Thirteen Years To Live

I was at that stage in my life where I began to ponder what little bit of future I might have left. After all, I was 62 years old, and the average lifespan of the American woman is 75 years. So, theoretically, I have thirteen years to cram a lot of stuff in I haven’t ever done! Oh, I did the usual things women were expected to do when I was younger, but not before I joined the Air Force in 1980, and sowed some wild oats. Then I complied with societal expectations, got married, and had kids, well…maybe not in that exact order anyway. I spent the next several years trying to raise good kids, make good meals, and be a good wife.

I was too busy to think about any kind of future except for what was right in front of me at that time. Working, raising a family, and all the trappings that came with it, kept me pretty busy. Then before I knew it I found myself alone, in bad health, and clinically depressed.

2010

It was a breezy Thursday afternoon. The sun filtered in through the picture window like a lazy haze of soft smoke. I watched it linger in the room as I sat huddled on the couch. I was crying softly as I spoke on the phone between sobs.

“There are people outside waiting to talk to you Robin”, a counselor from Freeman’s Cancer Center told me. “I’ll stay on the phone with you until you go outside, just do what they tell you”.

“What are you talking about”? I asked.

“Just go to the door and open it”. This time her voice took on an authoritative tone. I got up off the couch and looked through the peep hole. A uniformed police officer was standing off to the side of the front stoop. He was peering around a tall hedge, his hand resting lightly on his gun. I quickly backed away from the door in shock, stumbling on my housecoat.

“What did you do”? I cried into the phone. “Why did you call the police”?

“They’re going to help you Robin. Open the door”.

“No, no”! I cried, “why”? I felt like I was suffocating as I gulped for breath. Tears covered my face and fell like rain onto my chest. I tried wiping the tears away so I could see, but they were falling so fast it was of no use. I stumbled down the hallway trying desperately to brush the tears away, I reached my daughter’s room and crouched near a side window. I slowly peeked over the window sill. Another police officer was standing just outside the window, but he didn’t see me. He was looking toward the front of the house. He too had his hand resting on his gun.

“Robin”, the woman said. “What are you doing now”?

I was gasping for breath, afraid to move, scared I would be shot. “Why”? I whispered to her. “Why have you done this to me”?

“It’s for your own safety”, she said sounding aggravated. “They’re not going to leave until you go outside. You don’t have a choice”.

“I never said anything about wanting to kill myself”, I whimpered. I slid down to the floor and covered my mouth with my hand, my fingers pressed hard against my face. I didn’t want the police officer outside of the window to hear me sobbing. I couldn’t grasp what was happening to me. I hated this woman on the phone, this woman who had no idea who I was. She didn’t know anything about me. Yet she reached into my life with her jagged pretense and ripped a hole in it. I was shaking frantically, my hand barely able to hold onto the phone. I could hear the woman on the phone saying something but I wasn’t listening. I looked around my daughter’s room as I crouched on the floor. Just hours before I had came into her room, kissing her cheek softly as I woke her up for school. She had put on cotton candy scented balm before she had went to bed the night before, I could still smell it as I had bent down to kiss her. But now pressed against the wall of her room I felt like an intruder wreaking havoc into the lives of the family who lived there. What would they think of me huddled against the wall while policemen waited outside to take me away?

“Okay”, I told the woman on the phone. “I’ll go outside. My daughter Mariah will be home soon and I don’t want her to see any of this”.

“Good”, the woman said. The compassion she had feigned earlier was gone now. She seemed anxious to be rid of me. I imagined this would make for interesting conversation when she sat down to dinner tonight, clucking her tongue as she recounted the events, all the while feeling smugly superior that she had saved the day.

I opened the door slowly. “Put the phone down”, an officer commanded. I was confused and wasn’t sure where to put it down at. I was still thinking like a human being, but I had lost that distinction when I opened the door. “Now”! he yelled at me. I quickly put the phone down near my feet.

“Come down the stairs and stand here”, another officer snapped as he pointed to an area in the yard. I did as I was told and quickly ran down the steps, my bare feet slapping against the concrete. I counted a total of five officers. Two squad cars were parked in front of the house, a third parked on the side. An officer walked behind me and told me he was going to handcuff me.

