Looking back to some older posts....

The following posts are from my old blog and several years old.  I was still working at the time... 

(I have been busy preparing to move house and we are almost there.... so forgive the blasts from the past....)

Monday, June 13, 2011, 8:06:43 PM |

So… it’s been over a year since I’ve been here, but no worries, I don’t think anyone has noticed… it’s just like all the times I talk to myself or the dead body I’m working on because there is no one else there to listen… I just think it is important to purge it whenever I can. First of all I’m back on days for the first time in years. It’s good and it’s bad at the same time. It’s good in the fact that I work almost the same days as my husband and in theory we should get home at about the same time but that doesn’t always work out. The bad of it is its summer and it’s hot and humid and I don’t do the heat very well… especially if I’m standing in the desert in the sun for hours… then there is the fact that most of the supervision works during the day. Not that I don’t do my job sufficiently, but sometimes I just want to say BACK OFF AND LET ME DO MY DANG JOB! Especially because there is many of them and NONE of them agree on anything.   

 
The last couple of months have been very busy… and some of the cases have really sucked. I don’t have the best relationship with my family, parents, kids, etc but I DO NOT understand how people let their loved ones starve, or lie in their own urine and excrement until they get a bedsore to the bone, or hurt a newborn baby because you are mad at its other parent… WHO DOES THAT? Today I watched a video of an orangutan gently helping a baby bird but we can’t trust adults with their elders and their children… some days I can barely get out of bed knowing what I have to face at work… today a woman sent me an email of her loved one’s eulogy, complete with photos of him. It’s so much easier to do my job when I don’t think too much about their lives because I feel so bad for the friends and family left behind. This is the part they don’t show on all the popular forensic shows… but this isn’t very entertaining…

Well enough of this bummer babble….

ANOTHER OLD POST

Monday, June 13, 2011, 8:09:18 PM |

I love my iPod!!! – let me clarify… I listen to music A LOT… but I also have podiobooks and podcasts on there that are great when I am driving back and forth to work. I started out with the old radio shows from the 40’s – 70’s and a couple months ago discovered Mike Bennett’s podcasts. Definitely not for the prudish or faint of heart but entertaining! I first listened to “Hall of Mirrors”, then found “Underwood and Flinch” but when I got caught up and was waiting for the next episode I started listening to “One Among the Sleepless”… definitely quite the story – or should I say stories since it is about multiple characters… and now I am back to anticipating the next episode of U&F!!!! So if anyone is actually reading this and wants something interesting to listen to – check out http://www.mikebennettpodcast.com/ for yourself!! 

I used to look forward to my drive home, not just because I was going home, but because I enjoyed listening to a story. It was such a nice way to unwind!!

Anxiety and the road trip aka saying goodbye to a friend

Once upon a time I thought I was tough and strong and considered myself a survivor.  Things happened. I saw and did things working in the death field, my mom died, my dad shot himself and I found him, and several of my dogs had to be put down for different health reasons over the same decade.  Somewhere in there I think I broke. Or maybe I was already broken and it was my shell that dissolved.  I still try so hard to be strong for people. I remember I had volunteered for some cases that no one would ever want but something inside me made me feel protective and that I should shield someone else from that tragedy.  I am appalled at myself at the amount of anxiety and fear that I feel on a regular basis.  I am always wanting to know where my loved ones are. Not to be controlling but to “know” they are ok.  I am the same with my dogs. I can play the “what if” game as well if not better than anyone else.  I can be about to explode – or implode –  yet seem just fine on the outside.  I have to be able to do that because many of my circle do not believe or understand my anxiety and fear.  Most of my “inner” circle do, but even then, not fully… unless sadly they too feel it too. 

Recently one of my childhood friends died. I had known her since I was 5.  When her mother called me, she asked if I would speak at her memorial service.  I knew that 2 other friends had been asked and neither could bring themselves to do it. I understand that. I really do. I do not hold that against them. I can’t say that I “wanted” to speak either. I do not like attention. I like to blend into the back and tend to OVER USE humor as a defense when I really want to scream or cry.  My response to my friend’s mother??? It was “of course I will, I would be honored to do so” and I meant it and it was a true statement but I thought to myself, how am I going to do this? I wrote out what I would say. I told myself I have to do this because they can’t and if I can, then I can protect them from the pain it causes to do it. It was the farthest I had driven in a long time, especially by myself.  It was physically painful but I am use to that.  I got up there, and I spoke.  I told my stories of my time with my friend.  People came up to me and thanked me and said it was good.  I was glad because I did not want to dishonor my friend’s mother or memory. I talked with people at the reception and was strong.  Then I got back in my car, put on the radio to sing myself home just like the ride there and it seemed like no matter the play list, every other song wanted to make me cry. I had to skip over many songs so I would not bawl all the way home.