The year of March 2014 through March 2015, living beside a man I had only known for a month before marrying, was a college-level education in codependency and survival.
First, we headed back to the Pacific Northwest to introduce my new husband to my family and friends, and me to a few of his. Some of them were the same people.
March 2014 - Looping back to the northwest
It felt odd to be back in the northwest so soon
Once we were married and had spent a week or so camping, I wanted to introduce my new husband to my family and friends.
When we started comparing friends to introduce one another to, we soon found out that we had many of the same connections. Our first task was to find a place to stay, since it was still well in the middle of the rainy season and both of us had issues with chronic pain we needed to get inside and warm.
April 2014 - Renting a room with a new husband
Fawn Lake in Shelton was a perfect escape
My dear friend Rob did not disappoint when I explained that we needed a place to stay. He quickly offered us the same room that I had rented nearly two years before.
The husband was quick to do things that he felt needed to be done around Rob's house while ignoring chores that would have been very helpful. Rob and I questioned the quality and necessity of such busywork.
Looking back, I should have realized just how self-centered the new husband was when he built a staircase for a man who used a wheelchair.
The things you see when looking into memories are often much clearer in retrospect.
May 2014 - Expanding our visits North and South
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a source of terror yet some of my dearest friends are on the other side
We quickly wore out our welcome in Shelton when the husband decided that we didn't have to pay rent on the room that we had taken over for the previous month. The yelling between the husband and my dear friend was untenable for me, and I feared what was ahead.
The same relative who had allowed me to clean a portion of their house in exchange for living in the attic for the summer once again allowed me to move. The new husband brought with him a pile of promises, but my relative was very leary. In retrospect, that relative had much reason to be nervous. None of those promises made were ever kept.
We visited friends in Port Orchard and the new husband quickly broke a couple of irreplaceable artworks embarrassing me and putting our friends in an awkward situation. I was also to break something soon.
May-June 2014 - Breaking my back
There was no denying the compression fracture of my T-11
The contention that was growing between my new husband and myself was not healthy. It was that contention that filled the house when I began my descent from the attic one late May morning.
My hands were full with items for another trip north to visit friends, and my mind was distracted.
As I placed my slippery shoe on the top step of the fold-down attic stairs, I slipped.
I was not able to regain my balance.
I fell frankly backward ten feet.
The next-door neighbors would say afterword that my screaming sounded like a cat getting killed.
July 2014 - Recovering in Centralia
Smoothies were my primary source of nutrition while I spent the summer on my back, healing
After a few days in the hospital, I was discharged. A few days later, I returned to the hospital where they were to take additional imaging and finally found the break.
I was forced to re-learn how to walk again, starting with a few steps to the bathroom. It was excruciating.
Again, neither fellow church members nor my health care providers realized the extent of our situation.
The fall had happened in a house that had no insurance. There were no provisions for any of my medical bills besides my Medicare. We were still homeless and the owner of the house was getting less comfortable with us being there after my fall.
August 2014 - Heading back up the stairs...to pack for winter in Arizona
Before I could pack to leave, I had to climb back up the stairs I had fallen down
The husband wanted to head back to Arizona for the winter, and it was up to me to get ready to go. Before I could make sure all of my things were packed, I had to climb back up the stairs into the attic.
It was painful in more ways than physically, but I made it up and packed those things I thought I would need for the winter. We tentatively planned to return in the Spring, but the way the husband left my relative's home, I doubted we would be welcomed back in that house.
September 2014 - Heading South for the Winter
Camping in the shadow of Mount Hood, I broke down
Due to the fact that I had a newly broken back, and my husband had made many promises (mostly unkept) to my doctor about how carefully we would be while traveling, we had planned to stop in several areas on the way to Arizona. The husband took a tent from my relative's home as well as many other items.
When I began to realize how the husband had refrained from cleaning up after himself (I had spent most of the summer on my back in bed or at physical therapy appointments), leaving the house in a much than ideal manner, I was extremely upset.
I didn't want to go back to Arizona and driving there with a newly broken back just wasn't my kind of fun. We camped in many areas on the way down, but at every stop, I wished I could make a U-turn.
October 2014 - Birthday on my back in the middle of nowhere, Arizona
I laid in our bed, unable to do much for weeks after the drive
For weeks I laid in bed, getting up to fix the husband his meals (all from scratch, usually over an open fire, since nothing in the RV we were staying in worked), then laying back down.
On "good back days," we would head into town and use the computers and borrow books from the library, only a mile away. The husband would head to the lake to fish most days, and I would spend my days reading and journaling and dreaming of a time when my back pain didn't prevent me from doing things that I loved.
