Chapter 14 - Why I Shattered the Steel Ceiling & How I Did It

I was able to relax some because I had the money from my disability to pay the rent. The grant money paid my tuition and I got student loans for the utilities, the car, renter’s insurance, my books, school supplies, food and incidentals.  I lived four to five blocks from Drake, depending on where my classes were, so gas for the car was not a problem.  I also was not very far from the AA club so I could make lots of meetings to stay positive.

Another piece of tooth broke off while I was waiting for the semester to start. This toothache was horrible!  I went to the dental part of the hospital and they pulled it, but it really hurt when the medication wore off.  I went back the next day and found out that the dental student had not removed part of the tooth and nerve. 

He gave me a shot that was supposed to numb my gum, but every time he touched the tooth fragment I went through the roof. He kept giving me shot after shot.  Finally, the head of the department came in, “Bonnie, we’ve thrown everything we’ve got into your gum.  You’re gonna have ta take some pain so I can get it out!”

I closed my eyes, steeled myself, wrapped my feet around the footrest on the chair and tried to focus on that, “Okay, but please do it fast!”

I did the best I could to not scream, but I couldn’t control the moans. It seemed like hours.  She finally told me, “It’s done!”

I hate that ugly snotty sobbing I do when things get bad! I grabbed her hand, “Can you please knock me out and pull all of my teeth so I don’t have to go through this every time I have a tooth pulled?  No one has ever believed me.  They have hurt me like this since I was little.”

“Absolutely! I’ve never seen anybody I couldn’t get deadened.  I’m going to send you to Iowa City.  They’ll call you to set up the appointment.”

I was told that I would be without teeth for several months, but that wasn’t going to work for me. I am carnivorous!  There was no way that I was going to be on a liquid diet for months, even if I would lose weight!! 

I bought a Kitchen Aide mixer with a meat grinder attachment so I could grind up beef, pork, and/or chicken. Then I could mix Miracle Whip and sweet pickle relish with the meat like mom used to do with leftovers for sandwiches.  I called it ‘chewed food’. 

 I went to the hospital with pneumonia not too long after my tooth was pulled.  I was unaware that the doctors did not expect me to live.  Friend With Benefits (FWB), who I had not seen for quite a while, walked into my room.  He told me that #8 had just committed suicide. 

The nurse was putting some medication into my IV. She turned to him and almost yelled, “Do you have any idea how sick this lady is?  Why would you tell her something like that now?”

She pretty much threw him out of my room, but it was too late. I definitely felt the sorrow of #8’s passing, especially from suicide.

His childhood made mine look like a walk in the park, but I couldn’t trust him after he had stranded me, stole my car and emptied out my accounts.

I certainly still cared about the man, but realized he was probably wounded beyond repair and didn’t know how to trust anyone, even himself. He probably had decided the same thing I did when I was released that last time – I would kill myself before I did one more day in prison.

He could calm the beast in any dog with the love they sensed in him, but he told me that he used that talent to get past the dogs guarding houses when he burglarized them.

He had conned me too. I believed him that he wanted to change, stood by him through prison time and married him to give him a fresh start.  I still think he probably did want to change, but the fear of the unknown that I remember when I got out of prison, and the younger woman, and the money in my bank accounts won.  I didn’t realize it was too much too fast.

I asked his father to visit me in the hospital. I had a one hundred dollar bill in my purse with no idea why I had been carrying it around.  I told his dad to put it on #8’s funeral arrangements, “I wish I could afford more, but that’s all I have.”

Things like that happened to me all of the time. I don’t know why I am doing something until the moment it makes sense.  Actually, I have stopped worrying about it because it happens so often now that it has become my normal.

I was in the hospital for quite a while. I was hurt that only a couple of people came to see me.  Lots of people had been thanking me for years because I had helped them, but when I needed help, or even a familiar smile, well, apparently none of them had the time to come visit me. 

I felt so very alone. I think the only reason I fought so hard to live is because I was looking forward to starting graduate classes. 

Alone doesn’t feel so bad when I’m busy. In fact, writing this book is a product of me moving into this apartment a few years ago by myself.  I write so I can feel like I am doing something productive.  Will anyone ever read anything I write?  Maybe not, but when I am finished posting it on LinkedIn and Facebook, the electronic copy of Why I Shatter the Steel Ceiling & How I Did It will join my first book, Proclivity, and the other personal information in the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa. 

