I don't know

2/1/07 Thursday
4:30 in the morning. Had a troubled night. It wasn’t just that I did something and the back pain is intense. Cherie stayed upset and didn’t come to bed till late. I feel helpless in this. Can’t supply the life she wants. Not even sure what that would be. I know that simple things like having hot water and being able to take a shower are big on the list and the hot water I think we will have when the income tax check comes in. After we go to Ohio we will be able to take care of a few things and that is on top of the list. There is no shower in this house so hot baths will have to do till we can rebuild the bathroom but I am not sure if that will be enough. Being cold is another thing that she complains about and we are close to fixing that with the wood stove but will it be enough? When summer hits will it being too hot become the next problem? There’s not enough money is another big factor with her. All these things I plan of having remedied when the farm begins to produce but that is five years away. There are no instant answers and she wants things fixed now. She doesn’t say that but my telling her “Wait honey, things will be better, you’ll see” doesn’t cut it.

Then there are her fears I can’t cure or solve. These are from the deep hurts she’s received during her life. Her reaction to someone’s generosity opened my eyes to that a little more. It was fear and suspicion, waiting for the ball to drop, thinking that whenever things are looking up something bad is coming. This fear I know well for I experienced it as well back when I was homeless and suddenly things started taking a good turn after ABC ran their story on me. All of this is in an earlier part of this journal that was before I began publishing it on the blog. Actually some of it is before there was a journal when life was hammering me into little shreds, one thing after another. I too felt trepidation when things started to look up, didn’t dare to hope. So how does this get fixed? Does it?

I think her isolation is a big factor in this but can’t make people be her friend. Her lack of trust makes it hard for her to open up and allow others in. Much of this comes from what we went through with the church in Toledo, where those we opened up to, trusted, and dared to think were good loving Christians, turned on us, telling us literally to “Go away”. This wasn’t her first bad experience with those who profess to have the “Love of Christ” in them. Not even close to the first. You know, I’ve heard it said that the Christians are the first to shoot their wounded and I’ve seen that happen many times. I don’t open up well either but isolation has been a part of my life since birth and has been my friend, a protective shell that kept the pain others bring away. This is one of the reasons I like the music of Simon and Garfunkel. They touch on these chords well with lyrics such as “I am a rock, I am an island” and “The sounds of silence”. But isolation comes with a price. When Cherie and I found each other again we found an end to our individual isolations but I fear I am not enough for Cherie.

So I don’t know how the day will go. I don’t know how Cherie will be when she gets up and I don’t know how I will react for getting angry and frustrated only makes things worse.

I think I’ll talk about something else. Among the many things this journal does is it helps me work through things, to think them out a little. Journals are powerful tools that mental health professionals often encourage as part of a therapy. Something about writing it down helps.

So Eileen called yesterday. For those of you who don’t know (That’d be most of you) she is my nearest and dearest friend. There is no one else who knows more about me than she. There is no one who has been around me for as long with the exception of my second wife. Eileen has worked for me since 1992 and saw many of the changes I’ve gone through. The second wife I was married to seventeen years but they weren’t close years and had many gaps during that rocky journey. As my secretary Eileen was my “right hand man” so to speak. She saw me go to prison, worked for the second wife as she ran my companies in my absence, watched the second wife have an affair and trash my companies, was the only one who would accept my calls from prison and tell me vaguely what was going on. She was there when I got out and rebuilt both companies, she watched me try and give up restoring the marriage, catch the wife with another man, have my own affairs, have another undiagnosed brain injury, become addicted to pain killers, and generally fall apart.

Eileen, here's the picture from when we took you to Red Lobster. I thought we had more but this is it except the one you took of just Cherie and I

It was Eileen I spent four days walking through vaguely familiar neighborhoods trying to find after I made it back to Toledo from the coma. Despite having lived in the house next door I wasn’t sure if it was the right door when I knocked on it but it was. Like everyone else in the city with the exception of the second wife, she had been told I had died in the accident. For one thing that was what the second wife was telling everyone, so when Eileen answered the door that day she literally saw what she thought was a dead man. It was a shock. Eileen helped me in those days of wandering lost, telling me stories of my past, giving me a blanket to keep warm in whatever corner I found to sleep on, handing me a couple of bucks so I could get the dollar hamburger a day I looked forward to. She’s my dearest friend. I’ve been there for her too, there when her husband died recently. Cherie and I helped her with money problems and anything else we could. Eileen’s had some hard times as well, in some ways much harder than I. She has physical problems such as scoliosis that are intense in the pain and hardship they cause. When she called she told me she had been hospitalized on Christmas and new years and has missed many days of work. I find it amazing she can work at all.

Anyway Eileen called. It was so good to hear from her. She is having a severe allergic reaction to the hair dye she just used so couldn’t work. It has been months since she was able to go online so she was finally able to find the blog. There’s a few days worth of reading for her to catch up on what’s been happening. She will be upset I put a picture of her on this blog and may not appreciate me talking about her here but it’s part of my life and that’s what the journal is, my life and my memory of events that happen. It’s 6:00 now. I am worried for Cherie and hope I do better when she wakes up. I love her dearly but don’t know what to do. Think I’ll post this and just wander online till she gets up.

I don’t know what our weatherman was talking about. He said that it will go up to 56 degrees and will be dry after maybe a little rain this morning. It’s a steady freezing rain right now. My back is killing me. It’s so bad getting out of bed is hard so I’ll stay in it till the rain stops. Then I will put the chimney up. The only thing left to fabricate is a bracket that will support the weight that will rest under where the pipe comes through the wall.

I’m not going to ask Cherie to do anything. Hope that helps. If she doesn’t want to clean the dishes or the house that’s fine. It’s her house. I told her I would take care of my own breakfast when she asked what I wanted. She already took on the task of transferring funds from the Toledo account where I disability check is direct deposited so that’s good. Basically I’ll leave what she does up to her. No pressure or requests from me. If she feels like doing something she can, if she feels like doing nothing she’ll get no argument from me. I just want her to be happy.

Things can change fast around here. The check we were waiting for came in. That’s a chunk of change that will allow us to catch up on the bills. I finally got the woodstove finished and it’s making heat as I write this. Hopefully all this will cheer Cherie. I know it takes the pressure off and the house will be warm for the first time since we got here. I sharpened the chain on the chain saw and it works quite well. Cut a few pieces of wood using the fuel that came in the saw. Have to go buy a gallon of gas for it so I can cut some more. We will go back to Lowes soon. I need to get an axe to split the wood with and return the piece of junk file I got to sharpen the chain saw with. Didn’t get halfway done when it was dull, making finishing the job somewhat tedious. We also will get a plastic runner to protect the carpet where I’ll be taking wood in.

The chimney is sturdy as can be. I haven’t even fastened it all to the house yet and it’s rock solid. I’m unsure and kinda clueless about what I’m doing so I over do it. It’s my house and we are going to live here forever so it never hurts to do a job to well.

Go figure. It went from freezing rain to a sunny day. Perhaps it will get up to 56 degrees. That’s Texas for you.

I've got a woodstove now so it's time to cut wood. There's probably a cord of dead wood on this tree alone. Looking at it I'm not sure there's much left alive on this tree anyway. The years of drought took their toll. I would like to know what kind of tree it is. Has an unusual color, kind of green. When spring comes there may or may not be a leaf to look at. It had leaves last year so I'm sure something is still alive on it. The wood burns well, real clean with no smoke. It's fairly hard judging by how quick the chain got dull. Night all. Cherie is snoring away. Too much relief for her to handle so the release of stress knocked her out. See ya tomorrow, Lord willing.