Sacrifice

Right now I'm having to give up my life to take care of my dying grandmother and grandfather who are on hospice. For some reason, my grandmother decided to die before grandpa, so she wouldn't have that responsibility but maybe that's a good thing since grandpa makes more money on retirement than she does.

For two years they've been in an independent living facility but now they must move because they need additional care that can't be provided where they're at. Where to? I have no idea. I signed up for CalRegistry with a list of boarding houses and dubious results. Most are for-profit and range $4,000+ for two people (plus extra costs of deposits, etc.).

As of now my grandmother receives 24-hour care that will cost $15,000+ a month. We signed up for this on Saturday, October 17th, 2015. There's also a $1,584 deposit and a clause that states if you hire one of the workers outside the company, you're liable for $5,000. I put this on my credit card and had to rent a car for about a week, since taking public transportation would be a 6 hour commute from San Francisco to Antioch.

There's not much I can do in this situation that keeps getting worse everyday. I've never seen my grandmother this bad. For most of my life, she's taken care of me. She got guardianship of me when I was 11-years-old after a several year battle with courts who wouldn't let her take care of me after my drunk mother abused me. My father was never in the picture.

As a teenager, I've seen her health failing and went through her ordeal of a broken leg, and a broken hip, which woke me up to the realization that she was an old woman and that I had to take on more responsibility. Later on, I had to manage the household bills, finances and more responsibilities.

I was made Power of Attorney when it was obvious my uncle didn't want any responsibility for his mother. My aunt got Alzheimers and couldn't be in this role and was later removed as Trustee for the living trust. Another distant relative had helped us but was removed when they started arguing about money and how my grandmother was spending it. Before I knew it, I was made Trustee. I was the only one helping them at this point.

I never had any long term goals in life because I always had to prepare for the moment when I would have to take over when grandma and grandpa got ill. I never married, never had children and only briefly got a place of my own before I had to give it up again. I was never truly independent from my grandma.

The family was only sparsely involved and they have problems of their own. I can't rely on them, as it has been proven time and time again that they're not reliable.

I had a nervous breakdown and tried to commit an act that would be considered suicide. Because of the actions of others, I had to suffer an ordeal that took away my housing and ultimately my freedom. My father helped me through this briefly, after having surgery for a heart attack he suffered while under stress from his job and his girlfriend and her problems. He wasn't prepared to help me and didn't know how to handle the situation, thus leaving me in the hospital until I threatened to call a lawyer to get out. I stayed with him and his girlfriend briefly, along with the girlfriend's granddaughter, but it was obvious I wasn't wanted there. As a result, my father and I don't speak to each other.

I stayed with another family member for several months while I tried to recover and eventually got a job that I would have to quit because of their bad temporary management. What I did not know was that this family member, (husband of aunt with Alzheimers) was also suffering from dementia. Nobody had bothered to tell me this. One day he said to me, "I'd like my room back" and then I had to scramble to find a place to stay so I wouldn't be on the street. I ended up staying with my grandma and grandpa at their place until I luckily found a place to live in an SRO (Single Resident Occupancy) hotel in San Francisco.

I have savings from when grandma and grandpa told me to save money, "for when you're on your own". Well, this was it, I was finally having to survive on my own, without help from anyone.

I kept my job for a few more weeks but then had to quit due to the stress of "psychological bullying" and sabotage. I didn't know how hard it would be to find another job. I hunted Craig's List for a month or more and interviewed for jobs as a night-shift worker at a hostel and hotel since I had no Master's Degree and no "work experience". I did one stint for one day delivering some drinks around a neighborhood but this didn't work out. It was only by luck that I found another job.

Currently, I have had to take leave from my job and I don't know when this will be sorted out.

It's up to me to do everything. No one has been helping me. My family, for the most part don't want to be involved. My brother has a problem with his father that he's dealing with and his own drama. My aunt is oblivious and just managed to set up the accounts online.

When I told my aunt about my situation, she immediately cried out, "You can't stay here! I can't do that!". I never asked to stay at her place, she just assumed that's what I wanted. I told her I was giving up my life to help grandma and that I couldn't live in San Francisco anymore but would have to move in with grandma and grandpa to take care of them. I asked only if she could help with arranging the Trust.

I know now to never rely on anyone.

My other uncle is... unreliable. He is still in care of the house his mother died in, from 2009. He never sold it but kept everything the way it was and nothing has been moved. Getting him involved would be a mistake. No one else seems to understand this. He and my aunt don't speak to each other.

