So Much To Give

7/8/2021

This is an autobiographical journal-like entry. It's been on my mind for a while, so I'm just gonna go with it.

COVID-19 Started us on a lockdown in early 2020. I've been working from home since March of 2020. I like working from home. My workplace likes the work I do working from home. They have no intention to bring me back into the office as long as I keep up the good work, even the CEO of the company said so. My work is phone-based, so I talk to a lot of people. I would consider myself an extrovert most of the time. Customer service work is mentally and emotionally TAXING. It is not easy, at the end of most days I am drained and I need things to be quiet for a while. I don't want to talk to people for a while. I don't want to talk about my work. I imagine doctors don't want to keep talking about medical stuff at home or government workers want to talk about their work. Sometimes work is that and while a job can be satisfying, it is not the thing that defines me. It's not my only outlet to the world. Thank God it isn't. I think that would be pretty pathetic if my work was all I was.

Thankfully, I am more than my work. I have hobbies that are evolving and changing. I have occasionally picked up the pen/keyboard to write over the years. In high school it was bad poetry, songs, and an attempt at a musical. After college, I tried stand up comedy and failed miserably at it. Years later, I wrote a first draft of a screenplay in 10 days and spent a summer converting it into a book; I never finished it because I hated the ending so much. I never did find an ending I liked. I worked on another novel that I have poked around on for the better part of a decade. I wrote erotica for my own entertainment. I've joined the troupe of Riddle Masters at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival under this pen name and have written over 70 original riddles with/for them.

Just this year, I became bedridden again, (I'll come back to the bedridden portion of this) for six weeks and wrote the majority of Bette On It: Weird Adolescence. I wrote the rest of it in the five weeks after I went back to work. I wrote whenever I had a spare minute; it's how I spent my evenings and weekends. My hobby became my obsession. When I was coming to the end of writing and editing, I became obsessed with sharing it with people. I just wanted it to be seen. I wanted my story to be read. I didn't care about making money. I didn't care about being famous. I wanted someone to read my story and say: I get it, I understand, I felt that. Just, something. I used the VOCAL and Fictionpress websites to do this. I sent chapters and sections to trusted friends, writers, and people I know who do tons of reading. As of writing this, I've received TWO responses.

The second one I got was from an classmate who I asked to give me notes on it. While she was someone who I specifically asked for critical notes from on it, I skimmed her notes. She shared some personal details about her life with me and I came to realize after the fact, she was not the audience for my novel and I felt terrible for asking. While I thought she would understand, I think I was wrong. I am not ready for her level of criticism/notes. I want my novel to be read as art. It's a beach side vacation read. It's not the next great American novel, and I know that.

The first person who read it, read it basically unsolicited. The novel was complete for a few weeks and I was not getting traction from anyone. I did the scariest, boldest thing I could think of: I shared it to my alumni class Facebook page. I was nauseous for three days. There were a lot of parallels in the novel to people, places, events, and things that happened in my novel that occurred in real life. While I opened the novel with wording stating that it was inspired-by my teen years, some of those who inspired it, would know who they were, if they remembered it. The person who did read it was not someone I was close with. He was a sweet guy who was maybe a little shy and never unkind to me. We were close alphabetically in school, so we often sat near each other if we had classes together. I cried touched, heartfelt tears when he sent me a message saying he read and enjoyed my novel. If no one else read it, I'll at least have that. I DO have that. Thank you. You know who you are.

Around the same time I shared the link to "Bette On It" to my alumni page, I did something else. I gave away my collection of preserved four-leafed clovers. I had sixteen of them, some old ones, and some new ones I had found this spring. (I'll come back to this too)

This circles back to coming out of COVID lockdown, being bedridden, and being an extrovert. July 15, 2020 I had a preventative double mastectomy after two family members got breast cancer. I'm a BRCA1 gene carrier and the risks of me getting breast cancer in my life were way too high to keep them for vanity's sake. My double-D breasts had to go. I had a bunch of complications and had to endure several more corrective surgeries, hospital stays, COVID tests, skin grafts, a chest vacuum, a blood clot that could have killed me or given me a stroke. I was bedridden for ten weeks summer/fall 2020. I am coming up to one year out from my initial surgery and I am still not 100% fully recovered from my surgeries.

Yet after all of this, I consider myself lucky. I didn't get cancer. My blood clot happened while I was in the hospital and was immediately treated and helped. My social life was cancelled for me while it was cancelled for everyone else. I didn't miss out on life, because everyone else did too. I got to video call my friends and family. I got cards, flowers, and care packages. I have a husband who is an absolute saint. He and I both had jobs that worked well with us through COVID and my surgeries and recoveries. I am one lucky lady.

So as lockdown ends, summer is here, social lives are coming back. I gave away much of my collection of four-leafed clovers, close to twenty now because I kept finding more, 43 this season thus far. Each preserved clover got a hand written card with it along with my return address. How many cards did I get back? One. I did get facebook messages and comments from some people, but not a lot. I had to constantly remind myself, a gift is given without expectations. I was still disappointed. I reached out to people I hadn't spoken to in years, some over a decade. I was heartbroken.

I have spent the last few months, the time since I have been writing "Bette On It," the time since I had my hysterectomy, the time since hope has started to return, Vaccines are readily available and taken, and mask mandates have started to go away. I'm trying to nurture old and new friendships. I feel like that picture at the top of this post. I feel like I'm giving away piece after piece of myself hoping someone will give me a little back and not much is coming. I gave a piece of my soul with "Bette On It," I get it, no one asked for it. I gave my luck away with my four-leafed clovers, Mother Nature gave me more, but that's not the same as love. I sacrificed my breasts, my reproductive organs, and a big part of my vanity/femininity, I got my health and safety back, eventually. Now I want to toast to the health and safety of my friends and loved ones...It would be nice if they returned my messages.

For another autobiographical piece