Chasing Wanda and other strange tales: LOCKDOWN

Chasing Wanda and other strange tales: LOCKDOWN: Greetings! I understand that it has been a long time since I've used this platform or any for that matter. over the last five years, i...

LOCKDOWN

Greetings!

I understand that it has been a long time since I've used this platform or any for that matter. over the last five years, it's been a struggle to write. Not for the lack of material of course but the level of people bisecting my life or worse. The issue of being followed and people starting to cause trouble. For now the demons have been slain and I get to back to my blogging and stories.

But there's a few things to catch up with over the last few years. So allow me to give you a bullet point list.

Past :Waterford activities director: 2017-2020
Present: Activities (name withheld)

Past: Healthy world
Present: Covid-19
          *This virus targets the very young, the very ill and the elderly.

I think that will sum everything for now.

March 13th, my last day at Waterford the president of the United States put in place a lockdown order for all independent assisted living, assisted living and nursing homes. Meaning no one comes in and no one comes in from the building unless you are absolutely necessary.

I'm lucky in the sense that I can at least do something for the people that I work with even if it's just a minor comfort. However, when you're working with people suffering from Dementia or ALZ or end of life cares; the world becomes even more confusing. How do you tell someone that there's a virus outside that could kill them and that's why their family and friends had to stop visiting. I know that this right now is the reality we have to live in.

I'm thankful for everyone stranger who sends cards, flowers or even videos. It helps and the loneliness disappears for a while. Every nurse, can and other personnel are doing everything possible to make our residents lives a little bit better but its so hard. Social distancing appears to have the heaviest impact on residents because they can't even have the chance to give a hug or try to provide comfort. It breaks my heart but at least I can do something.

For those of you who are wondering what is it like on the streets of Iowa it boarder lining the preapocalyptic. It's April and celebrations of spring has been abadoned. Iowa State University has become a ghost town with looming building with almost no people walking the streets.

The bars, coffee shops, stylists hookah bars now looked like shanty housed. The few place that are open are grocery (including on stop shops) stores and gas stations. Places that relied on foot traffic and tourism are now unemployeed. The essential workers are feeling
The pressure. People are angry and taking it out on each other. Almost becoming animalistic in their social behaviors. I feel like Quarantine driven everyone a little crazy. Good thing I start the crazy points much higher. But what I worry about most, is the psycho social and emotional health of the residence I attend.

  I've had the chance to get back to basics or rather becoming myself again. It's a strange thing that physical exhaustion can do. The body being limp with the emotional and physical pressure can do to anyone, especially when the mind is totally hyperactive.

Now, I want to get back to Wanda. It's been years since I have blogged about her I felt safe, albeit a suspicious safe,  but safe nontheless. Wanda's crimes had caught up with her. But with her criminal history you would think that she would never see the outside again. I naively thought that would keep the world safe. My job was done and I could sleep soundly.

Fast forward to a few years later and bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'd had enough time to cope and ready or not, it was time to check up on her. They didn't sentence her for years in prison for the many crimes she had committed. No, not for her because she happens to be a special case. I chocked down a scream. I have to find out what happened. I dug deeper and contacted a few people from my old investigation days.

I should have just left it alone but there was a part of me that couldn't bear with that level of ignorance. So I kept on my pursuit. The story is that she had plead insanity. These trips to mental institutions had been well documented and it was decided that she would re-enter another mental health facility. If she did her would communed to a smaller sentence and she would one day be able to rejoin society if she agreed. She agreed and went to an upper class one.

This is where the justice system fails. I remember as she had me scrubbing her floors, that had gotten off the hook in other states. I remember those long nights where I was imprisoned. She claimed I wasn't safe on my own and when I contested, she had told me that she was not safe alone because she's going to hurt herself. nothing can make you feel more like an idiot then an easy con preying on one's good will.

I'd like to think that justice could win one for the good ones. But with Wanda, this was never the case. I remember in my many sleepless night of her telling me how she got off of many a crime because she knew how to work the system. They wouldn't put her away for good, ever because she was simply misunderstood. Ok, that last part was bullshit.

