July was a good month, writing wise. It was my second attempt at writing 50,000 words in one month this year. I signed up for the April Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and succeeded in writing 30,000 words, that’s 30K more than I would have written with no effort. May and June were busy personal months with my home undergoing repairs, clearing out my beloved’s robotic “scraps” and learning to live without him. July 1 rolled around and I decided to push for that 50K again! I made it! The last 20,000 words look pretty slushy, weak plot flow, and underfed ideas.
But fear not! One of the prizes for achieving the 50K is a very low cost copy of Scrivener software. It has a nice index card or “cork board” feature that will help my major problems. My female protagonist is still an undefined, barely visible ghost of a character. She is not a ghost so this needs some real work. Once I develop more character depth and the plotline flows smoother, I think I might be closer to 80K length and have a respectable novel and then the real editing begins. One of the things I have learned from NaNoWriMo is to turn off the inner editor and just go for it. I am a technical writer during the day so this is an extremely difficult thing for me to do. The bottom line here is that I achieved the 50K!
My birthday is the first of August so I celebrated by going out to dinner and a movie with a friend. I didn’t want a lot of hoopla about my birthday and my friend didn’t know it was my birthday. I really just wanted something very quiet to spend alone with memories of my beloved. I bought one of those cake slices for two, chocolate for my beloved of course, and filled a cut crystal mug with milk. I watched the sun go down from my back patio. The day ended with cake and reflection of wonderful memories. I feel so blessed to have been loved by such an exceptional man and to have loved him in the few short years he had. He believed in me and my writing ability when no one else did. He continues to give me strength because of that belief and love. I am so glad that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and I will see him again with my other treasures in heaven.
Now, on to my next writing goal. A new idea, a new book, 50,000 more words and the November official National Novel Writing Month. I am fundraising to attend the Night of Writing Dangerously at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco’s Financial District. The theme is film noir and costume is not required but oh so appreciated. A successful November will mean I have written well over 130,000 words this year for myself. 🙂
If you would like to help send me to a full night of writing…. http://www.stayclassy.org/TessaBertoldi Investing in myself is something I am still getting used to.
Tag Archives: grief
Exhausted But Still Writing
Peckish About My Lost Pict
It’s been nineteen months since my beloved was called home to help out Jesus. My beloved was always serving others, I don’t know of a time when he refused to help another. He had the gift of mercy down pat. Me, not so much. I struggle with a sense of right and fair.
I am constantly reminding myself that God never said life would be fair but that we should be. Mercy was my beloved’s best quality and the one that often frustrated me. You see it cost him his life, he kept nothing back and gave it all to others. He tried to follow Christ’s teachings as much as he could. I go from missing him terribly to being furious with him for not balancing his energies and saving something for himself.
I have come to grips with the realization that the people that manipulated him into helping them move while he was suffering from pneumonia will never express remorse or apology. I am choosing to believe that they cared for him and feel remorse; they too may have problems dealing with his loss at 52 years.
My beloved did not love perfectly, but he loved me. Our marriage had a couple of bumps in the road and one rocky patch where I almost gave up. I’m glad I didn’t. He was so sick and was making bad choices, everyone said I should leave him and cut my losses, that the illness would only get worse. For better or worse, right. We made the choice to love each other and our marriage found a new plateau. I loved nothing better than just laying in bed, feeling his arms around me. Now, I have good memories and no regrets. My mother is in her eighties, I may have twenty three plus years left to find peace and balance in my life. I’m working on it!
This emotional tug of war saps my strength. If only I could just wash the emo away with a good cry!
I saw a grief counselor for a brief time. She said people who love deeply, grieve deeply and I should be kinder to myself. I get depressed from time to time but refuse to stay there. He would hate that. I have his ashes on the floor next to my shoes. Mostly because I have to wait to do what I want with them. For now, when I behave badly, I simply roll him over in his grave, laugh, and go on as he would want me to with a, “Top of the Day to You” and a “I live to serve”.
