you don't remember me but i remember you
i lie awake and try so hard not to think of you
but who can decide what they dream?
and dream i do...
-- Taking Over Me, Evanescence

CHECK OUT SOME NEW POETRY ENTRIES...
go to poems of mine
and then the scary stuff inbetween have fun



 september
15, 16, 23, 27, 28,

wednesday, september 15, 2004
time


you don't remember me but i remember you
i lie awake and try so hard not to think of you
but who can decide what they dream?
and dream i do...
-- Taking Over Me, Evanescence
a lot has happened to me recently. and not so recent. i hadn't realized how long it's really been. i don't know if people even come here anymore. but, because of one of the things going on in my life at the moment (grad class) i'm writing again... and hopefully often.

since i last wrote i have become officially engaged to a marvelous man! he is indeed the "one" i wrote to so many times here and in my paper journals. the one i knew was out there but just couldn't seem to find. as dorky as that sounds it's actually a bit freakish. i've been working on something called "the Vault" that i mentioned a few months ago. it's a compliation of my paper journals... no real date order or theme or anything just entries. there is a letter in there that i wrote to "the one"... i look back on it now and i can remember when/where i wrote it and knowing jeff now i see that i was indeed sane and did know (in a weird way) that i had been talking to him when i thought i had been talking to others... aaron or troy.

we haven't set a date for the wedding yet. we'd planned on the first weekend in april but his sister just found out she's having a baby that weekend.... yeah, so we changed since we could. well, we haven't changed to a certain date... just not happenin in april.

this whole relationship/getting married issue has been the most wonderful and beautiful thing that has ever happened to me and at the same time a very frightening time as well. jeff is Catholic. i decided (early on) that i would convert if needed because i really haven't followed one religion for long and i could at least check out Catholisim (spell?). obviously i'm not too far into the classes. though this is very exciting it's also, as i said, quite frightening. in order for us to get married not only did he need an annulment from his first wife, i have to have one from my ex. i'm not sure why this is... Catholics tell me it's because they take marriage so seriously - as if i didn't.... it's important that it be annuled so that the vows are officially broken and i can marry again. vows officially broken. let me just say that more than my vows to my first husband were broken in that marriage and subsequent divorce. i have NO good memories of that time and feel as though having to remember any of that can not and is not healthy.

for several months.... years after my separation from my ex-husband i would share my abuse stories when asked or needed for therapy. those listening were amazed at the candor at which i'd speak about them... and how i acted as if it wasn't a big deal at all. for years i suppose that's how i've managed to live. downplay nearly being beaten to death. bruised ribs, black eyes, hair pulled out in clumps... bloody noses, broken one... nah, it was nothin'. really! i didn't think much about it. i was able to express my thoughts about how stupid it was that i'd stayed so long but the extent of the abuse... no big deal.

so, suddenly i'm faced with the need for an annulment. along with this comes many meetings with people having to tell "my story". the first night the priest told us that i needed one i broke down in tears before we even made it out of the parking spot. suddenly all the danger and disgust and fear that i'd been hiding away came storming out in tears right there next to jeff, my fiance. (for those confused, my ex's name is also jeff.) i cried because suddenly i realized how close to dying i really came. the night i thought he'd put his head right through my chest... or the time he just kept bashing my head into the closet door runner... over and over and incident after incident... they just came sworming in. i couldn't shake them. not that night and not very well since then. i have dreams where i wake up and swear that jeff (the ex) is standing there next to the bed laughing at me... or jeff (the fiance) will come into bed after i've been asleep and i jump up and scream and cry thinking it's my ex. or perhaps i'm just dreaming... all i know is that for the first time in 8 - 10 years it all has become quite obvious to me that i really did have something to fear... that i was in fact very close to death at times... and NOW it's a big deal.

i've talked to jonathan, of course, about most of this. he and i never really dove into my marriage much. occassionally i'd through in a play-by-play... but we didn't do much with it. in fact, when i was in "day care" for the 8 months shortly following my divorce i spoke more about my rapes than i did how awful my ex-husband had been to me. was i simply trying to protect myself from the realness of it all? am i now strong enough to face the ugliness? i don't know. and, unfortunately class is about to start so i'll have to pick up on this entry later... it's just something to think about - and think about i do. so much more to say...... i'll be back... take care - talk soon.


