The Faces Of Crazy

Empaths can take only so much.  We find crazy to be interesting...authentic at least.  Much preferred to inauthentic, barely there, placating, ulterior motive, lying, in any case thoughts not matching words/body language...the reason we prefer to be alone and with animals...these things a rampant in most people.  I just refer to it as 'psychic weight of other people'.  And it doesn't matter how I feel about the people, I could adore them, and still be heavy with their presence.  The only time there is full peace, is in solitude.  Even my beloved pets can be demanding on my soul...which of course I'm happy to oblige...but to get a real true break from it all...it has to be a closed room, and who wants that...or with nature and her creatures only...none who might need me anyway.  

Sometimes crazy is interesting and fun, sometimes dangerous...soul sucking...and once, it saved my life.  Kendra always said, "when you see crazy coming, cross the street"!  She's totally right, but sometimes you don't see it coming until it's too late.  I've had to cut the chord with pretty good but turned out crazy friends a few times in my life because of depletion.  People use me all the time without realizing, it's the healing thing...I'm not a healer per say...but people feel better around me, and if they're soul suckers, whether they know it or not, I will be depleted of my own energy.  If we can't work through it, I have to let them go.  They showed up as sheep but their wolves ate their clothing.  There are some innocent souls though, who show up with crazy fully exposed, and being open to them has been kinda wonderful.  The crazy street people in Denver are a trip, and if you're out late you'll get to know them in a whole new light...star light.  They're drawn to me too, like children and animals, and unless I sense danger, I'll stay for a minute and see what there is to see.  A lot of them, are innocent souls, and don't want to take anything from me...they have gifts to share...they choose to give.

Even when I'm the one who looks like the giver, I've been the receiver of enormous love and gratitude.  The homeless situation in Denver is just awful...heart breaking.  It was bad when I left for Durango, but when I returned 8 years later, it was just insane.  A huge problem for my heart...and I quickly learned that you simply can't give money to all of them...I barley make enough to survive and play just a little...I am a magnet and had to learn how to shield a little better, and how to spot the ones I could help without hurting myself.

...the entertainer...so much joy in exchange for a pack of cigarettes

...the dum dums...sweetest homeless guy ever...child like, endearing

...the hate crimes...dear god, what have we come to...the young man attacked for being gay...holding his hand in the ER...I'll never forget the terror in his beautiful eyes

...wallet angel...good people still exist

...first acid trip and the crying boy with no shirt in the big big snow...and, btw, psychics and psychedelics...not always a good mix

And then, God sent a paranoid schizophrenic to pull me out of the deepest darkest ocean of sorrow.  She thinks I saved her, but the Truth is the opposite.  Diane Smith.  You saved me!  My dear readers, Your life will never suck again if you spend a minute in her shoes.  She was my neighbor.  My sweet sweet Shelby Shepard loved her too, and she was pretty shy.  She came from a not so good home and it took me a few years to get her sure of love and comfy around strangers, but with D it was a whole different story.  Shelby would go home with her occasionally just to hang at her house for a few minutes...it was totally Shelby's idea, it was so cute!  "I'm going with D for a bit, see ya later Mom".

I must have been about 41 when she moved in...just about to take a walk through hell...things were pretty warm already but nothing like the flames that were about to scorch me.  I was coping with getting fired from St. Joe's, and my soul was gearing up for the incredible darkness yet to come.  It was still fresh and I was still hopeful of creating a new life and doing okay when we first met.  She knew me in my darkest hours, and loved me just the same.  The paranoid schizophrenia made her life a daily struggle, but she was 52 and in her brighter hours when we met...compared to where she'd come from.  I could have never survived her life, I'd be dead for sure.  After all of it, she just has this zest for life, every right to be so proud of her little apartment where all her stuffies reside, in perfect order on their bench in her quaint living room...a huge bench for the animals...so sweet.  Her first place all to herself in her whole life.  She loved my house plants...I always wished I could have convinced her to leave a window blind open so she could have had some too...I didn't even try.  She needed them all closed like we need air...you know, so as not to be spied on.  I did help her plant some wild flowers though in our shared back yard, so she'd at least have something outside...she loved them.  

...I just got so sad recalling those days...with Shelby and D and Vanessa and the other awesome neighbors I've had...I can't just head down and check in on her...I've been meaning to, and now it's too late.  I'm not in Denver, can't just hop in the car and be there in 10...I'm so homesick, and I realize that I should be writing the book.  That's why I'm in the desert, to focus on the future and mysticism that has no psychic memories to make me sad.  Going to the past has become hard, not rewarding.  But something took me here today...I just wanted to read a piece I'd been working on and send it off real quick...and I ended up with D instead...I was overcome with homesickness, then suicidal ideation...I don't know whose it is...I hope it's not D...really really hoping that's not what just happened...I don't think she was suicidal, but it's been years since I last saw her, and who knows what that disease of hers will make her do...