My claim to Iowa fame is that I was the first woman in Iowa allowed to participate in the work release program in the 1960s and I am a published Iowa author.

I am hoping that the girls and women who read it will be able to learn from my mistakes so they don’t have to go down the same roads and make the same mistakes.

The pneumonia finally got better and I was released from the hospital. I really needed a meeting so I called a friend to take me to the AA club.  I walked in the back door.  #B came to greet me with a big smile on his face, “I’m so glad to see you!”

“Thank you. I’m glad to be seen.”

I liked #B because he was funny and seemed to have the kind of intelligence that you need to feel, rather than judging the person by their actions.

He had been playing the ‘dumb fly on the wallpaper’ role most of the months we played cards. He observed rather than really becoming a part of the group.  One day I asked him, “Are you an alcoholic or are you just visiting?”

He told me a few months later that my question had really made him think. He said that he decided to give the 12-Step program a chance to teach him how to live sober and straight. 

He also told me that he had been saying the same kind of prayers I had been saying, “God, if it is alright with you, I sure would like somebody to share my life with.”

He said that he had made a list, like me, of the things he wanted in that woman, “You checked off most of the items on my list compared to other women I met, “but you weren’t the trophy woman I really wanted riding behind me on the Harley I’m going to buy.”

I told him that I understood why he wanted a Harley. “I remember how I felt driving a semi.  You probably get the same kind of thrill from your bike that I got from driving one of those big bitches, but I’ve only been on a motorcycle three times.  The last time the man ran around the AA club telling everybody that I was too fat to ever ride behind him again.  I made up my mind that I would never get on another one.”

“I’ll teach you! It’ll be okay!” 

But I never became that trophy, especially after he told me about getting into some really bad wrecks.

It wasn’t very long after I got over the pneumonia that I went to Iowa City and had all of my teeth removed.  An AA brother took me. 

I was still drugged by the time he got me back home in Des Moines.  The heavy medication I was prescribed kept me mostly pain free.  About a week later I went to see the head of the dental department so she could check my gums.  She said that the resident who performed the extractions did not do a good job.  She told me that I would be getting a call from Iowa City because she was sending me back.

A few days later, I was in the clinic for my COPD. I told the doctor about my teeth being removed and why I was being sent back to Iowa City.  She said that her son was the head of that department. 

Since I don’t believe in accidents or serendipity, it didn’t surprise me that her son did the surgery when I went back. I surmised his mother had probably told him what happened to me and he was going to make sure that she didn’t have to talk about me to him again.

My AA brother was walking into the room as I woke up, “Well, you ready to go get something to eat?”

“Fuck you!”

My friend said the doctor kinda blinked his eyes and asked if we were married. He said that he laughed, “No, just good friends.”

My gums were wonderful after I got off the pain medication, but I have to tell you what happened! I had run out of pain pills.  I was on my way to the hospital to get a refill.  I stopped at a light and reality hit me.  How many days have you been taking those pills ol’ girl? …  Do you really need more or do you just like them?  …. 

“Shit! You know better than this!!!” 

I had watched AA sisters and brothers, who had been sober as long as me, get hooked on pain meds and have to go through treatment again. Even worse, commit suicide. 

I turned around and went home. I took a couple of aspirin when I needed them.  After the swelling went down I started getting my dentures fitted.  It took a few weeks, but I have never been sorry because they have fit great for eleven years now. 

My brain was still really glitching in 2005 from the drunk driver hitting me in 2003, and it still does today when I am stressed.

I didn’t make a real good first impression on my professors and classmates when I started graduate classes. I was toothless and dealing with a post concussion syndrome.  Can you imagine?  Those people were mainly professionals, and I was not!!  Nor did I have an appropriate business casual wardrobe.  Most of my clothes had come from consignment stores, and my taste in apparel was eclectic and sexy to say the least.

An AA sister from the club and I started classes together. In fact, we took about the same classes all the way through to graduation. 

There were three choices we had in rehabilitation counseling: (1) school counselor, (2) mental health counselor or (3) vocational counselor. I chose vocational counselor because I wanted to help the women in corrections find employment. 