She made the the same plea as before and just like before there, she spent time in a mental facility and "made a recovery." As such as these things are, she was released. I trouble myself in the middle of the night that my phone might ring that horror my lie on the end of the line. I think sometimes in the middle of the night that I'm being watched.

It sounds paranoid, manic and possibly diluted but  this wasn't the only time that this has ever happened.  It was the first time it was a woman (I hope to god I'm right on this) that stalked me. The men seem to be plenty but that's a story for another blog post.

More than anything, I know I can survive. I will survive. What plagues is me is that justice was not done. They let her out to do to others what she had done to me. I have at least a moral sense of who I am and for all I lack, mentally durable.

But what of the others? Could they say the same or will history repeat itself?

Finally, everything is ok... well mostly

Hello Precious readers,

I'm back..... 

It's been years since I last posted anything  and believe it or not, it's been for the better. I brewed and stewed about what happened with Wanda. I even became afraid to step foot aside because deep down inside I felt as if only the bad was waiting out there for me. People pretending to have my interests at heart got a hard rejection. 

It became a problem and nothing helped. When I did go outside, tragedy stuck and this time, there would be no safe place, no escape and no one to talk to but police and authority figures. Even the friends I held so precious, left me and in the end I simply got used to it. What was the point if they were all going to leave me in the first place? 

I came to the superman problem. People absolutely love you, when you can save the day and make their world better. However, when things happen to me and I need it  help you can almost see the smoke outline of where they used to be. 

But that never bothered me too much because it happened so much that it fell into the category of rampant independence.

nut that's not really the way to go. I stopped. stopped writing, stopped painting and stop talking. after all what was the point? however, the last two years changed the way I thought. there are so many things out there that need the love that I kept locked away. for those of you who followed my blog, l knew that I had battled depression everyday. but this week I found the strangest thing. I was smiling. 

It wasn't that fake smile I plastered on my face to get the day over and down with. I found my own happiness through all the death and rage. 

I'm stumbling through my own emotional zeitgeist and missing the most important point. The reason I decided to start this blog to begin with and her name is Wanda.

so here is the low down. I was hired to set up an art gallery but it wasn't close to the truth. After kidnapping me, stalking me she attempted to sell e into sex industry and attempting to make my life a living hell; she became incarcerated. even though her locked away gave me a sense of peace that maybe she would never hurt anyone ever again.

It without a doubt allowed me to have the ability to trust anyone again or myself for that matter. It ruined my interpersonal for many years. Left me thinking that any kindness given to me was a manipulation tactic. it was only until I started working my present that I came to realize that being kind and being genuine wasn't necessarily cause a collapse.

I did come to find that Wanda did get released into in to the public and is attempting to do what she had one to me. I had to come a fork in the road. Do I go after her or do I let her go so that I can continue my work that has made me so happy?

It wasn't an easy choice. I choose happiness over the vulgar rage I still harbored.

Does this mean that I won't watch her like a hawk? I don't think I can give up that habit so easily. I will not give up on my own dreams for someone whose not fit enough to be dirt on my shoe but I won't allow someone who was as naïve as I was. I won't allow someone to get suckered into a terrifying sacrifice to chase a dream better place than one person serving on a silver plate.

So my precious readers, 

Is it time to give up the ghost on an idea of vengeance?

Wale up

 I want to do anything more than to wake up. But not just your normal waking up of moving around and getting things done, the way to wake up and be aware of all of her surroundings. I have for the longest time abandoned this blog because I thought it was in the best interest of other people and as I look back at my work I realized that this was the best work that I’ve ever written in my life and I enjoyed it because I felt that I could be naked and expose my soul to the audienc I never understood why people  feel the necessity to control your life with the words that come out of your mouth. Isn’t this the worlds free speech and being able to be honest with oneself although I do question second one. I think about everything that I’ve done up until this point lately and how little I’ve actually shared with you my audience. I think I found my calling. And the calling is something that I’ve been finding my entire life I want Ikelea ironically. It’s to be a good person and help others . However I realize that there’s a price to that too is that it’s important to take care of oneself I was you’re giving caregiving and as you’re helping children disabilities and adults with this abilities that you have the tendency to forget about yourself well at least I do. I want to tell you one back. I want to tell you that I want to show you more and I also want to tell you that you’re not alone and I am back to show you that you were not alone and then I’ll never stop chasing Wanda.

