Name Agit Prop

I can't remember where the name Lee came from, but I can remember who gave it to me.

It was my Uncle Albert. He's called me Lee-Lee since before I could talk. My cousins picked up the name and then shortened it to Lee.

My mom hates Lee. She wants me to be a precious flower, Leona, delicate, fair. Personally? I can roll in the mud as good as any of the boys.

I remember the first day of Kindergarten. Mom made me wear this really poofy lavender dress with this big satin ribbon. I hated it! But what could I do about it at a mere 6 years old? So I wore the dress. In class, the teacher called me Leona and refused to be corrected. I didn't like that teacher much. At recess, the boys were all climbing this big tree in the school yard. I went up to the tree and began to climb as well when the biggest boy, Johnny Adams, pulled me away. "Girls can't climb trees!" He shouted at me. I yanked my arm away and turned back to the tree. "Watch me!" I yelled over my shoulder, and began to climb. Soon there was a crowd gathered around the tree as I climbed higher and higher. Leaves got tangled in my hair and my dress caught and tore on the branches. I sat in the fork between two branches, unable to go any higher, and peered down at the kids gathered around with my hand over my eyes. There was cheering. After a moment of rest, I made my way back down. Johnny met me at the bottom and slapped me on the back. "What's your name?" He asked. "I'm Johnny." "I'm Lee," I told him, smiling brightly. "You're pretty cool, for a girl," He affirmed.

Man, did I get a licking that night over that dress. But that one act solidified in the student's mind that I was Lee, toughest girl in Oklahoma.

Johnny stayed on my radar as I grew. He would swing by after school and we would ride bikes or go fishing. If I ever needed a wing man, be it for fighting or flirting, he was there. Chances are, if I had a black eye, he had one as well. We were thick as thieves. And if anyone called me Leona, they had Johnny and our posse to deal with.
 

The first time we became sweethearts was in fifth grade. It lasted all of a week before we decided that love was too complicated for ten year olds and that friends was probably better. But oh, did my heart cherish that week! Johnny was the only person I knew who could tell me why I was angry better than I could myself. He saw me for who I was, he knew me for Lee, and that was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Johnny moved away in seventh grade. I spent months missing my friend. I put on a brave face, to be sure, because now I had to lead our pack on my own, but it wasn't the same. When I complained to him about stuff that was going on, it was strategizing. When I complained to any of the other guys, it was gossip. I knew they respected me, but I also knew that they saw the girl before they saw me. Even though they wouldn't call me Leona, I knew that they thought it.

Fast forward to my first year of College. Lit 101 at Oklahoma State. I sat in the first row, wearing a set of coveralls and a snapback. I haven't introduced myself to anyone. I don't want to deal with the drama. The last few years of high school were tough. Kevin went to rehab for cocaine. Evan lost his father in Afghanistan. I definitely thought that life was shit.

And then, sitting in that classroom so far from home, I heard my name, the name I had yet to tell anyone in this new place. "Lee?" I heard him call, and then I looked up and saw him approach. Johnny Adams. We slapped each other on the back and wondered that we should be in the same class in the same university! The teacher came in and called us to order, but after class he came over again and invited me out for coffee.

It was hard seeing Johnny again when we went for coffee. He may have been my friend in the past, but so much had changed since we had last seen each other. He wanted to know all about our friends. I told him what I could - even the hard bits - and he seemed to know when not to pry. He told me about how his family had settled into Oklahoma City, about his funny teachers and favourite high school moments. Soon we settled into easy conversation.

This went on for several months. One day, looking very nervous, he brought up our fling in fifth grade and asked if I wanted to do it again. I laughed at him and told him yes, but only if it lasted longer than a week this time.

It was a Tuesday when he proposed. I said yes.

It was a Thursday when we went home to tell my parents. My mom greeted us at the door and began gushing about how much she missed me. She called me Leona, like always.

Johnny, ever my wingman, having grown more tactful as he aged, worked the name Lee into every part of the conversation he could. Mom wouldn't budge, but my Dad caught on pretty quick and started using my name.

We told them about the engagement during dinner. Dad did a toast. It was all very wonderful and very embarrassing at the same time.

In the car on the way home, I asked Johnny why he stood up for my name so strongly.

"That first day of Kindergarten, when you climbed the tree after being disgraced by the teacher with your legal name, I realized that it didn't matter what I called you - You were going to be the same rough and tumble girl either way. I figured calling you Lee was the best way to be friends. Now I do it because I love you, and I want you to feel like the world sees you just the way you see yourself: Strong."

A Shocking Realization and a Desire to Live

I have anorexia.

