into imitating art. The only difference is that this time it is in a good way. We became close at one point in my story. And here we are close in real life.

To wrap up my thoughts on my online connections, I’m still friends with Alison and also with Kim, whom I met through Aly. But along with Aly and Kim came Molly—a rather unhinged individual who has been relentlessly stalking them and everyone in their circle, including me. Despite repeated requests to leave us alone, Molly continues to force herself into our lives, insisting she’s done nothing wrong and just wants to be friends. When things don’t go her way, she sometimes turns nasty. We block her on every site we can, but unfortunately, some platforms have limited or ineffective blocking features, allowing her to bypass these barriers easily.

I’m still in touch with Mitch but haven’t heard from Dorian since he left the old diary site.

Last August, just a few days before her birthday, my sister reached out on Facebook, expressing hope that, while we can’t change the past, we might one day reconnect as sisters. I don’t share that sentiment, but I’ve agreed to at least keep things civil. Truthfully, I don’t wish to associate with someone capable of the things she’s done to me, nor do I feel any connection to her children. I’m no closer to being their aunt than I am to being anyone’s great-grandmother. So, I’m polite but distant.

I have a cousin and fellow writer who has authored several self-help books and has even appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I’ve swapped a few messages with her, her sisters, and her mother.

Back to Nane, my gorgeous German friend. Tom read an article that said English speakers find German relatively easy to learn because of structural similarities. Curious if this was true, I signed up for a German course online. Since Nane is a native speaker, she helped correct some of my exercises. I wouldn’t call German particularly easy, especially with its complex grammar rules, but I did find Nane’s profile picture captivating!

With nothing to lose, I privately told her about my feelings, adding my Facebook link and saying I’d love to connect with her there as both a friend and language partner.

When I didn’t hear back for a few weeks, I thought I’d offended her. But she eventually replied, explaining that she hadn’t been offended—just a little surprised. She’d been on vacation in Turkey, celebrating her 50th birthday with eighteen guests and even a belly dancer, which required a lot of planning and cleaning up afterward.

I was stunned to learn she was fifty. I’d pegged her as being in her late thirties to early forties!

We share a deep passion for both languages and music. Interestingly, she’s also bisexual and admitted to being attracted to me. I have to wonder, though—would the attraction be mutual if I weren’t married or if she weren’t halfway around the world?

Alongside German, I’ve also picked up some Esperanto. It’s incredibly easy, even simpler than Spanish.

After a long 22-month haul of unemployment, Tom was finally given a job where they make video equipment in Grass Valley. He works days at $13 an hour, the same as what he was last making in Oregon. But he’s only a temp and we’re hoping that he’s hired on soon so that we can finally have insurance.

In early September, shortly after Tom started working, we got a new rat I named Tinkerboy after Tinkerbell. He is dark brown and has a soft shiny coat like Tinkerbell had. He is a lot like Tinkerbell, though not quite as smart, and a little more destructive. He’s certainly faster and more playful.

We are not sure at this time if we’re going to remain in this trailer until we get a place of our own or rent a bigger, newer, more comfortable place. My guess is we’ll stay here despite how annoying Jesse can get at times.

The Seclusion of the Sierras

Early 2010:

Tom has been laid off for nearly 17 months. I appreciate not having to worry about him being on the road so much and enjoy seeing him have more time for the things he loves. But even though we get along well, having him home all the time is getting old. It’d be nice if he could find a job, even if it didn’t pay much or come with insurance. With our online jobs, we’d only need something part-time.

Thinking back to our adventurous days, we once boldly moved to Oregon, then to California—jobless and homeless—which nearly did us in. Sometimes, if you want out of a burning room, you’ve got to charge through the fire headfirst, not that we were necessarily in a burning room. But each long-distance move has been harder than the last, so I think it’s time to retire that adventurous side I never knew I had until I met Tom. It was fun and a learning experience, but one can only walk a tightrope so many times before falling too far to get back up. Even though the winters here are a bit colder than I’d like (it’s snowed a couple of times since we’ve been here), I love the woods. In Arizona, the flat, open land meant you could hear loud car stereos from miles away. Here, I love the hilly terrain and all the trees, even if neither cacti nor palms are native to this area. I miss the desert at times, and I sometimes think it’d be neat to live in a tropical place, but for now, it looks like we’re staying put. No guarantees, but that’s the plan. At least for now.

