Honor your Truth 2023-2025
Prior to 2023, I was feeling a little dazed and confused having left my job in Door County where I had worked for so long. I won't say it was to be expected, but it certainly wasn't a surprise. I couldn't seem to get out of the "transition phase". I was still playing music, even working on a new record. I had hope for the future, now that I would be settled in one place and have a more reasonable schedule. That was the rough draft plan anyway. ​But I still didn't know how I was going to make a living. I'd like to say I was brave, that I gave myself half a chance, but I couldn't sit in the discomfort long enough. I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to take care of myself no matter how much evidence I had accumulated to the contrary. It's a fear I've never been able to shake. So I jumped at the opportunity to go back to the Day by Day Cafe where I had worked before taking the job in Door County.
The DAY BY DAY CAFE had been, quite literally, home to me. Before I bought my house, I lived in an apartment above the kitchen. I would come down in my pajamas to grab a coffee before heading back down to work. It was my first job after going to treatment at Hazelden. The Day by Day was a hub for recovery, bustling with all kinds of crazy. It was and is just as much a part of who I am as Julies had become. So that's what I did, I went backward rather than forward. I returned to a place I loved and had missed so much. I am very grateful they welcomed me back, and in some ways, it's been exactly what I've needed, a godsend so to speak. In other ways, not so much, it was just easier, and good enough. It was intended to be a place holder for some unknown future I haven't found to this day.
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I often shake my head and wonder if I ever really left. It's a mind fuck when I'm looking at a sign to "turn the heat down when you leave" that I made 20+years ago, or some art I made that I should have covered with sheets before I left. I flip the switch of a lamp I painted that's caked with dust, kinda broken, but still working, like me. It's just bizarre at times, both real and surreal. Both totally awesome and totally what the fuck, how did I end up back here?!?! Some of the same people still walk through the door, they're just older, also like me. I'm still afraid I'll get an electric shock from the coffee machine at 6am, people still get confused by the early bird special, and "it's the Day by Day" is a common clarifying phrase that explains just about anything that happens there. I love it and I'm so grateful, but I do wonder, what if I had stopped and taken a breath?
I'm basically on call. Which of course, isn't secure enough for me, so I proceeded to round up 5 more jobs, officially entering the on-call culture. Before I knew it, I was working as much as I ever had, getting all stressed out and exhausted again. I could feel the cortisol coursing through my veins and hear the familiar whisper warning me to stop. I had a strong knowing that I was going to make myself sick if I didn't. Yet working until you fall over is celebrated in my world. And anything less is simply average. It's the "devil you know". And I'm guaranteed an income if I'm willing to show up and work hard. It's a distraction, an acceptable excuse for not doing what you really want to do, were you not so afraid. I do enjoy it. It truly matters to me. But it's not personal, not like a song. It's safe. I kept on working more and more, playing less and less. It's a sign that I'm not doing very well. I consider myself more of a workaholic who medicates the consequences with a healthy dose of alcoholism.
​​​Therein began a downward trend of events that ultimately left me lying on the kitchen floor unable to move and feeling utterly hopeless. I did not see it coming, even though clearly, it was headed my way. I don't want to be a Debbie downer as I write this reflection on the past few years, but I do want to tell the story. So, I was working and driving back and forth to Chicago to spend every second I could with my Dad. Which had I still been working in Door County, I never would have been able to do. He passed away that Fall. People say, "everything happens for a reason", that "it was meant to be". Did I unknowingly quit my job so I could be with my Dad? I don't know about that, how it all works. But I will gratefully accept the miracle. It's all one big, beautiful mystery that goes beyond human comprehension. I'm not going to figure it out.
I was heartbroken, but I just kept going. You know, like we do. I was on my way back from a couple shows in Iceland, March 15, 2020. And if that date rings a big ole' bell, that's when the US began implementing travel bans for Covid. I was in such a fog that it really didn't hit me until I witnessed the pandemonium at the airport. However, it was Iceland, so comparatively speaking, it was mild. Then I got off the plane at Ohare. Holy crap. All of us here, on this planet, at this time in history, have been affected by the Covid pandemic. Both in similar and entirely different ways, as well as some we may not even be aware of yet. The experience is stored in our cells. And the goal is to assimilate it as best as we can, ideally in a way that's helpful. Maybe we learned something.
People suffered terribly. I'm ashamed to admit that in one regard, it was a huge relief for me. It was as if someone knocked on my door and handed me a permission slip. It read, "You no longer need to show up. You are excused. If possible, stay home. Not only for your safety, but for your fellow man. "Well, Hallelujah, you mean I don't have to do this anymore?" In fact, I'll be doing everyone a great service by staying home. I don't have to muster up the energy it takes to get out there and engage in life, to be a human being. I don't have to commit to anything, I don't have to make plans, I don't have to go to a friend's birthday party that I will dread until the day comes, only to go home afterward and scan the evening for stupid shit I may have said or done.
Life is cancelled and I won't be booking a gig any time soon. I'm not the only musician on their couch, waiting for things to "go back to normal". And even as the world started to open back up, I clung onto that premise, under the guise of just "being careful, wise". Who could argue with that, without seeming like an inconsiderate asshole? I didn't have to wait for a snow day to just take the fuckin' snow day.​​
Honestly, I still haven't gotten the hang of the new normal. I never got the hang of normal in the first place. I'll most likely be glad I got out there, but it always sounds terrible. I try not to think too much and do things despite how I feel or I'll miss everything that happens on the other side of my door. I won't be laughing my ass off with friends anytime soon locked away in my house. And if God works through other people, I'm pretty much screwed unless I include some people in my day. Even though I'm perfectly fine on my own, I have to let them in. Because people are cool. I want to join the human race, I don't want to miss the party, I want to evolve past the comfort of my bed and blankets. Or what's the point of all this? But it took a while before I began to see it this way. We're all in this together.