“Why? What did I do? What’s happening”? I sobbed.

“Put your hands behind your back”, he ordered.

I had never been handcuffed in my life. The weight of the handcuffs rubbed against my wrists painfully as he tugged at my hands. With a quick jerk they snapped into place. I stood on the front lawn feeling like I was on exhibition, a freak sideshow in a circus. Cars slowed down as they passed the house, some almost coming to a complete stop to get a good look at me. I turned away from the road to avoid their gaze. I felt ashamed, even though I had done nothing to be ashamed of. The curtain from the house next door was discreetly parted, but I could still see the face of my neighbor staring at me through the window.

The police officers were standing around talking to one another now. Every so often one of them would laugh and shake their head. They were acting like they were at a neighborhood barbecue casually talking about a football game.

“Can one of you put me in a squad car please”? I begged. “I don’t like being left in the yard for everyone to gawk at”. They turned and looked at me, appearing annoyed that I had interrupted their little hen party.

“We’ll put you in when we’re ready to”, an officer spat at me. He looked at the other officers gathered around him and laughed.

“What have I done”? I cried. I was angry now, angry with the woman on the phone and angry with the police. “Is this because I’m depressed”?Fresh tears rolled down my face. “Is this helping me? Is it”? They looked at me with no empathy, no compassion. I could feel my anger growing as they stood there watching me with amusement. This morning I was a wife and a mother, a so called respectable citizen. Now I was a circus clown in handcuffs.

Eventually an officer approached me and steered me to a squad car. “Where am I going”? I asked him. He didn’t say anything. “Can’t you at least tell me where you’re taking me”? He placed me in the backseat and slammed the door without saying anything.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening. Why am I being treated like I’ve done something wrong, like I’m not worth one scrap of kindness. I hung my head and began crying. The officers were talking to one another now as we drove down the road. One of them laughed and said something about the “crazy ones”. So that’s it I thought, I’m crazy. That’s what they think. “I’m not crazy”, I stammered through my tears. I sat in stunned silence as we drove through town. My mind was blank now, void of any hope of being rescued from this hell.

I saw the hospital looming ahead as we continued to drive. The patrol car slowed down and turned into the entrance marked “Emergency Room”. “What are we doing here”? Neither of them responded. “Why are you ignoring me”? I yelled in frustration. “Don’t I have any rights”? We came to a stop in front of the crowded waiting room. They each took an arm and marched me through the sliding doors. They paraded me through the waiting room like I was an infamous outlaw that had finally been apprehended. All that was missing were the flashing lights of cameras and the urgent voices of reporters asking how they did it. They stared at me in my handcuffs and bathrobe as we made our way to the admissions counter. The admissions clerk looked at the officers as they gave her my information. Now and then she glanced at me, then quickly looked away if I met her gaze. It reminded me of an old joke I had heard before, “don’t make eye contact with the crazy people”.

When they finished admitting me, the officers led me to a room at the back of the emergency room. They finally removed the handcuffs when the security guard arrived, apparently relieving the officers of their claim on me. The security guard stood outside of my room with his hands behind his back. Now and then he glanced at me as if making sure I wasn’t planning to escape. The only furnishings were a hospital bed and a small stool with wheels on it. There were no cabinets in the room, no medical equipment hanging on the walls. This was a room for people like me. A room with nothing I could use to hurt myself or anyone else. It didn’t feel like a safe room, it felt like a holding tank. I sat on the bed and waited, not sure what I was waiting for.

The Beginning

I had met my husband on a blind date. He did seem different in the beginning. He didn’t continually criticize me, or strong arm me. I felt “protected”. He seemed proud of me. I definitely wasn’t used to that. I began to let my guard down. I felt sure he would never make me feel anything but acceptable, especially since he was aware how “unacceptable” I had been told I was by an abusive stepfather for years.

