Rosy’s Prose

when i wake up i still have my glasses on as i wonder what i will still see, i have advanced glaucoma and the picture is fading more each day, it is a nightmare, and everyone wants me to be ok but its not ok, its tiring, stressful, lonely and horrid. Can barely see through this thick white mist betending to be ok. So have to grit teeth betend ok, take the anti anxiety tablets, dream on, feel lonely but thats my lot, its crap life to deal with so deal with it, Shrewsbury is a sleepy place and everything is a taxi or bus ride away when not in lock down circumstances, may change soon, unless we get another spike!

We are in the midst of a panemdemic so it makes it worse, it seems people are getting ill more? and more dying not just of covid-19 or maybe they would have anyway, would i have got such severe glaucoma at this time? When i moved to Shrewsbury, it was fairly stable with pressures ok and using two sets of drops and felt quite good about it at the time, positive, but since then it has not been so good…. isolation here as dont know many people, Chrissy and Mike busy with their lives and i feel like a spare part, or a pink cow patt in a blue cow field!!! lots of cows and cow patts up here! Vision has got very misty white and distant, i thought it would last out a lot longer whats left. i think moving and the stress of it and the changes and the attitudes i have experienced here from family have caused changes that were not welcome… this causes stress and glaucoma to get worse. The last thing i need tobe doing is moving house when i have end stage advanced glaucoma and live on my own. Peace i need peace and quiet and kindly helpful people around me… i feel well out of my depth with this, never dreamed i would end up divorced, with advanced glaucoma, on my own, in Shrewsbury in the midst of a panamdemic too! i feel like rubbish most of the time too, mainly due to the eye situation, all the rest of me is fine! used to swim 20 lengths or more, tai chi, walking, yogasize in the morning… and now i feel like a wreck with a heart beating inside that wants to come and out get on with life but cant see where she is going!

Why me? why not some other bugger that has been a bully, nasty cruel wicked and horrid to others, why me when all i have ever done is tolerate and been nice to everyone as best i could in circumstances as a human being…. the buggers get away with it… where the Karma?

where will i go? what will happen?

Should have stayed on familiar ground with my eye clinic of 27 years or more, drs, dentists, low vision optician and the rest in Southend and here it is all very different, far away…. HELP!!!!

please God i say every morning let me keep this bit of vision til am at least 90 if i live that long! just so i can function without help from others…. please! PLEASE!

if had stayed in my house in Southend, my brother would have come over and helped me every day and could have stayed and i with him. The boys in London could have come and visited easily, they wont come here… its too far! TOO FAR!!! really, i thought youngsters jet setted all around the World! Who wants to be with their grumpy sad blind mother now anyway, shes not much use, well perhaps she has a bob or two in her pocket!!

oh well PLEASE let me keep this bit of eyesight i have….. PLEASE!

I’ve been pushed and pulled in all directions
Sometimes not given things enough reflection
I dont know which way to turn
And for peace love company
Is what I yearn
Since my divorce it’s been a whirl of life
Of changes some good and some with strife
Now out of my depth I really feel
To get myself on even keel
Too many paths I think I have pursued
And a more restful life I should have viewed
I long to be home
On my familiar ground
With faces i know and old places all around
So lead me God to where I should be
To end my days more happily
I’d be happier definitely of course
Without glaucoma and and more life force
So give me a chance
As my heart still beats
And let me enjoy a life complete
if this vision could be repeated
i strive i insist and will not be defeated!

push me pull me

in all directions

where should i go

im having reflections

i look through a mist

it is true

i take a very dim viewliterally

i have to say

as i sit here alone all day

i need to be where people care

and where my life could be fare

here i am in isolation

misty vision

it is a frustration

Help!

let me know if yuo want to help

a little blind lady in Shropshire town

who is trying to smile through a frown

it was great to go to Shire choir with Cathy and Jenny, only in Shropshire would you go and stand in the middle of a field full of cow pats in the rain and sing!

it was so nice to be with some people and chat and have a bit of a laugh despite my horrid glaucoma journey still on.

Singing is wonderful thing to do, i really enjoy Shire Choir….

Thank you Roxanne Smith for it and thank you Cathy for life and Jenny for guiding me through the cow pats!

Polly Guide Dog was overwhelmed by the smell of cows i think and found it hard to settle during the singing… but she is ok

Well the first wave of the virus is over and the dregs are still lurking out there, ready to float beneath your unsuspecting mask and catch you unawares.

I was talking to a visually impaired friend in America and she had said they had another wave which targetted 18-35 year olds, the age group that is probably out and about more, think they will never die,know it all, have an answer for everything, as you do when you are young and strong and looking to survive, fit and healthy generally speaking.

Everyone is eager to get out there, socialise, go on holiday, mingle, party, riot, fight, chant, debate, whatevery social activity it is but this could lead i definitely think to a second wave emerging here in UK as well as other places.

