It Takes Just One Person/First Agreement: Be Impeccable With Your Word

For the better part of three weeks now, I’ve been in limbo. In one of my last entries, I wrote how another author, an aspiring one, managed to create feelings of self-doubt in me after finally cultivating some self-confidence in myself after the rough several years I’ve had. I believe some of her word choices were intentional and hurtful

This is an entry I’ve been debating myself on whether or not to write because I will name-dropping someone in this. This has been a tough decision for me to make, one I’ve been wrestling with since the last mention of me wanting to quit writing after that last exchange with this aspiring author. However, when I’m doing my language lessons and “hearing”/seeing her words scoffing at my efforts even though she knows nothing about this aspect to my life, I have a problem. It’s a problem I’m trying to overcome, some of it my overactive imagination and a good portion of it hurt that I never expected to feel at this last exchange. The self-doubt in me over continuing writing – something I’ve never felt until July 5th – is starting to affect other aspects to my life. I can’t have that. I am learning the languages that I am because 1 – I want to learn them, and 2 – I plan on going overseas by the end of 2022 in hopes of finishing out my education. It’s true. I have yet to graduate college. When it comes to specific things in my life, I’ve given up, have been allowed to give up, much to my dismay, because my mother didn’t necessarily see a point to some of my pursuits.

So here’s the story, my friends. Some of my LJ peeps will remember Nolan Ash/Katherine O’Kelly. Katherine, I thought at one point, was a friend of mine. We interacted mainly on LJ and then a bit via email. Katherine had dreams of becoming a published author and tried to do so. She went from being Nolan Ash to her name for a more professional approach. (Whereas me, I’ve gone through three pen name changes and have intentions of changing my real name to my current pen name of Victorea Ryan Meadow before the year is out.) She set up a website with the descriptions of her novels and her bio, spoke once at Emerald City Comic Con, and queried two manuscripts, receiving rejection. She joined a critique site called absolutewrite and got her ass kicked over there.

Now I am going to make this clear. At the time, absolutewrite had a toxic environment. Whether that is true today is something for me to discover at some point because I am a member both there, Scribophile, and Critique Circle. Been a long time since I logged into absolutewrite and Critique Circle. My accounts may no longer exist. (Ooops.) I have logged into absolutewrite at least once in the last several years and received an apology from a member for the harsh treatment I endured. Those people are no longer there, and I may just return again to see how things are going. My main attitude as an author is everything we have in front of us is a tool to be used at our discretion.

I’d written shortly after my flounce out of absolutewrite and had asked David Farland to publish my essay on researching critique groups. I joined Scribophile at the recommendation of my fellow author Edi Cruz, and holy guacamole, my friends. Much better environment, and I’m proud to say I’ve made friends on that site. It’s still one of the best setups, in my personal opinion, when it comes to critiquing and getting your work critiqued. I can’t necessarily attest to the overall environment – the public forums on the site can become quite the shit show from time to time; however, I believe that’s true of any interactive forum-based website. I’m sure there are places on discord that are the same way. I mean, I remember when people could create their own forums for specific things. I was a member of sites like The Padded Cell (Transformers) and Return Post (The Bangles). I’ve seen how nasty people can get. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also something that happens when we forget we’re dealing with fellow human beings that are either down the street from us or in another country.

I’m not going to get into the full story where Katherine is concerned. There are things I am keeping to myself and sharing only with people who understand what it is my spiritual path has opened up for me. I will say this.

Shortly after Katherine declared herself quitting writing due to burnout and the mistreatment at absolutewrite, I tried to encourage to keep going. I saw her as wallowing in her own self-pity and misery, and I hate wallowing. I try to get myself out of those habits. They’re toxic when allowed to consume instead of inspire and motivate. I tried to get her to join Scrib. I’ve actually tried on and off for several years now, each time trying to be her friend and be supportive of the writing career. Part of it due to this gut feeling of knowing that’s what she’s supposed to be doing with her life. (It wasn’t until 2016 that an underlying truth came out, one that has made a lot more sense, as Katherine told me twice, in 2014 and in 2018, that she and I can’t be friends because she has/had three criteria for friendship, one of which was religion. I’m Pagan as fuck, people. To be told that twice nearly four years apart fucking stings, and I did what I could to protect myself from the troublesome feelings that like to pop up of “Hey, you should encourage Katherine to start writing again!” Trust me, it’s annoying and devastating each time. And she’s the only person this has ever happened with. It gets super complicated with me after that, which is why I’m keeping some bits of the story to myself. Since the last time of “we’re not religiously compatible”, I’ve done what I could to keep my distance and live my life. And in 2018, she got a bit active in trying to discourage me from writing – “if it isn’t making you happy, you should try finding something else” after I’d already published four titles. Yes, I have a bit of anger and resentment in me over this. When it comes to a lot of things in my life, I’m looking for support, people who will encourage me to keep going, to tell me that they’re proud of what I’m accomplishing, not people who want to tell me things like that or if I don’t do specific things, I’ll fail at my calling.)