thursday, september 16, 2004
on top of it all

i've been very pissed off lately. i'm sure it has something to do with all the memories i'm unable to keep locked away. i do know what that cement block was that i use to tell jonathan about. it was a vault full of the awful things i needed to keep myself safe from so that i could recover a bit. but now someone took a sledge hammer to it and it's in bits and "peaces" (notice i spell pieces - peaces because it's really the sorta peace i'm speaking about. it's also why my site is called "Missing Peaces") (-yes you can do a google search and find it using that name-) but anyway... there they are. and to make matters worse. now that i've moved back to goshen - a wonderful thing - i am now faced with seeing a new psychiatrist. i saw him tuesday. the meds i've been taking or the last 2-3 years - which have worked wonderfully as long as i was on all of them at the right time have somehow become WRONG. he told me that i shouldn't be on serequel because i'm not psychotic and i'm not bi-polar. and the dose i was on simply kept me sedated - nothing else. the anti-depressant i was taking - wellbutrin was the wrong type of wellbutrin and it's shelf-life was such that it wasn't doing anything for me after about noon everyday. and the tranxine. it's addictive - the barbituate word which i can't spell. NO ONE HAS EVER TOLD ME THIS. I HAVE SEEN 3 DOCTORS WHILE I WAS ON THIS MEDICINE AND NONE OF THEM SAID THEY WERE INAPPROPRIATE. one of the doctors was the one who put me on them in the first place when he found me pacing the "low-functing" halls with a blood pressure of 80/60 (yes i shouldn't have been standing). HE is the one that put me on those drugs. HE is the one that saw me in such an awful mess. HE told me they would work and they did - of course we didn't find this out until i'd been in and out of the hospital 3 times. but it worked and i haven't been back. except the emergency room for slight (ha) panic attacks.

that was a long paragraph and i figured that i needed to start a new one. so the new guy Dr. C (he's greek or something and i can't spell let alone say his name) changed them all. COLD ASS TURKEY! excuse me a moment....... but if one of them is addictive tell how it is good to just stop???? i am sick today. i was sick yesterday and it's not going to get better. i want to go home and take some serequel. instead i tried to call jeff and have him run home and hide them from me so that i'm not tempted. being like this is like having a continuous hangover. it sucks. nice choice of words........ ah, i'm tired. and i have forgotten what this entry started out to be.

oh.... i am pissed off that's right. the lyrics below kinda follow up with yesterdays at the beginning of the entry. they are both the same band just different songs. pissed off songs.... i think i'll put the pissy parts in bold. i can't. i just tried and i have to change them to black instead of grey words. the grey words are already bold. fuck it.

"Everybody's Fool"

perfect by nature
icons of self indulgence
just what we all need
more lies about a world that

never was and never will be
have you no shame don't you see me
you know you've got everybody fooled

look here she comes now
bow down and stare in wonder
oh how we love you
no flaws when you're pretending
but now i know she

never was and never will be
you don't know how you've betrayed me
and somehow you've got everybody fooled

without the mask where will you hide
can't find yourself lost in your lie


i know the truth now
i know who you are
and i don't love you anymore

it never was and never will be
you don't know how you've betrayed me
and somehow you've got everybody fooled

it never was and never will be
you're not real and you can't save me
somehow now you're everybody's fool


it use to be a cool thing to NOT be angry with your ex. not to hate them. it meant that you were moving on......... bullshit! i can honestly say that i now hate the man. i hate what he did to me. i hate what i let him do to me (which is partly my fault in a weird way). i just want to end the man's life. now, let me set you straight. THAT IS NOT A THREAT. trust me, if he ends up dead i won't be the first one in line.

ah... with those strong words i should stop. i am obviously not a happy camper and i have to teach soon. so........... off i go into the wild blue yonder...... take care - talk soon.


wednesday, september 23, 2004
just going too far

shortly after the 911 attacks i wrote an entry saying that i was against going to afganistan to fight... thinking of all the many more lives the world would lose. a friend of mine sent me a reply via guestbook (which is still possible - hint hint). and this friend of mine happen to be from new zealand. now when i think of NZ i think non-violent. but there was something in his words - and he was a very intelligent man - which made me SORTA see that we needed to go to war. oh damn, i wish i still had the message. but i don't.

last night i heard that the 2nd of 2 americans and 1 englishman (i think) had been be-headed and i got angry. so so so angry. i just want all of this to stop. and jeff came in at the time i was complaining and he said "jami, if kerry was in there right now he'd handle it the same way - he'd have to". i understood the point he was trying to make - he is a kerry supporter. these are terrorists doing this and they are difficult to reason with.. it's their way or the highway - or your head in which this case was. boy, sorry if that sounded like a pun, i'm actually quite angry and mean to make it sound THAT way.

