Changing just the URL also allows me to keep all of the old entries, from my time in Liberty, which was what this blog was about previously, to my three months in Maine at my parents' house in between living opportunities, to the promise of a new adventure and a new start in Bend, Oregon. (And Newport, Oregon for a month before that.)
So, voila life! Celebrate the flow and continuity of life, as it moves on, and meanders, first here and then there, every which way, much like the picture of the river in my title. (Which is an actual picture taken from Bend, by the way. The Deschutes River.)
May my life story meander further in a direction in which is more pleasing, enjoyable, and adaptable than in the months and years previously. We can only wait and see, and hope.
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This is the first entry I posted when I first made my new Bend blog.
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Welcome, Welcome, come one, come all to the grand debut of Learning How to Bend!
As soon as I figure out how to fix all the colors and settings, it'll be much prettier. :) I did it with my first blog but I can't seem to find the same setting for this one. Oh well - the words and ideas are obviously much more important than how it looks!
Learning How to Bend is an idea that has been kicking around in my head for about six weeks. Finally, tonight, I decided it was time for its inception. Its birth. Its start in the world.
About six weeks ago, I saw an ad on MCS Safe Shelter, a list for people who have chemical sensitivities, for a woman in Bend, Oregon who wanted a roommate. Housing is a huge problem for people with MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity), and there are very few safe places to go. I have moved all around the country in the last two years - most of the New England states, Montana, New York - looking for a place to live that is safe for me. Because I react to so many substances and to so many things, I can't tolerate most, or just about all, of the apartments that are on the market (especially in my price range!). Finding a stable living situation has been my goal for the last 2 years. And despite trying valiantly, it is one that has consistently eluded me, causing, as I am sure you can imagine, no end of frustration and trauma.
But, when one thing doesn't work, you have to just pick yourself up and move on, somehow. Wasn't there a Jo Dee Messina song called "No Time for Tears?" Maybe I'm imagining that. Anyway, tears are okay as long as you keep moving, keep thinking, and keep trying to find situations that will work.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the ad on MCS Safe Shelter. I was shocked, shocked I tell you!, because in two years of reading this list, I do believe it's the first actual ad for housing available that I have ever seen, despite the fact that offering housing to people with MCS in need is the very function of the list. Usually, people post saying that they need housing, but no one ever posts offering.
So, when I saw the ad, I was more than a little bit skeptical, (that I was really reading such a thing, that it had any chance of working), and definitely more than a bit hyper (it was in an area of the country I actually wanted to live in, and was in my price range), and had very mixed emotions as I sent off an email query to the email address listed. I got a reply almost immediately, however, and my hopes began to go up. It was like being on a roller coaster, wondering "Will this work? Will this not?"
After a few weeks of very intense emails back and forth between the woman with MCS who is renting the room (I will not be naming this person by name or giving much information about her, but for background information, it is a middle aged woman with a four bedroom house who has knowledge about both of the disabilities that I have, Asperger's Syndrome and MCS), I decided that the woman and I seemed to get along pretty well, that there no major reasons why I shouldn't try this, and that I wanted to give it a go. Plane fare from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon is actually cheap for a one way ticket, and I had a credit on United anyway.
After two years of moving, I have very few belongings left, so it's not hard for me to move my stuff. It's just a matter of getting on a plane, crossing your fingers, and trying as hard as you possibly can to be in the right mindset so that you can deal with all the new stuff coming your way!
Anyway, perhaps I will expand on that later, but that is the story in a nutshell. After deciding I wanted to give it a go, we spent several more weeks trying to figure out a date. Like I said, I live in Maine right now, so it's no easy trip to get there; it's certainly doable with some planning, but it does require planning. To make another long story short, I found yet another MCS woman to stay with on the coast of Oregon (Bend is in the central part of the state) for a month, because my friend in Bend needed some extra time to get her house and herself ready, and I needed to get out my house as soon as possible due to some tension and issues I am having living with my parents. (Parents mean well, certainly, but living with them even when you're healthy is hard for anyone; living with them when you have multiple disabilities that cause tension in the house is almost impossible.)
So, anyway, to summarize this story, about seven weeks after I met this woman, everything is set and planned and I am just so thankful to finally have a plan of action and something to look forward to.
As of Sunday, I have finally made airline tickets. It is official. I am leaving on
Saturday, May 2, 2009, at 10:46 am.
Anyway, I decided that because it is now official and I have plane tickets to leave in about two weeks, this would be a very good time to start the blog I have been thinking about for so long. I am hoping it will give me encouragement and motivation to do the best I can in the two remaining rather difficult weeks I have left.
It will make everything seem more real, I hope, and give me a place to think over things.
When I began to think
about moving to Bend, one of the first things I thought was "Oh, MAN, do I have a good idea for a blog about that!"One of my favorite songs at the time was Gary Allan's country song "Learning How to Bend."
Lyrics here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/allan-gary/learning-how-to-bend-22953.html
So, I thought to myself: Ha! The name is three fold:
Learning How to Bend: definition.
1. Learning How to Bend signifies learning how to grow emotionally, physically, and in whatever other way I can. It's about learning how to become more flexible mentally, how to be more okay with changes in my life, with stress, with problems. It's about learning how to take the lemons and make lemonade out of them, to be totally cliched. I want to heal myself. I want to be a better person. These things cannot come overnight or just by wishing them. But hopefully, they can and will come through experience, through pushing yourself just a bit, through going out of your comfort zone to try something new that just might work. That is what Learning How to Bend means to me.
2. The country song.
3. Obviously, Bend is the name of the place I am going.
Yes. So. There are a lot of obstacles I have to overcome between now and when I go. There are many things I have to do to get ready (well, actually, only a couple, but they are exceedingly difficult and as of yet there is no clear way to actually do them, other to hope and keep trying). And I am having a lot of problems with morale, health, and worrying. Today was a particularly bad day. That caused a lot of worrying and dysfunction. SO. I am going to say to myself: Think positive. Think Oregon. Think of all the wonderful things that will happen when you get there. Think of the opportunities. Think of the possibilities. Believe it will happen, and that you can move forward.
I would write more, but I have to make some chicken before I go to bed. I am trying to go to bed earlier than I normally would for the sake of keeping peace in this house, several hours earlier, so that means I have to condense my nighttime activities into much less time. Oh well. It's worth it if it keeps the peace. I kind of feel like this post is like Swiss cheese, though: too many holes, too much stuff left out. But the basic info and the spirit is there. So, I have to go make my chicken. And I will try to be inspired by the creation of this blog and the beginning of a new journey, which may be hard at many times, but will be ultimately worth doing. I will learn new things, I will have new experiences, it is something worth working hard to get to.
I will probably post old relevant entries from my other blog here at some point.
Here's to Bend! :)
Kate
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