Katherine is part of the reason why I chose to self-publish nearly seven years ago. I remembered her posts about being rejected. I’d remembered what I’d learned from the Write That Novel workshop. I didn’t want to receive any rejection, but I wanted to prove that I was marketable to my publishing house of choice.

I self-published, and I’ve been on a bit of a roller-coaster with it since then. But I digress. This is about me overcoming this recently instilled self-doubt about my writing career.

You see, in March of this year, I got hit with the feeling, again, that I should contact Katherine and encourage her to start writing. I spent an entire day in depression over this because my last two attempts had ended in both failure and with a “we can’t be friends because we’re not religiously compatible” attitude. Then I was pissed because I realized what has happening, who it was “speaking” to me, and it’s like . . . I don’t want to go through that again. I just don’t. I agreed to send the message but to no longer try to approach as friends. I mean, it isn’t right for me to try and pursue a friendship with someone who refuses repeatedly to accept me for the genuine, authentic human being that I am.

I admit, I wrote a scathing letter back in March and sent it. I did a bit of spellwork to ensure that my message would be heard and carried on with my life.

Come June 2021. I’ve decided to change my name legally. I have things from this life under my current name that I don’t want hounding me. I’m trying to take responsibility for my toxic behaviors. And I have three people I owe apologies to, one of which was to Katherine. She was the last one I sent an email to.

Mistake #1 on my part: I forgot to mention I was only apologizing for everything from before March. I meant every word in that letter. If I was hateful, I was hateful. It’s hard to be working poor and giving up all the time because things aren’t going the way we’ve demanded that they go. Working poor doesn’t have the option of going back to school and getting out of debt the way people in higher income brackets can do. Sometimes the field is already over-saturated with hopefuls. There are variables that don’t get accounted for in situations like that.

Mistake #2 on my part: I forgot to say that I still believed her incapable of accepting me for who I am, which is a highly passionate and compassionate person. I’m rough around the edges. I’m getting out of toxic households and friendships. I have over forty years of learning to unlearn to become the person I want to be. That means I refuse to be silent, to be a doormat.

So, my apology emails are sent. I’m walking into the store for work on July 1st when the local housing commission calls me to tell me my dad’s ashes are at his old residence. They’d like for me to come and get him sooner rather than later. And I’m totally in a weird state of mind because it wasn’t anything I was expecting. I’m getting in one of my aunt’s cars later that evening, my dad’s ashes in tow, when Katherine emails me. I take my time to address everything she’s said to me. One of the things I now realize is making an offer to recommend books for overcoming things is a bit of a mistake. I was mainly thinking of recommending The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz and pretty much anything by Brene’ Brown to her to help her in overcoming whatever obstacles she was facing. The Four Agreements is the one of a few books that I know of that can work with any given religion or spiritual path. Brene’ Brown talks about shame and overcoming it, and, gods above, do I love this woman for being that fucking brave.

I’m not going into details about the letters. I will say this: she told me in that very first reply she wasn’t that person anymore. She doesn’t discriminate against people based on their religion. Maybe we could be casual acquaintances on Scrib because my letter in March both inspired and insulted her. (My inner Libra found that amusing, and I keep going, “Balance”.) She joined the site shortly after receiving my letter to start testing the waters again, to get a feel for what she should be writing.

So huzzah. She’s writing again, like her guides want her to be doing, but I’m not in a mental space for much of anything beyond professionalism at this point.