i am tired of this. we all are - i understand that. in fact most people don't even pay attention to it - it seems. but seriously... these people are not going to stop. we actually did release someone that they wanted released but i guess it was too late... our american civilian is still dead. i don't like getting political. in fact, i never really was until the last few years. ryan got me started and a roommate, laura, kept me involved locally. i just don't see how it is possible for people to still back a man who went into this war in a totally screwed up way. i feel like he lied to me. i hear all this about chaney running all the companies over there... i hear that chaney is even going to sue the american government for something that happened over there. this info comes from serious sources. of course, dan rather was serious about bush's national guard documents too. but come on!!! doesn't anyone see that we did not go into war with iraq in a "proper" manner? we went in half-assed. i feel like everything bush does is half-assed. i know i'm not nuts. at least not this time.... what are you thinking people? more dead and who gives a damn? oh.. we pretend to by having their families show up with matt and katie curic in the morning. but while our american was there blindfolded surely knowing he was going to his grave bush was pleading with the UN that he DID go in for the right reasons and he DIDN'T make any misjudgements. AT THE EXACT TIME OUR CIVILIAN WAS BEHEADED.

BUSH! WHO GIVES A SHIT WHAT YOU THINK NOW. WE ARE THERE AND WE HAVE NO WAY OF GETTING OUT. YOU DIDN'T THINK IT THROUGH. OUR OWN PRESIDENT DIDN'T THINK IT THROUGH. and yet he's campaigning and is ahead in the polls. to be honest i'm not sure kerry could do a better job but for Christ's sake how can you back a man who can't think past his nose? who, while our people are being killed is STILL after 2 years of this trying to convince the UN that he went in for the right reasons. fuck the reason...... figure out how to get out if you are so worthy of becoming the president again. that's what i want to hear. what are you doing to get us out of there? i understand we have an obligation of sorts to help the iraqi people but if they want our help so much why are more and more being killed now that the fucking war is "over"? GET US OUT? i wanna know when! i wanna know how!

to think... we now believe iran has weapons of mass distruction. i wanna puke!

take care... perhaps we'll talk later. j


monday, september 27, 2004
i feel as though...

i'm moving around in a bubble these days. i strongly believe that my most recent doctor put me there. he prescribed the wrong meds and i'm still trying to recover...

i'm not sure what started it but this morning i began thinking about my faith. faith in God of course... or, perhaps it's my faith in faith it'self (i know i didn't spell that right). i realized that i don't feel or have the connection with God like i did a few years back. i thought that going to Christ Church of Wrigleyville or CCW, was my start to a new understanding of all that was around me. i felt as though the church it'self (there it is again) had started me on a quest to grow with God. not too soon after i left chicago and started attending a Catholic Church i started to believe that perhaps it was actually CCW that had not brought me closer to God but put a divider between us. that's where i was this morning walking into school. i started to blame myself. i stopped doing my morning ritual... reading and writing about my faith. my closeness with God. but, wait. i'd gone into CCW with a dedicated belief that my journalling was infact a jump-start to what CCW could do to bring me even closer to God and to myself. i suppose at first i thought it was working. but then i stopped journalling. stopped reading... i moved in with laura and just didn't feel like i had the privacy for what i needed to do... what i'd been doing for the last several months. i suppose i figured i was ok though because i had CCW to help me... to keep me grounded in the faith i was or had been developing. but soon i stopped feeling that too. CCW wasn't about me... me growing in myself. it was about a bunch of people... "the community" growing together in Christ. that wasn't doing me any good. i wasn't strong enough in myself to join others to build up something i wasn't so sure was going to work. i slipped. i slipped and didn't bother to get back up. in fact, just this morning i realized that a lot of what i was doing back then in wrigleyville (not in the church, my life in general)shortly before i moved to laura's was really working. i was journalling about my faith in God. oh, and, i was also losing weight! why were these things working when i always felt so disconnected from everyone and everything i'd grown up knowing? i guess it's because they were small things that i could do for myself back then. i wasn't being graded... i didn't have to worry about sick days... i didn't have to answer to anyone. i could be crazy and keep on going.

now i'm not trying to say that i'm lost again. in fact it's just the opposite. i have found much of what i'd lost or may have perceived to have lost. i'm not saying that jeff has turned my life around either. this morning i realized that the really good things that were happening to me weren't a result of me even trying. they were a result of someone/something else out there wanting me to see the good out of life for a change. and then i felt guilty. i need to start participating in making my life better. i don't thank God enough for the things in my life. i'm not doing the journalling i had done that had brought me to a place in my spiritual life that i was feeling so confident about. i'm not even trying to lose weight. all those things had felt so good before. i guess i just became complacent.