St. Patrick’s Day was a big holiday for my Celtic lover. We didn’t celebrate St. Patrick as much as all things Celtic; he was all Pict as he used to say. He was seventh generation native Californian but still all Pict. His ancestors lived in the mountains and were sheep herders and lumbermen and later a purveyor of fine (and not so fine) Scots whiskey!
My Great Scot is gone (for now) and so ends his pict line. The little Irish girl in me abstained from the yummy soda bread and the St. Paddy’s fixin’s, maybe next year. I did wear green and an Irish sweater, drank pots and pots of tea, and cried for his loss. Maybe next year I’ll bake the Soda Bread with currants.
Sleep well my love; you have earned your rest!
Ti Amo, Tanta Ti Amo Mi Amore!
Sweetest Day – October 19th
One of my fears is that I will get stuck in a rut. That’s not likely to happen, at least until I can’t get around anymore. I subscribe to Trivia Today to help spark new and interesting ideas. Mostly, I get a sense of hmmm, that’s interesting. Sometimes a quote or piece of trivia provokes a rabbit trail of thought. Occasionally, I will take a thought and pen a quick 500 words as a writing exercise. Today’s random tidbits included the origins of matchbox cars, Gumby, Frisbee, Twister, and the game Operation. There’s usually something there to spark interest in a writer’s soul! Gophercentral.com has the Trivia Today ezine as well as others if you want to check it out.
Today, Melissa mentioned a friend who passed away at the age of 32. Her friend’s sister chose to honor her sister’s birthday by 32 random acts of kindness for complete strangers. Melissa was inspired to try a few acts of kindness herself and her cousin joined in. Saturday October 19th is Sweetest Day, or so the florists and Hallmark tell me. I’m in a reduce/recycle mode right now and tonight I will be looking around for something that a random stranger might need. Last night I gave away a bag of empty aluminum cans to an older gentleman who makes his social security check stretch by recycling. That was without thinking. I think I can do better than that to celebrate Sweetest Day and not have to worry about the calories! What is gathering dust in your home that someone needs? Can you think of a random act of kindness to lift someone up? Go Forth and Be Random! (and rut free)
Filed under Writing
My Life is a Circus!
My life is a circus and I have a tent to prove it! It has been a little crazy lately. My beloved was a wonderful man. He could leap tall buildings, fix anything, reverse engineer or design engineer almost anything. I’m not exaggerating, he was a genius and had the IQ scores to prove it. He would give you the shirt off his back and had literally done so on at least two occasions I can recall. But, ah yes the but! He could not say no! Even when it caused his death. A close friend and former mentor had a heart attack and it turns out he was a hoarder. This could have been filmed for a reality show. The hoarders’ adult daughter called and pleaded for help. Mind you she had her family, her husband, her church, her father’s church and many friends in town. We lived over an hour away. But hey, she knew this close friend who could perform miracles and who wouldn’t say no….
My beloved should have been in intensive care with a fatal case of pneumonia. He was resting at home because he feared and hated hospitals. She knew this, you could hear it in his voice and as he coughed up liquid.
The call came and he went on Friday. I went with him on Saturday and Sunday and helped toss over a ton of belongings into a roll off dumpster. I begged, I cried, I watched him bend over and cough out water from his lungs. He came home Sunday night, could not get out of bed Monday and died on Tuesday morning. He was 52.
I do not bear her ill will, I am not angry with her, I think I have forgiven her, I may have to again, but I am not ready to talk to her yet. Maybe when the circus has left town and I can find some balance in my life again. Maybe these relationships just need to gently fade into the past with the pain as time goes by.
It has been one year and I have been fighting the bugs that came home with him all this time. The cockroaches were easy to kill, the silverfish a little harder but not impossible. The bed bugs won. Until I declared nuclear war and called in the fumigators. Food had to be removed and frozen. Anything taken out of the house had to be frozen or heated to over 130 degrees. We had to find homes for our three cats and ourselves for a week. My adult daughter is spending a few months with me to help me with the chaos of my life. We are both chemically sensitive and Vikane gas with a Tear Gas precursor is a very nasty chemical cocktail. It kills EVERYTHING! We have tossed and replaced one mattress and one box springs and had to destroy a lot of food that we either missed or just wouldn’t make the transfers. The tent alone cost $2,640. and other costs are still mounting. The biggest cost has been the life of my husband so the material possessions pale in comparison.