Of course, working with that population meant that I needed some knowledge of mental health and chemical dependency issues too. I was happy to see that those subjects were included in the core classes.

I also attended classes for school counselors, family counselors and other counseling issues including the fluctuating American Disability Act laws. They seem to ebb and flow according to which political agenda is in control of the governmental purse strings.

I didn’t tell anybody how much trouble I was having when I tried to read. I would read for a while, realize that I didn’t remember what I had read, read it again and not remember again.  I’d cry, throw the book across the room, “I can’t do it!”

I’d cry for a while. I would finally push my shoulders back like dad had taught me, lift my head, make a fist with both hands, “No!  They said I can!!!”

I learned that there are different learning styles:

Auditory -- A student with an auditory learning style learns best when information is delivered in auditory formats such as lectures, discussions, oral readings, audio recordings, or podcasts.

Visual -- A student with a visual learning style learns best when information is presented in visual formats such as books, articles, web pages, images, videos, or diagrams.

Tactile -- A student with a tactile learning style learns best when information is conveyed in “hands-on” settings such as trade positions, labs, workshops, or participatory classes.

Kinesthetic learners tend to be the slowest talkers of all, be slow to make decisions, use all their senses to engage in learning, learn by doing and solving real-life problems, like hands-on approaches to things and learn through trial and error.

Read-write learners prefer information to be displayed in writing, such as lists of ideas. They emphasize text-based input and output & enjoy reading and writing in all forms.

Developmental dyslexia is a learning disability that causes difficulty with reading and writing. Dyslexia may cause other disabilities as well, such as difficulties processing the spoken language.

 I’d go get the book, read it again paying real close attention to each part, but what really helped is when I started reading while I sat in front of my computer. I figured out that I am a read-write learner.  I need to see the patterns of information before I can remember.  I converted all of it into an outline form then made a 3-ring binder for each class. 

I put the headers from each chapter in the outline so I could see the essence of the chapter. Then I added what I thought was important under them.  That way I didn’t get overwhelmed by trying to understand all of it at once.

I left room under each heading to add what the professors highlighted in their lectures during class. It was a lot more work, but so much easier when it came time to study for exams. 

I had to request the reasonable accommodation of time-and-a-half for taking tests from each professor. They are a form of assistive technology (AT) that people with disabilities can request to level the playing field. 

Since my brain glitched when I was under stress, and a timed exam caused me much distress, the extra time took the pressure off so I could concentrate on taking the test instead of watching the clock.

Speaking of assistive technology (AT), the students in my first counseling class were divided into groups and told to put together a presentation so the rest of the class could learn something about rehabilitation counseling.

I asked my group if we could do our presentation on assistive technology. I explained that I had been a disability rights advocate and investigator for a federally funded agency where I investigated alleged neglect and abuse of people with disabilities.  I told them, “It didn’t take me long to realize that I knew nothing about assistive technology.  I know that I did a disservice to some of my clients by not being able to help them in that area.  Are all of you real familiar with AT?”

None of them knew anything about it. I told them that any research I had done was on my own time because we were always busy during business hours.

“I would love to learn more about AT. Since we are going to work with people with all types of disabilities, maybe we could get a better handle of the subject now.  Maybe the rest of the class doesn’t know that much about it either.”

We agreed to take different areas of disabilities and their AT solutions. My part was an introduction to assistive technology, why I was so interested in learning more about it and a historical view on solders’ canes, crutches, wheel chairs, etc. and the progress made in those areas.  Others in my group brought AT devices and discussed the progress that has been made in their section. 

Apparently the professor liked our presentation because all of the graduate rehabilitation counseling students had to take two semesters about assistive technology after that.

There were not very many people in Iowa that were AT certified at that time, but we could take the examination and earn that certification after those classes were completed.  Since I was going to be working with the Iowa Department of Corrections’ clients as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, I chose to forgo the agony of taking another extensive exam.  I would know when my clients needed AT help and who to refer them to for those services.  I would work with those professionals to make sure our client had everything they needed to live a good life and find a job.

I absolutely loved graduate classes. One of my professors told us, “When you were in undergraduate classes we told you the rules and what the answers were supposed to be, but now you are in graduate classes.  There are no rules so impress us.”

