The life story of a snow leopard - Part 4
It looks like I can get things to fit with just one more post after this. To think, I didn't include so many things. How long could this have been?
In the years before I moved out, I’d also come to befriend a feral tomcat in the neighborhood. He looked like a Russian Blue and was the nicest cat, once I’d gotten him to trust me. This took a span of 12-14 months and daily effort to slowly get him used to me. In time, he’d come to let me pet him. I could lift him but not really pick him up. He didn’t know what to do with that. But he trusted me. That’s what counted. I could never do much like take him to get vaccinated. He was a tomcat, likely propagating the species unnecessarily, too. The best I could do was feed him and try to keep him healthy. He was far too wild for much else. I called him Orion. He was sweet and had a good heart without any meanness in him. I think he only scratched me once, and that was because I surprised him and he reacted before he realized. One time in several years. It was a light scratch at that.
I gave him antibiotics in his food when he got sick once. I tried to help him as best I could. Then, when I moved out of my mother’s house, I wasn’t able to be there for him. I wonder what he thought. I’ve long wondered what happened to him. That was in 2010. I don’t imagine he lived for many more years, being on the street.
I think it was 2011 when our older sister was dropped off at our mother’s doorstep with some of her things. The rest had been put in storage. Her boyfriend’s daughters thought she was too much of a burden on him, so they unceremoniously dumped her. It was shocking and cruel. There was no talking leading up to this. It just happened. They put “most” of her things in a storage unit and told her it was paid for the month. That was it.
So our mother had to truly be responsible for her then. That’s where she’d live for the next few years. It was the three of them, our mother, her husband, and our older sister. Then there was our sister’s cat and Murky. The two of them never got along.
The dynamic there was never very good. Our sister sort of regressed, becoming more dependent due to her being so sick from years of alcohol abuse. She eventually managed to stop smoking. Sometimes she’d be left home alone though, and our mother and stepfather wouldn’t keep alcohol out of the house, so she could get at it. These times she’d end up back in the hospital. It happened on a few occasions. I said my mother was “responsible” for her but not that she was truly responsible. Nor did she fully understand medical circumstances. Her care of our sister was probably subpar, but it’s what she had.
Work at the newspaper was chaos. We’d had lots of turmoil with employee drama over the years. I don’t want to go into detail on that right now. Suffice it to say, it was miserable. I continued as best I could though. I had little other choice.
In December, we had our annual photo shoot for the Christmas edition of the newspaper. This involved the entire staff gathering for the photos, and this time it was outside of the office. It had snowed the night before, but it was only an inch or so, and it had been melting with the sun shining by the time I was driving. I had a feeling I should’ve put the Jeep in full-time 4wd, or even not used cruise control to travel at 70mph down the highway. I was heading west outside of town to the country home where the photos were to be taken. The wind was blowing out of the north, taking the snow from the fields and covering the road’s surface. It was clear and sunny with no sign of trouble, then I saw it. There wasn’t enough time, or I wasn’t ready for it. Either way, I didn’t get cruise control disengaged in time, and everything went out of control. I skidded and slid, trying to correct. I almost managed it, but then I went into the ditch. This caused the passenger side front corner to impact the ditch, and the Jeep flipped and rolled. I came to a stop far into the field.
Someone stopped soon after to see if I was alright. I managed to think clearly enough to say I could still hear the fuel pump going. I couldn’t get the keys to disengage, they were locked in the ignition. So I asked if he’d disconnect the battery if I popped the hood. Surprisingly, the release worked, and he was able to do as I asked. Then he helped me crawl out of the shattered driver’s side window.
I called the authorities, then a tow truck, and then my sister before my mother. Friend’s of my sister’s stopped on the road to check on me. They lived out that way and were volunteer firefighters as well as trained EMTs. They said I seemed fine and probably didn’t need an ambulance, but they’d never seen anyone walk away from an accident like the one I’d had. I guess wearing a seatbelt really does make a difference.
I also called my boss, who was waiting at the location for the photo shoot. She wasn’t happy and asked, “So you’re going to be a little late?” Yeah, that’s how it went. My sister’s friends gave me a ride to the photo shoot. I was shaken, had pieces of glass in my hair and in my ear even, a few nicks here and there, but I was alive. I stayed long enough for the photos to be taken. Then I got a ride home.
That was a Saturday. Sunday I had to go to work to put together the Christmas section and the Monday edition of the newspaper. What happened the day before didn’t matter. I felt kind of frustrated, but jobs are not always understanding. We do what we must. Survival.
My sister’s friends were kind enough to loan me a vehicle to drive until I could get my insurance claim through so I’d have money to buy something else to drive. Winter was harsh that year, and the vehicle they let me drive wasn’t good in snow, but I survived.
My sister, her husband, and their now almost 2-year-old son went to visit our dad in south Texas where he had a small apartment he spent the winter. That’s where we went for Christmas that year. It was an unusual holiday for sure.
Then I found a 4Runner in January, and that’s what I bought to replace my Jeep. It’s what I drive to this day.
Years came and went. I remember it all as a blur. Murky became sick in 2012. It turned out she had cancer in her lower jaw. Our mother took her to the vet clinic where my younger sister worked as a vet tech, and it was discovered. Then my sister wanted to put her down then, not to even try to treat her. Our mother scoffed and took her to another vet. He removed some of her lower teeth that were in bad shape, but he said the cancerous mass was eating through her jaw, which caused her teeth to lose something to root in. There was little that could be done. Or at least, little our mother could afford to do. I was out of the loop. I knew Murky was suffering, and I wish now I’d done more to advocate for her. She most likely needed put to sleep before she suffered too terribly. No one had the money to pay for treatment even if it had been possible, but as the circumstances were, it probably wasn’t something within medical capability.
She made it past October and Halloween. Then in November of 2012, she was finally allowed to sleep. I think I’ll cry now if I think about it. I still dream of her. She was my kitten. My original kitten. I loved her so much. She smelled like cinnamon.
I had other cats of course, but Murky was special. She’ll always have a special place in my heart.
More holidays passed. Again, I don’t remember much. Work, loneliness, longing, waiting, and time passed. The person I’d fallen for years before was still an impossible situation, but that didn’t stop me from feeling. It stalled me in life and kept me from moving on or finding anyone else. It kept me from living life. I thought we’d manage someday, maybe. He gave me reason to think this was possible. He led me to believe it anyway. He led me to believe many things. Time after time I’d be let down. So many years passed, and my youth with it. All while I waited.
2013 arrived without much fanfare. I don’t remember much about that either. Things were tumultuous at work. That job was trying to destroy me. One of the people working there was impossible to deal with, and she was driving the owner to want to sell the business. I spent more and more time at work, until I was working six days a week. I don’t know how I managed.
My best friend finally visited again in April of 2013. He stayed with me in my tiny efficiency, which is probably an exaggeration of what it actually was. While I worked, he slept, and when I got home, he’d barely be going. His sleep was strange, and he didn’t do much other than play games on his PSP, or get online with his laptop. I tried to motivate him to get out and see the town, to do things with me, but we only went out a little while he was there. We did manage to visit Colorado Springs again, and the zoo. It was a quick trip as before, fit around my work schedule. Due to his job, he couldn’t stay as long as he had in 2008. So he was there less than a week, and we didn’t do as much as I’d hoped.
We also saw Bishop’s Castle in Colorado. I’d forgotten about that. It’s an interesting and iconic place to see if you haven’t been. I’m not sure if we went up Pike’s Peak. I think this time we didn’t. We went to Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo instead. It’s the second largest canyon in the United States.
His visit ended all too soon though. He went home to return to work, and I went to work as usual. 2013 was the last time I saw him to this date. Life hasn’t gone well for me since to be able to visit. Things have been strange. Are they always strange? Or do they just always feel wrong?
The owner of the newspaper finally couldn’t handle the turnover of employees and the stress that one employee in particular caused. She decided to sell the business. The new owners agreed to keep her staff, but this was a verbal agreement. My stress level increased. The new owners were not news people. They cared about the accounting of the business. They were co-owners of several small newspapers across the region, two friends who’d gone into business together. One of them had been an accountant, so that figured.
He told me I should care less about quality, our readers didn’t care, and just get the paper done. They didn’t care about proofreading or design. He even told me we were like a factory manufacturing a bolt. Just to make the bolts to get to the customers.
The turnover in ownership happened near the end of May. In September, near my birthday, my biological father finally found out what his health issues had been caused by. He’d been going to doctors for years trying to get answers. One finally listened, and after doing a scope of his heart, discovered he had a major artery blocked. He was admitted to the hospital immediately and scheduled for open-heart bypass surgery first thing the next morning.
I couldn’t help but take time off then, even as it was inconvenient to do so. I tried my best to explain my job duties to my coworkers, showing them what needed to be done and how to do it, but no one really knew what all I did or how. They’d never wanted to know. I’d typed up and printed out lots of guides, so that was something. This wasn’t requested, but I thought it prudent. I don’t know why I was always going to such efforts for people who didn’t even care. Work ethic is a strange thing.
I received several phone calls during my few days away visiting my father at the hospital. I’d driven as I couldn’t afford a last-minute flight. Though, it’s possible the travel expenses added up to just as much by the time it was all said and done. The people at the newspaper didn’t know how to do things and often called to get me to guide them through stuff. It made the trip all the more stressful.
By the time I was heading home, their phone calls were delaying my travel as I had to stop to answer myriad questions instead of driving. Then I pushed myself past what was probably safe to hurry back as quickly as possible.
A week after I returned, the new publisher came out to talk to me after everyone else had left. It was a Friday evening, and he asked what I was doing. I told him. He said not to worry about it, that I should clean out my stuff and head home. I was floored. I’d been there nearly five and a half years, and I was being laid off without warning. “It’s just how the owners like to do things,” he told me. And since they’d dissolved the previous business and re-incorporated, a sly business means of doing things to avoid past responsibility, they had no legal requirement to give me severance. I was simply laid off.
I’m stupid, I suppose. I tried to show him how things I did worked and what they’d need to do without me, because they’d obviously had a mess when I wasn’t there for even 2-3 days. He said they’d figure it out and I should just go home. That was that.
It’s a very low feeling being laid off. The way it was done made it worse. I was able to apply for unemployment, but that didn’t make up for the shock, the feeling of loss, or sense of being worthless. He’d even told me I was “no longer necessary.” They’d been replacing employees one by one. I should have expected it. Yet, who expects this kind of thing?
The nearest workforce office was 85 miles away in the city. So to handle unemployment requirements and get help with searching for work, since I would need to travel for interviews and such, I had to travel there every two weeks. I’d meet with a workforce counselor and go over my progress. Then they’d decided if I was doing a suitable job looking for work and what measures I needed to take from there. I don’t know how many trips I made over the next several months. I had to look for work outside of the town I lived in due to its size and limited job pool. My abilities just weren’t something that carried over to much anything there. And I wanted to leave. I was done.
