Here I am a 43 year old troubadour, vagabond and jack of all trades. I just added grave digger to my resume last week as my 14 year old Black Lab, Gibson's time is coming to an end and I need to be prepared for a winter burial if need be. I've been a professional chef, ranch caretaker, horse whisperer, bartender, waitress, organic gardner, crafty sewer,soap maker, housekeeper, professional organizer, vintage trailer restorer, house painter, commercial artist, nationally touring musician, music festival producer, and on and on...
This past year I found myself really single, isolated and alone, living full time in 3 vintage trailers here in Lyons, Colorado. My 4 year relationship with who I thought was the love of my life ended after several really hard and difficult years and final desperate tries on my part to hang on to what was left of our hopes and dreams... and finally at the end of December, it ended awfully. I've never been more depressed, hopeless and alone in my life. I'm living here with my two old dogs, Gibson and Jesse (14 and 12) in a little over 144 square feet of living space through a cold Colorado Winter.
I am a pretty hardy girl.I've been splitting my time for the past 5 years living in these trailers. And before that, I lived for 7 years in an old log cabin with just an old wood stove for heat and just 15 amps of electricty in the ice box of the Nation, Fraser,Colorado... I'm an only child, I'm a singer songwriter, and I know what it is to be alone...but nothing in my 43 years of aloneness has even come close to preparing me to the kind of fear that comes with the isolation from the alone zone I am currently in. About 6 years ago I quit drinking. About 4 years ago I got fired from my last bartending job and there went my entire social network. Now I work for myself, with my 'Girl Friday' business that I started. I clean houses, organize things, do yard work, what ever really. Some days I talk to no one. Maybe a clerk at the grocery store...'Would you like a copy of your receipt?' 'No thanks.' That's a big conversation day. I talk to my dogs. I tell them 'your Mama loves you' over and over and over. My black dog, Gibson, doesn't hear so well anymore, so I hum next to his ears and blowhot air on to his neck which he seems to like. He's lost all control of his potty and poops so I've got our living space as water proofed as possible. I laid down a grey vinyl plank flooring that is meant to go into basements for areas that can get wet. So any of his accidents get cleaned up quickly and don't cause much damage. He has a special water proof dense foam pool floaty dog bed I made for him. I am finding that my greatest gift I can give in this life is to love and take care of my dogs. They have given me so much.
I try and keep things clean and organized in all three of the trailers that I keep here. All three have electricity but I only keep my main one heated.
This wasn't the dream. Me alone, living behind a factory, next to a ditch, alone in mid century pull behind vacation trailers.
I dreamed of a small cabin or cottage in a mountainy place with a stream or river... A place for a garden and a wood fired hot tub...a place to be quiet with my love and our family of dogs.
I am finally accepting the fact that that dream didn't happen with him... and that it's up to me to find my own way to that place. To not give up on my dreams. I realize that I am very lucky to have this space here for me, the trailers and my dogs to regroup. To use this time to heal myself, to tend to my wounds. To reinvent again.
So what is my dream? It certainly isn't cleaning houses on my hands and knees when I'm 65 but if I have to I will. My dream: to travel and write about the experiences. To smile. To laugh. To love and be loved. To have enough money to get by. To live a simple life with a beautiful man who I love and who loves me. The real love. The Real Me and The Real Him. Where truth is the foundation that our love is built on. Where things flow relatively easy. Where our everyday lives are an adventure. To have my own life too where I am creative in my music, art and writing. To give back and make a difference. To get a handle on my mental health. To have supportive friends and a community I belong to. And I'd get many more stamps in my pass port, spending lots of time in warm climates, seeking out the blue and the green. And I'd have the love of my life right by my side. The one who would never let me go.
This isolation island I've been on for about 9 months can't be it. My therapist says, 'what if this IS it?'
'No thank you' I reply in my Chelsea Peretti voice. 'No thank you.'
What if you wind up in a place and you say to yourself : wait a minute, this really wasn't the plan. What if everyone you knew and loved all walked away. What if you found your self unlovable. What if everything you did to make life work no longer worked. Well then, you'd be where I am, painfully,slowly inching your way forward trying to figure out what to do and where to go next. There is no hiding from this kind of broken. There is no more running away. All I can do is what is right in front of me.
My number one goal is to be able to financially take care of myself...It's been scarry and it still is...but I have to have faith that the money will come and I will be all right. I hope in time I have enough money to buy a truck of my own that can pull my trailer. As of right now they are just land yachts and land locked.
I'm making collages/vision boards... I am painting pictures of what I love and what I hope for. I'm getting ready to start recording my 3rd album. I'm listening to music again. I'm playing music again.
I'm hanging on to what is real and not what is a fantasy. i'm trying to stay out of bed for as long as possible today and everyday from here on out...just putting these words down is a success. I was able to buy myself a used old Ipad and a wireless key board so now I can type. That in itself is a success. Here I am writing my story in hopes that I am getting though...maybe I'm only getting through to myself but that's a good place to start. It's the only place to start. I am the one I've been looking for.
All photos by Jami Lunde and all paintings by Jami Lunde too
copyright 2015.