Now, before I sought her out on Scrib, I decided to ask her if I could tell her a story about a friend of mine named Melissa Hines. This is one of the stories I like to tell about myself because, to me, it demonstrates the type of person I was in high school, how I’d already been deviating away from the conservative Christian background I come from. I love telling this story, and, truth, it’s been 25 years since Melissa passed away. I don’t want to recommend books or tell stories to people who aren’t willing to listen, who don’t want them, so I make it a point to ask first, wait for the response, then go from there. Having endured such things myself by someone who refused to comprehend that I don’t always like to buy from Amazon or online if I can get stuff locally or, when it comes to crystals, need to have a connection with said crystal before purchasing, it’s something I truly dislike doing to others.

I also got to thinking about MY current situation. My current situation is that of grieving daughter who just got her dad’s ashes back after a fight with a funeral home in another country, after dealing with an inept embassy, and a woman who is scratching out whatever time she can get to write because she works 48 hours a week, 6 days a week. I’m trying to get two books ready for publication on my birthday, to have a taco buffet as both birthday and release party, and I’m working on this blessed name change. I realized I just don’t have the mental capacity to do anything beyond a professional relationship with Katherine. After she requested that we keep all correspondence to Scrib, I was okay with that. I still have to bury my dad, after all, and get caught up on all things I can’t get to during the week because I’m at work. All. The. Time. (That’s why I still utilize pen and paper.)

I offered to help Katherine navigate Scrib after stating I wanted a professional relationship. Again, under a lot of stress. I made the offer because I didn’t know what she’d be seeking. Would she want to fast-track her work? Would she like to receive feedback on her critiques? Is she interested in submitting to Writers of the Future?  There’s a lot to consider, and I should have said, “hey, I don’t know what you’re interested in doing, so I’m making this offer right here to navigate the site”. I sent her a second DM saying, if she’d like, I could make a recommendation for traditional publishing.

Because, you see, even though I am indie, I don’t rule out traditional publishing. I have my questions about it because I’m also highly concerned about our environment and climate change, but I do think about it. In fact, for the last couple of years, I’ve wanted to actually query out to start getting the rejection letters I know 99% of all authors receive before either landing a publishing contract or self-publishing. Again, these are tools in my author’s toolbox. I keep everything there because being strictly one thing leads to stagnancy, and I have zero intentions of being stagnant. That’s why I refuse to be exclusive through Amazon. The recommendation I would have given her would be something I’m seriously considering for myself and trying to figure out how to make it possible for this year instead of next. I’m talking World Fantasy Con, the one place David Farland said 11 years ago was the place to go to network with editors and agents alike. And it’s in Montreal, Ontario, my friends. I’m back in Northern Michigan. It is sooo close to home right now. Mind you, next year’s sounds just as intriguing as well because it’s in New Orleans. This is something I have considered off and on ever since I learned about it.

And, since I had no idea of where she was in all of this, I made the offer to recommend something. I was excited to see her back in the writing arena while hesitant about being her friend. I love supporting my fellow authors as much as possible (which is why I was more stoked over learning my friend David Brian Jones was making a comeback too. Good Gods, his one story was beautiful. In need of refinement, as all stories are, but beautiful.) I believe that we, as authors, can always support each other, and I have some knowledge. I don’t know everything. I don’t need to know everything. I can always get on the forums at Scrib or send an email to an author to find out the things that I want to know. I’ll be the one to tell someone to keep writing while to also stop comparing where s/he is at because we are all at different levels. And that is 100% okay.

I also told myself to be okay with the answer “no”. If she’s not ready for anything, if she’s not interested, it’s okay. Accept the answer and move on.

I got a long-winded, condescending answer of why I was stupid, how an indie author doesn’t know anything about traditional publishing, and, if she wanted to know, she’d ask a traditional publisher. Apparently, I hadn’t changed that much, she didn’t want a return to the old LJ days, etc . . ., and she regretted reaching out to me, telling me that she had only done so because she felt sorry for me on my losses. No one wants unsolicited advice, and if I didn’t have the support circle I wanted or needed, it wasn’t her problem or her fault. I was to lose her email.