In late September into October I took some time to blanket my resume across newspapers and various publications in Colorado. I traveled to follow up, meeting with several people at their offices, but it was a demoralizing process. I never felt like I was getting anywhere, and the cost of travel with limited income from unemployment made me feel like a failure. I did, however, discover some relatives of my mother’s lived in Colorado Springs. I met up with them and was able to look for work there, but they were renovating their condo and couldn’t give me a place to stay.
It was also in September of that year when I found out things had changed for the person I’d had feelings for all those years. He was available, but he hadn’t told me. It had already been months. I questioned this. It was strange. Things still seemed little more optimistic than they had before, which was sad. I just wanted love to work out. It had been what mattered most to me for as long as I could remember, or at least since I’d begun to think about things like that.
The holidays that year were strange. I was unemployed, trying to get by with the little unemployment gave me, and feeling the stress close in on me. Holidays during such times feel oppressive, dark, cold, and overall unhappy.
I do remember a stray cat my mother had taken care of had ended up having kittens. These were our older sister’s babies. She loved them so much. I ended up getting her things for her cats more than her. This may seem weird, but it might not if you’re a cat person.
I made it to the New Year of 2014 still without a job. This led to me returning to Colorado Springs with more job leads. This time my relatives were staying in their condo and able to have me stay with them. It gave me a base to work out of as I looked for work and tried to meet for interviews.
Nothing came of it though. I spent several days trying, and driving across the region again trying to follow up with job leads and applying in person where I could. I had no idea getting a job could be so difficult.
I returned home in time for my older sister’s birthday. She wasn’t feeling very well, but it was still nice to spend time with her and give her something. I think I gave her “Life of Pi” on DVD. I thought she’d like it since she loved cats, especially tigers. It was a good book, and the movie was an alright adaptation.
About a week after her birthday, she was rushed to the hospital. Our mother didn’t know enough about her medical care. To be fair, someone that sick should have actual medically trained help to care for them at home. That’s not easy to get. Her liver and kidneys had been shutting down, and the buildup of potassium she took a supplement for became toxic until it stopped her heart. It was just one thing compounding another compounding another. Doctors spent hours at the ER trying to keep her alive. They did chest compressions and kept her heart going, and brought her back again and again. They wanted to get her stable enough to fly her to the hospital in the nearby city, the same one she’d ended up in so many times before. My younger sister and I went home to gather some things so we could travel there to meet her.
Unfortunately, we received a phone call from our mother a short while later. Our sister had not made it. She’d finally slipped away.
The funeral is another blur. Things happened. I was sad. I remember crying when I could, but there was a wall inside that wouldn’t break. I could only cry a little every so often. It happened. It just wasn’t a full cry that let the pain out. OCD intensified, as always seems the case when I’m particularly stressed. It made things all the harder. I wish it weren’t something I had to deal with. It never does anything good for me.
Later that year, I tried to find a means to attend college classes to work toward being more appealing as a potential employee. I tried to find a way to do this through the workforce office, various community colleges, and so on. No one really had an idea of how it could be done. Wanting to get an education to help you find a job since you aren’t having any luck finding one, what are you thinking?
I filled out FAFSA forms and hoped for the best, but I didn’t qualify for any meaningful aid. I don’t understand it, but that was the case. Even being unemployed for months at that point, they saw me as too well off to require grants or other help for college. I tried to find any means possible to make it work, but it was not to be. Since my mother had spent money meant for my sister and I to use for college long before, I was again stymied in my attempt to get an education.
Later yet even, in June, I finally garnered some interest from a job prospect. I had some digital editing tests, was asked some questions via email, and then had a phone interview. I went to visit the newspaper in Colorado that month. Then I moved to take the job in July.
Unfortunately, I could not take the cat I’d befriended with me. He wasn’t mine. Jasper wasn’t even his given name. As much as I wanted to, it wasn’t possible. Besides, rentals don’t often allow pets. I know I couldn’t find any that would when I was scrambling to find a place to live.
My younger sister and the friends of hers who had helped me after the Jeep rollover now helped me to move. It was very kind. I paid for some of their gas, but otherwise they went to the expense to help. My sister has since shown far less interest in my life, and I don’t think she’d be here to help me with much anything. I’m not sure what’s happened. I hear from her so little.
Living on your own is one thing, but living far away from everything you’ve ever known is another one entirely. It was culture shock to be in such a different place. Then needing to take care of so much and make my way in the world became so many times more complicated. I felt anxious and stressed.
The job was also a new level of difficult I hadn’t anticipated. The newspaper where I’d spent all those years hadn’t prepared me for this. There was a lot more I needed to know than I came into the place with. I felt lost. It took time for me to manage the learning curve from where I’d started out at. I think I managed, but the stress was intense. I also had no support system locally and felt very alone. So the necessity of making things work was even more pressing.
I ended up seeing a doctor and seeking help for my anxiety and OCD issues, not to mention insomnia. I’d hoped he could do something to make life more tolerable as I was just an anxious mess that couldn’t sleep and felt miserable. He had me try various medications, but nothing helped much. At least, he told me if I couldn’t tell the medicine was helping, that meant it was helping. I was skeptical of this.
My time at the newspaper there was not easy. I continued to rely on the person I loved for support. There was never any follow through on past promises. He’d said if I moved ahead of him, he’d follow through with plans we’d had to live together. Even if just roommates, we’d make a go of it together to handle life, and eventually attend college. Because it would be easier together than by ourselves. So while there was support online, there was little in the way of support in person. I really needed that. And with how much I was working, the schedule I worked, from 3 p.m. to midnight (in theory), I was more and more cut off from everyone in my life. He became my lifeline.
I couldn’t handle the work, the stress, and the isolation, even if I’d half imposed it on myself. All that said, the cost of living also outweighed my income making for a deficit each month. This was not a sustainable situation. In early 2015, I began to look for another job. I sought even to leave. I applied across Colorado. Something had to pan out. I’d even travel to Woodland Park for an interview later that year. I think I’d gone to Silverton to see an area of Colorado I’d never been to before, but I needed to be back a couple days later for the interview. Then that fell through. It became a bit of a mess though. The publisher wasn’t too kind about it even though he’d been the one to invite me to come for the interview. It was confusing and left me bewildered. I found out the newspaper was changing ownership, and I suppose he was stressed out with everything being up in the air so suddenly. So my interview was no longer of concern.
Of course, I’d already been making plans to move to Woodland Park and get away from the mess I’d created for myself where I was living. I’d given my resignation, but due to staffing issues, they kept having me work for them on a part-time basis. This helped at the very least.
In August of 2015, my computer failed with a pop as I was heading out the door to work. I discovered smoke and a dead computer once more. There was smoke in the air. Of course, it wasn’t the same situation as the previous failure of a computer in 2010. I had to go to work, but later I was able to trace the failure point to the power supply. It was apparently a known issue with that brand of power supplies. OCZ had gone out of business, so I had no recourse. Even if they had still been around, the warranty period was just about up. I had one month left before the 5 years ended.
I purchased a Corsiar unit to replace the failed one and was able to get things up and running again in the course of a week or so. Further upgrades were wished for but not pragmatic with financial concerns at that point in time.
Still August, I again thought I had things figured out in Woodland Park, and I’d gotten a rental sorted. So I went ahead with moving in September of 2015. This time, my sister’s husband was the one to help me to move. It was much more rushed, and I was somewhat better prepared, so things went almost smoothly. An elk crossed the road in front of the moving truck my brother-in-law was driving, which almost caused an accident, but fortunately it was avoided. Elk in the mountains are common, but you still don’t expect them to just leap into the road in front of you. It happens.
Once there, a job did not pan out. I was fooling myself because I wanted to believe it would work out. I guess we sometimes do that.
I was back to looking for work while trying to survive, as I had been in the other Colorado town where I lived, and as I had been back in Texas. Only this time I had no part-time work, or unemployment, and cost of living was high. It was an utterly depressing time.
That being said, the rental I found was located in a grandfathered in development that had been a summer came some years back. Since, it had been converted into rentals as duplexes and triplexes. I was in a triplex. The location was idyllic in an open area surrounded by trees, isolated from the town itself. Deer passed by daily. I carved a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, and around midnight I heard a banging at the door. I turned the porch light on and opened the door only to see a deer looking startled, having backed away quickly, watching me. The doe had been eating my jack-o-lantern. Who knew deer liked pumpkins?
So at least the setting was nice. The neighbors, not so much. One was an older lady who smoked, despite the regulations not to do so in the lease, and this meant I smelled smoke in my unit all of the time. The other was a bit of a crazy sort who went to a Christian “college” that was more cult than anything. She chanted strange “languages” at all hours and opened and closed cabinet doors as loudly as possible in some strange ritual I’ve no idea what was. I made the best of it, but neighbors do affect our quality of life. So it was difficult. The older lady often saw when I came or went and would intercept me, trying to talk, but she was very strange and ranted about democrats and similar things. She also always had something she wanted my help with, which meant going into her unit and smelling like cigarette smoke. I’m allergic, so this required my tossing my clothes in the laundry and showering immediately after. Then I felt lousy for hours.
The publisher of the newspaper in Woodland Park did contact me again not long after I moved there to somewhat apologize and ask that I come in for an interview. It was uncomfortable, but I needed a job, so I went ahead with it. He had me meet with him and the new owner for lunch. Then I didn’t hear back for a while. They didn’t decide to hire me, so it was even stranger. I’m not sure they knew what they wanted to do.
I was able to get some freelance work with a regional mountain newspaper, but it was a monthly, and I was set the task of advertising sales. I don’t know how to sell things. It didn’t work well. You have to walk into places and ask people to buy ads, make phone calls, send emails, that sort of stuff. It’s difficult to get people to buy something like that. I’ve no idea how salespeople do it.
In March of 2016, I was hired for contract work for a web news and streaming company. I did reporting, photography, and web content management, as well as web design, for them. They were vague about what they wanted done, not to mention providing very rudimentary tools that they insisted I use instead of anything better suited for the task. After a month, I was told they wouldn’t be continuing the contract. So in eight months I only had one month of work.
I applied all over Colorado, and even traveled to Texas to interview and look for jobs. I also traveled far and wide to interview for jobs in Colorado, but they were not going to pay enough to make moving feasible. The pay was so low I’m not sure how the employers expected anyone to survive on it. That’s why when the contract position ended, I had to take the position I least wanted to up in Wyoming. It put me on the Colorado-Wyoming border, but out in the prairie of the high desert. Cold, windy, and barren.
