the-sanatorium-i-have-built

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Drunk hand holding with a fire pit is a bad idea.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Sometimes loving you so much hurts. And when it does, I just can't help but to love you that much harder.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Listening to this song again today, I can just say Dexter Holland are you a mind reader?

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Just wanted to drop in.

Two weeks ago I quit my job.

I am both overjoyed and depressed, imagine that.

But you know what I am not?

Stressed, and that's amazeballs.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

So apparently my cats react to the aroma of bleach like a drunk vacationer in Mexico who was told she was given Spanish Fly 😳

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Its been roughly a month and a half since I started here on tumblr. And roughly 2 months before that when I ventured into the online social/dating app world.

In that time there has been alot of things that have happened. I have grown as a person, at least I like to think I have. I have met and spoken to a lot of different people, some again I like to think I have helped leave our time in a better place than when they came. I have also realized that regardless of how much I want otherwise, sometimes leaving the same or better is not always possible. I know that is sometimes result of my actions, but whatever the reason in those cases moving on happens no matter what. It is a necessary evil, not everyone belongs in my life, nor I theirs.

One thing that hasn't change is the purpose for which that journey started. I want friends. I told someone the other day part of my problem was I wanted to know eveyone. To me, every new person I meet is an opportunity to learn. To learn something new about the world, a hobby, a lifestyle, how different people feel, what they believe. Just anything, information is important to continue to grow and learn not just about the world but myself in return.

So after nearly 3 and a half months it has come time to evaluate the progress of my online experiment. So let's get a quick run down shall we?

One man became obsessed after minimal interactions and came to my work. Giant no,no so the rule of not talking to anyone local had to be put into place. In another instance, not directly related to the current experiment but related to online contact. I spent an entire morning speaking online to the current wife of a man I spent one weekend with 21ish years ago. That contact was apparently the result of over a year of online stalking from said wife. At least for this one, the wife turned out to be pleasant. A couple people who appeared to have good potential as friends, in the end either got creepy in a way I can not handle or showed their true identity when I guess it was no longer necessary to pretend to understand and accept me as me. All these instances I may have an equal part for the outcome in. I will not deny my way of thinking creates boundary issues sometimes, I just wish it was easier to be me and still understand the majority of the populis is not as carefree in all aspects as I. So sometimes I open a pandoras box that I want to just let exist along with us but for others that is a temptation that would be better left alone. I am abrupt and have no filter but that doesn't mean I am acceptable of all behavior at all times. Everything has its place, knowing that place can be a hard thing with a person like me but it is possible.

It seems the more i interact with people, the less enjoyment I actually have. I don't understand why people just can't exist together and have a conversation. Be part of each others lives just as human beings. Experience life, share knowledge, exist and be human.

I have come to realize the only time I do enjoy other people and not feel like it is a chore to try and carry on a conversation is when someone gives equally or even makes an attempt to. I may relish in new information but I also like to know my knowledge to give is equally wanted. Maybe I expect too much, but why must it be that way when in reality I ask so little. Be yoursef, exist and I wil exist with you.

Like I said, the original goal has not changed. I just want to meet peope and maybe make some friends. People to spend time enjoying conversation together. People to let life happen with, give and take. The law of equivalent exchange. I met one and was too wrapped up in the fantasy of what I wanted to see they may not have been getting equal footing from me. So I traversed on, I collected more but few have lasted and of those even less appear to understand that equalivant exchange and want the same. I don't want to end the experiment but I feel it may be more harm than good. Giving without return is tiresome. Existing for the leisure and ego of others is not equal. But I have a little hope that maybe someone will surprise me, so I will travel on. One thing for certain, I know who I am and where I am on my journey now. I know the type of person I want to be on this journey with me. I have one, my husband, and yes he is all I really will ever truly need. However it is nice to share the love that is the insanity of me and needing and wanting are separate concepts entirely.