I was flabbergasted and then ecstatic! I could finally do it my way.  What a freedom.  Of course I had to know what was in the texts and research, including evidence-based practices and what works.  I had to present to the classes and show how my future clients would benefit from my ideas, but I was no longer restrained. 

Well, that’s not completely true. We had ethics classes that told us what we could and could not do.  I had professors that reined me in sometimes, but they also explained why my thoughts, even though they were well intentioned, where simply out of bounds.

But I could finally think and do things out of what others seem to call ‘the box’. I noticed that, many times, I went in a different direction with my research and presentations than my classmates, but just like I had introduced assistive technology, I believe I added some ideas that may have been ignored until then, especially when it comes to the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) consumers.  I definitely gave them voice in my classes. 

I also reminded my classmates that the words we use to describe people have a lot to do with how we treat them. It has been my quest for decades to have people with a criminal history be viewed as human beings in need of help rather than animals to be locked in a cage and forgotten. 

After all, the Department of Corrections, like any agency with human beings in its charge, should have a mission of ‘do no harm’. Or at least no more harm than is necessary.  We must be careful about who gets to define necessary!

Not all of my professors particularly liked me, but they allowed me to be who I am and learn in my own way. I will always be grateful to them for that.

Have you noticed that I have a little trouble fitting in with others? I remember being in class one evening where we were divided into groups and told that we could find any solution our group wanted. 

I tried to talk all of the groups into working with each other so each group could get some benefit, but no one would listen to me. It ended up being a demonstration of the zero sum game [being a situation (as a game or relationship) in which a gain for one side entails a corresponding loss for the other side].  We all lost because the groups were competing with each other instead of collaborating and cooperating.  I had been correct about all of us gaining if we had worked together.

I have found this competition thing very interesting all of my life. I understand the ‘survival of the fittest’ concept and how that is engrained in each of us pretty much from birth, but somehow it makes more sense to me for all of us to get a little bit rather than grabbing everything we can and leaving others to suffer from having nothing. 

I learned in my undergraduate sociology classes that other cultures work together for the betterment of everyone. I think more people understood this concept after they lost their jobs and homes during the last economic downturn in 2008-09. 

I watched people that I could tell were in shock because they thought their job would always be safe. They walked into Iowa Workforce Development with a ‘deer in the headlights’ look.  They were dressed in obviously very nice clothes.  Many of them came every day until they found out they could send their resume’ from their home computer.  However, there were hundreds of people applying for each position at the time, and it was an employer’s market.

Networking groups sprang up. Job fairs were organized.  Business owners and managers came to Iowa Workforce Development for people to fill their vacancies. 

There were several job fairs especially for people with a criminal record, but many did not have a resume or any idea of how to compete with others.

I co-facilitated POETS (Providing Opportunities for Ex-offenders To Succeed) and other classes for offenders. I composed and handed out fliers to them.  Here is one of those fliers:

From this moment on, live, dress and present yourself as if you were walking beside the person who will interview you for your dream job. You are in a job interview from the moment you wake up until you go back to bed.  Do not cuss out or flip off people on the bus, in traffic or on the street.  Employers are not only in the office.  They are in grocery stores, walking down the street, driving or taking the bus because they don’t want to spend $3+ for a gallon of gas.  You don’t want to go for a job interview and see that the person sitting behind the desk is the same one you just cussed out or flipped off.

You never know who is listening to you.  I sat in the cubicle at Iowa Workforce Development and listened to people loud-talking and catching up about what had happened since the last time they saw each other in prison, who had committed what crime and gone back, etc.  They were using the ‘f-word’ as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb.  When I looked out of the cubicle there were employers waiting for the elevator.  Do you think those people will ever get a job from those employers?  Even with a great resume & cover letter?

One of my professors said he goes out to the parking lot and sits in his car before a prospective applicant arrives.  Do they ram and jam into the parking lot or are they polite, stop and let people walk in front of them?  Their car does not have to be new, but is it full of junk and trash while the applicant steps out looking like they are put together?  He wants to see congruence with the way they live their lives and how they present themselves at the interview.

There is a lot more to finding a job than there used to be. People wanted my help finding a job and told me there were only a couple of things on their record for the employers to see, but I printed off up to six pages with them as the defendant from Iowa Courts Online.  You need to address those cases in a cover letter or your best resume will be pitched. 