Initially, I didn’t hear back for a long while after I traveled there for the interview. So I thought it was a lost cause. The contract position came up in the interim, and I thought I finally had a chance to make things work where I was. Then it was gone, and I was desperate. The job offer came soon after. Coincidentally, I interviewed for the contract position after getting back from going to Montrose to look for rentals where a job had been offered. It was one of the low-paying jobs I couldn’t figure out a way to make work. Then the contract position gave me a reason to dismiss it as unfeasible.
When that didn’t work out and I had the offer from Wyoming, I told my landlord in order to give 30 days notice that I would be moving, which helps with losing as little money in breaking a lease as possible. It’s sometimes a chore to get anything back, or not be expected to pay extra. Renting can be troublesome, besides not being able to have pets.
Then I received a phone call from the editor of the newspaper telling me he’d been laid off along with others from the company. The paper had been sold by the family that had owned it for ages, and the new corporate ownership was making changes. He said it was understandable if I didn’t want to take the job, but he could not advise me one way or another according to his release from his job. He was just obligated to tell me what had happened. I also heard from the new editor, who had been assistant editor.
This left me in a quandary. Should I stay where I was without a job, or should I take a job that might be on shaky ground? On one hand, I was already in the mountains where I wanted to be, but things were very hard. I was going into debt trying to survive. On the other hand, moving would mean I would have steady pay. It just included uncertainties, such as how long the job might last.
Unusual as it may sound, my mother and stepfather came up to help me move. They were feeling bad about how their actions had impacted me, I suppose. So this was their chance to in some small way make it up to me. It was something seeing as I had few other options as far as help was concerned.
By now it was May, and I had little time left to move and get settled. I had to be out of the rental in Woodland Park by a set date. Part of my moving was due to the landlord re-renting the unit before I found out things were a bit uneasy at the newspaper where I’d been offered a job. So I had nowhere to live if I tried to stay. Moving became my only real option.
My mother’s health was declining, but she came to help anyway. Together they were able to assist me in finishing packing the last of my things into boxes, loading them onto the truck, and my stepfather actually drove the moving truck. My mother drove the car they’d come in. I went in my own vehicle with a load of more significant items. I always do this when moving just in case, taking things I couldn’t afford to lose, or at least really wouldn’t want to.
They helped me get unpacked and set up in my new apartment. Then they stayed for a couple weeks before heading back to their home in Texas. They’d return for another visit in June. During this time, they helped me to get used to the area at least, as well as exploring the state parks nearby. So I felt there was a little hope with some natural places to visit. Still, the new location was an uncomfortable one for me. I didn’t feel at home there, yet I had little choice but to make things work.
The job started out rocky and never really got better. It was grueling and stressful with lots of pressure and long hours. It had a similar schedule to the one I’d had before working from 3 p.m. to midnight, but midnight often ended up being far later. At the same time, “overtime wasn’t allowed.” This in reality just meant you worked off the clock to get the expected work done. The constant threat of being replaced if you couldn’t do the work in the set amount of time loomed over you. It was oppressive and demoralizing.
Come December, my mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. She ended up in the hospital with liver failure. She wasn’t expected to live. I’d managed to get some time off around the holidays so I could go down and see her. I stayed with my sister, her husband, and their son. Our biological father had come down to visit for Christmas, so it was a gathering. With the need to drive to Amarillo, which was 85 miles away, each day to see my mother, then return and try to spend time with my family at my sister’s, I was wearing down. I’d had to drive 500 miles just to get there. This after working extra to make it possible to be gone. Then holidays always require extra workloads in such an industry. So I was exhausted by the time I headed back, leaving my mother in barely stable condition with only slight hope of survival. She seemed to be somewhat better though. I just had to hold on to hope that she’d recover. Leaving felt awful. I wish jobs didn’t ask such sacrifices of us.
I arrived back in early January, as I recall. The year unfolded from there. My mother’s health improved enough that she was eventually released, two months after being admitted. She’d been through a lot, aging several years in the time she’d been ill. Her failing organs had caused fluid buildup in her legs, which damaged the skin and required skin grafts with multiple surgeries. Her mobility is limited to this day.
During her time in the hospital, her husband decided to let their mortgage go. He didn’t like living in Texas and wanted a way out. He’d been neglecting it as it was, and now that my mother was unable to do anything to prevent it, he allowed their home to be foreclosed on. The home where I’d spent most of my childhood was being reclaimed by the bank. He called me to let me know, and I had to take time off to go down to try to help pack some of the more meaningful things up. I couldn’t get enough time to do everything I’d have liked, and most of the sentimental items, such as things that belonged to our older sister, I took to my younger sister’s for safe keeping. I don’t know if they’re still with her. She’s less sentimental and seems to like to discard things without much thought. I didn’t want to take things to my storage unit due to how badly things had gone there. That’s another story though, involving termites, a break-in, and so on. Neither could I take everything with me back to Wyoming. My vehicle just didn’t have enough room to fit it all.
They’d end up in Amarillo at his old property, dilapidated as it was. He’d never gotten rid of it, so at least it was there. But it wasn’t possible to live in it. Instead, he bought an old silverstream trailer from the 70s. Since our mother was still in the hospital, she could do little about this. She’d been taken from Amarillo to our small hometown hospital before the foreclosure notice. So she never got to see her home again after her harrowing experience beginning in December.
John and his wife had been there for me as touchstones to speak with about things while I was still in Wyoming, and I’d seen them during my time back in my hometown for the holidays. So when I was down in February due to the foreclosure mess, I found out John’s wife, Diane, wasn’t doing well with a nerve issue in her face causing her significant pain. I remember him telling me he’d take her suffering if he could. He’d rather he had it than her. So it was strange to think about when he became ill later that year. I found out over the phone, and my job didn’t allow for much freedom to travel. I should have taken time off anyway.
In May when John found out what was wrong with him after months of uncertainty, it was a shock. His doctors at the VA diagnosed him with leukemia. They gave him two weeks to live. As much as I wanted to visit, his wife said I should probably not since his immune system was compromised and he couldn’t afford to get sick. Somehow, he was convinced to seek treatment instead of a death sentence. He began chemo soon after. I still didn’t think I could visit with him in the condition he was.
He was declining fast though. Things were happening all too fast. I spoke with him soon after his diagnosis, talking about living life, how I never seemed to want to spend money because I worried so much. We talked about meeting up in his favorite down in Colorado after he’d overcome cancer. It’s a little gold mining town that’s nearly deserted now called Victor. There’s a German bakery there that’s unbelievable. At least there was.
His decline was quick. The cancer had been caught too late to beat it with treatment. He’d been feeling ill one night, so his wife took him to the hospital. His intestines were failing, dying inside him, and he was lifeflighted to the hospital in Amarillo for emergency surgery. The doctors tried to remove what they could to save him, but he needed another surgery after the first, and they couldn’t keep ahead of the necrosis. His body was failing. This was a Friday.
I was at work on Saturday night when I got the phone call from Diane telling me he had died. She told me they couldn’t keep ahead of things, he was deteriorating too fast, and there was no real way the doctors could see of saving him. They could keep trying to remove his dying intestines, but his organs were shutting down. He was on life support and not conscious. She said he’d told her he didn’t want to be hooked up to machines, not himself, barely alive, with his suffering drawn out. So she along with his son and other family members made the decision to take him off life support.
I did get time off to attend his funeral. I’m not sure I want to remember though. These memories are bringing tears as I write this. Remembering is not an easy thing. We draw out things we’ve let fade, not wanting to bring to the surface with fresh pain.
I took the long way back, meandering through the mountains, stopping at Ringo’s outside of Trinidad along the scenic byway he’d shown me all those years before. I tried to heed his words and live a little more, but I was still afraid, worrying all the time about “what if.”
The person I’d had feelings for, loving from afar for all these years, continued to be a source of support, but he still wouldn’t make any tangible effort toward forming a life like we’d talked about. I felt like time drug along while he went about his life the way he always had, not truly thinking about the impact it had on me. Making commitments, figuring out what he really wanted with me, moving to have that life we’d dreamed of, all the things I held on to year after year.
It didn’t help that I found out he was having another relationship in 2016, through the time I moved, and all the stress that first year brought. He’d let me think everything was fine. Then in December, right before Christmas, I found out it was not. I told him I knew, and he didn’t seem fazed. He said he’d felt we weren’t as close as we used to be, so he embraced this new relationship. Then, he didn’t feel like he should have to make a decision, so he didn’t. I fooled myself into thinking I was alright with this. I was hurt, my holiday spent working, and feeling betrayed.
This wasn’t something I wouldn’t experience again. The following December, right around Christmas, I’d find out he was still entertaining the idea of this other relationship. She didn’t know about us. I didn’t feel right telling her. She was only barely my friend. Then I was having a lot of trouble with the entire situation.
Time passed. I don’t know that this specific situation was ever resolved. More like, she tired of being told the same things I’d been told. I found out he’d said he was going to move to where she was to “give them a chance.” So I don’t know. I tried to talk to him about this, but he never acknowledged my words. Sometimes he was just liked that, if he didn’t want to deal with a topic, he’d ignore it.
Years at the job continued. I missed most holidays with family. I was isolated and felt alone. I tried to reignite friendships I’d let slide over the years as life and circumstances drew us apart. I’d practically stopped being part of the furry community. So I joined Twitter and tried to reacclimatize myself. It’s only been somewhat successful.
The last Christmas I spent with my sister and her family was probably in 2016. There had been a lot of issues with her husband, and she wouldn’t spend another Christmas with him. This is her story, so I won’t go into too much detail. He turned out to be going down a bad path. He wasn’t good for her or their son. Our father was there as I said before. I remember that. I think my nephew was 7 years old, so he’d start to remember things more. It probably isn’t his best memory of Christmas.
Then I could be mixing up the year since I’m not sure when my sister and her husband split. I seem to recall her having a Christmas without a man in her life. She met the guy who would be her second husband in January of 2018, marrying him that fall without telling anyone or inviting them until it had happened. She said she was going to have a small ceremony or reception later for people to come to so they could recognize their marriage, but as far as I know that never happened.
She and her new husband behaved differently than what I was used to. Her first husband was erratic and turned out to have some bad habits and go down a path that led him into ruination. Yet he did try with the family thing. He always tried to create a sort of welcoming atmosphere. I know that’s a low bar to set. Her new husband was more standoffish. We didn’t know him, the rest of our family, and there was little getting to know him that I could tell.
Shortly before Christmas in 2018, my sister called to see if I wanted to take a last-minute flight down to south Texas where our father had that apartment. We could spend Christmas together there. Since I couldn’t get time off on the spot, my scheduled time off for the holidays was a few days later, and I didn’t want to go to the expense of the flight and trying to deal with travel right at Christmas time, I opted out. I guess it was all an impulsive idea she and her husband had in the moment. So the plan unraveled, and they didn’t end up going either.