I’ve struggled with an eating disorder for at least 20 years, but until today I didn’t have a name for it.
I’ve known about it for the last 6 years. At first it was just thought to be disordered eating, and that’s what I’m going into the provincial eating disorder program for, but I did further research today and discovered this.

I used to restrict what I ate and exercise off every calorie I ate plus some. This led to damage to my pancreas and now my body has a really hard time regulating my blood sugars. But I didn’t realize that the term for what I used to do was anorexia until I looked up what eating disorders could cause low blood sugar. So now, I’m stuck eating every 3-4 hours for all waking hours otherwise my body goes into hypoglycemic crisis.

I am having a hard time this week. Eating in the morning is always hard but I am also manic which means that it’s even harder this week. That, coupled with a lack of milk in the house for cereal, dwindling bread supplies, and a lack of protein bars, have all served to foil me in the breakfast department.

I need to do better. Reading what I did tonight, the blood sugar issues I have could kill me because I could go into hypoglycemic shock if I don’t eat. It would be extremely hard to come out of that, and I would never be the same if I did. I don’t want that. I have dreams for the future. I have crochet projects to finish. I have four furry companions to see to old age. I need to care for myself so that I can see these things through. I need to live.

My Minimalist Manifesto

I will acquire no more consumer debt. If I can't pay cash, I will not buy it!

I will pay off my current consumer debt load.

 

I will do a seasonal declutter in spring and fall.

 

I will purchase the best of what I need and want, buying things that will last years if not decades and are able to be repaired/upgraded.

 

I will use things until they wear out.

 

I will only own what is necessary to make my life comfortable.

 

I will take the damn music lessons.

 

I will move my body in some way every day.

 

I will go to work every day I am scheduled and be fully present while there.

 

I will find small but certain happiness every day.

 

I will find happiness in whatever home I find.

The Mess That is My Life

Been roaming through this darkness

 I'm alive, but I'm alone

And part of me is fighting this 

But part of me is gone

I am undergoing a mental health catastrophe right now and discovering that this world is not set up for people who are mentally ill but under some semblance of control. I'm suicidal, hallucinating and the only things keeping me here are my sister, my niece, and my partner. Oh, and my cats. My one asshole cat could sense that I wasn't doing well and came up to me for loves for once. That was nice.

I took meds and called the crisis line to have them walk me through some breathing exercises and I'm feeling a bit better. But the song that I linked above, especially those lyrics I posted, are hitting especially hard today. I feel like all of my support system has been abandoning me because they're going through their own stuff and don't have space for my issues. I'm fighting the urge to die with a lot of courage and resilience, but the strength I have to do that is leaving me in leaps and bounds. 

What was this all triggered by? The idea that I needed to have some order both in my mind and in my space. Cue the picture onslaught:

 

Seems innocuous, right?

This. This is the overflow that I can't fit in my room. Not to mention the stuff in the basement.

See now why I had the mini panic attack? I have so much stuff and not enough space for it and I need to declutter a lot. 

Just want to give up

I am feeling absolutely gutted right now. I have a severe physical disability as well as a mental health disability, and today I was prescribed a power wheelchair by my Nurse Practitioner only to be told by my Occupational therapist that the program that provides wheelchairs on loans free of charge wouldn’t supply me one because they only supply them to people who are in them 24/7. I have read the manual he is reading back to front, and it says a requirement of 6 hours a day in the community and at home, which is the minimum I would use it for. I am non-binary and was assigned female at birth, so I think he’s looking at those two things and my long list of medical diagnoses and assuming I’m a hypochondriac and refusing to help me. I have fought so long and hard to get the care that I need and I am so close to regaining my independence and he’s being a fucking twat and I hate it and I want to give up!!! The medical system needs to invest more in caring for people with disabilities rather than in things like assisted dying but because I’m disabled the world sees me as lesser and thinks that it’s in my best interest to die!!! I DON’T WANT TO DIE, I WANT TO LIVE, BUT I WANT TO LIVE IN A WORLD THAT’S UNDERSTANDING AND MAKES IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO LIVE WITH A DISABILITY!!! IF I CAN’T LIVE IN A WORLD LIKE THAT, WHAT’S THE POINT OF LIVING???