I have what I need in life, to continue to learn I must seek those things that I want. Experience is the need, sharing those experiences with as many others as I can is what I want. What I will never learn is why that has to be so difficult to achieve.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

I've been trying to figure out a way just to kind of explain what it is like for someone who's brain never stops, at least from my personal experience.

First off, i don't mean literally stops but in the sense you are never just blank or devoid of thought. There is always a thought, a feeling, a song, a movie, a voice (often more than one). Sometimes there is more, sometimes there is less, but there is never a time that there is just nothingness. As described to me, the sense of just numbness mentally and sometimes physically as well. Being bored but just too void to care.

And i always say I envy that, and usually am told they envied what I had. But in reality neither side would want to put the other through that hell that is their own.

So i have pondered on a way to properly explain in simple terms what a day in my mind is like, well maybe a segment of that. I would like to say while beneficial sometimes to be able to speak to someone on the phone, do data entry with 99% accuracy and still be able to flip from either or both at a seconds notice to yet another task is quite convenient when you want to just get shit done. But what if you really need to just focus on one task, but you know to do so is going to be excurating mentally and possibly physically if you stess yourself too much so you procastinate. And yeah that just leads to more stress and more emotional mind.

You constantly are listening to music because it is a good central focus to keep your mind from wandering. You often appear off in a daze because you are so in your head trying to focus or sort that you have to just blank out the world for a minute.

And then there are the worst times. Like when you are emotionally imbalanced and have no external stimulation enough to focus on, so those voices get loud enough to hear and all demand your focus at once. Days with alot of those times and I question the possibility of a non voluntary visit to Sharpe's. Or when you do actually just have a short moment of that blankness you want, your head feels like being bender on that episode where he would explode if he stopped dancing. Those times you find the first focus available and cross your fingers the rave in you head stops.

So yeah I know I wouldn't want anyone to go through that. I can't really say what the other side of that might be. The only time I do get to experience that other side, to be a little blank and numb for a while, I honestly am not in a state to really think about it and enjoy it as odd as that may be. That's another ramble in itself.

Maybe if anyone ever reads this and they can tell me what the other side of the spectrum really is like they can shoot me a message or something. I am sure it would be an interesting conversation none the less.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Learning to love yourself is so much easier said than done.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

But the human race is my tribe.

That one simple to me statement just seems so hard for people to grasp, and I can't understand why!?

I belief that humans have lost or thrown away their ability to see themselves just as what by nature we are.

We are animals, all one species. We all are born, live and die. And we can choose to do the middle part anywhere and anyway we like. That's the advantage of our particular species, free thought and logical reasoning. But yet a large subset of the human species choose to use those things to try and deny ourselves what by nature we are. In doing so we divide instead of unite.

Idk, where exactly this rambling was headed other than to simply say we are all the same, we need to remember what we truly are and live as nature intended not as society dictates.

Be human, be an animal, be happy.

I'm tired.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

I've been wanting to make a post and talk about the insanity that is my life lately rather than the insanity that is myself. But, im still not really in the mindset for a proper storytelling. Instead I give a lyrical interpretation of where i am mentally, courtesy of a pretty good band.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Today was the culmination of the last 2 and a half months of my life. Today I hosted the memorial for my stepmother. It has been a long journey with even more unsure seas ahead for the family. But it is done and I an just numb.

This is the In Memoria i wrote and read today...

Billie didn't come into my life until I was an early teenager. She was just my dad's overbearing girlfriend from the bar. Being as strong willed and hardheaded as I was, I thought another woman and her opinions were the last things my family needed to throw into what was the insanity of our lives at the time.

After 2 and a half plus decades, she has went through many iterations and titles. For me alone, she has held many. Today, I stand here to speak of her final and lasting one, Mom.