Athena is curled in a ball in this picture. It was lonely for us both when my bed and hers wasn't on the same level. There were a few times when the husband picked her up to put her in bed with me, but it hurt us both not to have the freedom to be resting and healing together.
...But did I mention the sunsets were amazing?
The sky would light up and burn my stress and pain away with the sunsets
The clouds and sun combined in the most enormous sky I could imagine each night to create a new live painting. I began to live each day for the sunsets. I loved to take pictures and they were the perfect subject. I would watch how the clouds came and went throughout the day, wondering what would still be in the sky come sunset.
November 2014 - Thanksgiving in the Valley with a broken van
The change in scenery was about as welcoming as a tree-hugger is to one of these trees
The husband had the grand idea to take the van down to "the valley" (the Phoenix area, and specifically Sun City where his father lived) every few months for supplies and to see his father and his friends in the area.
On our trip in November, we had a severe vehicle malfunction on the way back up the mountain. We ended up being towed back to the Valley, to one of the husband's friend's homes. They were generous and put us up for several weeks while the husband worked on the van.
Although he claimed loudly on a constant basis to be an excellent mechanic, there was always a reason that he couldn't fix the van. After almost six weeks at a stranger's home (to me), we were finally able to return back to our makeshift abode in the mountains.
Just in time for the cold weather to set in. Only we had missed the season of preparing.
December 2014 - Christmas in Concho
The beginning of many meals was the same...
Although we did have a holiday meal with missionaries and members of our church, most of our meals were cooked over an open fire.
Bending down to tend the food was not something that my doctor ever imagined would be demanded of my back, and I did my best, but preparing 2-3 meals from scratch for a demanding husband with a large appetite took most of my time.
As we headed into Christmas, I began to miss my grandchildren terribly. As the Christmas Devotional was being planned at church, with the few children in our area having prominent parts, I missed the kids in my life even morel.
A New Friend shows up at a Christmas Devotional
Pringles loved the sun
When the little church stopped singing during the Christmas Devotional, the husband and I heard a sound continuing. The missionaries went out to investigate and it was a kitten who had been dropped off at the church or nearby. It wasn't unusual, the area was known for having litters dumped on a regular basis.
The Elders knew we were looking for a cat to help control the rodent issue at the RV. Athena was my companion and would rather play with any animal than run them off, so we were in need of a predator.
When he picked up a potato chip I had dropped on the floor and began to eat it, he got his name. Pringles was a fluffy blue playmate for Athena and cut down our rodent population by 100%.
January 2015 - Finding the rainbow on the other side of a cloudy mind
The local library was a treasure waiting to be tapped
As my back pain began to even out, I tried to learn new skills. The husband spent most of his time tinkering with things outside, so I was determined to find a way to make due on this land we were borrowing.
I tried my hand at all sorts of recipes from earlier than my grandmother's days and learned how to do nearly everything without electricity.
February 2015 - One year married to a homeless man
Did I mention, the sunsets were amazing?
As our one year anniversary came around, I was disappointed in myself more than anything or anyone. I wasn't where I wanted to be, and I wasn't sure that I was married to the right person. All of the promises he had made me a year before had turned out to be outright lies or pipe dreams at best.
I lived for the sunsets and tried to make friends where we were, but I only saw people at church.
But the sunsets were amazing.
March 2015 - Squeezing a bit of sweetness out of a sour situation
Citrus was plentiful in the Sun City, much being left to rot by seniors unable to pick it
The husband suggested that we wait an extra month before heading back up to Washington, and visit his father in the valley again. I was leary since the last time we got stuck for over a month.
This time we were rewarded with bags of citrus we shared with friends in the mountains. It seemed so odd that only a few hours away they were harvesting oranges while we had snow on the ground, all in Arizona.
March 2015 - Snowing in Eastern Arizona
Snow was a thing in Eastern Arizona...even in March
It made it difficult to get packed and ready to head back to Washington, when we not only had to look at the roads ahead from Arizona to Nevada to Oregon and into Washington, but we also had to deal with the weather stuck firmly in the winter. I admit, before I spent a few winters there, I had no idea it snowed so much in Arizona.
But it is a dry snow. I kid you not. You can brush it off of the dog's blanket it is so dry.
But that didn't make it any less cold.
As we prepared to head back to my home state of Washington, my dreams of travel only a year ago seemed a distant memory. My back remained a constant challenge and I was not looking forward to that drive.
There was also the issue of a place to stay...considering. Read about the next year here now.