My mother wanted me to come down to see her for Christmas. I tried to arrange something with my sister, but now she said she’d not be in town or around over the holidays. So I made plans to visit my mother instead. She was living in Amarillo now with her husband, our stepfather. As it goes, things were uneasy.
My sister wasn’t happy to find this out. As I was driving down, only a few hours away, she called to tell me they were on their way back from wherever they’d been. So they were going to be in town for Christmas after all. I should stay with them. Now, I know how our mother was and the things she’d done that weren’t right, but I couldn’t just change plans on her like that. I make commitments and keep them. So I told my sister she should have said something ahead of time. I would visit her while I was there, but I wouldn’t be staying with them. I apologized, but I don’t think she was happy.
Because of the living situation my mother and stepfather had, they arranged for me to stay at a hotel. They had some sort of reward points toward it, knew someone, or something. So they were able to get a discount. We all spent the holiday there, though they slept at their home. It was comfortable. I guess it went alright. It was the most Christmas-like Christmas I’ve had in years now. I think that’s telling. I’ve spent most of them alone since moving to Wyoming.
A snowstorm that turned into a blizzard fell over the region the day I was meant to head back north, and stop in to spend some time with my sister, her new husband, and my nephew. I hadn’t even met her husband yet. She’d met him, fallen in love, and gotten married, and here I didn’t know him at all. It was strange to me. I guess it happens, but there was little as far as trying to get to know one another. The visit was weird. I took a long time to get there because of the storm, risking my life driving through it into the night. I’d waited until halfway through the day hoping the weather would let up. It only did somewhat.
Our father had stopped in to see them as well, on his way to his property in south Texas. He usually spent the winter there, so he was getting a late start that year. Neither of us knew what to make of the new relationship or the new dynamic. Everything was uneasy and didn’t feel very welcoming. I’m not sure I can describe it. I didn’t feel at all comfortable there, and that was the first time that happened since my sister had moved out and started her life. I never felt uncomfortable in her home until then.
He left the next morning, and I couldn’t stay much longer. There wasn’t a lot of effort on my sister or her husband’s part to have us stay longer. Of course, I had to get back to work as my days off were set, so I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. Things were so surreal there I didn’t mind leaving. I just felt sort of sad with the change. I was glad to see my sister at least, as well as my nephew. I always got along well with him. I usually spent more time during visits hanging out and doing things with him than anyone, mostly because he’s an only child and wants a playmate. But that’s alright. It reminds one a bit of what it’s like to be a kid, and I probably won’t ever have kids of my own. So it’s nice.
I’d purchased some upgrades for my ancient computer prior to making the trip for Christmas. So they were waiting to be installed when I got back. An SSD, 16GB of RAM to replace my 4GB, an RX560, and an AMD FX 8350 to replace my Phenom II that was just a quad core running at 3.2GHz. I set the clock for the CPU to 4.2GHz for all cores. It’s debatable whether it’s a true 8-core processor, and there isn’t multithreading like in modern processors even if it is 8 cores. It worked though and was better than what I had before. I have the same computer to this day. I was going to replace it, but the tech world has fallen apart over the past couple years with COVID and chip shortages, not to mention crypto mining.
I would return to my hometown in May to deal with my storage. Before leaving from the holiday visit, I’d gone to check the storage unit. I discovered the termites I thought had been irradiated years before had returned. The owners of the place did little to keep on top of this. I should’ve gotten my stuff out sooner. I just kept procrastinating, and being 500 miles away hadn’t helped. Things were mostly dormant due to it being so cold during winter, but I knew I needed to get back.
So in May when I did, I found out just how bad things were. Most of what mattered to me was gone. Every book I’d owned over the course of my life prior to my moving out in 2010 was gone. All of those boxes had turned into a giant termite mound. I did my best to salvage what I could. I stayed with my sister and her new husband again. The dynamic was just as weird as before. They were supposed to go to the storage unit and spray for termites to help eliminate what they could before I arrived, but my sister forgot when I was coming. So this didn’t happen until the day before I got there. This meant I was being poisoned as I tried to deal with stuff. I think that’s why I ended up sick before I even headed home. I was really sick with what I thought was a cold, but I don’t know. It’s likely my airways were damaged by the chemicals and made susceptible to some type of virus. I was miserable, and I had to go back to work.
I’ve gotten ahead of myself yet again though. I thought I’d have help sorting through my things to try to save what I could, repacking stuff, and throwing out what was unrecoverable. Unfortunately, my sister was always busy helping her husband with his business. She rarely could do much to help, other than a couple of times when she came to help haul stuff away to the trash. Moral support and actual help going through things didn’t happen. In her eyes, I should have just thrown everything out. Then she wanted me to leave what I saved in the storage unit. As if that was a viable option considering it would be impossible to prevent further infestation. I’d learned that well enough.
Instead, I vied to call the owner of another storage facility in town. I tried to get my sister to give me his number or contact him for me since she knew him, but she said she didn’t want associated with me in this because he was their “friend.” She thought I’d be risking moving termites to the new storage facility. Now, this place was built on concrete with metal buildings. So even if I had moved termites, they’d not have had anything to eat or move through to infest other units. That said, I made sure I didn’t transfer anything. I went through my belongings and repacked what needed it. I checked over boxes that weren’t infested and ensured they had no termites. Then, after moving every last item by myself over the course of many, many trips with my single vehicle, I set off a bug bomb to kill any possible hitchhikers. I left extra bug bombs behind and asked my sister to set them off in one-week intervals just to be sure. That never would happen though.
During my time there dealing with the termites, I received an email from my then supervisor informing me she had turned in her resignation and was moving on. So I got to go back to work knowing she was leaving, our workload was going to increase, and things would just get harder. They’d transitioned to a new content management system in February, and it was a mess to say the least. It caused everything to take several times as long as it had before, and there was no allowance for this by the boss.
A coworker and I were brought in to speak with him when I returned, given letters we had to sign stating we knew how subpar we were at our jobs and would shape up or risk being replaced. Negative reinforcement rarely works, especially as we were doing our best to make things work. Do bosses actually think employees are trying not to do well? They’d set us up to fail, then were upset with us when it happened. The stress was overwhelming. I’d already been looking for another job. Part of my trip back to Texas involving the storage unit also had a tangential purpose of allowing me to meet with a bank president regarding a job there. I decided I didn’t want to move back to my hometown in Texas though, no matter how good the job might sound.
One of our other coworkers, not the kindest person I’d ever worked with, took the position of the lady who was leaving. Her power trips and micromanaging were about my undoing. I really despised work from that point forward. I had further interviews, these in Colorado, but nothing ever panned out.
Someone I’d worked with in Colorado years before was diagnosed with cancer shortly before I’d gone to Texas to deal with the storage mess. So I’d tried to set up a time I could see him, but he was back in Arkansas visiting friends and family when I was going to do so. Our paths just didn’t cross. I planned to try again soon after. Instead, I found out he had succumbed to the cancer. It happened in a span of 10 weeks, I think; from the point when he was diagnosed, to where he began treatment, to when he died.
I went to his memorial in that small mountain town. A lot of people I knew were there, coming from where they’d moved even to attend. My new boss was uncaring and unsympathetic. She’d messed up my schedule to where I didn’t have a two-day weekend. Instead, I had Sunday alone. So I worked until midnight Saturday night, then had to get up and drive for several hours to get to the memorial. Afterward, I had to drive back so I could be at work the next day. I didn’t want to try staying overnight and risk something happening that might prevent me from making it in time Monday. It was all such a rushed trip. I still don’t understand why I wasn’t allowed at least my normal two days off. It was unkind to say the least.
My incentive to find something else was increased by that ordeal. Yet, it wasn’t until the end of 2019 when I had a job offer from the newspaper I’d first moved to Colorado to work at. Things, however, did not work out for that. I needed to find a place to live there in a mountain town, it was winter and rather snowy, which made travel all but impossible without more than a couple days off in a row, and rentals were few and far between. That is, rentals I could afford were next to impossible to find. I almost had one, a duplex cabin similar to where I’d lived in Woodland Park, but the day I called the owner about it he’d just rented it shortly before.
Nothing came available that I could make work after that. It was demoralizing and stressful. Meanwhile, the job continued to deteriorate. We suddenly had a new publisher without warning as well, which upturned things further. He wanted everyone to have Christmas day off, which was in the middle of the week. This meant working ahead to miraculously get three papers produced in one day, then have a single day off, and come back to work the day after Christmas. This also prevented me from taking time off for the holiday, and with as haphazard as things were made I never got time off at all for the holidays that year. It was supposed to happen in January, but that didn’t happen either. Promises, promises.
Another thing that happened to contribute to my not leaving was another person I’d worked with since starting the job in 2016 put in her notice right before I could. It was actually the day before I was going to send my resignation via email that it was announced she was leaving. They’d hired another page designer/copy editor to replace our one coworker who had been promoted to replace the previous boss in our department. So she was still there, and the new boss who was most unkind. We were going to be shorthanded again. This made me feel like it would be wrong to leave. I should never have thought that way, but I’m always trying to treat others far better than they treat me. At least, that’s the case when it comes to the workplace. You can’t put your own wellbeing aside for the sake of your coworkers. That never happens the other way around. This is your life. They aren’t going to be fighting for it. Only you can.
I felt guilty though. So I hesitated. Then, I also worried because I couldn’t find a suitable place to rent. Eventually, I notified the person who’d offered me the job and let her know I didn’t think I could manage to make it work in the time period they needed. This was extremely disappointing, and I think it burned a bridge with her. I’d worked with her previously and always kept in touch on good terms. We weren’t close friends, but we were friends.
Though my love interest was far away and had shown few signs of follow through over the years, I considered his help to see me through this. For a moment I thought we might pool our resources, where he finally moved to be with me, making a cumulative effort so we could get a place to live that was affordable on two incomes. He had savings, so he could rely on those for moving and keeping afloat until he found work. We’d talked about living in such a place. I’d be setting down the foundation, with a job and reason to move, and he just had to make good on his promise to join me. It was seven years after his initial promise in 2014. So perhaps it was a possibility.
He thought I wasn’t serious when I brought up the idea. There was too little time, he hadn’t planned, there was no way to make it work. So he said. Then, later in the year I asked about it, and he told me he hadn’t actually thought it was a plausible idea when I mentioned it. He hadn’t thought I seriously wanted to consider it. A possibility that would have saved me from so much struggle and strife, helped us begin a better life, and he hadn’t even considered it as possible. So the reality was he hadn’t given it any real consideration and dismissed it immediately. I guess that was my last hope, and with it gone I finally gave up completely.
