Truth Justice and The American Way

Rights, Wrongs and Truths.

Dec 31 2023

at the end of 2023

Author: Kerry

If you know me… you will know that I do not cling to religion… and my Sundays are spent with the different correspondents of the CBS Sunday Morning news program… and have been all of my adult life. If you live with me… you either learn to love it… or leave me alone with my coffee through it… I prefer to watch it in silence… though some of the stories spark such conversations that we miss the remainder of it…. except the moment of nature… when everything stops… and everyone runs in the room to watch in silence the beautiful blue marble we live on… seeing and hearing sounds we have never experienced… or ones we have and we relive it through that moment. I have many favorites about this program… Techno Clause is a HUGE hit in our home… but the Hail and Farewell episode of the year is always something we watch in reverence and wonder…. This year was no different. I remember sobbing through the Hail and Farewell to 2022, But I do not remember why… and as my soul was breathed hope this morning through the Hail and Farewell to 2023 I decided I wanted to write why… see the program doesn’t really change much… life continues… people live and do great and terrible things… and people die… and stories change our world and the planet is always getting warmer… but what does change… is me.

I had the dawning realization this morning… as I seem to be processing some trauma of that last few years… and shedding some of my careful compartments of emotions and thoughts tucked away for a safer calmer time to unpackage and feel… that… well as cliche as it sounds… it is what it is. I watched as Anderson Cooper talked about this as well… funny how some of the people you love and admire the most you have never met… Anderson Cooper is one of those for me… Mr Amazing suggested that if I did know him I may not feel that way… and I responded with ofcourse I would. Because I understand every characteristic… every value… comes with its other side… infact thinking two sided is very narrow in of itself… and as the news program alerted me to the fact that shooting down the Chinese Balloon… happened this year… that the boats and submarines that imploded or capsized killing so many were this year…. that the canadian wildfires… the Redwood fires… the Hawaii fires… were this year. In a year of mass shootings being daily news… and two wars now raging… the middle east one joined the Ukraine/Russia one… though it is not eithers first. Time seemed to slow down… it is an illusion… created by so much happening.

Thankyou NASA!

So in this spirit… I too would like to bid 2023 Hail and Farewell…

First we Hail…

Hail to personal growth and development- I mentioned those containers above that I need to unpack and process… I have been doing this slowly… in silence… as I mold different tiny things from clay. I have learned a lot… mostly good… and may bad…. but I am going to stop there with those adjectives… because I do not believe events to be so easily categorized… so many consequences of something bad or terrible feeling at the time do turn out to be good… and some of those low hanging fruits that bring immediate joy… can turn sour in retrospect. Nothing is Black and White… it is always in the middle of that grey area somewhere… and HOW GREAT IS THAT!!!

Hail to Mr Amazing. Do I even need to say why? I love this man and our patchwork tribe more than there are words in my vocabulary to express. So I won’t try. I will continue to just love as I do.

Hail to our commander in chief! Politics are exactly that… Grey… and my feelings about President Biden are also somewhere in the middle… and me with my feelings about things can go jump off a cliff… because it is events that he is ushering in that matters.. and I am grateful for so much of that. Did you know that it was Nixon that signed the endangered animals act into law? Thanks to sunday morning I do now too… all I knew of Nixon was watergate… but the man did some great things… again. Grey is always the answer

Hail to my babies!! (I gave birth to one… I have many) They are the most amazing creatures! Through the black and the white of their lives… I get a front row seat to all of it… someone hand me some pom poms… cause I cannot possibly cheer for them any louder…

Hail to my dad!!! This one is a very recent story… and it is his… but my part of that story was finding a friend in him… finding some interesting traits we share… and honestly finding out how much I just love him. Weird right?

Hail to my babies babies!!! OMGOSH!! I just cant even. I grow SO much personally because of these little monsters. I stay mobile and driven because of them. I am loved. I love them so.