Crushed and shocked are what I felt because I’d believed her when she said she wasn’t the same person she was in either 2014 or 2018, where she’d said awful things to me to get me to leave her alone, which I really wanted to do this last time around, because my memories were that of some prehistoric time, and she wasn’t that person when, in reality, if you don’t speak to a person, how can you expect them to have good memories of you when you refuse to even actually be a friend? She gave me some bull shit concept of friendship, of which, if I recall correctly, failed to mention that we listen and learn from each other. I laughed when she said friends don’t talk to each other the way I talked to her in my letter in March (we’re not friends, everything in my letter was there for a reason, and it was all for her to get a better concept of what life is like for the working poor like me, not the middle-class of California).

I should have known better to believe her and her words. Words have power, words have meaning. As authors, we both know that. We have the power to create and to destroy. She declared herself more experienced than me, and, for the first time in my life, I still thinking about giving up on writing. Three weeks later after removing her from my favorite authors, notifications, and her one available story from my to-read list (I moved quickly after her blowing up at me – I don’t need that type of shit in my life) and then having her block me, I struggle with my self-confidence and self-esteem once more.

I write this to try and help myself cope. I tell myself her attitude is a reflection of her and not me. But the truth still remains – I believed her capable of being able to help change the world. Her ability to write is that amazing, and I admit that I’m jealous that she can just draw people to her without realizing how biased and arrogant she can really be.I’ve thought of leaving Scrib again to avoid that pain, but Scrib is also kind of my home.

I know I will eventually overcome this. As I mentioned above, I hate wallowing in my own self-pity. And maybe for other people, Katherine O’Kelly is a wonderful person. She’s gone out of her way to actually understand and love them. I don’t know. It isn’t for me to say.

Better yet, because I do know how powerful words can be, I have overcome this. Even though I’ve thought of giving up writing, I still write. It’s just too much in my blood. I don’t know how to do anything else, and it was something I was going to school for in the first place. It’s something I plan on continuing to do, to learn from, to grow.

I wish Katherine O’Kelly well. I wish her a ton of success. Why, you might ask? Because I still believe my words. I still believe in wishing someone well because I truly don’t know everything she endures in her daily life, and that, in the end, she is accountable for her actions. I can sit here and honestly say I should have ignored the feeling to contact her in March. I should have left well enough alone. It’s a mistake I refuse to repeat in the future should she decide she’s going to give up again. Her path, her life, her choice.

As for me, I embrace my losses and wins. I embrace my success, and I embrace everything about the life I have. Because when I walk to work, I find it hard to find anything horrible about my life anymore. Yeah, bitter experiences, but they’re also beautiful.

Up next, my friends, will be the gushing over author Alice Hoffman because I finished reading “Magic Lessons” last Thursday, and I’m now anxiously wanting “The Book of Magic”, the final installation for the Owens family. Gods, I love this woman and her writing!

On the Subject of Writing: Analyzing the Hero’s Quest trope

In previous entries, I wrote about some of the losses that I’ve experienced in my life. The quickie recap is this: my mom passed away in October of 2019, my dog in March of this year (she was fifteen, and one of my baby girls that I love so very much), and my dad passed away in April.

Another part of this entry is inspired by someone, a fellow writer, who, once again, managed to tear at me for making offers to navigate a writer’s forum website and to aid with finding ways to connect with agents and publishing houses. Though I am an indie author, I have considered traditional publishing once before. I’m considering it even now, and I’ve even posed the question to Scrib about what literary agents can do for an author. I’m far from being a “ra, ra, indie is the only way to go!” type of author. I love indie publishing, but I still want to at least try the traditional route. The fellow author in question scoffed at what she believed to be my lack of knowledge in any given aspect of publishing and of Scrib (I’ve been there since 2012, and I know of a few groups that can help in select categories, hence me saying, If you’d like, I can help you with this). One of her remarks was about her being baffled about me dispensing writing advice when I wasn’t “walking the walk”. Attending one Write That Novel workshop didn’t make me an “expert”. While I agree that attending one workshop doesn’t make me an expert, I was still doing what was recommended at the time for having a writer’s blog: have the blog, dispense the advice that every author in the modern history of authors and the internet has been given to them by the authors before them. I did what I thought was necessary at the time, and this blog . . . well, it’s definitely meandered over the years.