I'm now in charge of where grandma and grandpa have to move to, if we can afford it. I have kept track of the finances and must pay the bills now. I estimate we have barely enough to manage for six months. I don't know anything about loans and I don't want my credit to suffer but I have no choice. Oddly enough, the woman at Bank of America, who is taking advantage of my grandma, signed her up for a credit card for $5,000. We had to pay a $50 fee on the card. She claims she doesn't have my Power of Attorney on file at the bank, so I can't remove this credit card that's in my grandma's name.

Everyone has lost the Power of Attorney papers that we gave to them. Even the hospital doesn't have it. I have to update everything on my own.

I'm trying to work with hospice and several different workers, along with a social worker who is too busy to deal with us much. The hospice people tell me, "Your grandma needs 24-hour care, they should just have two people for her rather than 5 different people coming over." I call the 24-hour care people and they send a bunch of women who can't lift grandma because she can't move at all. As a result, her rib is broken by them. We got the x-ray this weekend, a week after it happened. I'm not in charge of staffing these people who often don't show up when they're scheduled. I may have to pay them over-time as they call workers to fill in.

I'm in charge of everything, including the pills. Grandma isn't aware of things much and the care people can't administer the drugs since they're not nurses. Hospice manages the prescriptions. I have to write all the pills down, their dosage and arrange them. I've had to help grandma change her diapers and clean her up since there's only one worker to lift her and some women can't lift her at all. Since grandma's rib got broken, she doesn't trust women to lift her (we think it was one of the women, we don't know who, that had broken her rib). Sometimes she won't allow a man to lift her either. Sometimes she doesn't want to be changed at all. It took over an hour for me and another woman worker to change her in bed. Grandma refused to have a hospital bed. Grandma refused to be changed.

Grandma made me swear not to let this happen to her but it's already happening and there's nothing I can do about it. We think we can have control of our lives, but we are wrong. We are nothing but slaves. Slaves to society and the stupid law that we cannot take our own lives when we are past the point of living. If we lived in Oregon, we could arrange it with doctors that when grandma decides she is too miserable to live, when she doesn't eat anymore (as she had done), that it can be arranged for her to die on a specified time with doctors and witnesses present. It would be easier on the family and not a terrible shock, to have all this arranged beforehand.

But no, we cannot control our own lives. We must suffer until the bitter end.

"I waited too long..." My grandma said to me. "Just like my sister, she waited too long..."

Grandpa doesn't want to live without her. He won't know what to do.

I don't know what to do either. No one prepared me for this. For years grandma told me what to do in case something happens but at that time I thought I could call on family for help. Now I know better. Now I can only rely on myself. Anything I do, any choice I do, could and will be the wrong one. I will be blamed no matter what.

They told me, "You don't have to sacrifice yourself, they have help." They told me, "Your grandma needs more care than we can provide, you have to arrange something." I thought I could take care of her, I said, "I'll move in with her. I'll give up my life to take care of them" and no one said otherwise. "Oh you're a good granddaughter!" they said after that. But when I arrived on Wednesday, I found out I couldn't even lift her or manage everything that I had to do. "Well, you can't do it yourself" they said after they expected me to do everything. Everyone looks to me to solve the problem they don't want to deal with. No one ever thought of me needing help. Whenever I asked for help they quickly left town or made arrangements. "I'm too busy! I won't be here!". They said, "Sorry!". Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

What about me? What's going to happen to me? When the money runs out after I paid for grandma and grandpa's care? When I'm left with nothing? What about me? I have no other family except grandma and grandpa. I'm all alone. I don't have a husband or a wife or children to help me. I don't live in an apartment but in a slum-house in the poorest neighborhood of San Francisco. I don't have a car. I only have what grandma and grandpa gave to me. What am I going to do?

I have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Grandma sacrificed plenty for me, but at that time her children were grown, she had a husband and his income to support her. At the time she had her own house with him.

I have nothing.

I'm sacrificing my life for my dying grandparents. No one is helping me.

I'm not sure I'll have a life after this. Right now I'm reading about all the homeless people of San Francisco, "Life on the Streets" by SF Weekly Staff, and how "they got that way". Many had a rough start and had to rely on themselves to survive. I'm not much different from them. I will also be homeless soon.

If I choose to live that way.

If I choose to live at all...

Living the Bohemian lifestyle...

I ventured onto Wikipedia for a more exact phrase and use of the term "Bohemian", since that is my moniker online.