The point of all of this… is there is no good and bad… there just is life. What an amazing year it has been… what an amazing time to be alive… ofcourse… that could be said clear back as far as we know… and as far forward as we can imagine…. Surely I am not getting my point across… because I do not have the words to express it… other than Grey. So lets move onto some farewells

Farewell to parts of my brain… Farewell to a time that my License plates did not announce my disabilities… Farewell to my 40s!! Farewell to some family and friends… Farewell to a version of me that I have outgrown… Farewell to some ability… and mobility too… I must say farewell to some things… in order to make room for new things… Farewell to some of the darkest personal times of my life (yes, this year, I unpackaged some of those containers and climbed inside of them and hid in the darkness where I wallowed in the pity of it all… and then stopped)

So if the best analogy I have come up with for this place that I am in… is two sides of a coin… and life is one big coin toss… Throw the fucking coin!! and lets do it again and again and again.

I would like to pause and acknowledge… I didn’t write this year… I didn’t write birthday letters… I didn’t do a lot of things… but the other side of that coin is the things I did do… and I am so grateful each and everyday for the people that make it possible. (I am one of those people as well) Love is the religion I cling too… and it has brought me so far!

my original angel girl
JOY!!!
My sponsor of all adventures. My Partner. My Best Friend. My Most sexy human!
OMGOSH How lucky was I to share a cup of chowder with these humans. Thank you for that!
Getting to know family I didnt, and laying to rest some I also didnt. and all of it was perfectly grey!
These girls… my heart.
My Tolman and Sippy Cup Corner
My Badass Tribe
My Son. My God I love him.
Mar 05 2022

STORYTELLERS

Author: Kerry

Oral tradition tells us the earth began when Crawfish dove into the watery depths of the world and built the first landmass from mud at the bottom of the ocean. From these early beginnings, all things good sprang to life, including Me! So sit right back and I’ll tell a tale ….

Friday the 25th I went to the Dentist at 9 am to have a broken tooth fixed…. that I had cracked … on bread?? two days prior. This is where it started. The dentist felt my jaw crumbling underneath the broken tooth…. extracted it… did an emergency extraction of a molar on the opposite side… cut out the crumbling portion of my Jaw…. resectioned it… and put in bone grafts…. this gave me two black eyes and a black jaw line…. and apparently Covid.

I tested positive Tuesday…. Surprise! TWO YEARS!! for TWO YEARS I have done anything and everything they suggested to not get this…. and here it was finally. 

Pause for the gratitude I feel for the fact that it was now… when there are medicines… vaccines… and room in the hospitals.

and it is a good thing… because even though I am fully vaccinated… and it is supposed to be a mild variant… It tried to kill me with in the first 24 hours. It is really disgusting to tell you about this… but I am a story teller so you get all the details!… I wake up feeling like someone has poured hot cement in my sinuses and chest everyday… Today for the first time, I had the presence of mind not to panic when this happened and choke down advil, which once it has kicked in allows me to be able to cough and swallow until I can breathe.

I’ve been quarantined in my bedroom since Tuesday- literally haven’t left it…. Mr Amazing just keeps sliding me what I need into the room. Ironically when we came to work at home- I bought this hospital tray as a desk…. bahahahaha soooo here I am using it in bed really in bed, not just sitting on a bed. 

Why do I tell you all this? Well… because im not very professional.

While fevered I bought Mr Amazing a Digeridoo… and the cats an automatic laser pointer…. so this has not been for nothing <shrug>

Today was my secretly chosen date for Fairy Citys Annual Emergence (NUMBER 7!!!) obviously that is not happening… Luckily because I made it up- it can be rescheduled … there is something else eating away at this hippy heart and soul of mine… Ukraine. I have already donated every dime I can to help… and I feel completely helpless… I know that this will not mean anything to anyone but me… but I am dedicating my Fairy City this year to those brave people… to anything Anti-Putin …. all the words I paint… all the art I make… it is being acted out right now by those brave souls…. from the farmers laughing as they use a tractor to take a tank… to the people returning to fight…. to the people going to safety to return to fight another day…. they represent everything brave… and good… and kind… as well as the Syrian refugees… and those suffering in Myanmar… no… no not you… trucker convoy people… not you…. them! So on that note… So much love and light to all of you… and as always… We will be the hopeful

Feb 18 2022

A Steady State…

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of 18 February 2022, there have been 418,650,474 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,856,224 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 15 February 2022, a total of 10,279,668,555 vaccine doses have been administered.