Today, I’m getting back a little bit to writing. I’m analyzing the one aspect to the hero’s quest trope that seems to either work for people or drive them absolutely batty as to why it’s done: the orphaned hero

Now we know this type of hero/heroine. This is the child abandoned at birth,the child who loses their parents in some catastrophic event, or was orphaned at an early age and taken in by some kind friends of the family; or, in a flip scenario, taken in by abusive family members. (Think almost all of the Dragon Quest games, Edge Maverick from Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and, in the last scenario, Harry from the Harry Potter series. Another example is Magnus Chase from Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. Those are just some of the more popular stories out there.)

Something about this trope tends to bug people. It’s the “why does the hero need to lose his/her family in order to go on this major quest? Why can’t the parents still be alive?” I’ve never truly been one of those people, annoyed with the dead parent angle, but I admit I’d love to read stories about some grandma going off with a gaggle of cats and an overly anxious orderly ensuring she stays healthy. I’d love to read about the forty-something mother who doesn’t have any last fucks to give. But I can say this with a certainty that I’ve never had before when it comes to the dead parent angle for the hero’s quest.

Our parents hold us back. Whether they mean to or not, they hold us back. They give us something to lose when it comes time to face that final boss, that final villain, that . . . dragon we’re out to slay. They can be our greatest weaknesses in the final battles, and, if, they’re gone, well, we have nothing left to lose when we set out on those grand adventures of a lifetime.

I sit here, writing this, and I can see how the world is opening up for me. Yes, I still have three cats to care for, and I plan on taking them with me on my adventures, but the world is more open to me than what it was three months ago. With my mother gone, I was worried about getting my dad home so he could see his doctors. I was worried about making sure he had a place to stay upon getting back. Those cares, those worries are no longer in my path. As much as it hurts to have lost both of my parents, because they are gone now, I have so very little left to lose. I can take more chances. The hero/heroine who has the family back home (think Katniss from the Hunger Games or even Rick Riordan’s beloved Percy Jackson from three different series) has more to consider, more to lose when it comes to taking risks, when it comes to fighting the bad guys, and ultimately making a difference in the world around them.

This isn’t to say that a hero/heroine with family living at home won’t make for compelling characters – I love Percy Jackson; some of my own characters still have “living” parents, and Fayt Leingod from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has his mother alive at the end of the game – because they can, and they do. The chances of them taking bigger and grander risks than their parentless counterparts, though, are lower. Writing from Fen’s angle (Portal to Gaming; upcoming The Journey to New Atlantis; Arc of Fantasy), until he learns specific truths about himself and his family, he has no idea what’s happening to his parents or if his parents even know what’s happening to him. It’s made him very reluctant to pursue the quest he needs to undertake because his ability to take the risks necessary is compromised by knowing his parents are alive. He wants to go home. He’s trying to get back home before he realizes he can’t do that, that he can only do so by going forward. The same is true with his best friends, twin brothers Daniel and Wolfgang Evans. Having living, breathing parents holds them back. At least, for a short while.

I know not everyone will understand what it means to lose a parent,or how I can even write this. I just gotta say that’s okay. You don’t need to completely know or understand that pain or the strange sense of liberation that parental death can bring to someone. It doesn’t mean we don’t love our parents – I can assure you that I do love both of my parents; I am super grateful they were mine – but we no longer have our parents holding us back, encouraging and discouraging risks in the same breath. (And believe me when I say I miss my parents a lot, that I love them a lot. It’s just been this really weird thing of realizing I am no longer bound by the traditions they created for our family, for themselves as the years went on. I can pick and choose which ones still fit me as a person, and I can also create new ones for myself. I can . . . take the plunge, save my money, and go overseas for school, for work, and not worry about whether or not they’re going to be okay, whether or not they’re going to approve. I also can’t tell them about my adventures in letters or over the phone because they’re no longer around. That saddens me the most.)

When I apply the deaths of my parents to the hero’s journey trope, the abandoned/orphaned hero/heroine trope begins to make more sense. As the hero of my own story, I have very little to lose in taking bigger, grander risks for my life. Because my parents are gone, I won’t have to worry about having to abandone my quests because one of them is sick and ailing (think Samwise from the Lord of the Rings and the worries he held for his gaffer/dad). It’s one of the saddest forms of freedom I, and everyone else who has lost both parents, have ever faced.

And that’s pretty much it. Yes, I have brothers and a sister in all of this, but we’ve all gone our own ways in life. Whatever risks I take doesn’t affect them. Just me and my cats.

For those who are wondering about that trope, the dead parent aspect to the hero’s journey, I hope this entry sheds a small amount of light as to why it’s used, why it’s overdone. The hero/heroine needs to be able to take risks they wouldn’t normally consider if they have something or someone to lose. Death affects us in similar ways and yet differently. You don’t need to know those losses personally in order to understand the stakes a hero/heroine has to face in a story. Criticize it, analyze it, then either use it or find a different tool in your writer’s toolbox. That’s what it’s there for it.

I hope everyone has a great Friday, great weekend. To my fellow writers, keep on writing!

Personal losses

In my last entry, I wrote about the deaths of my mother and my dog. Both have had an impact on me for various reasons. One was my mother, someone who, while supportive, also wasn’t supportive. She put the energy out there at times that I wouldn’t be happy doing this or that when it came to the writing and publishing worlds – I actually had considered becoming an editor many, many years ago and going to school for that – and wanted to know, upon publishing my first story, Portal to Gaming, if that meant I was going to start making money again. Strong woman, but life has a way of warping us, changing us, testing us, and we can lose sight of the bigger picture, the people in our lives who mean the most to us.

Of course, there was my muppy, Amy. First time I’d ever laid an animal to rest in my forty-three years in this particular life. I knew when her spirit departed her before the vet tech could confirm. That’s how powerful a bond a witch can have with a familiar.

Now . . . now my dad has passed away. He actually passed away in the Philippines on April 17th. I don’t know the rules and regulations for another country when it comes to death. I barely know the rules for here.

I almost lost my dad completely. The hospital he passed away at wanted to move his body before they got the Covid test back and issued his death certificate. According to his fiance, the hospital claimed it wasn’t obligated to deal with me, which is odd. He didn’t marry her, and I, as the eldest child, am his next of kin. It is up to me to take care of his final arrangements, and their behavior towards me and towards her stunk. Like, I was trying to contact the embassy to see if they wanted an autopsy done first to be sure it was natural causes and not foul play, like they were assuring me it wasn’t, so I didn’t want his body moved. I’m trying to think with a little common sense here, Hey. Best leave him there until I receive word.

They moved him after about two weeks without informing me they’d done so. They didn’t even bother to contact the embassy, to my knowledge, about his passing or what they’d done with his remains. I was doing all of that. They sent my dad to a funeral home where the proprietor claimed it was going to cost me $7900 USD to transfer, store, cremate, and send him home.

Yes, you read that number right. $7900. I’m listed as part-time at my current job. I recently got two pay raises, one for working 700 hours, the other because they raised the starting pay. That’s nearly eight months of my wages, eight months of me starving myself and my cats, not paying my bills to cover something like that. He accused me of being unprofessional in my initial approach with him, which, last I knew, there was no criteria for how people are supposed to react while grieving. Yes, cost was on my mind when he contacted me. While I am an America, I do not have the type of money that’s associated with being an American.

I almost lost my dad to their laws. Thirty days, and if he wasn’t claimed after that, he had to go into a public, unmarked grave. Period. All because some so-called professional in the industry refused to hear the words, I can’t afford that. That’s eight months of pay. (That’s when I thought I was at my starting pay, not realizing my first raise was around the corner; even then, this guy was still thousands of dollars out of my reach.) He got pissy because I’d been in contact with another funeral home and said he no longer wanted to service my dad’s remains. It was going to cost me $1000 USD to use his ambulance to transfer. Then it was $1000 to transfer, store, and embalm (because they claim they don’t have any other preservation methods) my dad.

It took nearly a month for the embassy in Manila to finally get involved. A month and it took them a week and a half to respond  to the office of the congressman I’d reached out to for help with both the hospital then the funeral home. Over the phone, I let it out on the embassy. I told them how much this man was trying to charge me, and the gentleman I spoke to said that was high for the area.

Upon the embassy contacting him, because I went a few more rounds with this guy beforehand, the price went from $1000 to $250 for the storage, embalming, and transfer of my dad. This was something I couldn’t get out of, even though I’d never authorized this funeral home to take my dad’s body.