Do you have a resume and cover letter specific for each type of job you are applying for?    I suggest that you spend half of your job-seeking time at your local state employment facility and the other half physically taking your resume and cover letter to the types of companies you would like to work for.  Do not forget to do the follow-up calls and visits when employers have not told you no.  Many people have got the job because they kept their face and enthusiasm in front of the employer. Above all, always, always send a thank you note the same day you have an interview.

Make sure you have researched the company so you know what skills sets to put in your resume and cover letter.   Make sure you include the exact skills their advertisement cites because employers are using programs to delete resumes that do not include those exact words.  Are you keeping a record of where you have applied and are you following up when you said you would.  Don’t wait for the company to call you. 

Are you attending Job Fairs? Get out of your comfort zone.  Listen to the questions other people are asking.  Keep a list of the ones you want to use later.  How are others presenting themselves?  How are they dressed?  Which ones do you think have the best chance of getting hired?  Are you dressed and presenting yourself that well?  You can get appropriate job-seeking clothing at different churches, consignment & thrift stores, etc.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help! 

You are welcome to use any part of it to help yourself and others.

#B is my last romantic relationship from 2005 to 2011. I did not marry him.  We ended up being friends and he was my landlord.  He was working at a federal agency on a work plan provided by a veteran’s treatment program when we met at the AA club. 

After he moved in with me, I started picking up work appropriate clothes for him at the hospital guild store. The clothes were of excellent quality because they were donated by doctors and nurses. 

I made sure they fit him, washed and ironed his shirts and slacks, packed his lunch most of the time and made sure that we had a nutritious meal every evening. I made the pudding he liked, all kinds of candy, cookies and cakes, and sometimes he took some of them to share at work. 

I was a regular ‘Suzy Homemaker’. I kept the one bedroom apartment clean, did the laundry, studied and attended classes.  We had great sex and talked a lot while we rubbed each other’s back and feet.  I liked him.

He told me, while we were getting to know each other, about how his wife had taken their children to England on vacation to visit her parents.  His daughter and son were very young.  Then she called him later to tell him that she was pregnant with another man’s child and would not be coming back.  Through his sobs, “Her dad told me to not call back because I was upsetting my daughter, and they just disappeared.”

He was always sobbing as he related his journey into deep depression, drugs and attempted suicides after he could no longer speak with his daughter. His son was too young to talk.  It always ended the same way, “All I want is to hold my daughter in my arms one more time before I die.”

I certainly understood what it feels like to lose a child, but I could not even fathom what it would be like if Lori was still alive and I couldn’t talk to her, or even know if she was okay. I sent out some emails to try to find his children, but got nothing back.

Everything was great between #B and me at first, but some of the people, who I thought were my friends, started acting like they didn’t like us being together. One woman in particular, who I had been close to for years, started getting #B by himself and flirting with him.  When I asked him about it he told me to stop being jealous.  I watched her continue this behavior.  The rest of my friends gave each other knowing smiles while we played cards.

One day I was supposed to meet #B at the club. I walked into the card room and those two were the only ones there.  They were sitting close and laughing, but stopped as soon as I walked through the door, “Oh, Hi!”

How stupid do they think I am? “I gotta go.”

I turned around and walked back out the door, got into my car and went shopping. I didn’t mention it again.  Apparently I was more committed to our relationship than #B was.  Their behavior did not change.  I emotionally pulled back from both of them. 

I was at a party at a friend’s house not too long after that. One of my friends accused me of hitting the woman’s car that was flirting with #B.  I absolutely had done nothing of the sort and asked, “Why would I hit her car?”

He looked disgusted at me, as if I should know and walked away. #B and I were not married.  That meant to me that each of us could walk out any time we wanted to. 

How had I become this woman’s enemy to the point that I would hit her car when she was the one who was flirting with the man I was living with? I was not the one interfering in her life.  And why were my other friends so darned ready to believe that I would hit her car anyway?  I would have been a lot more direct if I was truly worried about it.

KARMA – Here we go again! I had to feel the pain, confusion and powerlessness my best friend endured when her husband moved in with me and then back with her.  There was absolutely nothing she could do except watch him be drawn to me while he was treating her and their children with total disrespect.  Although it had not been my intention to cause problems in their relationship like my so-called friend seemed determined to do with #B and me, I did nothing to stop what happened either. 

