What You Don't Know...

Is what you may assume. As the saying goes... Ass-U-Me.

As I write my Memoir which was suggested that I do so by writer, Mark Jacobs. Mark Jacobs has written for Blackbelt Magazine and has had recently published the 2nd edition of his book "The Principles of Unarmed Combat" with foreword by Gene LeBelle in 2010.
Mark and I spoke in late May this year about his book and then he'd suggested I write my autobiography. He knew full well that even though I'd had several books published over the last 20 years that my background of formal study was in the human body, and business, not in writing.
I'd gone back to school 2021-2023 for studies in music, screenplay writing, data analytics, advanced algebra, writing for law students, journalism, A.I. effecting law, Digital A.I., and five courses in Chinese language-speaking, writing and reading the language, a bear indeed of learning. All this along with my therapy CEUs that I needed in order to keep my license and malpractice insurance. My mind worked overtime. Yet still it'd been enjoyable learning.
So here I was on the phone with a man only about 6 years my junior of my 64 years, he who'd had an interesting life thus far. We had trained together years ago. He'd met my husband,  children and all the pets we'd had back in 2016 on his travels to my basement a few Wednesday evenings after the children were in bed, Mark and I trained in the makeshift gym with puzzle mats covering our rugged basement floor.
Midway, Mark would kid me about how our bunnies and guinea pigs would make a great meal. I never laughed at that, but we both had a similar sense of sick humor. And we're both germaphobes. Or at least we think we are.
This brings me to the last 72 hours of my life. My brother-in-law called to touch base with me on Saturday. We usually do this once every 4-6 weeks. Texting is perhaps a couple times a week for news or jokes.
The two of us will be on the phone for a solid hour, we cover children, his grandchildren, our personal goings on and such. So, here was a man I thought knew much about me for way over 40 years; however, I found out over the last 2 years he had no clue where I'd grown-up. He didn’t know the dynamics of the family I'd come from either.
Evidently, Norman my now deceased husband which has been over 6 years. In our nearly 39 years of knowing each other hadn't informed his brother that much about me. Too, it seems neither had anyone else who knew me and who knew my brother-in-law had.
Also the day before, I'd find out a friend of mine since 1989 who'd met my dad once, as we were on the phone the day before, Tom said, "You're dad seemed like a good guy." That was per him meeting my dad in February 1992. Tom back then was in for a 15K race and had briefly met my dad then in Florida in 1992. It was as I was treating my dad to Disney after the 15K race that unbeknownst to me Tom had entered to race the 15K in Florida as well.
This past Friday as Tom had asked, "How's your dad?" I then remarked, "Ohhhhh no Tom. Let me tell you a couple things... He died years ago."
As some may realize, no matter how screwed up your parents are; quite often you as their child want to appease them. You may push ridiculously hard on working on your end of that relationship with them when you're an adult. It doesn't always work out. Its kind of like meeting your idol that you adored in your younger years, only to find out that they're not who you thought they were. In fact, you ended up disappointed at the very least.
I realized two days ago that my brother-in-law needed a little more information on me. So, I told him the story of my dad having me steer his pickup truck over the Tappan Zee (a.ka.: Mario Cuomo bridge) at age eight on more than one occasion. Too, it also occurred other times whilst dad was either lighting up his unfiltered Lucky or he needed to open up another can of beer while driving. Or perhaps, dad needed to pay a toll and had me hold his beer, hiding it from the person in the toll booth. This was between the late 1960s into the mid-1970s.
After that story, I thought I heard a gasp. Like almost a 'holy sh!$!' gasp. To boot, I was always the goodie-two-shoes kid, the rescuer and so forth of my family growing up.
A similar almost gasp occurred last night in my living room. A neighbor had been collecting our mail as I was gone for the past week. He'd brought over my week's worth of mail that he and his wife had collected for me. I in turn thanked him, and had bought some gifts for them from where I'd been.
We began to chat a little as the washer moaned and the sun was setting. We discussed costs of living. Particularly mine. Real estate taxes, health insurance and the like. He said, "A friend of mine works at Trader Joe's and gets insurance from them. Why don't you try that?" I held back on saying, How naive you are young man. He's only 5 years younger than I. LOL.
Instead, I explained how many hours I'd have to work. And that he hadn't either realized or remembered that I'd had such an experience recently and between the labor of 26-30 hours per week not only would harm my health at this point... 1. Make me susceptible to illnesses that now my body at age 64 may not be able to fend off and neither could I get vaccinated for certain illnesses due to my allergies and reactions I'd already had to certain flu vaccines.  2.Too, it would be crazy hours, inconsistent most weeks. Once again not healthy for anyone much less anyone over age 55. 3. The incidence of possible injury on the job is higher in supermarkets of any kind. If you haven't worked in such a place you wouldn't know. Again, another compromise to one's health and that's why there are unions in some markets in the industry. That's also why they offer health insurance.  4. The pay of even $15 or $16 per hour would not be worth it, since I am worth a lot more. I know so. 5. I'm trying to develop a better writing skill set, that takes time and I write, research and edit everyday, rarely do I miss a day of doing so. 6. I have been working full time in the past 35-80 hours per week much of that when you have your own business you're not getting paid for the bookkeeping, information gathering and writing doctor's letters for their pain patients or designing classes, never mind volunteer work on top of that. I worked full time like that for well over 40 years. 7. During those years, I didn't get much rest because even though I was a professional athlete for 30 of those years that doesn't pay the mortgage with your spouse. In addition, you have to work a full-time regular paying job in many sports as a professional athlete. I trained at odd hours so my husband and I would be there for our children as well. We didn’t do daycare, again that was a personal and financial decision.
So, now as I work remotely plying my writing trade, not one ounce of me wants to be paying an annual $28,000+ for health insurance for my youngest and I. Yet I will not wear myself down to pay for that only to risk further unhealthy circumstances because Republicans amd billionaires don't want to be taxed.
But how would my neighbor who's not ever been in my shoes know that? Especially since I'm not a complainer. He wouldn't know that.
As well, one might not understand why I make certain I run everyday. Or that I have a strict diet. Or that I've had a compromised immune system since the abduction in 1991 and subsequent surgery in 1993 for multiple misdiagnoses from the abduction and the medical fields lack of professionalism, misogyny was the reason for the misdiagnoses back then. All which changed 75% of the course of my life and my health. I'm certain of that.
So at the end of the day... It sometimes comes down to, "You've got to live it to know it." People from other areas of the east coast are shocked when they hear I don't hire landscapers for my acre, and that I don't have a snow blower. Yes I rake, push a mower, and shovel snow. Noone pays me for that; however, this is what I've come to know on what a homeowner who is middle-class does.
Generally, solid middle-class people don't get their homes cleaned by someone else. We don't spend money on a new kitchen having a granite top and new appliances that we can get fixed.
Those of us that see our children as college bound we scrape our funds together, we work, we don't go out for food but a few times a year, movies out are a treat, cable television is for the upper middle-class, we didn't spend money on that. It was our choice. We cook meals. We meal plan. We make our children's lunches for most of their years going into high school, till they decide to change it at about age 15. It just happens. Then they earn and want to buy their own lunches, which is fine. And if those children earn enough, they will buy some of their extra clothing at times. Its either them being considerate or that their demands for certain clothing items don't align with our ideas of good clothing selections. Again, we aren't them, so how would one know? It's what you don't know... about someone else's past or living.---Jody-Lynn Reicher