The life story of a snow leopard - Part 5
In the years before I moved out, I’d also come to befriend a feral tomcat in the neighborhood. He looked like a Russian Blue and was the nicest cat, once I’d gotten him to trust me. This took a span of 12-14 months and daily effort to slowly get him used to me. In time, he’d come to let me pet him. I could lift him but not really pick him up. He didn’t know what to do with that. But he trusted me. That’s what counted. I could never do much like take him to get vaccinated. He was a tomcat, likely propagating the species unnecessarily, too. The best I could do was feed him and try to keep him healthy. He was far too wild for much else. I called him Orion. He was sweet and had a good heart without any meanness in him. I think he only scratched me once, and that was because I surprised him and he reacted before he realized. One time in several years. It was a light scratch at that.
I gave him antibiotics in his food when he got sick once. I tried to help him as best I could. Then, when I moved out of my mother’s house, I wasn’t able to be there for him. I wonder what he thought. I’ve long wondered what happened to him. That was in 2010. I don’t imagine he lived for many more years, being on the street.
I think it was 2011 when our older sister was dropped off at our mother’s doorstep with some of her things. The rest had been put in storage. Her boyfriend’s daughters thought she was too much of a burden on him, so they unceremoniously dumped her. It was shocking and cruel. There was no talking leading up to this. It just happened. They put “most” of her things in a storage unit and told her it was paid for the month. That was it.
So our mother had to truly be responsible for her then. That’s where she’d live for the next few years. It was the three of them, our mother, her husband, and our older sister. Then there was our sister’s cat and Murky. The two of them never got along.
The dynamic there was never very good. Our sister sort of regressed, becoming more dependent due to her being so sick from years of alcohol abuse. She eventually managed to stop smoking. Sometimes she’d be left home alone though, and our mother and stepfather wouldn’t keep alcohol out of the house, so she could get at it. These times she’d end up back in the hospital. It happened on a few occasions. I said my mother was “responsible” for her but not that she was truly responsible. Nor did she fully understand medical circumstances. Her care of our sister was probably subpar, but it’s what she had.
Work at the newspaper was chaos. We’d had lots of turmoil with employee drama over the years. I don’t want to go into detail on that right now. Suffice it to say, it was miserable. I continued as best I could though. I had little other choice.
In December, we had our annual photo shoot for the Christmas edition of the newspaper. This involved the entire staff gathering for the photos, and this time it was outside of the office. It had snowed the night before, but it was only an inch or so, and it had been melting with the sun shining by the time I was driving. I had a feeling I should’ve put the Jeep in full-time 4wd, or even not used cruise control to travel at 70mph down the highway. I was heading west outside of town to the country home where the photos were to be taken. The wind was blowing out of the north, taking the snow from the fields and covering the road’s surface. It was clear and sunny with no sign of trouble, then I saw it. There wasn’t enough time, or I wasn’t ready for it. Either way, I didn’t get cruise control disengaged in time, and everything went out of control. I skidded and slid, trying to correct. I almost managed it, but then I went into the ditch. This caused the passenger side front corner to impact the ditch, and the Jeep flipped and rolled. I came to a stop far into the field.
Someone stopped soon after to see if I was alright. I managed to think clearly enough to say I could still hear the fuel pump going. I couldn’t get the keys to disengage, they were locked in the ignition. So I asked if he’d disconnect the battery if I popped the hood. Surprisingly, the release worked, and he was able to do as I asked. Then he helped me crawl out of the shattered driver’s side window.
I called the authorities, then a tow truck, and then my sister before my mother. Friend’s of my sister’s stopped on the road to check on me. They lived out that way and were volunteer firefighters as well as trained EMTs. They said I seemed fine and probably didn’t need an ambulance, but they’d never seen anyone walk away from an accident like the one I’d had. I guess wearing a seatbelt really does make a difference.
I also called my boss, who was waiting at the location for the photo shoot. She wasn’t happy and asked, “So you’re going to be a little late?” Yeah, that’s how it went. My sister’s friends gave me a ride to the photo shoot. I was shaken, had pieces of glass in my hair and in my ear even, a few nicks here and there, but I was alive. I stayed long enough for the photos to be taken. Then I got a ride home.
That was a Saturday. Sunday I had to go to work to put together the Christmas section and the Monday edition of the newspaper. What happened the day before didn’t matter. I felt kind of frustrated, but jobs are not always understanding. We do what we must. Survival.
My sister’s friends were kind enough to loan me a vehicle to drive until I could get my insurance claim through so I’d have money to buy something else to drive. Winter was harsh that year, and the vehicle they let me drive wasn’t good in snow, but I survived.
My sister, her husband, and their now almost 2-year-old son went to visit our dad in south Texas where he had a small apartment he spent the winter. That’s where we went for Christmas that year. It was an unusual holiday for sure.
Then I found a 4Runner in January, and that’s what I bought to replace my Jeep. It’s what I drive to this day.
Years came and went. I remember it all as a blur. Murky became sick in 2012. It turned out she had cancer in her lower jaw. Our mother took her to the vet clinic where my younger sister worked as a vet tech, and it was discovered. Then my sister wanted to put her down then, not to even try to treat her. Our mother scoffed and took her to another vet. He removed some of her lower teeth that were in bad shape, but he said the cancerous mass was eating through her jaw, which caused her teeth to lose something to root in. There was little that could be done. Or at least, little our mother could afford to do. I was out of the loop. I knew Murky was suffering, and I wish now I’d done more to advocate for her. She most likely needed put to sleep before she suffered too terribly. No one had the money to pay for treatment even if it had been possible, but as the circumstances were, it probably wasn’t something within medical capability.
She made it past October and Halloween. Then in November of 2012, she was finally allowed to sleep. I think I’ll cry now if I think about it. I still dream of her. She was my kitten. My original kitten. I loved her so much. She smelled like cinnamon.
I had other cats of course, but Murky was special. She’ll always have a special place in my heart.
More holidays passed. Again, I don’t remember much. Work, loneliness, longing, waiting, and time passed. The person I’d fallen for years before was still an impossible situation, but that didn’t stop me from feeling. It stalled me in life and kept me from moving on or finding anyone else. It kept me from living life. I thought we’d manage someday, maybe. He gave me reason to think this was possible. He led me to believe it anyway. He led me to believe many things. Time after time I’d be let down. So many years passed, and my youth with it. All while I waited.
2013 arrived without much fanfare. I don’t remember much about that either. Things were tumultuous at work. That job was trying to destroy me. One of the people working there was impossible to deal with, and she was driving the owner to want to sell the business. I spent more and more time at work, until I was working six days a week. I don’t know how I managed.
My best friend finally visited again in April of 2013. He stayed with me in my tiny efficiency, which is probably an exaggeration of what it actually was. While I worked, he slept, and when I got home, he’d barely be going. His sleep was strange, and he didn’t do much other than play games on his PSP, or get online with his laptop. I tried to motivate him to get out and see the town, to do things with me, but we only went out a little while he was there. We did manage to visit Colorado Springs again, and the zoo. It was a quick trip as before, fit around my work schedule. Due to his job, he couldn’t stay as long as he had in 2008. So he was there less than a week, and we didn’t do as much as I’d hoped.
We also saw Bishop’s Castle in Colorado. I’d forgotten about that. It’s an interesting and iconic place to see if you haven’t been. I’m not sure if we went up Pike’s Peak. I think this time we didn’t. We went to Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo instead. It’s the second largest canyon in the United States.
His visit ended all too soon though. He went home to return to work, and I went to work as usual. 2013 was the last time I saw him to this date. Life hasn’t gone well for me since to be able to visit. Things have been strange. Are they always strange? Or do they just always feel wrong?
The owner of the newspaper finally couldn’t handle the turnover of employees and the stress that one employee in particular caused. She decided to sell the business. The new owners agreed to keep her staff, but this was a verbal agreement. My stress level increased. The new owners were not news people. They cared about the accounting of the business. They were co-owners of several small newspapers across the region, two friends who’d gone into business together. One of them had been an accountant, so that figured.
He told me I should care less about quality, our readers didn’t care, and just get the paper done. They didn’t care about proofreading or design. He even told me we were like a factory manufacturing a bolt. Just to make the bolts to get to the customers.
The turnover in ownership happened near the end of May. In September, near my birthday, my biological father finally found out what his health issues had been caused by. He’d been going to doctors for years trying to get answers. One finally listened, and after doing a scope of his heart, discovered he had a major artery blocked. He was admitted to the hospital immediately and scheduled for open-heart bypass surgery first thing the next morning.
I couldn’t help but take time off then, even as it was inconvenient to do so. I tried my best to explain my job duties to my coworkers, showing them what needed to be done and how to do it, but no one really knew what all I did or how. They’d never wanted to know. I’d typed up and printed out lots of guides, so that was something. This wasn’t requested, but I thought it prudent. I don’t know why I was always going to such efforts for people who didn’t even care. Work ethic is a strange thing.
I received several phone calls during my few days away visiting my father at the hospital. I’d driven as I couldn’t afford a last-minute flight. Though, it’s possible the travel expenses added up to just as much by the time it was all said and done. The people at the newspaper didn’t know how to do things and often called to get me to guide them through stuff. It made the trip all the more stressful.
By the time I was heading home, their phone calls were delaying my travel as I had to stop to answer myriad questions instead of driving. Then I pushed myself past what was probably safe to hurry back as quickly as possible.
A week after I returned, the new publisher came out to talk to me after everyone else had left. It was a Friday evening, and he asked what I was doing. I told him. He said not to worry about it, that I should clean out my stuff and head home. I was floored. I’d been there nearly five and a half years, and I was being laid off without warning. “It’s just how the owners like to do things,” he told me. And since they’d dissolved the previous business and re-incorporated, a sly business means of doing things to avoid past responsibility, they had no legal requirement to give me severance. I was simply laid off.
I’m stupid, I suppose. I tried to show him how things I did worked and what they’d need to do without me, because they’d obviously had a mess when I wasn’t there for even 2-3 days. He said they’d figure it out and I should just go home. That was that.
It’s a very low feeling being laid off. The way it was done made it worse. I was able to apply for unemployment, but that didn’t make up for the shock, the feeling of loss, or sense of being worthless. He’d even told me I was “no longer necessary.” They’d been replacing employees one by one. I should have expected it. Yet, who expects this kind of thing?
The nearest workforce office was 85 miles away in the city. So to handle unemployment requirements and get help with searching for work, since I would need to travel for interviews and such, I had to travel there every two weeks. I’d meet with a workforce counselor and go over my progress. Then they’d decided if I was doing a suitable job looking for work and what measures I needed to take from there. I don’t know how many trips I made over the next several months. I had to look for work outside of the town I lived in due to its size and limited job pool. My abilities just weren’t something that carried over to much anything there. And I wanted to leave. I was done.