To be clear, I don’t intend to commit suicide over this, I am just tired of having to fight for every little iota of rights and semblance of normalcy that I have. I’m just supremely disappointed and upset and I want to give up. I should just go back on disability because without that wheelchair I’m not going to be able to hold down a job even if I were to get one. I wish he would see it this way. I wish the world would see it this way.

~~~~~~~~

I NEED TO KEEP GOING.

For that teenager who uses a cane.

For the musician who can’t explain what they’re experiencing but they can play it.

For the person in a wheelchair who is pitied when they need help over a curb.

For every marginalized person that society has ever shit on because if I don’t stand up and do what I can to protect the sacredness of human life, who will?

I have good things going for me. I have two medical providers who signed off on the wheelchair. My NP will most likely have a conversation with the OT or help me find a new one. I applied for two jobs that are urgently hiring, both at places I can see myself working for years. I have an application in at a wheelchair-friendly apartment that comes with attendant care and has enough room that I can build a small music studio in it, and a balcony large enough that I can have a potted plant garden in the summer. I have two cats that think the world of me and do their best to take care of me like I care for them. I had the fortuitous event to discover that I play guitar left-handed after being offered the opportunity to purchase a left-handed guitar. I have the use of my legs, no matter how hard it may be to use them some days. I’m not OK right now, but that’s not to say that things aren’t going to get better. I have hope that things are in the works to make my life a heck of a lot easier.

Just a (Not so) tiny update!

Hey friends, just a life update!

I moved! I moved from my home in one of the richest neighbourhoods in the city to one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city, and honestly, I feel more at home here. I feel like my personality fits in with my housemates and I’ve got the supports in the neighbourhood to thrive here.

School is going well. I have a 3.76 GPA as of writing this and I have 70 class days left to go. My ADHD has been not letting me do as well as I want, but I’m slowly learning to work through that. I am working with a learning disabilities specialist in the community to help develop the skills to succeed and I am hopeful that I can succeed!

On faith: I’ve been wrestling with my faith for a while now. At least since 2015 when I came out. It got to the point where being around religious people made me physically ill. I moved into my current house, though, not realizing how much my landlady and her niece believe in Jesus, and they’ve been helping me put my faith into perspective. It’s not necessarily that I don’t believe in Jesus; rather, I don’t believe in the white-washed version of him that Christianity has created. I believe in the radical descendant of Abraham who fed the poor, healed the sick, flipped tables in the temple, and ate with tax collectors and gentiles. I believe in a gospel of love, not of exclusion. There’s been huge shifts happening in my faith since I managed to extricate my faith in Jesus from Christianity.

I’m starting to break generational curses in my family and I’m happy about that. I’m the first child in my direct line to go to college and graduate. Yes, my aunt went to med school and became a doctor, but she’s my aunt by adoption, and of all my blood aunts and uncles and cousins, I’m one of the first to finish school.

Another piece to the breaking generational curses bit is that I’m starting to learn more about financial independence and how to save my money and invest it so that I can have the freedom I need to live a comfortable and safe life, and not have to worry about an overbearing boss who I can’t escape if needed. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject and I’m going to write about what I’m learning in another post on another day.

I’m starting to figure out where I want my live to go from here. I want to go on to university, take psychology, and then get a diploma in art therapy at WHEAT.

My overall mindset is starting to shift. I’m noticing little glimmers of hope here and there where all there was before was darkness. Yes, I am still up against adversity in the form of my body and mind, but it’s not the be all and end all it once was. Maybe I will make it out of my thirties alive.

My Roots

Growing up I was very big into Wicca and pagan practices, and when I was thirteen, after watching an episode of Voyager where Janeway goes on a vision quest to find her spirit guide, I decided I needed a spirit guide as well. I sat in my room on the floor with some incense lit and I cleared my mind, calling my spirit animal to me, and in my mind I saw these animals in cages in a camp. Poachers had been in the forest. I was frozen, unable to help, but I watched as a great big grizzly bear ran into the camp and began to break open the cages, freeing the animals inside so that they could run and be free. I named him Father Bear and he became my protector as well.

I was very heavily involved in spirit communication and energy work as a Wiccan and Father Bear would protect me from most attacks because a lot of the time I was too young and foolish to protect myself. I was possessed twice but my coven made sure to cast the unkind spirit out of me before too much damage could be caused. After the second attack, I stopped imagining stories in my head before bed and began walking my mind to Father Bear's cave every night where I would sleep while he kept watch. Around this time I began to collect Bear memorabilia including a bear necklace. I've lost the necklace since then and I pushed Father Bear away when I started working with the church.

This is a ring I recently got along with two bear paw print necklaces. A ring was especially important for me to get. You see, when I was around 17 I became good pen friends with a boy named Chook from Texas who was 14. We both could see and talk to spirits and we were working together to learn to hone our skills. He died of a drug overdose in December 4th, 2007 and when I found out I was destroyed. I found a ring shortly after I found out, one I thought I had lost, an angel with a green emerald, and I took it to mean Chook was now an angel. I began wearing it because I viewed him as one of my protectors from beyond.

So now I have a ring that's a bear, because I'm ready to invite Father Bear back into my life as my protector from beyond. 

There's a ghost in my apartment. Still trying to figure out who it is an what they want, but they're making lots of noise and things have been going missing. Maybe Father Bear can help me find out what is going on.