P I didn't know Billie from her life before my dad. In all the years she never really spoke of her past before dad, except for family or little snippet memories she chose to share. I never really chose to ask either, preferring to build memories my own way. One of my first clear memories with her was actually a conversation I overheard multiple times between her and my dad regarding how I chose to dress at home and in public. Being the already manic, controlling person I am today, I decided I needed to share my opinion on the subject one day. What followed was the first of a few arguments between the three of us, myself, dad and Billie.

In hindsight, as many times to follow, I would later realize that she had influenced my life in a lasting way in that moment. At that time I was given the first of many life lessons she would be a part of. Humility, respect, the importance of family you can rely on as family is the one thing you should always be able to trust in, and that common courtesy should always be given if expected in return.

Over the years, Billie and I had our disagreements but she always respected my decisions, even if with hesitation and some words on the subject. She made my father happy so that made up for anything we may have argued about. And even though you could easily say mom had her own way of looking at the world that was pretty old fashioned she was still willing to accept change. I'll never forget how mad she got when I dyed my hair black three days before senior pictures, but she still said it was her favorite picture of me because I actually smiled.

I remember when mom and dad owned the bar in audra and I had came home to visit for Easter it was i believe. The holiday was the excuse the girls father and I had choose to tell all the family that we had gotten married and I was pregnant with Trill at the time. We sat in the bar and I showed them my ring and told them that we had went before a deputy and got married. She looked at dad and did that little smart aleck grin she always did and just said "well thats nice and congrats but when are you gonna tell everyone you are pregnate."

And i remember how she used to call my youngest her little aj and she liked to pick on both of them because they were so shy but she thought the world of all her grandchildren, even if she struggled to understand them sometimes. All her family was so important. I can't count the times I called the house to only get a rushed answer of "i am on the phone with aunt one or the other ill call ya back"

At one time mom was actually my boss as well. I worked for her at the High Life. At the time, chester and i had been dating for a short while and he would sneak down before I went to work and leave me little presents. I could always tell if he had before I saw anything because she would always tell me as soon as i walked in the door "that homer of yours sure is a sweet fella". Mom may have not have approved of how Chester and I came to be as a couple but she never held it against him or me because her kid was happy and that made her happy.

Every holiday was a reason to have a big dinner and she loved to see as much family as possible together. I am sure we all have lots of memories of some family holiday fiascos both good and bad but mom always insisted we do something no matter how many times she said this was the last one. I think about how excited she was at the wedding and how she talked about how having so many people she loved together was so great even as she complained about the work and things getting too fancy. But the smile on both their faces when they said i do and danced together made everything worth it. I like to think moments like this and this past thanksgiving were a place of solace for mom to go to when she was in need of comfort we could not give.

So as mom decided to take her rest, we as a family forge on and honor her memory and try to carry on her traditions and life lessons. We came together at Christmas and had a meal fit for kings as you never know who might need a hot meal and there is always plenty to go around. We laughed we cried we argued and most importantly we began to grieve. And today we gather to talk of the wife, friend, mother, grandmother and sister that was Momma Bill and have a celebration she would be proud of.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

I think this song is beautiful. Never really heard anything Jeff and Casey Williams had done that I didn't enjoy.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Sometimes you make rash judgements or statements while inebriated that you later regret or just know you didn't think through properly. In those times, I find my wanting clarity, to hit undo and try that moment in time over.

This is that do over I don't know if I will have the courage to send...

So 100% sober me at the moment and in being so, I need to say this.

I never really have been much on friendships. I have associates, people who become part of your circle for whatever reason and then seep into other parts of your life and linger but do not grow with you. My husband calls us people collectors, we accept people in, we try and influence them in a postive way, we give them our time, we just exist with them. The outcome varies, sometimes they become better people or just tire of us and move on, sometimes our influence is so much so they can't move past it and linger until we are forced to quell the situation, and some influence us enough back that we want them as an ongoing fixture (ie, a friend).