I’m trying to become a more forgiving person, though I know I’m not alone in struggling with this, despite all the talk of forgiveness out there. While I’ve mostly moved on from the anger I felt toward my sister, I still don’t know that I can forgive her. And I definitely can’t forgive those who created the “evidence” that cost me half a year of freedom, time with Tom, thousands of dollars, and untold degradation, anger, and fear. Forgiving people who don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong is a challenge, to say the least.

Late 2010:

There are only two hours left of 2010 as I write this. I decided I would update this bio at the end of every year rather than wait a few years. It’s easier to remember things that way and a lot seems to be happening to me at the same time not much is happening.

We still live in the old trailer on Jesse’s land. This is the longest time in the three rentals we’ve rented since we left Arizona. Jesse still drives me crazy at times too, with his dogs and his loud vehicles. But it still beats the city. Jesse’s now out of work, so that means we hear more of him than his dogs. And I don’t mean home as in fired or laid off. He hurt his back, so he told us, and is trying to retire or get on disability.

On Christmas Day of 2009, I was chatting with Marie. Had someone told me I’d be chatting with Maliheh of all people on the next Christmas I never would’ve believed it in a million years. Yeah, for me California’s definitely been the “state of reunion.” And a place full of surprises despite its disappointments.

I first found Maliheh on Facebook last May. I messaged her the day after her 53rd birthday, though I didn’t know at the time that the previous day was her birthday. My intentions at first weren’t to be very nice. I didn’t care to bully or harass her, I just thought I’d “surprise” her, so to speak, and casually drop my journal link on her.

I said something to the effect of, “Remember me? From the Deerfield/Northampton area in 1991? You were 34 at the time and I was 25. You weren’t very nice to me either.”

At the time I didn’t plan to ever contact her again, and as expected, I didn’t receive a reply from her.

Just two weeks later in early June, someone started harassing me on a site called Formspring where people can ask questions in total anonymity. I thought it was a neat idea and would be interesting to see what questions people hit me with. They were nothing out of the ordinary at first – what’s my favorite color, what’s my favorite movie, what chore do I hate the most…

It was soon clear to me that the person not only kept regular tabs on my journal but that they had personally known me at one point in my life.

My first thought was that it was either my sister or one of my sisters-in-law. But knowing it just wasn’t any of my SIL’s style, I quickly dropped them as a possibility.

Maliheh and Andy were next on the list. Especially Maliheh since I’d recently contacted her. I figured she took the time to comb through my journal and then decided to play around with me, even if she too, seemed like the serious, no pranks type.

At this time I believed Andy and I would never be friends again because he couldn’t “forgive” me for this tape of his he was so sure I had.

Either way, the “questions” kept coming.

Why is your husband such a lazy bum he can’t find a job…?

Does Tom fart more now that he’s gained weight…?

I hear you want a dog. How are you going to feed the mutt when you run out of money…?

Why did you marry a man if you haven’t been with a woman since 1992…?

Don’t you think you deserved to go to jail and pay for those you harassed over the telephone…?

This last question had me suspecting Maliheh most of all as it did not seem like anything Andy would ask.

And so I began not only doing more research on her but also sent her an accusatory message, warning her to knock it off and to never contact me again.

I went a step further and friended some of Maliheh’s friends. Not to say mean things about her, but to learn about her through them because I was curious about her, as I realized that ironically enough, I still had a crush on her. Yeah, despite our past problems and her so cruelly breaking my heart even though she never quite had it to begin with, I’d wondered about her from time to time throughout the years. I didn’t understand why I’d still have a thing for such a bitch 19 years later, but I did.

All I learned, before she contacted her friends and had them unfriend me, was that some guy used to play drums for her.

I remembered her being into the guitar, but that was pretty much all I knew about her other than that she quit smoking before we met and made me feel led on even though I didn’t handle it well back then being young and all that.