In late September into October I took some time to blanket my resume across newspapers and various publications in Colorado. I traveled to follow up, meeting with several people at their offices, but it was a demoralizing process. I never felt like I was getting anywhere, and the cost of travel with limited income from unemployment made me feel like a failure. I did, however, discover some relatives of my mother’s lived in Colorado Springs. I met up with them and was able to look for work there, but they were renovating their condo and couldn’t give me a place to stay.
It was also in September of that year when I found out things had changed for the person I’d had feelings for all those years. He was available, but he hadn’t told me. It had already been months. I questioned this. It was strange. Things still seemed little more optimistic than they had before, which was sad. I just wanted love to work out. It had been what mattered most to me for as long as I could remember, or at least since I’d begun to think about things like that.
The holidays that year were strange. I was unemployed, trying to get by with the little unemployment gave me, and feeling the stress close in on me. Holidays during such times feel oppressive, dark, cold, and overall unhappy.
I do remember a stray cat my mother had taken care of had ended up having kittens. These were our older sister’s babies. She loved them so much. I ended up getting her things for her cats more than her. This may seem weird, but it might not if you’re a cat person.
I made it to the New Year of 2014 still without a job. This led to me returning to Colorado Springs with more job leads. This time my relatives were staying in their condo and able to have me stay with them. It gave me a base to work out of as I looked for work and tried to meet for interviews.
Nothing came of it though. I spent several days trying, and driving across the region again trying to follow up with job leads and applying in person where I could. I had no idea getting a job could be so difficult.
I returned home in time for my older sister’s birthday. She wasn’t feeling very well, but it was still nice to spend time with her and give her something. I think I gave her “Life of Pi” on DVD. I thought she’d like it since she loved cats, especially tigers. It was a good book, and the movie was an alright adaptation.
About a week after her birthday, she was rushed to the hospital. Our mother didn’t know enough about her medical care. To be fair, someone that sick should have actual medically trained help to care for them at home. That’s not easy to get. Her liver and kidneys had been shutting down, and the buildup of potassium she took a supplement for became toxic until it stopped her heart. It was just one thing compounding another compounding another. Doctors spent hours at the ER trying to keep her alive. They did chest compressions and kept her heart going, and brought her back again and again. They wanted to get her stable enough to fly her to the hospital in the nearby city, the same one she’d ended up in so many times before. My younger sister and I went home to gather some things so we could travel there to meet her.
Unfortunately, we received a phone call from our mother a short while later. Our sister had not made it. She’d finally slipped away.
The funeral is another blur. Things happened. I was sad. I remember crying when I could, but there was a wall inside that wouldn’t break. I could only cry a little every so often. It happened. It just wasn’t a full cry that let the pain out. OCD intensified, as always seems the case when I’m particularly stressed. It made things all the harder. I wish it weren’t something I had to deal with. It never does anything good for me.
Later that year, I tried to find a means to attend college classes to work toward being more appealing as a potential employee. I tried to find a way to do this through the workforce office, various community colleges, and so on. No one really had an idea of how it could be done. Wanting to get an education to help you find a job since you aren’t having any luck finding one, what are you thinking?
I filled out FAFSA forms and hoped for the best, but I didn’t qualify for any meaningful aid. I don’t understand it, but that was the case. Even being unemployed for months at that point, they saw me as too well off to require grants or other help for college. I tried to find any means possible to make it work, but it was not to be. Since my mother had spent money meant for my sister and I to use for college long before, I was again stymied in my attempt to get an education.
Later yet even, in June, I finally garnered some interest from a job prospect. I had some digital editing tests, was asked some questions via email, and then had a phone interview. I went to visit the newspaper in Colorado that month. Then I moved to take the job in July.
Unfortunately, I could not take the cat I’d befriended with me. He wasn’t mine. Jasper wasn’t even his given name. As much as I wanted to, it wasn’t possible. Besides, rentals don’t often allow pets. I know I couldn’t find any that would when I was scrambling to find a place to live.
My younger sister and the friends of hers who had helped me after the Jeep rollover now helped me to move. It was very kind. I paid for some of their gas, but otherwise they went to the expense to help. My sister has since shown far less interest in my life, and I don’t think she’d be here to help me with much anything. I’m not sure what’s happened. I hear from her so little.
Living on your own is one thing, but living far away from everything you’ve ever known is another one entirely. It was culture shock to be in such a different place. Then needing to take care of so much and make my way in the world became so many times more complicated. I felt anxious and stressed.
The job was also a new level of difficult I hadn’t anticipated. The newspaper where I’d spent all those years hadn’t prepared me for this. There was a lot more I needed to know than I came into the place with. I felt lost. It took time for me to manage the learning curve from where I’d started out at. I think I managed, but the stress was intense. I also had no support system locally and felt very alone. So the necessity of making things work was even more pressing.
I ended up seeing a doctor and seeking help for my anxiety and OCD issues, not to mention insomnia. I’d hoped he could do something to make life more tolerable as I was just an anxious mess that couldn’t sleep and felt miserable. He had me try various medications, but nothing helped much. At least, he told me if I couldn’t tell the medicine was helping, that meant it was helping. I was skeptical of this.
My time at the newspaper there was not easy. I continued to rely on the person I loved for support. There was never any follow through on past promises. He’d said if I moved ahead of him, he’d follow through with plans we’d had to live together. Even if just roommates, we’d make a go of it together to handle life, and eventually attend college. Because it would be easier together than by ourselves. So while there was support online, there was little in the way of support in person. I really needed that. And with how much I was working, the schedule I worked, from 3 p.m. to midnight (in theory), I was more and more cut off from everyone in my life. He became my lifeline.
I couldn’t handle the work, the stress, and the isolation, even if I’d half imposed it on myself. All that said, the cost of living also outweighed my income making for a deficit each month. This was not a sustainable situation. In early 2015, I began to look for another job. I sought even to leave. I applied across Colorado. Something had to pan out. I’d even travel to Woodland Park for an interview later that year. I think I’d gone to Silverton to see an area of Colorado I’d never been to before, but I needed to be back a couple days later for the interview. Then that fell through. It became a bit of a mess though. The publisher wasn’t too kind about it even though he’d been the one to invite me to come for the interview. It was confusing and left me bewildered. I found out the newspaper was changing ownership, and I suppose he was stressed out with everything being up in the air so suddenly. So my interview was no longer of concern.
Of course, I’d already been making plans to move to Woodland Park and get away from the mess I’d created for myself where I was living. I’d given my resignation, but due to staffing issues, they kept having me work for them on a part-time basis. This helped at the very least.
In August of 2015, my computer failed with a pop as I was heading out the door to work. I discovered smoke and a dead computer once more. There was smoke in the air. Of course, it wasn’t the same situation as the previous failure of a computer in 2010. I had to go to work, but later I was able to trace the failure point to the power supply. It was apparently a known issue with that brand of power supplies. OCZ had gone out of business, so I had no recourse. Even if they had still been around, the warranty period was just about up. I had one month left before the 5 years ended.
I purchased a Corsiar unit to replace the failed one and was able to get things up and running again in the course of a week or so. Further upgrades were wished for but not pragmatic with financial concerns at that point in time.
Still August, I again thought I had things figured out in Woodland Park, and I’d gotten a rental sorted. So I went ahead with moving in September of 2015. This time, my sister’s husband was the one to help me to move. It was much more rushed, and I was somewhat better prepared, so things went almost smoothly. An elk crossed the road in front of the moving truck my brother-in-law was driving, which almost caused an accident, but fortunately it was avoided. Elk in the mountains are common, but you still don’t expect them to just leap into the road in front of you. It happens.
Once there, a job did not pan out. I was fooling myself because I wanted to believe it would work out. I guess we sometimes do that.
I was back to looking for work while trying to survive, as I had been in the other Colorado town where I lived, and as I had been back in Texas. Only this time I had no part-time work, or unemployment, and cost of living was high. It was an utterly depressing time.
That being said, the rental I found was located in a grandfathered in development that had been a summer came some years back. Since, it had been converted into rentals as duplexes and triplexes. I was in a triplex. The location was idyllic in an open area surrounded by trees, isolated from the town itself. Deer passed by daily. I carved a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, and around midnight I heard a banging at the door. I turned the porch light on and opened the door only to see a deer looking startled, having backed away quickly, watching me. The doe had been eating my jack-o-lantern. Who knew deer liked pumpkins?
So at least the setting was nice. The neighbors, not so much. One was an older lady who smoked, despite the regulations not to do so in the lease, and this meant I smelled smoke in my unit all of the time. The other was a bit of a crazy sort who went to a Christian “college” that was more cult than anything. She chanted strange “languages” at all hours and opened and closed cabinet doors as loudly as possible in some strange ritual I’ve no idea what was. I made the best of it, but neighbors do affect our quality of life. So it was difficult. The older lady often saw when I came or went and would intercept me, trying to talk, but she was very strange and ranted about democrats and similar things. She also always had something she wanted my help with, which meant going into her unit and smelling like cigarette smoke. I’m allergic, so this required my tossing my clothes in the laundry and showering immediately after. Then I felt lousy for hours.
The publisher of the newspaper in Woodland Park did contact me again not long after I moved there to somewhat apologize and ask that I come in for an interview. It was uncomfortable, but I needed a job, so I went ahead with it. He had me meet with him and the new owner for lunch. Then I didn’t hear back for a while. They didn’t decide to hire me, so it was even stranger. I’m not sure they knew what they wanted to do.
I was able to get some freelance work with a regional mountain newspaper, but it was a monthly, and I was set the task of advertising sales. I don’t know how to sell things. It didn’t work well. You have to walk into places and ask people to buy ads, make phone calls, send emails, that sort of stuff. It’s difficult to get people to buy something like that. I’ve no idea how salespeople do it.
In March of 2016, I was hired for contract work for a web news and streaming company. I did reporting, photography, and web content management, as well as web design, for them. They were vague about what they wanted done, not to mention providing very rudimentary tools that they insisted I use instead of anything better suited for the task. After a month, I was told they wouldn’t be continuing the contract. So in eight months I only had one month of work.
I applied all over Colorado, and even traveled to Texas to interview and look for jobs. I also traveled far and wide to interview for jobs in Colorado, but they were not going to pay enough to make moving feasible. The pay was so low I’m not sure how the employers expected anyone to survive on it. That’s why when the contract position ended, I had to take the position I least wanted to up in Wyoming. It put me on the Colorado-Wyoming border, but out in the prairie of the high desert. Cold, windy, and barren.