I know now that was unrealistic, husbands and wives are going to let each other down, say things that are painful and do things that hurt one another. But I had put so much faith in my marriage that when it began to fall apart it was more than I could handle. I didn’t have a strong emotional foundation to endure it. The same face that once looked at me so lovingly, now looked at me with exasperation, and disappointment. I felt like a burden, an emotional waste of space. He literally turned his back on me when I needed him the most, my tears only seemed to anger him, my need for affection feel on deaf ears. I had to ask him for comfort, and he would grudgingly comply. I was so desperate for some semblance of empathy from him, that I eagerly accepted his ingenuous concern.

On top of all the pain of a failing marriage, people I thought I could always trust betrayed me. My son began distancing himself from me and he wouldn’t allow me to see my beautiful granddaughter anymore. She and I had always been very close. She was the light of my life. I loved having her with me, watching the expressions on her sweet face, listening to her little voice as she rattled off about her day. Being a grandmother completed my life in a way I never thought possible. I loved cuddling with her. She would snuggle close to me, her hair tickling my face while I read to her. She would fall asleep like that, nestled warmly against me. I would hold her for as long as I could, loving the feeling of loving her so much.

I had always had a good loving relationship with my son too, so I had a very difficult time dealing with what he was doing. He became critical, and uncaring. He had changed ever since he became involved with his new girlfriend. When I tried talking to him, he was elusive. Sometimes his girlfriend would answer his phone and scream at me, then hangup. I was confused, and beyond hurt. I could not comprehend my son’s behavior…his lack of empathy, his callousness, his support of his girlfriend’s abuse towards me. I would cry in disbelief of what was happening. I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. My son, my sweet child, was unrecognizable. His lack of love for me, his apparent contempt for me, tore at my soul. I felt like he had been replaced by an alien force that looked like my son, but wasn’t actually him. The son that I loved and nurtured, would never have treated me so badly, or allowed someone else to also.

The Fall

Eventually I lost my job, and my marriage. I longed for my husband, even though how he was treating me contributed to my depression. Memories of when we were happy flooded my mind, the way he would look at me, the way he would caress me, the way he would make me feel so special. Then the reality of our relationship would hit me like a truck, the way he looked at me now, the way he wouldn’t touch me anymore, and the way he made me feel so insignificant. I would cry hysterically, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling so heartbroken and unloved.

My son was still not speaking to me. I missed my granddaughter more than I can convey, the weight of missing her consumed my body, my heart, even my soul. I would think about all the times I held her, all her sweet little kisses, and endless hugs. I missed her voice, I missed cuddling with her, and mostly I missed her love. My spirit was broken, shattered beyond repair it felt.

As I was struggling with all of this, my town, Joplin Missouri, was hit by a devastating F5 tornado. I lost everything I owned. I sat in the ruins, just like I sat in the ruins of my life. I was trying to undergo breast reconstruction again, so I still had drain tubes in my chest. I had no energy, or even the desire to go through the pile of rubble. I just turned my back and walked away, numb with resignation.

I remember lying on the couch one night in a little trailer after the tornado. I was surrounded by donated items, even the couch I was lying on was donated. “Whose life is this”? I cried out loud. Nothing was familiar anymore, physically, mentally, and emotionally. My life had changed so much in such a short period of time it was unrecognizable. My brain did not know where to land, everything had changed so fast. I felt like such a failure, depression consumed me even further. I began to feel overwhelmed with self-loathing for being depressed. I hated myself, I hated my depression, I hated my life. I had no life anymore.

Some people think that people who are depressed are just feeling sorry for themselves. I was told that. I wish it were that simple. We’ve all felt sorry for ourselves at one time or another and bounced back. But depression is not the same thing. When you’re depressed, you’re sorry you’re alive. You’re stuck somewhere between life and death. You are the real walking dead.

“I want to hide under a bed, in a ditch, deep in a hole in the ground

Somewhere no one can find me, hurt me, somewhere I can’t be found

I want to be swallowed up, somewhere dark, somewhere I can’t move

Wrapped up tightly, barely breathing, I want to be consumed”

I tried to hide from my depression just like I tried to hide from my stepfather when I was little. I actually tried to hide in a closet from it. If it couldn’t see me, it couldn’t hurt me. Depression was the monster at the door now. I was terrified.