Then this happened and I'll try to nutshell it. I had some bloodwork done at my physical which showed my hemoglobin was incredibly low. They wanted me to try taking iron, but I knew that wasn't it. I pushed for test after test because I KNEW something was wrong. I tell you this so you'll do the same if you need to. It wasn't until they had me swallow a camera that they saw it. I had something called intussusception. It's rare and almost never happens in adults. Your intestine collapses in on itself like a telescope. There was a large tumor hiding in there. It had to be removed, along with a portion of my intestine. Basically, they take everything out and shove it back in. But it wasn't cancer, of which I am extremely grateful. So really, it was nothing. I got lucky.
a friend to lend you her cat
Four months later, on my 60th birthday, I had a piece of cake and then drove myself to the ER at 2am. When I was getting admitted, they were like, "is it your birthday?" It was rather comical if it wasn't so terrifying to think I might die on my birthday. I was soooooooo sick, but I tried to wait it out. However, when the 24hr nurse line says, "get to the ER", well then get your ass to the ER. Don't decide to see how you feel in the morning. If I had laid down, I wouldn't be here. There were unforeseen complications from my surgery, and I had a hernia that burst, threatening full-on sepsis. So they took everything out again, fixed it, and put it all back in. I was in the hospital for 10 days. I have a scar that looks like I had open heart surgery, and they couldn't remember where the heart was located. It looked like I was torn open with a jackhammer. But again, I am very grateful.​
friends to leave you messages
a friend to give you an octupus
and some frownies
what you need if you are sick...
You can just go ahead and laugh at what happened next because it IS funny. A few months later my sewer lines burst to the tune of $30,000+. I couldn't believe it. Not only had my personal plumbing blown up, now my house plumbing blew up. Life is so weird. It was as if the universe was trying to tell me something I just wasn't hearing. I knew I was sinking. When I would grab onto something and try to stand up, it literally felt like a demon would kick me back down hard. I know it sounds off the chain but to me it wasn't entirely implausible. Shit kept happening and now it was picking up speed.
I got so depressed I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I was trying everything I knew to get it under control, manageable enough to be able to do the things I know help. I'm used to this. I have had major depressive episodes all my life. This one surpassed my 20's to become the longest lasting. Over the years, I've tried so many in the box and way out of the box methods to treat it. One day I was driving home from my therapist. who had told me I needed to find someone else because she wasn't able to help me which, by the way, is not something one should ever say to an already hopeless person on a Friday. Usually, I'm not a person that gives up. I fight. But I pulled over and thought, this is it, I don't know how I'm going to go about giving up, but I'm going to find out. I was done.
It was strange. I just sat there in my car for I don't know how long and couldn't move. Sometime later, I started up my car and drove home. I kept trying. S-Ketamine was the thing that got me out of crisis. It really helped me but it's not a sustainable way of life moving forward. It did give me enough hope to enter a 2year mental health treatment program. Surprisingly I stuck with it and a certificate of completion hangs on my wall. It's official.
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Some say that we get together with our soul family and orchestrate all of this ahead of time. If I did, what the hell was my end game because I need to get on it. STAT. Luckily, I have a lot of stamina. I hope it holds out a while longer while I'm wrapping this gig up. I want to be able to look back and have it all make sense. I want to feel peace with my life and what I've done with it. The past few years have felt like I've been floating in some kind of holding tank, or God forbid one of those creepy pods, waiting for my real life to pick back up again. I'm not done yet. Here in Earth School, I am not ready to graduate.
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Being in your 60's is likely to bring up the same fears and search for meaning as being in your 20's did, only different. At least it has for me. I felt like I was making some progress with that when I got thrown into an entirely new context. I'm wondering who I am now that everything has changed.Now what? What does this next phase of my life look like given these new perimeters? Fuck the perimeters, No, seriously, fuck the perimeters. I'm just a kid.
As soon as we can talk, they ask us who we want to be when we grow up. And now, just as I'm settling into it, I'm at some aging well conference being asked how I want to spend what time I have left. Like it's gonna be different than what I'm doing now. I want to keep finding out who I am and trying to be that, make peace with that, enjoy that. And I want to be kind. and laugh. Maybe nothing else mattered in the first place? It's really a lot weirder than I thought it would be. Well actually, I don't know what I thought it would be. I thought I'd be dead by now.
Being a senior citizen was not on my radar.I made my first record at 50. Everything is taking me longer than I want because I keep stopping to wonder if I should be doing it. And if the answer is yes, then I have to get past all the reasons I shouldn't want to be doing it, the rules, the fears, the stories, the things I learned. It's all very time consuming. And here I am.
My last few shows before the pandemic were great. I was starting to feel right, like I was doing what I was always meant to do, what we are all meant to do- be ourselves and tell our story. I was writing. I felt alive. Now after all of this, don't tell me I'm done. Keep your mouth shut and let me believe I have forever to keep becoming myself and ok with it all.
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I know I'm not the only one out here in a fog wondering what the hell happened? We went to bed one night and woke up 60 and we're getting asked if we want to be cremated or not. But no one is forcing us to put down our guitars and get off the stage. We don't have to assume a role defined by someone or something else. We write our own stories. We get to choose. I'm still amping up when it's time to power down. But who says I have to? Seriously fuck that. I'm leavin' the music on, it's not over yet.​​
dude, seriously, wtf was that? those were some pretty weird years Debbie?!?!
that, my friends, was a shit show... let's bust a move