I picture myself as a gypsy (and now a vagabond), with hardly any family or social ties save that of work and rent. I am a tragic Romantic at heart and therefore immediately felt a bond with the term Bohemian.

However, as with the case of Wikipedia, I only found references to male Bohemians and not a single woman listed, except as a painting subject who stares dully and placidly out to the public, showing her tits in Renior's The Bohemian (or Lise the Bohemian). Even her name has been forgotten.

Why is it, that even in the art world, a place where women excel naturally, they are erased by men?

Camille Claudel, a famous sculptor (whose works barely survived), was committed to an insane asylum by her idiot brother where her bodily remains are left there today. She never got the recognition she deserved and had even destroyed her own works, possibly in despair. And oh yeah, she had an affair with Rodin... otherwise she probably wouldn't be remembered at all.

On Listverse.com, a blogger known only by the word FLO, made a list of women artists who were institutionalized (most of whom died or committed suicide in the hospitals). The Top 10 Female Artists Who Were Institutionalized - October 25, 2012 (http://listverse.com/2012/10/25/top-10-female-artists-who-were-institutionalized/). Listed is, Sylvia Plath, Camille Claudel, Zelda Fitzgerald, Suzanna Kaysen, Emma Santos, Valerie Valere, Janet Frame, Mary Barnes, Unica Zurn, and Aloize Corbaz.

What's interesting to note about these women is that most of them are diagnosed with schizophrenia, yet only a few managed to overcome their "mental illness" as diagnosed by doctors and gain the recognition they deserved.

I can't help but think mental illness and art go hand in hand, yet for these women they definitely suffered and expressed their feelings through art, even though the public shunned them for it. Some gained recognition, which in a few cases granted them their freedom from the institution or in the case of Janet Frame, allowed her to escape the tragic fate of lobotomy.

Lobotomy was a cure-all for any mental illness at the time, a horrible fate that John F. Kennedy's own sister didn't escape from. Chopping pieces of brain out to cure a so-called mental illness or defect in the brain is crazy in itself. I'm surprised such medieval nonsense survived in a time just prior to a man landing on the moon. It just tells you how crazy and uneducated doctors are even by today's standards.

Women have always been condemned in this country for acting out-of-the-ordinary. Look at the Salem Witch trials. Need I say more? Burning women to death because of a stupid accusation.

Even today, I can't guarantee these women would be safe with their art or from being locked up. I take a terrible risk by writing everyday and by leading an unconventional life that is very different from most women on the planet. I am a female Bohemian, the likes of which very few survive.

Marta Becket, a woman ballet dancer, went to the desert to fulfill her dream of opening her own theatre and left the rest of the glamorous world in New York behind. In the film, Amargosa, her life is portrayed and shown as it is in the movie, where she is still dancing close to the age of ninety. She is a true bohemian. (http://www.amazon.com/Amargosa-Marta-Becket/dp/B000JLTSBW)

In my quest to find more Bohemian women, I resorted to entering "Women Bohemians" into Google and low and behold another great blog piece popped up. Black Women and Bohemianism by Stacia L. Brown - Clutchmagonline.com (http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/07/black-women-and-bohemianism/). Granted, I don't know who any of these women are but it brings about another subject of the Bohemian lifestyle that is often ignored, race.

Plenty of women, Maya Angelou, Ntozske Shange, Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday (to name only a small few), extraordinary women of their time and today leave a lasting impression fit for the title Artist and Bohème. The fact that I can't name a whole bunch off the top of my head though, shows a terrible lack of attention to the Black Women in America, to the Latin and Hispanic Women of America (Frida Kahlo), to the Asian Women in America, to the Native Women of America and so forth. I want to give credit to everyone but history and the realm of men place little value on these women.

I struggle myself as: a white woman with some money in her pocket, who at age 31-years-old, is finally paying rent by her own earnings for the first time in her whole life.

My own mother never paid her own rent in her entire life. My grandmother had my mother at my age and was married to my grandfather (they celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary!). My grandmother never made enough of her own money to pay rent or buy a house and her social security is way less than my grandfather's, whose income from his county job supports her and the place they live in.

The fact that I recognize myself as a Bohemian does not help matters. I don't believe in marriage or in my case, having children. I strive to be fully independent in all things and hate anyone who tries to take away my freedom.

This of course means I'll never have a house, the support of an additional (and much higher) income than my own, no social status or security as a House Wife, I will pay more taxes than anyone else (I pay 37% on taxes a month out of my meager paycheck), I will be less likely to go back to school and get a higher education (No Bachelor's or Master's degree), I will have no household support from anyone else (I do my own laundry, limited cooking, take the bus with no car, etc.), and will have to rely on myself for everything.