I would often take sleeping pills to escape the torment in my mind, but my dreams were worse than reality. Faces of people that I thought once loved me, swirled around me like a carnival ride I could not escape from. My ex husband’s face smiled mockingly at me, followed by my son’s. My heart would immediately break as I tried to reach out to him. But he would just snarl at me with contempt. I heard my granddaughter’s little voice calling out to me, but I couldn’t find her. Other people appeared and vanished before me like scenes from a movie clip gone haywire. Fragmented laughter and disembodied voices quickly slipped past me, barely audible. I felt a sense of loathing from them as they grinned maliciously at me.

I felt like I had been dropped into someone else’s miserable life. There were so many voids in my life now, and nothing to replace the emptiness that was left. There was no semblance of my old life, nothing for me to drop anchor on.

The Rise

Depression is like an angry sleeping giant when you’re feeling better. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to take much to rouse it from its sleep. But it awakens with a vengeance. It has came roaring at me with everything it had several times since, trying its best to pry my fingers off that rope I had been holding onto from fear of falling. Sometimes I don’t understand why I even kept holding on, but I did. It takes more strength to live then it does to die. That’s why so many people let go. It takes the strength of an army to hang on at times.

I know this sounds like a cliché, but time does make it better. But oh, time will try to destroy you also.. Time is your enemy, and time is your friend. Trying to live when I felt like dying made time unbearable. I felt like a terrified kid wanting to hide under the blankets until morning, it was a long, desperate, unbearable night. There were days when time was my friend, when I felt hopeful. But I still felt like I was walking on a “time tight rope”, always dreading the inevitable enemy of time waiting to trip me.

I wish I could say I was all better now, but I still struggle with depression. But it does not consume me like before. There are days when I still feel like I am hungover with sadness after an evening of battling depression. An evening where I had began to dwell on things again. I have not seen my son, or my granddaughter in almost eleven years. This is the great tragedy in my life. And always will be. I have missed birthdays, holidays, and milestones in Zoey’s life that I will never get back. I have missed kissing her little cheek, and feeling her arms around me. I have missed hearing her call me grandma, and telling me she loves me. I have missed sharing in her joy, and her sorrows. At times I find this unforgivable concerning my son. He has caused a hole in my heart that can never be filled or replaced. A longing that never diminishes, a sadness that always lingers.

New Beginnings

I had planned on traveling solo across America! Then my health began to fail, I had a massive heart attack Memorial Day of 2020, which slowed me down, and then I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I found it increasingly difficult to get around and do things with ease. But I put it in the back of my mind and continued on with my life. But I felt a sense of need to do more, to try more. They were so many places in the United States that I had never been to, like the grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls, and I had yet to see the largest ball of twine!

While I was perusing YouTube one evening, I saw a video that caught my eye. It was about women traveling by themselves, living, and sleeping in their cars. I just kind of blew it off and kept scrolling. But then I would run across another video like that, then another one. Then I felt a nudge. I actually started researching it. I told myself that’s what I wanted to do, before it got too difficult, or before I ended up in a nursing home playing bingo for cups of Jello.

I began to tinker with trying to figure out a way to set up my SUV. My daughter thought I was crazy of course! I’ve always seemed to be the odd one out, and now I was really the odd one WAY WAY out there. But I kept plugging away, rearranging my vehicle, doing more research, seeing what I needed. I also joined a group of women on Facebook who do it full-time, with some part-timers on there too. We shared information about power sources, foam versus air mattresses, safe places to park and boondock, how to store food in your car, how to cook food in your car, and ESPECIALLY how to PEE in your car. We can’t always just pop a squat, being a woman takes a little more planning in that department. But I figured out what works best for me, it was just a matter of hit, and miss, literally!

So before Parkinson’s becomes unmanageable, before I get too old and frail to manage it, I plan on hitting the road very soon. I’ve done some little trips here and there to work out the kinks. I know it won’t be all sunsets, or smooth sailing all the time. I know there will be hardships, but I have faced hardships before. I feel like this is important to do for the Parkinson’s community, and those struggling with depression.

So here I come! I may be shaky, and move a little slow, but I’ll get there!

If my story has moved you in one way or another, and you would like to donate to the cause, you can do so under the tipping area. Any donations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance!