Tampa Bay

My Therapist in Maryland told me not to go.

But we took a trip to see it and I dug my toes in the sand on the Treasure Island beach and I plighted my troth with my husband there all anew. I wanted to drive there down the coast from Maryland. It was just so, so utterly beautiful.

The therapist I wound up getting hooked up with there told me, right off the bat, Alex and I were talking and I started talking about the state hospital and he said I wanted “the value of that time.” This guy had things just right. What I needed was me, out of there. Stories to tell, like the song on Christian radio at some point or another said. I put that up in my last couple of posts. At that time it was holding me back.

What was said to me there was that I had been “too many places.” I simply broke. I couldn’t even talk sense. people had to ask my ex what I meant. The words didn’t hang together. My mother was the same. She was English. recently I have realized that the sad truth, after all of this, is that I am too. Sad in that I always looked back on England and wanted to return but finally realized I never would and longed to go “Looking for America” (Paul Simon) and, with my ex, I got the incredible chance to do exactly that to my heart’s content. I broke away from the New York Society crowd and ethic and hit Southern California. Which defeats anything. My son commented that he liked Tampa Bay. But Southern California saved my soul. 3 decades ago. I have heard its nothing like that any more but nothing can take away the memories. But I had to give up my mother’s England and my mother. And become another lost and lazy wandering American. I can’t help the lazy part of its all this fat. It holds me back.. Recently I have lost at least 5 pounds and my stomach has changed so maybe I will finally lose the curse of this protuberant belly that has beleaguered me since two years after I had my son, who is 29 years old now and I have been working with him on retroactively interpolating a better delivery and a lot of other things. It is very positive and proactive and there are physical signs of change as a result.

Pinellas County (near Tampa in County) cradled us for 16 years. I craved the heat. I had always lived in cold places before I met Alex and I was not one to pursue beaches and water sports but this time it was right.

Suddenly, in 2012, I had had enough. We were divorcing for most of the time we were there. I got a strong, gentle male lawyer who was able to take on Alex’s threatening character and I was out of there in a few months after years of struggling. Even the police were telling us we should divorce. I happened on his birthday. I was in an extended stay hotel here in PA, waiting on the phone, as ordered, while it went down in court. I was scared. My parents were not supportive.

Now, he has remarried and I have not. I have no interest in it. Its been 10 1/2 years. I have been out of control but things are settling down now as I take control of my son’s struggles as well as my own as is appropriate and help him with his family needs as is appropriate.

In the course of my hospitalization on the Haven Hospital Tower Unit I started making jokes and one of them was to make the entire South Central Region of Florida “IT” (based on what a young kid in a convenience store did to me in Florida there) just to get away from the pressure I continued to feel about how I supposedly destroyed everything for everyone in the town where we resided by endorsing bussing and in other ways. Because I was always going off the handle and going to the hospital. I don’t know why that happened. It was insanely terrifying for me. In case anybody cares. My husband was a maniac and a serious, serious alcoholic, I was afraid he was going to die. I was just trying to take care of my son and I see pictures now that I saw before and I just didnt see at the time that he was malnourished to a significant degree in fact he was starving and I asked the children services for help in fact I threatened them but they said the only they could do is take him or take Alex. And neither proposal was tenable. I was seriously mentally ill at the time, or rather, just plain ill.

My doctor in Maryland was right. I was not cut out for Florida. So I finally got out of there and brought my son with me. It hurt my ex horribly. I had a temporary restraining order and he was violating it the day I was taking Ian out to put him on a plane to come here to my mother and Alex called the cops. Ian won. Alex punched him in the face. The police helped me get him out of there to get to the plane on time and they took Alex to jail for 6 days. I took off to a motel after the sewage erupted from the john in the family room and I got it cleaned up but not properly as I didn’t know anything about our home insurance and what was covered. I sensed the air in there was bad and left. I stayed in the motel for 4 weeks with a case of bug phobia that had been increasing, and finally formalized the divorce and got on a plane to ABE airport. It wasn’t until the last minute that I opted for ABE over Buffalo. I never really figured that out.

All of this still remains to be sorted out.

It’s about me and Ian and Alex and the Tampa Bay Area. And Buffalo where Ian was born. And Germantown Maryland and why we had to leave.

Alex was a very ignorant Canadian. I was a very ignorant Englishwoman in America. Our son was a gracious gift from God. Please God, helps us now.