That's a lot to give up if you're a woman in this world. I don't like relying on men for money, except for my boss of course, so that means I'm on my own.

Is it worth it?

I don't have children. I'll never have to take them to the hospital or suffer their crying and screaming as babies. I'm not responsible for anyone but myself. I'm not married, so I'm not the property of a husband. I can do what I please without having to ask for permission. I manage my own money and no one save the government can take it away from me. I make my own money with my job. I don't have to clean, cook, sew, iron, do chores for anyone else but myself. I have no pets. I can go out at night and dance for hours, walking back by myself alone without having a man to babysit me. I can flirt or talk to whoever I want without a problem.

Most of all, my time is my own. I can create art, work on my musical, write articles for my blog, go to a museum, write at a café or bar at all hours of the night. I have my freedom as long as I have my own money.

Virginia Wolf described it as, A Room of One's Own, where a woman needed her own money and a room of her own in order to create art, to work in peace without distractions.

I have many distractions... Living in Chinatown carries the noise and hustle and bustle of city life and its many varied dwellers (most of whom are not in their right minds). It provides much fodder for filling pages as I observe the lives and actions of others.

I barely have time for laundry, showering or eating and as I write these words I neglect other work. My late night habits have disrupted any routine I may have had but I realize life happens at its own pace and I cannot do much more than I am already doing. Library books accumulate with their fines, piles of paper stack themselves up with piles of clothes all mixed together which creates a chaos that wastes more time in the hours before I get ready for work.

I barely have time to write. I proposed an experiment where I would use Google to translate my spoken words to text but this hardly brings them to life with so many errors that need correcting, I may as well type the words myself on a computer.

Oh but the time! Where has the time gone? I miss the bus and must walk to work. I miss the bus again and must walk all the way home, though this pleases me more. I must be at work by 3 p.m., do I have time for laundry? No, it takes 25 minutes to wash and an hour to dry... I have waited too long. Do I have time to shower at the gym? Maybe... if I hurry. But do I feel like hurrying? Must I hurry all the time?

Living in the city, you learn to lower your standards by a lot. For $800 in Chico I had my own apartment with walk-in closet, a roomy living room, another hallway closet, a dining room, a dining room closet, a big kitchen and most of all: my own bathroom. Here, I get a 10x10 room with a walk-in closet, a sink and that's it. No kitchen but a hot water pot, rice cooker and metal shelves that serve as my food cabinet. All my food is dry and packaged. If I want fruit, dairy or salad, I go to 7-Eleven. I share a bathroom with 50+ people and it's not very clean. I have a gym membership which I take full advantage of. Still... it's better than being homeless. I have a lot of bills too.

I looked up Dandy on the list of Bohemian traits. It's a terrible likeness that I resemble but I know of no other trait that describes me so well. On the site: mtholyoke.edu (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/boheme/dandyism.html), there is a description of The Dandy:

Aristocratic imitation: Dandies lacked noble blood, connections, and any innate characteristics of aristocracy. They were like actors living out fantasies that could never come true, adopting outward characteristics that aided in this public and personal deception.
Fashion:Appearance and the latest fashion was everything to a Dandy. They delighted in elegance and accessories such as white gloves, etc. A significant part of their day was spent grooming; Baudelaire claimed that he always spent at least two hours at his toilette. They also believed strongly in cleanliness; most probably bathed regularly.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see a female dandy. Perhaps Virginia Wolf's Orlando would more closely fit the bill. Orlando has the luxury of changing from male to female and female to male. I can only do this with clothes, though I definitely have the figure for both.

Where is the female dandy Bohemian that I resemble? Where is my mirror image in the world? I think I must create my own.

While going through a Lesbian phase (yes, it was a phase after all), I had to create the images that the mainstream media lacked: women embracing each other in ads that were always male/female. I took magazine ads, used Photoshop and made strong women, daring women, sexy women with other women in poses that were never seen before. I created another world because the real world lacked what I wanted. I brought these images to life and published them on a webpage. Alas, these images are no more... the internet is a temporary place and nothing is permanent.

I must create my own world and re-define the meaning of Bohème.

I'll start with Specs' Twelve Adler Museum Cafe (bar). I was there just last night and shall go again. It reminds me of the Chico bar staple, Duffy's though with much less sports (I don't remember seeing a TV there). I have found my place, I think.