Today our Governor held a press conference…. I who in the beginning of this all never missed a briefing. wasn’t aware of it ahead of time… part of my self care has been not watching and waiting … has been basically no “News” at all…. even the weather…. ha ha! So today I got the message that it was going to be a doozy a couple hours before it took place…. promptly forgot…. minutes before it started a different friend messaged and asked if I was watching…. so I did…. Here are the key bullets:

  • By March 31st our response will transition to what we are calling a “Steady State.” Our Department of Health will spend the next six weeks refining plans they have already started to develop to help get us there.
  • Some elements of the response, like testing and treatments, will transition to being the responsibility of our highly capable health care systems. This will allow our public health system to refocus on the elements of the response that a public health system would normally look after: disease surveillance, data collection and reporting, vaccinations, and public awareness.
  • This is not the “end” of the pandemic. This does not mean COVID-19 is going away. Or, that as a state, we are packing up and heading home. We will continue to see cases, and outbreaks, and hospitalizations, and, unfortunately, deaths. But it does mean that we are adapting how we respond to these things.

<Insert Deep Breaths Here>

I am SO ready…. I am Vaccinated… I am Boosted! It has been 2 years…. I have focused so much on the world and community these last 2 years… that I haven’t really talked about what condition I personally am in…. So here’s a run down:

They sent “High-Risk” people home from work- That was me…. Work is critical to me… not the money (trust me LOL) but because of my auto-immune issues it really was the last thing I could do…. Cant walk much or well…. etc… you know the drill…. so work kept me out in the world…. and then it was gone. (Not the work, the out in the world part)

Determined not to lose any strength or endurance…. I launched into some yoga poses…. a stepping machine…. and a drive daily.

All that stopped.

Then the stomach cancer.

Even walking or standing in my own home became hard.

So That Stopped.

Stomach cells of doom scraped out!

Return VERY intermittently to the office.

This week I was in my two days…. Last week too…. 4 out of the last 14 days I went to the outside…. at the end of the 4th day? I broke out in rashes and sunburned joints…. To say that I have lost ability is the understatement of the decade…. I’m not mad about it… hell no… I AM ALIVE…. and I am SO HAPPY to be alive.

But

Well….

I am going to need to get some strength back….

Look… I know I wont walk well again… I understand that without a hamstring walking distances is impossible…. but I would like to be able to sit in an upright position and engage in thought and conversation without it completely draining me of strength and energy…. so I’ve got some work to do.

I’ve got A LOT of mental health work to do as well… as well as spiritual work.

Spring is coming… I say that a lot… like a Mantra…. it is my mantra… this isn’t the game of thrones people! (though it has felt like it)

I am concerned that if right now it were required of me to work in office again full time, I would have to resign… (this is just conjecture btw. none of this is happening) …

I am also concerned with how to go out into the outside and do the things I love… without the people I love…. I have lost so many….

I am committed to doing both of these things however.

Baby Steps.

Now…. Lets take that situation I have shared about myself… my life… my well being… and apply it to the world… when you (like I often do) shake your head at the madness… the foolishness… the cruelty of the world… lets pretend it is me… and help it along… be patient with it… because you love it and know it is worth it (I really am so fortunate to have people feel this way about me, including myself)

Lets have the HARD conversations from a place of love…. and with grace have them often.

Lets not give up… or throw in the towel…

Lets celebrate the fact that we are still here… a little more weak… a little more soft…. a LOT more grey…. but here none the less.

Baby Steps.

After all… like they shouted from the rooftops in the beginning….

We are in this together.

My Fairy Sign Prediction from 2 years ago… is my biggest hope… and promise now.
Feb 04 2022

A Day Worth Recording Here… Both Chilling and Heartbreaking…

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of , 4 February 2022, there have been 386,548,962 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,705,754 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 2 February 2022, a total of 10,040,768,270 vaccine doses have been administered.

Two years after the first COVID-19 cluster was reported in Wuhan, China, the U.S. has surpassed 900,000 deaths from the disease. U.S. hospitals are buckling under the weight of omicron — and it’s forcing them to put off essential procedures for everything from heart conditions to cancer.

The RNC censured Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for working with the Jan. 6 House panel — claiming that the Capitol riot was “legitimate public discourse.”