We have had a sort of Golden age since the 2nd World War, with little disease, cures being found and not too many tragic deaths to such viruses in the scale of things, no wars in UK and everyone has moved on and on and now its very fast paced, the shadow of the life i knew as a kid of simple times, when it was peaceful, meagre and wholesome could i say. Respect for parents was held, i would never speak to my parents the way i have been spoken to at times, the World has changed. Confidence, forthright words and human rights prevail….

so the World goes on, what will happen? is it nearing the end the human race? transgendercide…. a new word i have created as we head to the all in one species where man doesnt know what to do and always works to extremes and destroys what is real and good…

Happy Days, i am 62 now and look back at my life, the best was as a child with my mum and dad and brother and all my happy family, Christmases, visits in the summer, few holidays, very few indeed, visiting aunties, cousins, we all got on… it was good… and the first part of my marriage when my children were young and we had happy days of silly chatty childish delights of days and it was fun…. but now its all gone pear shaped, i guess glaucoma has done it for me, as i sit here alone in this bungalow in Shrewsbury near my daughter Chrissy and Mike and wonder how lonely could i have got after all this… it is sad for sure…. i miss the sea, i miss Hockley where i was born, Hockley home town and i long for some normality, love, laughter, chatter and company and to worry about simple things, like is my cake going to taste nice out of the oven, will my flowers grow in the garden, those homely slippers under the table type things that make you feel cosy warm and secure. Secure, far from it is how i feel at the moment…. help! i just want some more vision, please let me keep this last bit of vision i ask God every day….. let me have some semblance of a normal happy life, let me go to sleep peacefully, without worrying what i will see or not see in the morning… when someone asks me how i am, let me say yes im fine and actually mean it…

im up the creek without a paddle

it has to be said

pandemic to the right

glaucoma to the left

so hold on tight

dont fall in the middle

what a fiddle

did i ever dream i would be here

oh dear!

Shropshire cows and all

i must not fall

i miss my home in Essex

thats where i aught to be

drinking tea

with me family!

but no, i sit here all alone,

cant see much, oft on the phone

cos thats what we have now

to keep in contact with a few

it could be better i have to say

at my age i thought it would be easy

instead of feeling queasy

from taking endless silly pills

rather than walking around all them hills

in Shropshire

Essex is very flat

and that is that

but that is where my home surely is

cos here i just feel in a tiz

no one understands do they? when you say you are struggling, feel lonely, cant cope…. as your eyesight is fading…. what happens you get told take some anti depressants! they will help? Will they? will they help my loneliness, will they help me find my underpants in the morning cos i cant see clearly? Will they help me do chores round the house which are now a struggle? no of course they wont but they will shut me up, dampen my spirit and those other fit able bodies who think it is a good idea will be happy! Dont get me wrong, i think mind altering drugs are great if they help you through life but they are not an alternative to life, so that those around you dont have worry about you or keep you company in your hour of need.

Happy Days, i have had many in the past, happy days now, no, alone in a bungalow in Shropshire with continued sight loss, drugs that have side effects that are so awful and threatening to health you wonder why they invented these drugs in the first place, in the middle of a pandemic to boot! Now thats some luck!

I think too, if you dont have a side kick, husband, partner or whatever you call your loved one, people are very quick to boss you around and try and arrange your life for you. They also speak very loudly and sometimes crossly…. as though you are cant hear either…

i am definitely up the creek without a paddle at the moment, i hope it can change or get better, the worst thing is being on your own near on 24/7 …. humans are social beings and this is killing if nothing else….

i have diversified and added my thoughts lately rather than poems, blog by blog but not day by day…. well the advanced glaucoma is advancing pretty fast and closing in on me….small amount of close distance vision and quite clear in left eye on pc. i hope i can keep it for a good few years yet…. it is awful beyond words to be honest…. i have a pain in my neck too from the stress of continued sight loss and trying to maintain what i have and strain to see with what i do have… yes it is awful… and tintinitus ringing in my ears, basically i could do with some new parts from the neck up! teeth whats left of them pretty ok, capped filled and all but not brilliant…. oh dear… where does my destiny fall now… healing peace come to me….

My story is I was married for 18 years to Brian . We were ok had three children. I didn’t manage to work for a long so then he got cross and stressed and nagged me to get a job. It wasn’t easy and he was not supporting just bullying and shouting. When we went shopping he would chuck what I put in the basket on the floor. He said I was fat, useless and any other insult he could throw at me. He would bash the doors with his fist and roar out loud, my younger son would go hide in a cupboard. I got scared and it felt awful, as he became more threatening and there was no love to show me only criticism and derogatory words. I decided to leave and sold our marital home on the advice of my father and split it down the middle. In hindsight I should have stayed in the house as I had the children and their lives were disrupted . But I did that and then bought a flat outright . Then I did get work in local Government Office and bought a house in Prittlewell with a mortgage . We lived there and the children left home as soon as they could, don’t blame them. It’s not what I wanted our lives to be. I wanted a happy family with supporting parents for my children. Then I met Tom and spent six years with him, he was not paternal but we had a fairly nice time together keeping our lives separate. Since then I have been on my own, it’s very hard to meet a sensible caring man at my age who I gel with. I did some art studies, worked for college and then unfortunately have glaucoma affecting my eyes. Could it get any worse . I did quite a few things, went to Hereford college for the blind, counselling studies volunteered for Guide Dogs, Family Lives and worked as a Project Assistant for Look Uk a charity for blind children. I carried on doing art with local art charity group The Art Ministry and had my art in various venues in Southend galleries and Art trails. I since have recently moved to Shrewsbury in Shropshire near my daughter and her husband but not sure this is the right thing to do. We have had an isolating pandemic and my glaucoma has got worse. I am alone with no partner and have never felt so lonely and upset in my life at my situation. Losing eyesight is devastating and in hindsight it would have been better to stay in Essex, on familiar ground, near the eye clinic that knew me and all the amenities that I was used to plus friends, support network and my brother. What a life I have been through. I feel overwhelmed out of my depth and lonely and can hardly see…. show me the way to some love and happiness God

fragile may i be

strong may i be

strong v fragile

w

whichever takes over first is the one that wins

photo of Chrissy and Nick as small children