I was in complete disarray. My life had just crashed down around me. I thought she would want me to come home. Instead she told me not to ever again.
Stuck in a town I didn't live in - and having spent all the money I had with no more in sight, I did the only thing I knew to do - turn to family.
None would help out. None would offer a helping hand. None would loan me money to get back to a town I could work in. I was done.
You've heard the phrase "down on your luck" - this wasn't being down - this was being done. Over. There was no luck.
I went to my grandmothers and told her, "I'll only be here for 2 weeks tops, and then I'll be gone for good". She didn't believe me, but she let me stay.
Turns out, I needed to stay - because my family was pretty much horrible to her and she was at the age when she really needed someone to help her.
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I went to the library everyday and used their internet. My grandmother didn't even know what the internet was and I needed to do two things - email the girl to try to learn what was going on, and to look for a job so I could make some money and get the hell out of that town.
I couldn't find out answers from the girl - it was all just a run around.
She had someone else. That was something I had to put together on my own because she certainly wasn't spinning the situation like that.
She was saying that she needed 'time' and 'space' and things like that.
She really needed to be with that other guy.
As for finding a job - zip, nada, nothing.
Resume after resume. Call after call. I couldn't find anything that would pay enough to get me the money I needed to just move on and get on with my life.
Two weeks came and went. I was still there.
3 weeks. 4 weeks. 12 weeks.
This was turning into a nightmare.
The girl finally came clean. It was over and done. Finally resolved and the mystery solved.
The job became taking care of my grandmother.
24/7 365.
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Eventually I would find a job at a restaurant - washing dishes. Within 2 weeks my grandmother (and I will never know for sure) had an accident at the house while I was away. Slip and fall.
I quit the job. I couldn't leave the house. Trapped. For both good and for bad.
A year later, I found another job - and then another.
I couldn't hold down a job for too long. I was always struggling between what I wanted to do and what I would come home to find.
I never knew what she might do.
One day I came home and she was on an old, beat up and wobbly 1940's wooden ladder cleaning out the top shelves in the kitchen.
She's 97. She shouldn't be climbing ladders to nearly the top rung in order to clean anything.
She had spent the whole day doing that while I was away.
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I've not learned to settle down and just be where I am.
If I'm uncomfortable or want out, I have a very hard time accepting that things are just how they are and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
I hate that.
I don't always need to be in charge, but if I'm working hard, or trying, to make my life better and do better for myself - than why fight against me? That's a message I send to God about every day.
I suppose I didn't need that girl.
I suppose I needed to spend a few years taking care of, listening, and learning from my grandmother.
I suppose the things I did learn from those experiences really are Open Doors and Opportunity. Good things I need to remember and use later in life - if not now.
Even still, not being able to have things "go my way" is horrible.
I say:
Let go of the rope.
Float to the top.
Roll over on your back and breath a little.
Then roll back over and start swimming again until the point you're about to drown - there are places to go.
Open Doors and Opportunity are everywhere. Now's not the time to get bogged down - and never get bogged down in the past. Only learn from it.
That's what my grandmother would say.
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