I've collected a lot of people over the many lifetimes I have managed to cram into this body. But few people ever find a place with me as actual friends, people i want to give my time to continually, people i want to know everything about and equally in return everything about me, people i want to know who i really am and who they really are. The most precious gift one can give is themselves, and to my friends and family i give that freely and in abundance.

Not many people are invited into the chaos, and fewer still choose to remain long enough to find the beauty in chaos that is me. The good, the neutral, the evil, all the pieces that encapsulate the person i am, was and try to be. Just as importantly in given them the opportunity to explore the chaos, to learn of me and themselves, hopefully find their own beauty in chaos and help leave them the same or better than when I entered their life.

Although my husband, he is my best friend. I have a few various people that i have met over the decades through work who have become friends to a degree. People I have know the majority of my life and share common trauma or solace with, but the circle has always remained mostly associates by choice. Friendship is a level I just can't reach with most for various reasons.

But as events occur to remind you that life is just that life, experiencing the world and people and making moments, we found ourselves looking for more. Content in our co-dependecy yes, knowing we are an eternal unit and despite what ebbs and flows roll in we will roll right through with them together, knowing our love is mutual and infinite. But still knowing that more could be had to experience, both as a unit and as individuals, we decided to once again,as we have done before, try to expand our circle. So we started trying to invite more people into the chaos, we got out of our comfort zones and reentered the dark sides of the chaos ourselves, we choose to live.

We began looking for people who aren't afraid of the unknown but welcome it. Those who if they don't share our views of the world can at least communicate and understand and feel comfortable letting us give them a glimpse of the insanity that is our lives. We want to meet people, form bonds, experience every opportunity life gives us, and to share those opportunities with the people we meet along the way as well.

I wanted friends, i wanted to be more, and reach more, and know more. I wanted to just let life happen, to go into the new or unknown and open myself fully to people to become associates, friends, lovers, a part of our unit, whatever role, just to exist and experience with me/us. I wanted that from the beginning of this lifetime I am living now, unfortunately i spent too many years being caught up on myself and my own insecurities to see that my husband had felt the same way the whole time.

As a lucky side effect of the 2 month long ass raping the universe has given me, the Hulk finally won and came to the surface. As has been since we met, my Betty Ross, my husband saved me and brought the real me back. The discussion and subsequent realization that our mutual misery was starting to break into the shell of comfort and love we had settled into led us to the journey of now. Expand our selves, live like the true us, like we did when we first met, remember and embrace our love and friendship and try to find people to share that want for life with us. This was the experiment, this was the new journey and it brought us both back from the mundane selfless trap of adulting we were struggling to free ourselves and each other from. Just the prospect of the venture was enough to bring the light back into our darkness, and so we traveled on.

We both entered the world of online dating, we made profiles and we started to meet people. Not necessarily looking for anything physical but rather just learning to talk and interact with people again outside of our jobs and if some form of relationship developed then so it was. Just vibe, just live and that was the idea and still is really. We started meeting people, having conversations. The results have been mixed, mostly just more associates to expand the circle, some strange obsessive people as can be expected, and a few randoms that are showing potential as more but that still has to be determined. Overall a good journey so far. My husband has found a new friend and more importantly his escape, at least in short term, and i have been able to influence some people who needed someone in their life at the moment i entered.

I was content in the random short bursts of interaction spread out over a few to sometimes many people. I was meeting people and chit chatting but i wasn't feeling like friendship or more was an option with anyone. Then you sent me a message and i followed suit. We began the same banter that i had with everyone else. We exchanged pleasantries, we joked, we flirted aimlessly, we just existed sharing each others time. You taught me about things to which I was/am ignorant, you laughed at my hyper randomness and made be feel better about myself in doing so. Primarily, I like to think we entertained each other through our individual misery at least a little. I found an escape from the stresses of my life when talking with you. I found myself interested, enough to invite you further into the chaos, and you accepted. I told my husband about you, he was happy for me and glad i had someone to share my time when he could not. I wanted more and still do. I wanted to be more than associates in the passing of time. I wanted to know you because I feel you are capable of knowing me.