I'm over it, it wasn't mine at all...knew that...but it was super strong and the timing was just too weird...oh D...wherever you are, I hope you're in Peace.  If you're living in peace I'm so proud of you.  If you're resting in peace...do it well honey...REST...you deserve it...I'm going to tell the world about you, beautiful soul...how you are the one who saved me.  And now...I feel completely fine...because I was right...I just cried my heart out, mourned my old friend...and the weight of my awful morning lifted...and I became acutely aware that my fantasy "coming out" party as a psychic may not be such a bad idea.  As I was processing what I know to be a loss...I was desperately longing for my husband...the one who gets it, me, completely...the one who will instantly comfort me as though it were real, because he knows it is...without debate or question or consideration of all the other possibilities...cause he knows that's already happened...a long time ago in my natural questioning of any precognitive event.  He already believes and knows that my pain from loss is real...just needs a moment to be... A coming out ritual of some sort would allow for the space for me to request that kind of support from the people who are here...now...not my future husband who may or may not exist.  Hmmm.

I'll finish D another time...but for now...she laid out her life story one night as we sat in my living room sipping wine and smoking cigarettes.  I was speechless...

Openly hated by her mother...D's father was Mexican...all the other siblings were full black...even though you can't tell just by looking, D is half black, half Mexican, and shunned in her hood...

The first rape happened at about eight years old...

Kicked out and on the streets by twelve...

Pregnant by her pimp by 14...

Baby dies in foster care by 15...

Not sure how old she was by the time she was sentenced...but somewhere in there she served 7 years for attempted murder...a decent lawyer could have served her better, but I could say that for every adult and every institution in her life...she should have been placed into a loving medical facility and praised for being brave enough to save her own life by getting him away from her.  He was beating the shit out of her inside and she managed to get away and outside, but he chased her out into the street where she pulled out her knife and stabbed at him...this is of course what witnesses saw, a crazed and terrified woman going after an "innocent" man with a lethal weapon.

She actually did get off the time she shot the man who was about to kill her aunt.

(One good thing about being in jail, is the medical care they're required to give.  This is how she was finally given the proper diagnosis and care for her medical condition, and the proper social care upon her release.  And probably where she found the strength to turn her life around.)

The mountain girl...the devil...omg...she really did hear him tell her things...it was like a movie, the scene she played out for me...terrifying...the stabbing...Satan told her to get a knife and plunge it into the girl, and she did...it showed me that I had to Shield a little more with her, sadly...anything was possible in her fucked up head...

A few more rapes...normal in her dark violent world...unbelievable...and still open to love.

***

I never knew which D I'd get when I answered the door.  She'd come in whatever shape she was in, never tried to hide herself from me.  She didn't have multiple personalities, she was always D, she just had many faces.  Sometimes she was her normal.  Simple but clean and nice clothes, hair pulled back, maybe some light make up but clean fresh face either way.  Sometimes I found 'crazy pink bathrobe lady' (her words, not mine) who didn't care about putting in her teeth today ...or combing her wild hair.  One night she was sultry sexy mama all dolled up, I almost didn't recognize her!  "D, is that you?  What are you up to tonight beautiful"?  It was her birthday and she went out to her favorite club where she used to work as a ladies room attendant "back in the day."  That's what she did as she found her way the hell away from her pimp, and where she started to make her own friends and find her self worth.

One night, she was so fucked up, and she couldn't find her man...and accused me of hiding him.  I didn't try to reason with her, I just promised her that I didn't have him in my house and would never do that anyway, and she went off grumbling and cursing into the night.  An hour later, she was at my door sobbing.  She felt terrible and wanted a hug and to apologize...and all I could think of was the night she stabbed that girl for no reason other than her brain dysfunction showing up as Satan.  I was actually scared of her, that she might have a knife to use on the woman who betrayed her.  I never got over that guilt.  I just couldn't open the door for her.  I assured her that we were just fine, that I wasn't mad at all, and that I'd give a her great big hug in the morning if she wanted to come for coffee.  

I was happy to drive her to appointments, or to friends houses to visit...

I drove her to the hospital the night her sister was killed by her husband...

I drove her to the grocery store every other week, and laundromat any time I could...she was the most observant person I ever met, and she knew within pennies what her grocery bill would come to every time...she added it up along the way, all the while chatting with me and any friends she'd run into...she was fascinating and I really loved her.

And in my darkest of dark days, when it was all I could do to feed my Shepard and lil meow meow, she was the one at my back door, in whatever face she was wearing, with homemade meals..."Honey, you didn't eat today did you?...and what about yesterday?...come...eat...sit with me..."

She thinks I helped her, but the truth is, we helped each other.  I did nothing but show a bit of neighborly kindness.  She's the one who saved me.  Angels come in all kinds of unsuspected uniforms, and they love fuzzy pink bathrobes.