Initially, I didn’t hear back for a long while after I traveled there for the interview. So I thought it was a lost cause. The contract position came up in the interim, and I thought I finally had a chance to make things work where I was. Then it was gone, and I was desperate. The job offer came soon after. Coincidentally, I interviewed for the contract position after getting back from going to Montrose to look for rentals where a job had been offered. It was one of the low-paying jobs I couldn’t figure out a way to make work. Then the contract position gave me a reason to dismiss it as unfeasible.
When that didn’t work out and I had the offer from Wyoming, I told my landlord in order to give 30 days notice that I would be moving, which helps with losing as little money in breaking a lease as possible. It’s sometimes a chore to get anything back, or not be expected to pay extra. Renting can be troublesome, besides not being able to have pets.
Then I received a phone call from the editor of the newspaper telling me he’d been laid off along with others from the company. The paper had been sold by the family that had owned it for ages, and the new corporate ownership was making changes. He said it was understandable if I didn’t want to take the job, but he could not advise me one way or another according to his release from his job. He was just obligated to tell me what had happened. I also heard from the new editor, who had been assistant editor.
This left me in a quandary. Should I stay where I was without a job, or should I take a job that might be on shaky ground? On one hand, I was already in the mountains where I wanted to be, but things were very hard. I was going into debt trying to survive. On the other hand, moving would mean I would have steady pay. It just included uncertainties, such as how long the job might last.
Unusual as it may sound, my mother and stepfather came up to help me move. They were feeling bad about how their actions had impacted me, I suppose. So this was their chance to in some small way make it up to me. It was something seeing as I had few other options as far as help was concerned.
By now it was May, and I had little time left to move and get settled. I had to be out of the rental in Woodland Park by a set date. Part of my moving was due to the landlord re-renting the unit before I found out things were a bit uneasy at the newspaper where I’d been offered a job. So I had nowhere to live if I tried to stay. Moving became my only real option.
My mother’s health was declining, but she came to help anyway. Together they were able to assist me in finishing packing the last of my things into boxes, loading them onto the truck, and my stepfather actually drove the moving truck. My mother drove the car they’d come in. I went in my own vehicle with a load of more significant items. I always do this when moving just in case, taking things I couldn’t afford to lose, or at least really wouldn’t want to.
They helped me get unpacked and set up in my new apartment. Then they stayed for a couple weeks before heading back to their home in Texas. They’d return for another visit in June. During this time, they helped me to get used to the area at least, as well as exploring the state parks nearby. So I felt there was a little hope with some natural places to visit. Still, the new location was an uncomfortable one for me. I didn’t feel at home there, yet I had little choice but to make things work.
The job started out rocky and never really got better. It was grueling and stressful with lots of pressure and long hours. It had a similar schedule to the one I’d had before working from 3 p.m. to midnight, but midnight often ended up being far later. At the same time, “overtime wasn’t allowed.” This in reality just meant you worked off the clock to get the expected work done. The constant threat of being replaced if you couldn’t do the work in the set amount of time loomed over you. It was oppressive and demoralizing.
Come December, my mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. She ended up in the hospital with liver failure. She wasn’t expected to live. I’d managed to get some time off around the holidays so I could go down and see her. I stayed with my sister, her husband, and their son. Our biological father had come down to visit for Christmas, so it was a gathering. With the need to drive to Amarillo, which was 85 miles away, each day to see my mother, then return and try to spend time with my family at my sister’s, I was wearing down. I’d had to drive 500 miles just to get there. This after working extra to make it possible to be gone. Then holidays always require extra workloads in such an industry. So I was exhausted by the time I headed back, leaving my mother in barely stable condition with only slight hope of survival. She seemed to be somewhat better though. I just had to hold on to hope that she’d recover. Leaving felt awful. I wish jobs didn’t ask such sacrifices of us.
I arrived back in early January, as I recall. The year unfolded from there. My mother’s health improved enough that she was eventually released, two months after being admitted. She’d been through a lot, aging several years in the time she’d been ill. Her failing organs had caused fluid buildup in her legs, which damaged the skin and required skin grafts with multiple surgeries. Her mobility is limited to this day.
During her time in the hospital, her husband decided to let their mortgage go. He didn’t like living in Texas and wanted a way out. He’d been neglecting it as it was, and now that my mother was unable to do anything to prevent it, he allowed their home to be foreclosed on. The home where I’d spent most of my childhood was being reclaimed by the bank. He called me to let me know, and I had to take time off to go down to try to help pack some of the more meaningful things up. I couldn’t get enough time to do everything I’d have liked, and most of the sentimental items, such as things that belonged to our older sister, I took to my younger sister’s for safe keeping. I don’t know if they’re still with her. She’s less sentimental and seems to like to discard things without much thought. I didn’t want to take things to my storage unit due to how badly things had gone there. That’s another story though, involving termites, a break-in, and so on. Neither could I take everything with me back to Wyoming. My vehicle just didn’t have enough room to fit it all.
They’d end up in Amarillo at his old property, dilapidated as it was. He’d never gotten rid of it, so at least it was there. But it wasn’t possible to live in it. Instead, he bought an old silverstream trailer from the 70s. Since our mother was still in the hospital, she could do little about this. She’d been taken from Amarillo to our small hometown hospital before the foreclosure notice. So she never got to see her home again after her harrowing experience beginning in December.
John and his wife had been there for me as touchstones to speak with about things while I was still in Wyoming, and I’d seen them during my time back in my hometown for the holidays. So when I was down in February due to the foreclosure mess, I found out John’s wife, Diane, wasn’t doing well with a nerve issue in her face causing her significant pain. I remember him telling me he’d take her suffering if he could. He’d rather he had it than her. So it was strange to think about when he became ill later that year. I found out over the phone, and my job didn’t allow for much freedom to travel. I should have taken time off anyway.
In May when John found out what was wrong with him after months of uncertainty, it was a shock. His doctors at the VA diagnosed him with leukemia. They gave him two weeks to live. As much as I wanted to visit, his wife said I should probably not since his immune system was compromised and he couldn’t afford to get sick. Somehow, he was convinced to seek treatment instead of a death sentence. He began chemo soon after. I still didn’t think I could visit with him in the condition he was.
He was declining fast though. Things were happening all too fast. I spoke with him soon after his diagnosis, talking about living life, how I never seemed to want to spend money because I worried so much. We talked about meeting up in his favorite down in Colorado after he’d overcome cancer. It’s a little gold mining town that’s nearly deserted now called Victor. There’s a German bakery there that’s unbelievable. At least there was.
His decline was quick. The cancer had been caught too late to beat it with treatment. He’d been feeling ill one night, so his wife took him to the hospital. His intestines were failing, dying inside him, and he was lifeflighted to the hospital in Amarillo for emergency surgery. The doctors tried to remove what they could to save him, but he needed another surgery after the first, and they couldn’t keep ahead of the necrosis. His body was failing. This was a Friday.
I was at work on Saturday night when I got the phone call from Diane telling me he had died. She told me they couldn’t keep ahead of things, he was deteriorating too fast, and there was no real way the doctors could see of saving him. They could keep trying to remove his dying intestines, but his organs were shutting down. He was on life support and not conscious. She said he’d told her he didn’t want to be hooked up to machines, not himself, barely alive, with his suffering drawn out. So she along with his son and other family members made the decision to take him off life support.
I did get time off to attend his funeral. I’m not sure I want to remember though. These memories are bringing tears as I write this. Remembering is not an easy thing. We draw out things we’ve let fade, not wanting to bring to the surface with fresh pain.
I took the long way back, meandering through the mountains, stopping at Ringo’s outside of Trinidad along the scenic byway he’d shown me all those years before. I tried to heed his words and live a little more, but I was still afraid, worrying all the time about “what if.”
The person I’d had feelings for, loving from afar for all these years, continued to be a source of support, but he still wouldn’t make any tangible effort toward forming a life like we’d talked about. I felt like time drug along while he went about his life the way he always had, not truly thinking about the impact it had on me. Making commitments, figuring out what he really wanted with me, moving to have that life we’d dreamed of, all the things I held on to year after year.
It didn’t help that I found out he was having another relationship in 2016, through the time I moved, and all the stress that first year brought. He’d let me think everything was fine. Then in December, right before Christmas, I found out it was not. I told him I knew, and he didn’t seem fazed. He said he’d felt we weren’t as close as we used to be, so he embraced this new relationship. Then, he didn’t feel like he should have to make a decision, so he didn’t. I fooled myself into thinking I was alright with this. I was hurt, my holiday spent working, and feeling betrayed.
This wasn’t something I wouldn’t experience again. The following December, right around Christmas, I’d find out he was still entertaining the idea of this other relationship. She didn’t know about us. I didn’t feel right telling her. She was only barely my friend. Then I was having a lot of trouble with the entire situation.
Time passed. I don’t know that this specific situation was ever resolved. More like, she tired of being told the same things I’d been told. I found out he’d said he was going to move to where she was to “give them a chance.” So I don’t know. I tried to talk to him about this, but he never acknowledged my words. Sometimes he was just liked that, if he didn’t want to deal with a topic, he’d ignore it.
Years at the job continued. I missed most holidays with family. I was isolated and felt alone. I tried to reignite friendships I’d let slide over the years as life and circumstances drew us apart. I’d practically stopped being part of the furry community. So I joined Twitter and tried to reacclimatize myself. It’s only been somewhat successful.
The last Christmas I spent with my sister and her family was probably in 2016. There had been a lot of issues with her husband, and she wouldn’t spend another Christmas with him. This is her story, so I won’t go into too much detail. He turned out to be going down a bad path. He wasn’t good for her or their son. Our father was there as I said before. I remember that. I think my nephew was 7 years old, so he’d start to remember things more. It probably isn’t his best memory of Christmas.
Then I could be mixing up the year since I’m not sure when my sister and her husband split. I seem to recall her having a Christmas without a man in her life. She met the guy who would be her second husband in January of 2018, marrying him that fall without telling anyone or inviting them until it had happened. She said she was going to have a small ceremony or reception later for people to come to so they could recognize their marriage, but as far as I know that never happened.
She and her new husband behaved differently than what I was used to. Her first husband was erratic and turned out to have some bad habits and go down a path that led him into ruination. Yet he did try with the family thing. He always tried to create a sort of welcoming atmosphere. I know that’s a low bar to set. Her new husband was more standoffish. We didn’t know him, the rest of our family, and there was little getting to know him that I could tell.
Shortly before Christmas in 2018, my sister called to see if I wanted to take a last-minute flight down to south Texas where our father had that apartment. We could spend Christmas together there. Since I couldn’t get time off on the spot, my scheduled time off for the holidays was a few days later, and I didn’t want to go to the expense of the flight and trying to deal with travel right at Christmas time, I opted out. I guess it was all an impulsive idea she and her husband had in the moment. So the plan unraveled, and they didn’t end up going either.