I really just want the opportunity to have a friend and I want that to be you. Nothing nefarious, nothing hidden, just a place in my life under a few conditions in order to be open and honest with all involved. I still think you could be that and honestly I do miss the escape and in a way the normalcy your presence was providing. I guess I miss the chance for more, I know I wanted more. I haven't been interested in really knowing another person in a long time but you intrigue me because we are different, yet possibly the same, and that question wasn't answered for me.

I like to think there is still an opportunity, if you are willing to just give the ignition another try. You said you guessed that the bus stops here, but why? If nothing else, us west virginian hillbillies are known for our hospitality and always giving a hand. So I say why not hook up the jumper cables and we see where this road leads, if nothing else but for the pleasure of the drive together.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

My stepmother passed away a week before Christmas. I spent the last few weeks of her life helping care for her, acting as her hospice nurse, and being everything she was to my father in her inability to do so. The whole while watching one of my biggest fears, being a prisoner inside your own body, play out and be able to do nothing but offer comfort and a smile during her moments of lucidity.

The last two months have been some of the hardest in quite awhile. In one week my family will have the celebration of her life and hopefully move on in the grieving process. I am giving an In Memoria. This weekend i had to look into myself and sort back through the last 25 plus years of my life to properly honor my stepmom and still stay true to myself. It took a very long time, but it was completed. I actually liked it, it was good. I had a little release of the stress vice I put on myself.

And, I just accidentally deleted it all.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Howdy, wasn't really expecting anyone to join my again and who knows maybe no one has. Regardless, I think in case or because I feel like it, let me now give part two of the introduction i like to call the background eli5.

So firstly i have lived a pretty strange life, well actually enough for a few lives really. Being in that, I've been through alot of things and changed and grew and sometimes reversed course and had alot of shit to try and figure out most people would never be faced with in their entire lives, but there has been one constant in that for as far back as I can remember. I am crazy, certifiable and yet self aware crazy.

At ten years old I had my first of a couple mental breakdowns. I was diagnaosed as bi-polar schizophrenic with non classied depression and anxiety possible trauma related, as well as ocd. Im short, crazy. But in reality aren't all humans a little crazy because we are forced to live in a way not compatible with our animal nature. That in itself as another post altogether and I am scattered enough as it is. So back on track, all the above being said, I spend alot of time in my own head. Sometimes willingly, most of the time because it is hard to tune something that never stops and rarely slows down out.

So in a way to cope with all the things going on in my life over the last couple months and as a part of that the lives i have led before returning to drive me closer to another breakdown, I have taken up this venture and it is what it is.

[the-sanatorium-i-have-built]

Welcome to my ramblings of a madman. Let me firstly introduce myself. I am Molly, your host in this undertaking and resident madman. The proceeding are small snippets of myself. Tiny mental amuse bouches for the curious, my shower thoughts, my opinions, conversations I want to have when no one is around to speak with. The randomness that is my everyday mind. Occasionally there may be well thought and transcribed notations but I don't like planning and am an even bigger procrastinator when I do. In being such, I make no promises to myself, or any who choose to devel into the abyss along side me, as to frequency or quality.

So that would be my continue at your own risk warning, as it may be, to those bored, curious, or whatever reason they choose to use to proceed. And to the the others, my final statement, my one influence I may spread follows...

Everyone has a beginning and end, but it is how they choose to ride the ebbs and flows that matter. Don't try to be a controller. We are all just influencers, you can only choose to be a good, neutral or evil one. Learn to accept contentment in the small accomplishments of life, but continue to dream, as dreams give hope and inspiration to always grow. And finally live life, build memories so the future you have is build off of the moments you create in the now not memories of a past you may not have even been a part of. Create your own experiences, don't panic, and remember to always bring your towel. 😁