Out of Sane- Falling out of Life
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through life. Instead I found myself falling out of life. Twists and turns, fourteen surgeries causing chronic
pain, leaving me permanently disabled with complete loss of independence. Two soul stealing marriages. All
of it, shrapnel, leading to deterioration into a world of pain, alcohol, drugs, and pills. Walking hand in hand
with mental illness. Th e hate. Th e anger. Th e sadness for what used to be. Th is is my story. It is fi lled with
tears, desperation, love, discontent, humor, disappointment and loss. However, I hope this helps others out
there not to fall out of life as I did and if they already have, or are heading that way, may they possibly fi nd
some solace in not being completely alone while curled up in a ball.
Janie Belaire
Janie Belaire is married to the love of her life. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with two crazy, antic-filled cats: Jack Bauer, a twenty-four-toed Hemingway, and Boudreaux, a sassy ginger and tiny thing. Spanish moss, thousand-year heritage oak trees, their lush garden and koi pond, nature, rain, the animals abound in Northern Florida, “her” horses, and dear family try to keep her “in sane.” She could not live without any of this. “I want to love first and live incidentally.” —Zelda Sayre (Fitzgerald), 1919
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Out of Sane- Falling out of Life - Janie Belaire
Copyright © 2015 by Janie Belaire.
ISBN: eBook 978-1-5035-5247-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
Cover Design by Janie Belaire
Photography by Janie Belaire
All artwork by junkeoverlord
Rev. date: 08/28/2015
Xlibris
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Contents
ARTWORK: COMRADES
Comrades
PART I
Hindsight
Life Altering
ARTWORK: REALIZING
Realizing
You Very Rarely Ever Get What You Want
The Fat Lady
Brevity
Premonition
End of an Era
PART II
ARTWORK: BOTTLES
Divorce
Bring It On
Crossed
Terrorism
Tourist
Stare
Silent Musing
Brothel
Head Full
Smashed
Stepford Life
Brick Wall
1, 2, 3, Say Cheese
Starving
Eight Years Since
Cutter
Locked
Dead Ringer
The Final Hour
PART III
ARTWORK: SARCASM
Anger
Sadness
Pain
Pills, Alcohol, and Other Drugs
My Broken Body
Oblivious on Lake Hutchinson
The Reckoning
ARTWORK: CORRODED
Sleepless
Football Season Is Over
Going and Coming
Recipes
Moderation
Deflated
Wet Dreams
Lost
Contemplation
Lost Days
Circus
Cocoon
Hurry Up and Wait
Kindergarten
WWFD?
The Great Abyss
Snap
Kiss It
God-Fearing
A Bad Habit
Scarlet Haystacks
Sticks and Stones
All Apologies
Breakdown
Electricity Lost
Occupations
Speaking French
Darts
Immortality Lost
Jigsaw
Message in a Bottle
Driving
A Conversation
Free Range
Five Hundred Sins
Perfect Mess
Terrorism
Abacus
Perfect Vision
Cannibalism
Fitted Sheets
Garden of Heathens
Metronome
My Preconceived Hero
PART IV
ARTWORK: WALKING
Salvation?
My Potential Savior
The Music in My Head
Myself Roofied
Packed Mind
Pretty Bed
Frazzled
The Good One
Broken Bones and Bottles
Burning Kettle
Humans versus Demons
Lost in Translation
Life Dreams
Russian Roulette
Bird Hunting
Mother’s Milk
Breaking Ground
Swaying
Judgment Day
In Passing
Gift Wrapped
Downfall
Angels and Demons
Tallahassee
Movement
ARTWORK: SCATTERING
Aftereffects
Corral Love
The Looking Glass
Ferris Wheel
Cats and Husband
Definition
Reader’s Digest Epilogue
Appendix
Additional Poetry by Sophie Gail
Memories
Over the Landscape
Seasons of Love
Self-Worth
Trouble with Math
Introverted Girl
Blessings
Acknowledgments
For Sailor
What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon
Are you in or out of sane?
From Lyrics by Brent Babb
Dead Hot Workshop
Early to Mid-1990s
Comrades.tifI wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist; a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.
—Zelda Fitzgerald, 1930s
Comrades
I don’t know why they call it insane. To me, that clearly means that you have your sanity intact. I prefer out of sane. I heard this phrase, years ago, in the lyrics of a song a good friend of mine wrote, and I was hooked. I have thought about it ever since. What it means to me. What it means, period. When you have lost all that sanity that is supposed to get you through life. To me, that is what it really is. This is my story. My story of slowly becoming out of sane. Starting in on this roller coaster of a journey, I will really be looking back into a cracked and shattered crystal ball that was beginning to show fault lines when I was a child. A crystal ball that really was a snow globe. With the snowflakes of my life disappearing before my eyes or melting on the tips of my fingers. Because things are never what you want them to be. Because you think you have a crystal ball in your hands with plans that will never be altered. Because what was seen inside was just one picture of one time in one life that one wanted to hold forever. By the time this sentence was written, this sentence you are now reading, you could no longer see whatever it was inside. Because it was completely shattered. Falling out of my hands. Shards of glass cutting them. Cutting me. Whatever it was that was me. It was gone. I was gone.
I was finally officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, predominantly depressive, at the age of thirty-seven, which reared its ugly head during my last three years in Arizona. I start with this bit of knowledge blatantly because that is what started it all. Even before I was diagnosed officially. So I left that beloved home of twenty-four years to move to Florida, where my parents were. I went kicking and screaming, but my options had run out, as you will realize when reading this tale of self-destruction and pain. This began when I was thirty-five years old, after a nasty divorce, my second, realizing I couldn’t continue the job I loved and taking a month of mental leave never to return. Then the ultimate change in my life, a horrific accident shattering my leg and later injuring my back and redamaging my leg after five years of rehabilitation and finally being able to wear a shoe. All of which will cause me chronic pain from the nerve damage in my leg, causing me to become permanently and completely disabled as the fall spoiled my leg to the point of no return. And the injury to my back, I had no idea what was to happen with that. At the time.
At forty years old. After twelve surgeries and a myriad of hospital and doctor visit—fun. Needles in my back, nerve blockers to try to stop the pain. Too many to count. Contracting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, from an infection after my second surgery while still in Arizona. This will follow my life as well causing constant monitoring of any open wounds (scratches etc.) My second bone surgery was to reconstruct my leg leftover from a quite pompous emergency orthopedic surgeon. Always there as another internal reminder. It was too close to nerves, never to be removed. Left with a leg that was an inch and one-half shorter than the other. These first two surgeries, never even imagining there would be ten more within the next five years, led to a lowered immune system. And eventually, after my eighth surgery, it led to contracting Clostridium difficile, more commonly known in doctor jargon as C. diff, which is a story in itself. This bacterial infection landed me in the hospital for twenty-three days, three of them in ICU on stroke alert. Obviously this little bastard of an infection is even more brutal than MRSA. Makes it look like a walk in the park. Doesn’t help the ole sanity intact
defense. Time froze, and my life became broken at thirty-five years old, and now, at forty-two, seven years later, I am still scuffling around, trying to pick up the pieces. I don’t know if I can. There are too many, and my eyes seem to be, too often, muddled with tears.
It happened in one step. The beginning of my injuries. The physical ones at least. One step. One step on uneven ground in a parking lot. Me, dressed to the nines in a little black number and boasting my beloved red cha-cha heels, which now hold court in my closet as a morbid reminder. I was on my way to drown my sorrows for the night in whatever bottle or drug or sex I could find. Oh, and rock and roll. For real. It could happen to anyone. Especially when you least expect it. Flying to the moon with your successes and accomplishments. Having