Still pissed over being “dumped” nearly two decades ago and convinced that she was the one harassing me, I deliberately badmouthed her in my journal (never using her full name) just in case she cared to check it out, though I doubted she cared, and I had no way of knowing either way at the time. Or if her friends would read along and end up turning against her for it, another thing I would later come to feel guilty over.

I even got a story idea with us as lead characters and thought it’d be funny if I sent her bits and pieces of it to read on Facebook, and also via email, now that I knew her two email addresses.

I pleaded in my journal and on Formspring for the person to identify themselves. I wasn’t scared, but I was a bit nervous. Especially before I knew what their true intentions were. But I sensed that I would eventually learn who they were. After a few days, the questions became less mean and it became more obvious that it was Andy.

And it was.

Andy, who I eventually spoke on the phone with and swapped emails with, had asked me the question about deserving to go to jail for the calls to throw me off his scent, and it worked.

At first, I was hesitant to bother with him for condemning me on how I handled my mother-in-law and basically defending the sickos that victimized me in Phoenix as well. I was not only shocked that he would take their side, but it especially shocked me because he himself was in jail if only for a day. He told me it was an experience that opened his eyes to the fact that he was a very angry person and needed to calm down. This was after he quit smoking pot and was dealing with withdrawal. He pranked some younger guy that was interested in him. I guess it wasn’t that Andy wasn’t interested back, he just didn’t like some things about the guy. And then one night they got into an argument over the phone.

“See that blue car parked on the street?” Andy had screamed at him. “Well, I’m in it and I’m watching you!”

Meanwhile, Andy had no idea there was really a blue car there. But the guy was not only terrified enough to spite him for that one but also because he was angry for having been rejected and so he went a step further by saying he tried to fondle him.

Andy spent the day in jail and did a year of probation. He felt the judge judged him before he even got a chance to have his say. This was why I was a little shocked at his defending my perps when he himself knew what it was like to be legally victimized.

After we both got some things off our chest and he agreed not to judge me for the way I live my life and handle things (though he wouldn’t keep his word), we’d continue to have fun on Formspring, only in a different way, as well as on Twitter where he would tweet his “tour dates” with his imaginary Fire Flies band, a game he’s been playing for decades.

I will admit that while it’s nice to be in touch with Andy again, who has since moved back to Springfield, so I was shocked to learn, it only made me feel bad for Maliheh. I really thought it was her for a while, even if it didn’t seem like anything she’d do from what little I knew about her. A part of me was bummed that it wasn’t her, for I kind of liked the idea of getting attention from her, even if it was in an unexpected and unusual way.

I also learned that Andy quit smoking both cigarettes and pot. He was so pissed that I could tell he was high (and said so in my journal which he had quietly followed for about a year before jumping out at me on Formspring) when he left some voice messages a couple of years ago that it’s part of what motivated him to quit nearly two years ago. I was glad to be of help!

He quit smoking cigarettes in 2002 and, having a harder time handling the heat, moved back east to a condo that is next to his mother’s condo in 2007. He’s still single but is doing well financially. He even owns his own cleaning business. I am both surprised and happy for him! He hates the cold and the snow but likes having his family around and the universal healthcare that Massachusetts offers.

Old Connections

I sent a letter to Andy’s sister Marla since I couldn’t find his address, asking her to say hello to him for me. I admitted that moving away without telling him where I’d gone had been mean and that I missed him and was curious about what he was up to these days.

Shortly after, I received a message saying that the only way Andy would forgive me for dumping him was if I sent his old recorded phone message tapes to his sister.

I was stunned by how much he still sounded the same, though I was disappointed to hear he was also clearly stoned.

I thought back to when I would record his phone messages for him, as he didn’t have the means to do it himself. But I mailed that tape to him before we left Phoenix and wrote another letter to Marla letting her know this.

“Guess I’m not the only unforgiving person in the world,” I’d written in a journal entry of mine on Kiwibox before I left that site, which was later sold and changed entirely. A young woman in Maryland responded, making a good point: she said Andy should forgive me because he wanted to, not because of anything I could give him.