The Winter Games have begun. The International Olympic Committee, which faced its own criticism for holding the Games during a pandemic again, has maintained it will remain politically neutral. It was the second time Beijing hosted an Olympic opening ceremony. On Friday, it made history as the first city to host both a Summer and a Winter Games.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping was joined by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he met with earlier in the day. Putin’s presence offered a needed ally for China at a time when the nation continues to be dogged over criticism for its human rights record.

I’m not going to further this post… if this has not been bone chilling enough… if you are not aware of the lynch pin theory…. Just remember you saw it here first

So much love and light to all… we are well… my adult children are now scheduled for boosters… we are celebrating every little thing… If we are going to be in this matrix… we are gonna have fun while doing it dammit…

May 13 2021

This house is clean…

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of 13 May 2021, there have been 160,074,267 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 3,325,260 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 12 May 2021, a total of 1,264,164,553 vaccine doses have been administered.

A day worth noting… I literally think that my miss b was most likely the first 12+ person to get vaccinated… she was being driven to get it as the Governor of our state announced its availability … That’s because I was refreshing the scheduling page like a woman who’s life depended on it… oh wait… I am a woman whos life depends on it.

I am SO PROUD of her…. so proud of us…. so grateful. One more shot to go for her… and we will be on our way to life outside again. I seriously cannot express how thankful I am to all the scientists… healthcare workers… teachers…. but today? this kid is my hero!!!

We have a lot going on in the house right now… but I will just leave this post as a pandemic record…. This house is clean.

Mar 30 2021

Impending Doom

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of 30 March 2021, there have been 127,349,248 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,787,593 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 29 March 2021, a total of 519,826,596 vaccine doses have been administered.

In the US? TOTAL CASES 30,085,827 TOTAL DEATHS 546,704 – People Vaccinated 52,614,231

In Utah? TOTAL CASES 384,756 TOTAL DEATHS 2,114 – People Vaccinated 478,918

You see where I am going with this… It is spring… Mr. Amazing and I are vaccinated… in fact as of Friday it will be 14 days from our second shot… This is the yellow light… But already people are done… Little Miss’s mom took her to the mall … I am even guilty of not waiting the full 14 days before going into a home …. inside it! I was able to see where my Small lives…. for the first time… he has lived there for over a year… IT WAS GLORIOUS… the weather has been cooperating… we have gathered outdoors… in masks… but all of us can feel the fear dissipating…

The conspiracy theories around the vaccine are wildly accepted as truths… even as testing for children under 16 begins… all of mine over 16 … My Tall… My Small… Mrs. Small… either have their shot scheduled or have been vaccinated. But the vaccines are only 90% effective and there are variants spreading like … well… a highly contagious deadly virus.

I began to notice more of the Anti-Maskers around town… This is the only place I have driven through in over a year… because well…. COFFEE!!!! Saturday morning it was packed… literally a half hour in line… worth it! But the woman ahead of me had her window down speaking loudly to someone either I cant see in the car… or on the phone… she isn’t wearing a mask… and she doesn’t need to in her car with someone from her home I suppose…. but she does not put one on when she gets to the window to order… and when requested too? Leans further into her car and says loudly “There is that 6 feet?” … I leave money for the “next two cars complying with the masking guidelines” to pay for their coffee… and proceed to hand sanitize after touching the card that was inserted in the card reader… Lysol wipe the card… Lysol wipe the shelf they are setting my coffee on for me to get… Lysol wipe the cup…. hand sanitize again… hope beyond hope that coffee is hot enough and kills any germs inside the cup… drive home… wash hands… remove mask… wash mask. I will continue to do this even though I am vaccinated… why?

How effective is the birth control pill?

If you use it perfectly, the pill is 99% effective. Do you know anyone that has gotten pregnant while on the pill? I have 4 tinys conceived while Tall child was taking the pill…. was it perfectly? I do not know… but her babies are perfect 🙂 and I would like to continue to watch them grow and witness their brilliance. I would like to meet Small child’s first child… and see his first birthday… and first day of school.

