Baggage

I’m definitely getting used to this.  It was a bit cold this morning at five thirty am, enough to wake me up.  I knew it was coming, just an hour or so below fifty and I thought I’d sleep through it.  I didn’t.  I rolled and shivered for a moment.  Then remembered my skin suit tucked beside me, slid into it with all the grace I could manage at that hour, contorting myself to dress, in a tent that sized, while trying keep my eyes closed as to not fully wake.

And it worked, tucked back in and slept till eight am.  That’s sleeping in for me and it was nice – this is the land of no alarm clocks, no schedule’s, and nothing in the way of doing the things I want to do.  Today, actually brought out some of those highlights and helped me love my current choices all the more.   First though, I was able to test the digipeater this morning, and it was working as expected.  I could have left it alone at that, but I wanted to make sure I had the best configuration, so I took it apart, reconfigured it with a few other options, tested some more.

Off and on this continue all day and I wanted to make sure that once I was done with this item on my list, it would not come back up again.  That is something I’m working on in general.  Solving problems, eliminating them, not learning how to deal with them.  A digipeater is essentially three items, a radio transceiver, a modem, and a computer.  However, those each of those three things could be many different items, many items playing the role of two.. a radio, a scanner, a laptop, hotspots.  As this was unfinished project when I left, I brought all possible peices with me, causing a bit of excess, yet I did not want to be without a part or tool I would need.

The digipeater is now completed and final, so starting tomorrow, everyone should be able to track me on the map above, live time, to see where I’m at and how much ground I’ve covered.  You’ll have to play with the website controls a bit, yet you can turn on trails and all kinds of things (and if you are interested in this technology – ask me about it and I can fill in the details.) For me, this is something I’ve been waiting for on this part of the journey.. I want to see these miles add up.  Every day, I’ve been working towards tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will get up, put my FT-3DR on my waist and will be sending out digital RF packets from my hip, tracking my every movement.  Not a count of step, yet one of miles – how much ground did I cover?  That is work.  I am one hundred and seventy five pounds (last I counted at least) and the amount of work is that number multiplied by the distance covered.  Well plus some odd multiple for ground slope I guess.  Anyway, my point is, its more accurate and can’t be cheated like the FitBit.

While working on the digipeater, I had my old phone out and turned on.  The local Jackson phone.  It’s been buried and off for a few weeks now and today, I had to see if it was going to be one of parts I would need for the digipeater (an Internet connection is a nice feature for a digipeater.) While it was out I received a call and I immediately answered “Hello, this is Jeromy, how may I help you?”  Just spam. Whew.  Then a text came in, from someone I truly love, someone I’ve know for decades, and her husband, and her father.

“Well wishes for the new year and hopes that you’re doing well” – it was so nice to read and I continued.

“I’m having some issues with my router if you have time for some quick questions.”

I supposed I could have ignored it, maybe I should have, as I have with all other messages and calls for the last two weeks on that line.  Yet, the timing and happenstance that I had received the message at that moment, I replied:

“I’m sorry, I’m unavailable. I have retreated.  All well wishes come with requests.”

To be fair, this is not the first time this person has touched base with me this year; in June there was an email problem.

I suppose I don’t expect the world to know that I’m having issues right now.  But today I learned I certainly expect some people to.

I got a call from my mom today too and that was really nice.  It was a call on my new phone line, very limited access at the moment.  When that phone rings or sounds a text, I get excited and I run to it because I KNOW it’s not Jackson calling with a router issue.

It’s not someone I have to pretend to be okay with, or for, or.. I don’t even know, yes I do, it’s just hard to explain.  The new number has been given to people that I know care about me, as much as I do.  Else, they wouldn’t have the number until I’m better from.. whatever is going on.  In any case it was a nice call and catching me up on details going on elsewhere.  Towards the end though.. there were some odd questions.. asking me questions about things I’ve already said.  Once, twice, and a third time.

Asking questions with known answers, nice questions.. how’s the weather?  How’s camping?  What does the site look like?  All things I’ve been writing about.  I answered as questioned and the call started to feel… from Jackson.

I don’t have time for this shit.  I was blunt, I have already told these stories – aren’t you reading along?  A few days before my surgery we had talked and she’d commented on my writing and keeping up with it.  When I asked now, she said she hadn’t seen anything in a while, and that’s why she’d called to “catch up”.

I don’t know, maybe it’s me and at this point, I don’t care if it’s just me, because I love me.  And I can smell a line of shit, it sounded just like: “I don’t know what to say about you being raped as a teen, so I’m gonna pretend like I didn’t read it – okay? Play the game so I can keep feeling okay.”

Sorry, no time for bull shit any more mom.  I was raped a teen, once I’ve already written about last week, and again in February of nineteen ninety five.  Hard stories for me to write, especially that next one, yet so much easier than the whole story of two thousand twenty two.

Don’t waste my time with games – I’m done playing peek-a-boo and pretending to be a good boy for mommy.  Life sucks mom, don’t call me for rose petals because I don’t have none.  I’ve got a hard story that has never been told and maybe that is all I have left.

And actually, I’m okay with that.  I’m actually very good with it.  Each time I tell the stories, they get better.  Some revisions have come with time.  It’s only been the last few years that I knew I was raped the first time.  For the longest time I believed my father’s and step-mothers’ version of events.  I was young, dumb, and full of cum and should not have been playing flirting games with the neighbor and we don’t need to kiss and tell with the details and what was I going to do, she was a married woman didn’t I know.

Yeah, my step-mother defended her best friend and neighbor who raped her step-son and my father didn’t think there was anything wrong at all.  He asked me himself: “Well, she didn’t hurt you did she?”

As a parent, a decade or two ago, I started thinking about it differently- and I journaled about it.  Yet even then I didn’t call it what it was, and I certainly didn’t scream it from the rooftops, if that is what I’m doing now.  In any case, this is clearly a bit of baggage.  And I think I know what to do.  It just needs to be sorted out.. identified as garbage, put into container, tied up and thrown away.

Easy. Let’s make that a list of things to do.  It’s garbage, it’s a package of crimes by three people, two after the fact.  As a teen, I didn’t have clue.  As a young parent, I had a lot of anger and I didn’t have a clue.  Now, as the parent of grown children, I have better stuff to do than to have to deal with this now.

Lets delegate.  Tomorrow, I write I letter to the Sheriff of Jackson County, Michigan, as that is where the crimes occurred.  As a victim, it is my duty to report.  It will be for the Sheriff and the Prosecutor to do the rest.  Hmm.  After all this time, that actually sounds pretty simple.

I wish I would have had a parent like me to help me work out these problems way back when.

Also, took an awesome photo of a bug on my car!  And in addition to my normal (getting to be normal) half mile loop through the campground, I took on the catfish point trail for the first time (ninety seven hundredths of mile, slightly hilly) and finished in thirty seven minutes.  For my Facebook friends that got to read the story of the “Scenic Lookout”, here is the photo from the actual scenic lookout!  Tons of bunny rabbits hopping through the woods and tonight after dark, three deer walked through my campsite, maybe thirty yards from me.  It is nice to be outside.  It is good to be here.  I am glad to be alive.

Time to rest.