so here i am. i started the diet again. i need to find some way to get some exercise (ick). i'm just so damn tired all the time. i really need to find my Bible and my journal and start the meditations again... i noticed yesterday while i was failing miserably on the golf course that a little yellow cabbage butterfly was fluttering about. several of them actually... in wrigley they had become a sign of God to me... last night as i finished the course and the sun was setting and the moon was opening up so fantastically above me i said thank you to God for giving me back my butterflies...

i never know how to end an entry. i suppose it's because i start writing with one thing in mind and then i end up somewhere else. it's hard to fit in a conclusion to something that never had a beginning... so i guess i just need to stop.

by-the-way... i've put up some new poetry. go to poems of mine
and then the scary stuff inbetween or just hit the scary stuff link... have fun, cheers!


tuesday, september 28, 2004
i have no title for this

the following is a quote from a letter i recently sent my sister. for some reason it seems important to put up here and talk about. as i said yesterday, i'll end up talking about something entirely different by the time i finish this entry... that's why i don't have a title for this.

"trying new things wasn't really worth it because they'd all fall apart in the end. in fact, i felt that way after i broke of with ryan (the guy i dated before i met jeff a year/half later). i had to give it another chance because i didn't want to take a chance that i'd be miserable for the rest of my life when JUST MAYBE it would work out this time. and as i look back on most stuff i think that "just maybe" ideal was what kept me living. kept me going on when i hated my life. and i hated my life!"

 i have so much swirling through my head lately. i have thoughts of my failed marriage and most of my failed relationships... i have thoughts about my faith and questioning who i might really be. i have thoughts about how incredibly lucky i am to have found such an incredible man who loves me and wants to marry because he WANTS to marry me.... not because i begged (not that i begged the first time. it just seems like i always left myself wide open for anything with all the other guys).

perhaps i'm pissed. oh, jonathan will love this one. i'm always pissed about something. last night jeff and i were at my parents picking up some things and just chatting. i didn't have class because we don't have class the last monday of every month. my father was talking about my class and my future and somehow i brought up the fact that while i'm in the human service and counseling masters track i think i want to go into mental health instead of school counseling. boy did i get attacked (from everyone but my mother naturally). school counseling... school counseling... la, la, la, la "you need to be in a job where you affect lives in a positive way as well as helping them with bad stuff in their lives." school counseling.......... and then jeff jumped in and said "i agree with your father..." my mother just looked about me and grinned with that "you need to do what you want to do with your life" look coupled with the "but i agree with them" smirk. i couldn't believe it. there i sat 38 years old saying what i want to do with my life and i suddenly felt as though i were being ambushed!

right now i'm still thinking about it... the ambush. i've been ambushed plenty of times before and you know what???? i broke down and followed the path MOST travelled. seriously, it just feels like no one (yes an exaggeration) believes in me. no one thinks i'm strong enough to do what i want to do with my life... strong enough to make life decisions on my own. ...at least that's what it felt like last night and most of the time in general.

jonathan believes in me i know. but still there is an edge to our relationship that feels like i know he trusts me but at the same time maybe he is afraid that i'll still fail. i love our "relationship" dearly. i couldn't ask for a better human being to be a part of my life (not including jeff of course). i just feel like there's something there that he questions. i bet he doesn't even realize that i feel that way... and probably doesn't feel at all like he's that way. oh. i don't know. i think i'm still feel a bit foggy from the medicine screw-up last week.

i truely want to be in counseling. and i am feeling this strong pull to go the mental health route rather than the school route. it's a very strong feeling. it just right and good. if people knew all the stuff i go through with students here. there is not a week that goes by where i'm not approached by a student in need. sometimes i ask why they come to me and they just tell me that they trust me for some reason. just this morning a very sturdy young 9th grader broke down in tears in front of me (in the hall during class) and just begged me to understand that there couldn't be a soul in the world who could help him. then he poured out a bit of it for me and cried even harder. he's home now. i don't think that's a safe place for him to be but it's NOT MY CALL!

or is it?????


trust me. i don't take these kids on. i point them in the direction they need to or seem to need to go in... try to get them to talk to the "right" people. but why is it me that they choose? (is that the right spelling? someone please tell me. i've been struggling with that word all my life) i just want to throw my hands up and say...... "ok, tell me what to do." but i've worked too damn hard to get to the point where i feel good about decisions (some of them at least) that i'm able to make.

bell rang...... gotta hit the classroom. take care - more later

**** check out the archives "in the beginning"