People are screaming that we quit living in fear. Cool I guess. I am not living in fear… I am living with caution…. cautions that I hope allow me to continue living. Look, I fully intend to go out this weekend… I am going to enter a store for the first time in over a year… I am going to do it much like I get my coffee… with an abundance of caution… not just for my safety… but for yours… I fully intend to see Miss Betty… and hug all the people… Id love to meet the babies born during the pandemic for the first time… because I have missed so much! I am going to to do as much and as fast as possible… because I watched a doctor from the CDC break script and choke back tears…. I listened to our President ask that people stop opening up so quickly… to keep the mask mandates in place… and I am having Deja Vu…. exactly one year ago I watched as people laughed and joked about this virus… I watched as people rushed stores in choreographed mobs without masks… knowing they couldn’t stop them all… and I watched the world get sick.

Please get whatever vaccine is available to you… as soon as it is available to you… please be kind.

This is not over.

Feb 26 2021

The beginning of the end… I hope.

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of  26 February 2021, there have been 112,649,371 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,501,229 deaths, reported to WHO

This morning at 7:40 am I pulled into a movie theater parking lot 50 miles from my house… I couldn’t eat dinner last night… and had only sipped at half of my coffee…. hardly slept at all. Having no idea what to expect or what to do I waited a moment until I saw others slowly entering the building.

Pause for a moment to realize this would be the first building other than my doctors or dentist I will have entered since last March.

I got out of the car and a just as apprehensive Mr. Amazing did as well…

WE WERE IN A MOVIE THEATER!!!! it felt surreal… There was no smell of popcorn… no movies playing… There were about a dozen people inside waiting … either waiting to get vaccinated… or waiting to help us get vaccinated. We checked in and sat… six feet apart… in masks… we watched as the courier brought in the cooler full of doses for us… again… I cannot describe how bizarre this scene is to take in… and then they call my name… and take me into one room… everything roped off and arrows guiding… I stand where they tell me to… and sit when they tell me to… and then it happened.

The nurse giving me the injection begins to tell me what to expect and then she looks at my card… and says… Lupus! I guess you really just don’t know what to expect next. Truer words have not been spoken. I am then escorted to another theater room…. where I am reunited with Mr. Amazing (who also was able to get his shot while there with me) to be monitored for a time. The seats are numbered for spacing and sanitation purposes…. there are huge medical tents in front of the dark screen… and I can only help but hope beyond hope that soon… I will be here again… when it smells of popcorn and goodness… and there will be a movie playing.

After some time… we were told we could go… and we did! holding our cards like they were golden tickets from willy wonka himself.

You guys… I think we are going to make it… and I am so grateful!

Jan 27 2021

And then… Fairy City turned 6

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of 27 January 2021, there have been 99,638,507 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,141,468 deaths, reported to WHO

I find myself blogging less and less about the pandemic as we are at its one year mark… maybe because I have gotten used to being in my home all the time… maybe because though my heart hurts without my adult children and grandchildren… my heart hurting is starting to feel normal… the vaccine is making its rounds… front line workers first… educators… then the elderly… as it should be… it has not reached me yet. I went to the outside yesterday just to have some routine lab work done and you’d have thought it was an event… rather than 45 minutes outside of my house. I even wore a bra.

But as the sun came up this morning unnoticed behind a grey cloud filled sky I took a trip down memory lane… which for me… with short term memory problems… was quite a bit of magic within itself. I have completed my prep work for Fairy City’s annual emergence. I say prep work… because my trip down memory lane showed me how much more I do once it is out…. who knows what this spring will bring… I do know my San Diego Fairy is coming to set up… and at the moment that is what I look forward to the most… Spring will bring warmer temps… and the return of outside time with my friends and family (and babies!!!) until the vaccine can be widely distributed and I have hope we can put this pandemic to rest finally…

Ode to my San Diego Fairy: guys… this girl… when I got the tumor and had an existential crisis about my new normal… I thought I’d have to give up my shenanigans… I already depend so much on #MrAmazing and my kids to take care of me … this was too much to ask… so this daughter of mine from another mother… and father… said she’d be my legs… she flies herself out here to lil #bountifulutah to put my art out… and to pick it up… and I just couldn’t be anymore grateful #fairycity wouldn’t exist without her and I love her like my own. (And I love my own sooooooo much) and we recycle everything!!