Back in black

Well my wonderful audience things have taken quite the turn for me as of late. My family who had read my last blog were rather unpleased by my thoughts and emotions on life. With this new blog I intend to go for The original goal of keeping things real and being true to the writer side of myself. It doesn’t matter whether somebody read this or not. What matters is that it’s been written at all. Sometimes I can’t help but to notice that our feelings and thoughts become likepoison in our souls. I for one and tend not to die that way but only to express myself and the only way that I’ve ever known how by writing once more. So as I finish this little ditty up, I just wanted to say thank you for reading if you’ve read it at all and hopefully through this journey we can make better sense of the world around us.

Sincerely,

The angry writer

In mysterious ways

I’d be the first to tell you I’m not exactly a god fearing woman. I don’t go to church anymore or even really pray. I mean, outside of rush hour traffic I was pretty sure that god had better things to do than to deal with the likes of me. It’s not that I don’t feel that I have a right to pray or go to service. In fact, I’m luckier than a lot of people out there. I’m not rich financially but then again, that never really mattered to me. I’m rich with art, song, and knowledge (or cursed depending on the day). I’m blessed with the ability to be kind with words and even kinder with a dirty joke. And when I mean kind on that last one, I typically mean “WAAAAAAAYYYY  to generous.”  Wait a minute, that’s what SHE said. Hiyo!

Sorry I’m getting off topic. My relationship with god has been to the very least parental. My feeling are more like than eternal child glowering at the presence that was there but never truly active. In retrospective my concept of the functional nuclear family stems from burnable books born from the Stepford era. I felt isolated but complete in my aura of incompleteness.

I was nearly twenty minutes early including my needed cigarette, coffee and a moody soundtrack pulsing through my veins. It was just a piece of paper and a some copies, why did I feel like I was in mourning? I butt out my cigarette, adjusted my rear view mirror to practice what fake smile I would use today and headed to the entrance.

I brush of warm air welcomed me as I walked to the counter with the Stepford smile on my face. That’s when I noticed her at the receptionist counters to check people in. A warm greeting floated from her mouth. She didn’t recognize me but then again of course she didn’t. It had been many years. And though blind, she had insight that could see sharper than any lenses.

“You don’t recognize my voice, do you?” She tilted her head and reflected. “It’s okay,” I smiled it’s been a long time.”

“My goodness! I remember! How are you?” We engrossed in a conversation covering the last 4 years. I had missed her humor and her warmth. Somehow I felt separated in some cold shell in most situations.  For her, she could see no Stepford smile or the body language I used to disguise how I feel. She reach over the counter and touched my arm. She told me that she was sorry for what I had been through and it rang true without question. She told me that I had made an impact of kindness and that it changed her life for the better.

For the first time in a long time I cried, uncontrollably in public. She came from behind the counter and held me with a warmly honest hug. Tears ran down her sweater but they weren’t  for sadness or for pity but with gratitude. I made a difference to someone and in my life that’s all I have ever wanted. At the end of the day to take a piece of sadness that I know away from someone so they can know that they are loved.  Our conversation had turned to business as others filtered through the door. I don’t think I’d ever be so grateful for my glasses tucked in my purse. As I left, I turned to talk about a mutual friend and she smirked. “Yeah, she got kinda weird. I left god.” In any other situation I would have had a theological debate but I turned to her and said, “No, she didn’t forget God. She just forgot the message.”

As I sat in my car, I thought to myself, Maybe that’s the point of life. The message; whether there for us, to us or from us it’s easy to forget the message of life. Maybe it’s time I got back to mine.