Today I am thankful for peace and quiet.
Although things have been fairly quiet, I still fear quite a few things.
I fear answering the telephone in real time. I stopped answering the phone when I realized Shannon and her relatives were calling to see if I were home. If I answered, they wouldn't break in. If I didn't, that's when they were caught with a key to the house. I finally realized that if I did not answer the phone at all, they wouldn't know whether or not I was here.
I fear posting a real-time appointment calendar for my hypnosis practice online. That was probably how Doug and Shannon knew where to find me. Those shenanigans stopped when I put a 72 hour block on my calendar. The problem, though, is that people have to call me to get appointments. I could make more money if they could schedule online and immediately visit with me.
I fear going out on coffee dates with male friends.....still. I've only had one offer from a man who I know isn't interested. He's a major networker but....I still fear putting others at risk.
That's got to change.
It's hard to wrap my head around the notion that I can have friends now.
I can do things now.
There is too much to do. I can't afford to sit at home.
I'm guessing this is common for people who have been stalked.
When will I know its over?
When can I let go of the PO box?
When can I answer the phone?
When can I visit with male colleagues.....alone...in a coffee shop?
I guess I should take it slow.
We climb mountains....
one step at a time.
*****
I'm still struggling with the thought that I'll never know how the stalking started...
or why.
The question that bothers me the most is why.
Why?
It started in 1992 with harassing phone calls....
1993 saw break-ins and death threats.
In 1994, I lost my apartment to the harassing phone calls being made to my employer.
It grew from there.
It's never stopped.
There were excuses.
In 2011, it was because someone thought I was having sex with an old flame.
At least, that's what the shrinks and private investigators tell me.
I would hope my latest ex would know better. I know the old flame knew I couldn't do anything remotely sinful.....on purpose. I do stupid shit not thinking about it. Sex...that's not something one could do on accident. Sex is deliberate.
I avoid sin, except the sin of vanity.
Sin makes you wrinkle.
In 2009, my ex's family were pissed because I had my own business.
In 2007, it was because I pissed off his former employer, or so he said.
That's a mess all of its own with more questions....why would city employees harass me on the phone, steal money and lie about me in court documents?
Don't worry...it was nothing running for Mayor couldn't stop.
I still want to know why. I wasn't politically active when the city starting picking on me. I'd changed my name. So, they didn't know I was once the teenager who met powerful politicians due to her passionate attempts to save her baby sister. If they knew that I didn't fear taking action, would they have left me alone?
Mike must have been behind that shit with the city. He must have been behind the crap his family pulled.
This weird creepy stuff has gone on for a long time.
In 2005, it was because I allegedly wouldn't get knocked up or killed unborn babies or something stupid....At least I think it was 2005...the years run together. All I know is that my marital life was suffering and there are things ya gotta do to have kids.
With the drama his family pulled....um....it wasn't happening.
In 2001 - or maybe it was 1999 - they were pissed that I went to graduate school so his sister stalked me on campus. I don't know why exactly. I do know they'd demand that I drop out of school. I do know that the security guard at the University and I went way back. He met me after high school. He's more pious than I could ever be. He wanted to be a priest, so if they were stalking me because they thought he and I were an item.....um....
I'm sure they were disappointed.
In looking back, I've been dealing with this bullshit most of my adult life.
I only know the excuses for the crap. I don't know if they are the reason for the hell, the gps boxes, the stolen money or the stolen time.
I don't know.
*****
I guess it's time to look forward, rather than back.
Since Michael left, I toy with changing my name.
My name is common. I could say my name and know there are several people with it in the city.
It was a name I chose when the stalking first began and my ex-husband blamed someone I used to date.
When I was 22 years old, I changed my name to hide, not knowing I was hiding from the wrong person.
I chose a very common name. At the time, it made it easy to hide.
With the internet, it's not so easy to hide. There are few female hypnotists. There are fewer hypnotists with graduate degrees who are politically active. Add into it one who plays a multitude of musical instruments and has her own recording studio and I'm fairly easy to track down.
I look plain. I look fat now. I can now walk down the street and no one knows who I am.
