Connections...

Yesterday, I ventured out for the first time since the pacemaker surgery (other than my 7-day check).  It was much harder than I thought it would be.  Primarily, I was bloody exhausted last night and ended up sleeping 12 hours without just three wakes.  A modern day miracle.

First, I went to fetch something that, if I really and truly want to be a surprise, cannot be mentioned here on my blog for two weeks.  Becky was on the phone with me and coached me through the purchase, thankfully not laughing at my marveling of how much things had changed.

Then, I went to an appointment with an insurance agent.

Each year I have been here, my auto and house insurance has increased between 15-20%.  It just drives me nuts when I open my new policies.  Each year, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I go out on the great World Wide Web and collect insurance quotes.  Each year, I cannot find cheaper options.  This year, when I unexpectedly found myself without a Medicare insurance company for 2016, I unexpectedly found myself introduced to an insurance agent.

I had been wanting to try and find an independent agent.  For one, mine with Liberty Mutual, the one to whom I was transferred, has never met with me nor taken my calls.  He utilizes assistants ... a revolving door of them.  Basically, I have no human being to call for help.  That has bothered me as I have come to face the fact that I need help.

I need help on many fronts.

So, although this was a State Farm agent and not an independent one, I took the appointment offered to me because he knows my Social Security ... counselor??  He knows the woman who took my application and has continued to help me.

I have decided to jump ship from Liberty Mutual primarily because I would have a human being to call.  And this human being—albeit a bit old school—was kind and patient.

I need patient.

I do not have my 2016 house policy to compare quotes, but the 2016 auto quote was beat and, I think, the house policy might come to a tie or better.  I won't know, for sure, if I jump ship.  But my auto policy renews on the 16th and I would like to have a clean break.

The one difference is that to pay monthly is $1 more.  Whilst I could, clearly, be disciplined enough to save monthly for the 2017 policies, I do not have enough funds to just dole out annual premiums all at once.  Of course, though, if you think about it.  If took the money out of retirement, I would definitely not earn $12 of interest on the $1,500 or so dollars, so it would be better to save money myself, earning a bit of interest, than pay the monthly service charge.  Gosh, that's too much thinking for me just now.  However, I did think enough to find value in the human being aspect.  And so I made the call, today, to switch.

Anyway, from that meeting, I went to Target to fetch prescriptions and, rather exhausted, I hoped to go to Taco Bell on the way home as a reward.  Sadly, there was a line of 14 cars already queued in the drive-through.  I turned around and went home.

Firewood Man then came over, with his friend, to tackle the toilet in the basement.  A while ago, I sat down on it and it wiggled.  Toilets should not wiggle.

As I feared, it was not merely a bolt tightening issue.  It was a broken flange ... an ancient broken flange issue.  You know ... the part of the toilet set in the concrete!   Tim and his friend went to Menard's and learned about a "fix" rather than a "repair."  The latter would require digging up the concrete.  There is this metal ring that can be set over the flange, drilled into the concrete, to which the toilet can be set.  They installed it (with much scary noise) and the toilet is sound and secure once more!

Today, as I noted, I slept long into the afternoon.
Long enough to wear my pajamas to my counseling appointment.
Not long enough to east the exhaustion.

Today's session was hard and yet ... not.  It was hard in that I turned over in my mind the connection we made to my gown being removed and the nurses trying to comfort me to abusers who "comforted" me as a child even as they hurt me.

Such is wrong.
Wrong is not even a strong enough word.
There are no words.
Not for me.
Not yet.

SIGH.

Feelings of those flashes of memory have been drowning me, terrifying me, and leaving me oft insensible, curled up in a ball in the corner of my closet.  It was too much for me and I sort of ... shut down Friday night after my counselor left.  I dislike the numbness, but I welcome it.  I welcome the cold, distance from which I can at least tolerate all of this.

Disassociation can be restful, in its own way.

Today, as if I was holding the matter in my hand, I turned it over and over and over again, trying to find the words I needed.  I didn't really, but I did for one part.

I thought about the construct of "comfort."  Not the definition of the word.  I thought about all that goes into comforting a child.  The tone of voice, the words, the movement of hands, the position of body ... all those things.  It wasn't just words.  It is the whole of comfort that has been violated with me as much as my body.  It has been twisted to such an extent that the idea of comfort frightens me; the idea of comfort is something from which I turn away.

We talked about that, which helped clarify the whys and wherefores of my response to what happened in the hospital.  In a way, the fact that I did not get versed right away, the fact that I was prepped whilst still lucid, is a blessing, in a strange sort of way.  It provided a connection I needed.

One of the things the counselor said was that—although seemingly impossible to me—perhaps I could equate comfort to that which I receive before comfort was twisted so for me.  The comfort of a very, very, very young child.  If I remember so little, how could I remember then?  But something flitted through my mind.

Becky kissed the top of my head in the hospital.  I liked it even as I felt ashamed that I liked what, to me, seems like something reserved for children.  It was/is a conflict for me, but not one that drowns me.

I also thought about how much it meant to me when I received blessings from a pastor, felt the cross traced on my forehead.  I asked, after changing churches, for a blessing, and was essentially told that those were for children.  But I am a child! I wanted to protest.

Childish, to me, is negative.  To be childish in thought or behavior is something about which to be ashamed.  Ashamed of how I felt about the cross on my forehead.  Ashamed of how I felt about being kissed on my head.

It is hard to find words to write about this, about what is so very connected, now, in my mind.  With my counselor, even though I was fumbling about, she understood and tried to give me the words, though we never reached what I thought was the whole of it, something that could proscribed in height and width and depth and breadth.  

In an attempt to not carry about my upsettedness, I left off trying to speak words I thought fit when I left her office.  Posting here not withstanding.  However, another thought flitted through my mind:  I wonder if I grabbed onto the comfort of the Gospel as written of in the Christian Book of Concord because it it, in truth, the only kind of comfort I can understand.

I understand it because I experience it.
I understand it because it fills me despite anything I do or say.
I understand it because it resonates with my soul.

Oh, how I miss the comfort of the Gospel.

[Excuse me whilst I go puke after writing such scary stuff.]