From my Facebook page

I looked at the very first fairy doors I made in 2016 (they can be found with enough research either on this blog or on my insta) it was april… I made six doors just as a random act of kindness and asked someone to be my get away driver… because I didnt know how they would be recieved (thanks fluff!!!) … I ended up doing about 40 doors… some mushrooms… some lady bugs…. that year… I got my first thank you note from kids… and I was hooked… That was the very year I got sick… though we didnt know what it was yet… it certainly was something… and I often painted and hot glued in bed the second year- 2017 -I made my first flowers… I wanted to branch out and gave the Thought Bubble project a trial run… along with about 80 fairy doors here in town… I shipped another 20 or so all over the country… and a few even internationally. In the fall of 2017 I did the arts festival… and the reason box campaign (yes I would classify these as campaigns of kindness) In 2018 (Year 3) the thought bubbles gave way to rocks… as I was constantly trying to get rid of the few remaining pieces that were not biodegradable (the wire, the glaze) 2019 brought those solutions… the project was now fully nontoxic and biodegradable…. This fairy season between year 3 and 4 also brought the Tumor… the Lymphoma… and a Lupus diagnosis.

2020… Rumblings of quarantine were around… but I had prepped my biggest year yet… this was the year of the street signpost… and the opening doors… this was the first year I was going to try to do more to remind people of more than kindness… to do more… and on the first day of quarantine… fairy city emerged… all at once… in a big way… because I couldnt see staging it with all the hope deflating from this planet like a popped balloon. I put out around 100 doors… many tiny games… and small fun items… the fairies joined in the “Black lives matter” movement… and the health initiatives about masks…

It is now 2021- I have a new goal of Upcycling all of my street art… making it from things that were something else before… of having no waste… and still being completely biodegradable and non toxic… I would estimate I am 99% there… I say that though some of the material was bought… it was bought in the pandemic… when businesses needed support… it was given to me as gifts… for my birthday… for christmas… as acts of love and kindness… I consider this an upcycle… as it served 2 purposes…I am six weeks away from the San Diego fairy coming for the great emergence…. This is the year of the Fairy Houses. Im nervous and excited. I hope they find who needs them the most. I hope however they are received they bring joy… and if not… they have brought me much.

Joy even in the pandemic.

Here is to year 6… Happy Birthday Fairy City…. and many more.

and now… to think upon year 7… what shenanigans can I get up to?

Jan 20 2021

A Brand New Day

Author: Kerry

Globally, as of 20 January 2021, there have been 94,963,847 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,050,857 deaths, reported to WHO. The United States broke the threshold of 400k…. Utah broke the threshold of 1500.

After all this time…. the year that seems like a decade… President Elect (as he was still at the time) finally acknowledged our loss in the most beautiful Covid Memorial service last night… the bells in DC tolled 400 times… here in Utah… ours tolled 15 times.

“If there are angels I think they’re the nurses (medical staff) working through this pandemic”-President Elect Biden (for the last day!)… I completely agree… Thankyou for the memorial and reflection…. yes these are photos of my computer screen… yes I always want to remember where I was. Ready for some more pictures of my computer screen… because lets talk about today!!!!

It started for me at 5:30 am… at which time I declared loudly I was not getting out of bed until he (who must not be named) was gone… see I live in the Mountain Standard Time Zone… and the departing President was in the Eastern Time Zone… and scheduled to depart at 8am… so I closed my eyes again until it was so…. I then leapt out of bed and hopped in the shower… singing “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair” the entire time. Note: this is the only time in my life I remember singing in the shower.

Then I moved my office (back to the living room) and put on pants! yes pants for work… because I am ready to try again… I am ready to work on the world again… I am brimming with hope.

Yep! Tons of more pictures of my screen… sure… there are the professional pictures online… but I want to remember where I was… that I was sobbing uncontrollably.

Soooooo many tears of joy and soooo many tears of release for what we’ve been through… not just the prior administration … but being a woman! The barriers and ceilings of race and inequality – Kamala Harris broke them!! “This is our historic moment and unity is the path forward!”- President Biden!

And I was Singing the National Anthem! Clapping like a fool! Hand over my heart alone in my living room! Amazing!

I washed my face… and continued my day of work… but the smile never left… and I have so many reasons to smile.