Clean, toss out, reorganize, sanitize…boxes and bags everywhere. I think it is the residue from the tear gas that is giving us sore throats and sore nasal cavities. It is better after washing all the bedding. The hundreds of little black bodies all over the house…who knew how many house flies and spiders we really had, even after a grocery store type of chemical bombing. The vacuum is busy and so are my daughter and myself!
My advice to you, say no when it is appropriate! Take care of your own health first! Regift, REDUCE, reuse, recycle! And so very important to avoid some of this mess….go to Wal-Mart and buy mattress and pillow cases for bed bugs. Put your box spring, your mattress and every bed pillow in the house in one! Strip all bedding, including the blankets, off your beds after visitors and wash and/or at least heat up in the dryer.
The folks at Clark Pest Control have been as wonderful as they could possibly be. They were very aggressive with the process (a good thing) and their sales person, Vincent, called me almost daily during the process. Sometimes three and four times a day. Now that I have “come clean” about my experience, others are confessing their own stories and what we have is an epidemic of bed bugs, especially areas that do not freeze over. Think about it….someone will pay the consequences of our actions, maybe not ourselves, but someone will.
Fumigation Tent
Filed under Family Times, Grief, Travel
9/11/01
Today we remember the tragic events of 9/11/01 in New York City, Washington D.C. and Somerset County, PA. The acts of individuals with hate in their hearts for people who believe differently is considered terrorism by Western nations but heralded as heroic by their brethren.
How will we honor the fallen dead as we march into the future leaving them behind in history? Many of the fallen were average Americans going about their day, victims of hate. Some were truly American heroes that will never be identified as such. I would like to think if I was in the same situation that I would aid a fallen individual regardless of my own health or their diversity, thank God I have not been tested. Who on 9/11/01 gave comfort to someone who was about to die even as they died themselves? We will never know. We can count the servants, public and private, but we cannot count the simple acts of kindness that was experienced at the scene of the tragedies.
September 11, 2001 was a day of great sadness and shock. I was thousands of miles away but witnessed that sadness and shock. Next to an AFB, my daughter’s high school was full of students with both parents in military service. The high school was locked down, the children both proud and afraid for their parents who were immediately activated. My boss was on the phone all morning, his sister worked at the World Trade Center. My daughter’s friend was supposed to be at the WTC with the rest of her extended family, 30 people, for a tour. I can only surmise from my personal experiences 2,564 miles away on this day in 2001 that the entire United States was affected. We were fortunate on the West Coast, my boss found his sister alive but traumatized, the family tour got a late start and missed their tour, counselors were on site for the tearful high schoolers, and all of their parents were o.k. Not everyone can cite happy endings and carry heavier burdens and reminders of this day.
Today I will be volunteering at a free vehicle safety check point, a private enterprise to get motorists ready for the cold weather coming. Yesterday, I took my granddaughter with me and delivered food baskets. I challenge you to find something, small or big, to do today to honor the victims and heroes of 9/11/01. Fight back against the hate by loving those around you. Be America today! Love one another, all of God’s children.
Filed under Grief
An Undelivered Letter – To My Loved One
Kay has expressed my grief so well, some days are good, some days are bad. I push on because my beloved always wanted the best for me. He believed in me more than any other, he loved me and my rambling stories. I thank God for the time He gave me to be with my beloved. I now understand something of what God must have felt when separated from Christ for the first and only time. They await for me, my treasures. For now, I will be the person worthy of being called his beloved.
To you,
I don’t know whether to feel relieved, sad, or guilty. Right now, I feel a little of all three. But mostly guilty. I was dreading the day, watching the calendar as it crept up. But then I got so caught up that it came and went and I hardly noticed. I didn’t even realize until just now that I had missed it. And now I battle this gang of emotions and the only thing I knew to do was this: to write it out. To write it to you.
View original post 608 more words
Filed under Grief
Tessa Bertoldi 