April 22nd (Bad night sleep and bad dreams)

 I'm sitting here worried, threats of services being cut off. My fear turns into a vision. Then my cat growls. Is she in my head? She walks over to me and glares at me. I immediately tell her I'm sorry and pet her. Did she feel or see my vision? Today is stressful I have to make some calls and see if I can make some deals and keep the lights on around here.

What do I want? The continuing development of me.

 

I had to see what I wanted. Since I never really did what I wanted to do for the most part. 

First, I need to be in a home that is minimal and is smaller than this. It's my home base, where everything starts and end from. I never really was a homebody and my mother knew it. I'm an adventure. I'm a person that wants to experience new things and new people. So my next house has to be someplace I recharge and regroup. I will entertain but only in small groups, no big parties.

Second, I want to restart the business fully. I know at this point in my life I need an executive assistant that's my clean-up person and keeps me on point. I have to be financed, and maybe the move helps me get that. Who knows. I never really fit in the labor market ever since I made the choice to work for me after the dot-com bubble ended in 2002 when I graduated from Robert Morris University. So I have to continue on the road I set for myself.

 Third, I need to travel, I cook Asian, Greek, Italian and other cultures foods from recipes but have never been there to experience the authentic culture. It's been a wish to experience things and meet people. This half of my life has to be that thing. Anything short of that, I won't be happy. 

Now for those of you that I deal with in the civic space, this doesn't mean I just drop everything a leave everything alone. There are fights I won't stop fighting, clean air, water, equality and transportation. The latter because I have a bucket list that I put to the side to ride every excursion train ride in the world. I love trains since I was a kid and I want to do that. We are always going to have to deal with all of that. I just don't know what part it will be until I finish with everything else. 

I'm just at the point of understanding what I want to do. Things aren't set in stone like where do I want to be. This is an open-ended question. It depends on my business and what resources I can get, is this the place for me to be? It will speak to me as I do it. 

The story continues. 

My Future

 I understand the question my mother asked me weeks before she passed. She asked me what I wanted to do. I didn't have an answer for her, because I never planned for myself. I only thought of taking care of her, I thought I would be years doing this, not just two.

So when she passed, the plans I had were if she was still here. Fix up the house, make a garden out of the side yard. Things didn't work out. Job issues, health issues, fighting through the process of probate and other things to keep me above water.

March 22nd, I walk into the emergency room at Cook County Hospital, laboring, stopping every so often to rest before I continued from the bus stop. I spent six days in the hospital getting the fluid that I had been carrying for a long time. During the time when I was taking care of both my mother and granny. Just moving along despite my own issues. Now coming out of the hospital. I'm diagnosed as having heart failure, as my heart was only working at 35 percent of normal when evaluated.

Now I'm here April 15th 2025, and I realized I'm still not living my life. No job, the business no producing money, and I'm behind on everything. I had to ask myself this morning, I'm I living MY LIFE!? The answer is no. 

So what is my life. I had to ask myself. I've worked to help others so long that I don't know what it is to live for myself.

One, my house isn't a place I want to be in all the time. While I was taking care of my mother, she would always notice when I got tired of being in the house and suggest I go somewhere. Most of the time I would go to local wrestling shows like CSW, AAW and other local shows. Have fun and come home. I got an AMC movie pass from a family friend, and it started for a while me picking a day to go to the movies. There are other things I would like to do, but the money became a barrier to going. 

Two, I'm a traveler, I like to go places and experience things. Even with in the city. It's the reason I made a group on Facebook, "Let's Go Eat" It was supposed to be restaurant suggestions where we would plan to meet and have fun over a meal. Didn't work out that way, it's just me and my best friend Dawud posting recipes we see on social media. When I was younger, I did road trips. We would go visit someone in another city. The rules were you took us out to eat, no chain restaurants. You had to take us to something local. Those were fun times. I would love to travel more and see more. Since I've been on Rednote I want to travel to Asian countries and see everything in person. Would love to go to Europe and Africa. I'm a train fanatic. I've seen some great train rides in Canada and a few in South America I would love to experience. So you see if I owned a home it would just be home base when I'm not out and about. 

Three, I've always been about meeting and experiencing new people. It helps you grow as a person and gives you better perspective. So traveling would satisfy this.

 So what does that say to what I'm doing now. Well, this house is like that movie Moneypit. The longer I live here, the more that goes on. This house is old and way too large for me. I would be happy with a smaller, easier to maintain home. Right now, I can't move to do that because of everything I'm dealing with. I feel like I need an executive assistant most days.  So I might look to sell, but in the deal I'd have to be found a smaller home to move into. I refuse to live the apartment life. I did it for a short time and didn't like it. So, I want to be a homeowner. 

I'm in the right field. IT would allow me to be able to move around. When I get the business funded. I have a plan to allow me to be able to move around but have my business to where my clients are always taken care of. (don't want to give out secrets on what I'm going to do)

So I'm looking at ways to get out of this pit. I'm working with my resources and I'm going to make the best decision for me.