YEP!!!! Grandbaby on the way!!!!

and so I leave you with this…. as so PERFECTLY said during the inauguration.

Brave enough to see it (the light) and brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman
Dec 03 2020

The Superhero and The Secretary

Author: Kerry

Before I go onto my story I would like to mention this pandemic is still raging out of control… but there is hope in the spring… the vaccine is coming.

Globally, as of December 3rd there have been 63,719,213 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,482,084 deaths, reported to WHO.

Worth mentioning however…. this will be my first post since the beginning of this thing that is not about this thing…. maybe with hope is coming some healing.

At first, When I became sick… I felt like my life was falling apart… doctors suggested it was stress… and thanks to Mr. Amazing I was finally to a point in my life that I could stop being the breadwinner and live a bit more simply…. So I left my big world traveling career… and with a book in mind… that a publisher friend whom I’d sent the synopsis to had already shown interest in… I left… I wrote the book… It won top mentions in writing circles… I never even submitted it for publication… because I wasn’t happy with it… and didn’t want to put the work into it that it would require to become great… Don’t get me wrong… I have it… and I will one day… when the wind blows me that way.

Hold on tight… The wind blows me all over the place in this back story to my super hero life.

Out of nowhere… I began to paint… Yep paint… Id dabbled here and there… but when you make a list of things you can do to be mindful and release stress… Travel (I did this quite a bit as well) … Painting…. etc… you get the idea… Infact ALL of this is captured in the posts of this blog.

Well guys… I’m a worker bee… a real over achiever… and I have been working my entire life…. So soon my home was overflowing with Paintings… everyones room had them… my friends had them… and soon my street art project was born (Fairy City- Search it)

During this time I contracted for a while… doing the same type of work as I had in my career… but part time… two years in fact I did this… and regardless of what happened with that… I feel like we were wildly successful.

But I was getting sicker… sneaking into the office early to disinfect everything I had touched because I had strep… or pink eye…. or whatever else happen to be the case at the time… and the sicker I became the angrier I became…contracting ended and I did an art show (like hurricane force wind changes)

I knew until I got healthy I was never going to be able to work like I had before… so that became my focus… I applied for a job at the state… not for the pay… but for the benefits…. but in order to work… I knew it was going to have to be something I believed in… So I headed to education… because I had at this point figured out I was a superhero of the streets (again… Fairy City LOL) but I needed to feel good about my daytime work as well… how could I affect the change in the world I wanted to see? Education. But, I needed no stress… and nothing hanging on me incase I disappeared due to whatever invisible thing was trying to kill me. So I landed a job as Executive Secretary in the EXACT right place… my disguise was almost complete…. add a couple tumors… some lymphoma…. chemo drugs… oh and kill the hamstring. PERFECT! No one would ever suspect who I really was… including myself.

Pause for a moment:

I HATE THE WORD SECRETARY- I HATE IT… yet, I applied for it… and loathed it even more. I have a degree… my mind is brilliant! unless I am forgetting simple words… or have brain fog… it works a thousand times better than my body at this point… and it works fast… it thinks of new ways to do things… better ways… it thinks out of the box! It gets shit done guys! My pride became my nemesis… My ego was mountain high… and it wasn’t okay with this new title. I had a lot of work to do on it…. and luckily as I went from hospital bed… to cane…. to wheelchair… back to walking sticks… I had the time to do so.

Story Continued: Job openings have been posted… and my DREAM job was one of them… a director position in Equity…. The REAL ability to put all those ideas and words I painted on fairy doors into action. I had the qualifications… and the reputation in the building (or so my ego, coworkers, and husband tells me) … and I stopped short … I have an autoimmune disease… I am barely hanging on sometimes… I have to lay down after I shower…

How could I maintain any kind of ethical integrity and apply for that job knowing I am no longer able to do it… Knowing that walking into a campus is all the walking I can do for a day… and suddenly… I didn’t hate the word Secretary any more… Most people with my diagnosis would be on disability… I am a force to be reckoned with… one these diseases have not faced before… I AM THE SECRETARY!!! I am affecting as much change in this world as I am able… and a bit more… and that is good enough….

Moral of this story? Sometimes the phrase “It is good enough” is literal… I am good enough.