With the help of my dad’s adoptive family over there, I found a funeral home more willing to work with me and more within what I and my family could afford. Unfortunately, someone in this mix also lied. Until I’d sent the authorization for cremation (which had to be done over Facebook due to the final funeral home not having an email address), the final funeral home told me she’d had to embalm him. Again. When she picked him up, he was starting to bloat and stink. What was originally $1300 (for EVERYTHING – transfer, cremation, sending him home via plane) briefly went up to $1900 then back down to $1500. She didn’t want to fight with me. (I also don’t blame her.)

I have yet to hear back from the embassy about the charges and claims from the funeral home who first had my dad. I’ve yet to hear back on who should be contacting them upon the death of an American citizen, and I still have a bunch of paperwork to do on my end because this is what the eldest child gets – the responsibility when there’s no living spouse and no one else named to take care of anything.

I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. I learned. I’ve grown a bit more as a result.

His cremation is done. His final expenses over there are taken care of, and he’s now home. He’s been home since last Thursday. What’s left is finding him a more suitable urn that fits who he is (I’m wanting a ceramic barn or log cabin . . . he might end up in a sealed cookie jar that looks like one), getting in touch with the funeral home here, and a few other things, but my dad is finally home. I’ve offered to my family the opportunity to write him a letter to place in whatever container will keep his ashes safe upon burying him. (One of his last requests – be buried next to my stepmother if he hadn’t remarried before he died.) Then it’s done.

Writing this sounds very clinical. Very cold. Very detached. Make no mistake. This has torn me up in more ways than I ever thought possible. I was a daddy’s girl for a long, long time, until sometime after my parents’ separation. There are a select few who know what happened to cause that distance, and one of them is my mother. He and I were actually on speaking terms before his death. Things were a bit rocky once more – that’s what happens when you have a strong-willed woman as your daughter, one who has seen and experienced more than you have – but still amicable. I write this because there is someone out there, maybe right now, maybe years from now, or even from some time ago, who needs to hear this. You are not the only one who has had to suffer through something like this. You are not alone. I promise to do my best to bring about whatever changes need to be done in order to bring home loved ones who die overseas, for families who may not have the means to bring that family member home. I promise to do my best.

I love my parents. They did the best they could. They were also toxic at points in their lives. I find myself desperately trying to get some books ready to publish on October 1 (my birthday) because it’s going to be my first birthday without my parents. Second one without my mother, first one with my dad being dead. Thanksgiving and Christmas promise to be the same. I’m a bit bitter to his fiance and her family as they had him for everything last year – Father’s Day, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas – and his birthday this year. I did allow them the chance to say goodbye after the final funeral home got his remains. He loved them, and they love him. They were the reasons why he made it as far as he did, so they did deserve that chance. It just hurts because all I’m getting, all I’ve gotten, are his ashes.

I take my bereavement (I didn’t have to take my bereavement right away – the place I work for allows up to six months to take bereavement; I also get five days because it is my dad) next month. It’s going to be weird to have that time off because I’ve been working like mad since January, basically, but I know if I don’t take it, I’ll break. I’ll snap. That’s something I don’t wish to do.

That’s what’s been happening in my life. Working, scratching out what writing I can, and just basically trying to keep my head above the water in dealing with silent embassies and greedy funeral homes.

So what’s next? I’ll make a list of things I want to touch on as best I can over the next several days and weeks. I work retail, so my hours are hardly ever the same. I have made the decision since the last entry to stay in the area for another year and a half. I’m working on building up some stability for myself. Things aren’t 100% ideal, but they’re also not 100% horrible, either. A week after my dad died, I got hit with a very strong and assured feeling of going to Norway. As I want to go back to school, preferably for Viking studies, that’s where I’ve decided I want to go back to school at. In a way, I need to get out of the U.S. for a while, take a mental breather from all this in this country and enjoy the culture shocks of something new.

And that’s it. That’s my update for now. Thinking I’d like to address something I was “accused” of at the beginning of the week from someone I used to hero worship as a fellow writer. Also thinking about the directions I’d love to take this journal. I’m interested in games, as some may have previously noted in other entries, in homesteading, in film, in witchcraft and heathenry and Paganism, and food. Gods, do I ever love food!

Until the next time, my lovelies! Have a blessed day and a blessed weekend!