Damn right, I agreed silently, feeling a bit embarrassed to be learning from someone half my age.

One day, I was browsing a prison inmate locator site and, out of curiosity, started looking up people I’d known in jail. Mary had told me about Myra and Hope, who each got forty years for child abuse, but I wondered about some others.

I studied Hope’s booking photo—she looked exactly as I’d expected: depressed and anxious. Myra, though, wore a wide smile, looking happy as ever. What could be so exciting about a forty-year sentence? I wondered. But then, if someone could be sick enough to abuse children, perhaps they could also be crazy enough to smile about forty years behind bars.

Yeah, smile, Myra. You’ll be an old lady when you go home. :)

Over the years, I’d wondered about Rosa, regretting that we hadn’t kept in touch, though I’d assumed she was deported to Mexico.

But there she was! I recognized her picture immediately. I was glad to finally find out what had happened to her, even if the news wasn’t good; sadly, she was serving twenty-five years for second-degree murder.

In late September, my worst fears for Mary came true. I knew she wanted to be hopeful and trusting, so I tried not to express my fears that she wouldn’t be released in exchange for her testimony against the man who killed her child, as she’d been promised. If anyone knew that cops, lawyers, and judges could be dishonest, it was me. And sure enough, even though she’d signed a plea agreement stating she’d be free after testifying, the judge, who clearly had a preconceived opinion about her, ordered her to prison at the trial’s end. So, after a decade in jail, she now had to serve two years in prison, with her release date pushed to June 2011. Understandably, she was very depressed, and I haven’t heard from her much since the sentencing, as she’s much busier now. She described it as a “modern-day boot camp.”

In late September, Tom learned from a news article about a site that pays people to complete artificial intelligence tasks requiring human input, which has been a great supplement to our income!

If I thought finding Rosa, despite her grim circumstances, was thrilling, nothing could compare to the surprises I’d receive on October 3rd and again on Christmas!

One day, while taking a break, I found myself thinking of the kind woman from the camp I was in as a kid who had shown me such compassion. Who was she? Where was she now? What was her life like? Fourteen years earlier in Phoenix, I had tried to find her, but with no luck. But the internet has come a long way, I thought to myself as I logged onto Facebook. Searching for a group for that camp, I found one and messaged the group’s owner with my story. He said he loved helping reconnect old campers and counselors and would do his best to identify her.

At first, I’d thought I’d attended the camp at age 9, but on reflecting on one of my few memories, it hit me: I’d been about 11. I remembered a bunch of us kids trying to convince some of the counselors that we were “bionic.” But had The Bionic Woman even aired when I was 9? A quick internet search confirmed it hadn’t been released until 1976, so I must have been 11.

I let the group owner know, adding that she hadn’t been a regular counselor. He tracked down a list of names from 1976, and a few people in the group recalled a woman with a dog who matched my description. “It’s Eileen,” they said. “She had a dog named Sydney.”

Finally, a name! I messaged her and to my delight, she responded within hours, confirming that yes, she had been at Camp Naomi in 1976 and she even remembered me! Today, she has kids and grandkids and lives in eastern Massachusetts. We’ve kept in touch since I found her.

If finding Eileen was a surprise in itself, my next surprise truly floored me: reconnecting with Marie from Valleyhead. A couple of years ago, I’d set up an account on Classmates.com to enter a drawing. While there, I looked up Valleyhead, my old school. Despite its dark history—closed in the ’90s after an FBI investigation into abuse and embezzlement—I was curious about any familiar names, and I spotted Marie’s. Tall, dark, Italian, and very much my type, she looked fantastic.

While browsing the group page, I left a public message with my Facebook details, just in case anyone wanted to reach out. To my shock, Marie did! She remembered me, asked how I was, and shared that she was living in Trumansburg, New York with roommates and studying criminal justice. I was surprised by how excited she seemed to reconnect, even saying she’d love to chat.

As we talked about our Valleyhead days, I mentioned my crush on a staff member named Mary, which led to a surprising revelation: Marie had a crush on me! I couldn’t believe it. We’d rarely interacted and never shared a room or any classes.