In the past six weeks, I have changed my look. I dye my hair now. I won't say what color because I'm hiding.
I've used hypnosis to change the color of my eyes.
I miss my dark eyes.
My clients have noticed. I've had a client ask if I could change his eye color. He had gorgeous eyes.
Yes, it can be done. Will I do it for a client? No.
That same client wants me to hypnotize him to look younger.
Age makes men look hot.
I must look younger than I did three months ago. Why else would he ask?
I look much more aged since 2011, the year my colleagues were harassed.
That changed my life. It makes me fear friendship. I wonder if people I know are at risk.
That's a mindset that has to change.
I can't love people as much when I'm in isolation.
*******
I am cleaning the house. I used to let the local teenagers hang out here when they had nowhere to go.
When the stalking followed me home and Shannon would hang outside the house, I quit letting people stay.
Now....kids come over and visit.
There is a teenager, I don't know how to describe her. She identifies as female.
She wears a kilt. She looks like an old flame. She sounds like an old flame.
She's biologically male.
It's hard for me to understand.
In the 80's we were all into androgyny. The girls dressed like boys. The boys dressed like girls. We all wore black lipstick. It was okay.
I remember a day when I overheard my first love tell nosy people that I was gay. He was gay and that we were dating to cover for each other.
He had a dry sense of humor. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he's joking.
It shut nosy people down.
Gender didn't matter so much. Sex did. Gender.....not so much.
Now, the kids choose their gender.
I don't understand.
I watch this person hang out with my daughter.
It reminds me of the past.
I want so much to protect this young person, knowing how brave she must be.
When I was younger, I remember holding the hands of gay men so the Denver police wouldn't beat them up (circa '87).
They weren't even wearing dresses!
Now, millennials with xx chromosomes can wear dresses and there are no beatings.
Perhaps we've grown as a society.
I can't bring myself to call her "they." That's her preferred pro-noun.
She's not a multiple.
I try to only use her name.
I'm not the only one struggling with identity.
Who are we?
How much of ourselves in buried in the dictates of other people?
I don't know.
*****
I met a couple a few days ago. They were my age and deeply in love.
The woman's mother died an unexpected death due to undiagnosed lung cancer. The husband was terrified that this fate awaited his lady love.
He brought his wife to see me so she could stop smoking. They told me how they met at their twenty year re-union and were inseparable. He lost her once and wasn't going to lose her anytime soon.
I was so enthralled with their story, I forgot to ask for payment. The money didn't cross my mind until they sent the check.
I received it the day my daughter's friend stayed over.
It's weird the threads that weave themselves all around.
*****
I'm trying to learn Spanish.
I took three years of Spanish at Washington State.
I can't say I speak it well. Living in Colorado, it's a common language. My granddaughter is bi-lingual. I need to be, too.
So, in my efforts to speak the language better, I listen to Spanish radio. My boss is bi-lingual.
He told me about a song called Tardio. The way he translates the story to me, it sounds like the woman and her husband who just sent me the unexpected money.
I'm trying to find the song, so I can hear it. Some emotions are lost in translation. I need to hear it. Maybe it'll help me understand how love doesn't die and what we are supposed to do when we can't do anything with the love except wish everyone the best of life, love and everything.
The day I met the couple, I just wanted that beautiful woman to stop smoking and be there for her best friend.
The money is icing on the cake.
It's a good job when you would happily do it for free.
I guess I'm lucky.
I can't hide from the world anymore. Things weave about together to form this bizarre thing we call life. It's like we have a shared experience. Things happen to me that help me understand the things that happen to other people better.
Maybe I had to know the people I knew thirty years ago to understand the young lady with the Adam's apple in the kilt.
Maybe I had to see that person again twenty years later to understand the couple desperate to hang on to each other.
Maybe the stalking will teach me something that will help me help someone else in the future.
I don't know.
I do know that I must start opening myself up to new experiences, so that I can be ready for the new people that come into my life.....so I know how to help them.
I can't cry anymore.
I can't fear anymore.
I absolutely must process the past so that I can push forward.
Love ya lots,
S.