My mother wanted me to come down to see her for Christmas. I tried to arrange something with my sister, but now she said she’d not be in town or around over the holidays. So I made plans to visit my mother instead. She was living in Amarillo now with her husband, our stepfather. As it goes, things were uneasy.
My sister wasn’t happy to find this out. As I was driving down, only a few hours away, she called to tell me they were on their way back from wherever they’d been. So they were going to be in town for Christmas after all. I should stay with them. Now, I know how our mother was and the things she’d done that weren’t right, but I couldn’t just change plans on her like that. I make commitments and keep them. So I told my sister she should have said something ahead of time. I would visit her while I was there, but I wouldn’t be staying with them. I apologized, but I don’t think she was happy.
Because of the living situation my mother and stepfather had, they arranged for me to stay at a hotel. They had some sort of reward points toward it, knew someone, or something. So they were able to get a discount. We all spent the holiday there, though they slept at their home. It was comfortable. I guess it went alright. It was the most Christmas-like Christmas I’ve had in years now. I think that’s telling. I’ve spent most of them alone since moving to Wyoming.
A snowstorm that turned into a blizzard fell over the region the day I was meant to head back north, and stop in to spend some time with my sister, her new husband, and my nephew. I hadn’t even met her husband yet. She’d met him, fallen in love, and gotten married, and here I didn’t know him at all. It was strange to me. I guess it happens, but there was little as far as trying to get to know one another. The visit was weird. I took a long time to get there because of the storm, risking my life driving through it into the night. I’d waited until halfway through the day hoping the weather would let up. It only did somewhat.
Our father had stopped in to see them as well, on his way to his property in south Texas. He usually spent the winter there, so he was getting a late start that year. Neither of us knew what to make of the new relationship or the new dynamic. Everything was uneasy and didn’t feel very welcoming. I’m not sure I can describe it. I didn’t feel at all comfortable there, and that was the first time that happened since my sister had moved out and started her life. I never felt uncomfortable in her home until then.
He left the next morning, and I couldn’t stay much longer. There wasn’t a lot of effort on my sister or her husband’s part to have us stay longer. Of course, I had to get back to work as my days off were set, so I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. Things were so surreal there I didn’t mind leaving. I just felt sort of sad with the change. I was glad to see my sister at least, as well as my nephew. I always got along well with him. I usually spent more time during visits hanging out and doing things with him than anyone, mostly because he’s an only child and wants a playmate. But that’s alright. It reminds one a bit of what it’s like to be a kid, and I probably won’t ever have kids of my own. So it’s nice.
I’d purchased some upgrades for my ancient computer prior to making the trip for Christmas. So they were waiting to be installed when I got back. An SSD, 16GB of RAM to replace my 4GB, an RX560, and an AMD FX 8350 to replace my Phenom II that was just a quad core running at 3.2GHz. I set the clock for the CPU to 4.2GHz for all cores. It’s debatable whether it’s a true 8-core processor, and there isn’t multithreading like in modern processors even if it is 8 cores. It worked though and was better than what I had before. I have the same computer to this day. I was going to replace it, but the tech world has fallen apart over the past couple years with COVID and chip shortages, not to mention crypto mining.
I would return to my hometown in May to deal with my storage. Before leaving from the holiday visit, I’d gone to check the storage unit. I discovered the termites I thought had been irradiated years before had returned. The owners of the place did little to keep on top of this. I should’ve gotten my stuff out sooner. I just kept procrastinating, and being 500 miles away hadn’t helped. Things were mostly dormant due to it being so cold during winter, but I knew I needed to get back.
So in May when I did, I found out just how bad things were. Most of what mattered to me was gone. Every book I’d owned over the course of my life prior to my moving out in 2010 was gone. All of those boxes had turned into a giant termite mound. I did my best to salvage what I could. I stayed with my sister and her new husband again. The dynamic was just as weird as before. They were supposed to go to the storage unit and spray for termites to help eliminate what they could before I arrived, but my sister forgot when I was coming. So this didn’t happen until the day before I got there. This meant I was being poisoned as I tried to deal with stuff. I think that’s why I ended up sick before I even headed home. I was really sick with what I thought was a cold, but I don’t know. It’s likely my airways were damaged by the chemicals and made susceptible to some type of virus. I was miserable, and I had to go back to work.
I’ve gotten ahead of myself yet again though. I thought I’d have help sorting through my things to try to save what I could, repacking stuff, and throwing out what was unrecoverable. Unfortunately, my sister was always busy helping her husband with his business. She rarely could do much to help, other than a couple of times when she came to help haul stuff away to the trash. Moral support and actual help going through things didn’t happen. In her eyes, I should have just thrown everything out. Then she wanted me to leave what I saved in the storage unit. As if that was a viable option considering it would be impossible to prevent further infestation. I’d learned that well enough.
Instead, I vied to call the owner of another storage facility in town. I tried to get my sister to give me his number or contact him for me since she knew him, but she said she didn’t want associated with me in this because he was their “friend.” She thought I’d be risking moving termites to the new storage facility. Now, this place was built on concrete with metal buildings. So even if I had moved termites, they’d not have had anything to eat or move through to infest other units. That said, I made sure I didn’t transfer anything. I went through my belongings and repacked what needed it. I checked over boxes that weren’t infested and ensured they had no termites. Then, after moving every last item by myself over the course of many, many trips with my single vehicle, I set off a bug bomb to kill any possible hitchhikers. I left extra bug bombs behind and asked my sister to set them off in one-week intervals just to be sure. That never would happen though.
During my time there dealing with the termites, I received an email from my then supervisor informing me she had turned in her resignation and was moving on. So I got to go back to work knowing she was leaving, our workload was going to increase, and things would just get harder. They’d transitioned to a new content management system in February, and it was a mess to say the least. It caused everything to take several times as long as it had before, and there was no allowance for this by the boss.
A coworker and I were brought in to speak with him when I returned, given letters we had to sign stating we knew how subpar we were at our jobs and would shape up or risk being replaced. Negative reinforcement rarely works, especially as we were doing our best to make things work. Do bosses actually think employees are trying not to do well? They’d set us up to fail, then were upset with us when it happened. The stress was overwhelming. I’d already been looking for another job. Part of my trip back to Texas involving the storage unit also had a tangential purpose of allowing me to meet with a bank president regarding a job there. I decided I didn’t want to move back to my hometown in Texas though, no matter how good the job might sound.
One of our other coworkers, not the kindest person I’d ever worked with, took the position of the lady who was leaving. Her power trips and micromanaging were about my undoing. I really despised work from that point forward. I had further interviews, these in Colorado, but nothing ever panned out.
Someone I’d worked with in Colorado years before was diagnosed with cancer shortly before I’d gone to Texas to deal with the storage mess. So I’d tried to set up a time I could see him, but he was back in Arkansas visiting friends and family when I was going to do so. Our paths just didn’t cross. I planned to try again soon after. Instead, I found out he had succumbed to the cancer. It happened in a span of 10 weeks, I think; from the point when he was diagnosed, to where he began treatment, to when he died.
I went to his memorial in that small mountain town. A lot of people I knew were there, coming from where they’d moved even to attend. My new boss was uncaring and unsympathetic. She’d messed up my schedule to where I didn’t have a two-day weekend. Instead, I had Sunday alone. So I worked until midnight Saturday night, then had to get up and drive for several hours to get to the memorial. Afterward, I had to drive back so I could be at work the next day. I didn’t want to try staying overnight and risk something happening that might prevent me from making it in time Monday. It was all such a rushed trip. I still don’t understand why I wasn’t allowed at least my normal two days off. It was unkind to say the least.
My incentive to find something else was increased by that ordeal. Yet, it wasn’t until the end of 2019 when I had a job offer from the newspaper I’d first moved to Colorado to work at. Things, however, did not work out for that. I needed to find a place to live there in a mountain town, it was winter and rather snowy, which made travel all but impossible without more than a couple days off in a row, and rentals were few and far between. That is, rentals I could afford were next to impossible to find. I almost had one, a duplex cabin similar to where I’d lived in Woodland Park, but the day I called the owner about it he’d just rented it shortly before.
Nothing came available that I could make work after that. It was demoralizing and stressful. Meanwhile, the job continued to deteriorate. We suddenly had a new publisher without warning as well, which upturned things further. He wanted everyone to have Christmas day off, which was in the middle of the week. This meant working ahead to miraculously get three papers produced in one day, then have a single day off, and come back to work the day after Christmas. This also prevented me from taking time off for the holiday, and with as haphazard as things were made I never got time off at all for the holidays that year. It was supposed to happen in January, but that didn’t happen either. Promises, promises.
Another thing that happened to contribute to my not leaving was another person I’d worked with since starting the job in 2016 put in her notice right before I could. It was actually the day before I was going to send my resignation via email that it was announced she was leaving. They’d hired another page designer/copy editor to replace our one coworker who had been promoted to replace the previous boss in our department. So she was still there, and the new boss who was most unkind. We were going to be shorthanded again. This made me feel like it would be wrong to leave. I should never have thought that way, but I’m always trying to treat others far better than they treat me. At least, that’s the case when it comes to the workplace. You can’t put your own wellbeing aside for the sake of your coworkers. That never happens the other way around. This is your life. They aren’t going to be fighting for it. Only you can.
I felt guilty though. So I hesitated. Then, I also worried because I couldn’t find a suitable place to rent. Eventually, I notified the person who’d offered me the job and let her know I didn’t think I could manage to make it work in the time period they needed. This was extremely disappointing, and I think it burned a bridge with her. I’d worked with her previously and always kept in touch on good terms. We weren’t close friends, but we were friends.
Though my love interest was far away and had shown few signs of follow through over the years, I considered his help to see me through this. For a moment I thought we might pool our resources, where he finally moved to be with me, making a cumulative effort so we could get a place to live that was affordable on two incomes. He had savings, so he could rely on those for moving and keeping afloat until he found work. We’d talked about living in such a place. I’d be setting down the foundation, with a job and reason to move, and he just had to make good on his promise to join me. It was seven years after his initial promise in 2014. So perhaps it was a possibility.
He thought I wasn’t serious when I brought up the idea. There was too little time, he hadn’t planned, there was no way to make it work. So he said. Then, later in the year I asked about it, and he told me he hadn’t actually thought it was a plausible idea when I mentioned it. He hadn’t thought I seriously wanted to consider it. A possibility that would have saved me from so much struggle and strife, helped us begin a better life, and he hadn’t even considered it as possible. So the reality was he hadn’t given it any real consideration and dismissed it immediately. I guess that was my last hope, and with it gone I finally gave up completely.
The life story of a snow leopard - Part 5