However, another part of this Karma lesson is that I also had to figure out where my best friend found the courage to forgive me afterwards. I really struggled with that one, but a few years later when that so-called friend that flirted with #B needed my help, I finally understood that forgiveness is for us and not them, so I helped her. 

As far as forgiving #B, I don’t know how my best friend felt about her husband, but I simply knew that I could not trust #B to be loyal to our relationship. I no longer emotionally invested myself in that relationship very far.  

I started concentrating on my classes. #B told me that he was going to move out and I told him that was fine.  Actually, it was really great because I had a real hard exam that I needed to study for, and with him gone I had plenty of time to get ready for it.  I got an A.

Afterwards I went to the AA club early so I could play cards before the meeting. #B and another female friend were playing cards together.  I asked if I could join them and she told me “No!  We’re playing.”

“Oh, okay.”

I went out into the meeting room. Later #B sat down next to me for the meeting.  I asked him if he was going with anybody and he shook his head no.  He asked me if I was and I shook my head no.  He moved back in with me.

I assumed that he had found out that the woman who had been flirting with him was playing some kind of game and was not really interested in going with him.

He told me that I had been right about her flirting with him. I said, “Yeah, but you didn’t shut her down did you?  She wasn’t the only one treating me like shit was she?”

I asked him to get a divorce, “I don’t want to live with someone else’s husband.”

He said that lawyers had told him that he would need five thousand dollars to even start a divorce since his wife was in another country, “I don’t even know for sure where they are, and I sure don’t have that kind of money!”

“Are you willing to get the divorce?”

“I’ve wanted one since she disappeared with the kids.”

I bought a book about self-help divorces, started reading and doing research on the web about Iowa laws since she had kidnapped the kids from Iowa.  I helped him file the papers.  The judge got off the bench when he realized how long the wife and children had been missing, walked down the hall and got a redacted form that I duplicated with #B’s information. 

It was signed and sent back to the judge along with a receipt that #B had advertised in the paper for the required time about the divorce. A few days later #B received his divorce paperwork in the mail.  He was single.  If I remember correctly, the whole thing cost a couple hundred dollars plus many hours of research and me typing until I got it right.

At the beginning of the next year, after hearing #B describe how much he loved his children, and me holding him while he sobbed, I was determined to find them. I prayed about it for a while and then told Lori, “I need your help.  We can’t be together, but I need you to help me find his kids so they can talk and get to know each other.”

I knew his daughter’s birthday was on Valentine’s Day, her full name, the year she had been taken to England and her mother’s name.  I started posting on chat rooms near London.  I titled my posts ‘A Valentine Prayer’.  I told the story, names, dates, etc.  I asked anyone who could help my boyfriend send his daughter a birthday card on Valentine’s Day to please contact me.

I will never forget the look on #B’s face when I told him, “I got her address!”

“No!”

“Yup! Here it is on this email!”

#B sent the birthday card, but did not believe that I had actually found her. His daughter told us, after she moved in with us quite a while later, that her mother woke her up on her birthday, “I think this is from your dad.”

It was interesting when he got a letter back from her. He was ecstatic.  She was excited to get his card and sent a letter with pictures of her, her brother and sister.  She was grown.  Then communications slowed down a lot for a while between them. 

I realized that neither of them had thought past wanting to find each other. They never thought it would actually happen.  They both had to get over the shock of being able to send letters to each other.  They both had to figure out what to say after so many years.

#B wanted to apply for a full time job at the federal agency where he had been working as a temporary. I went on the web and found the application packet.  I wrote his knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) and helped him fill out the rest of the application.  He was hired with a very generous salary and benefits.  I did the same thing four or five times so he could apply for higher paying positions.  He was promoted each time.

#B bought a Mustang convertible and wanted me to find some place to store it for the winter.   He was afraid someone would cut the top since his Jeep had been broken into and his new stereo ripped out.  Plus, my patio furniture kept ending up down the street. 

After some research, I told him that I thought it would be cheaper for him to buy a house with a garage rather than renting the apartment and then renting a storage unit too. He said that he could not get a loan to buy a house because he had done a bankruptcy.  He also was still getting letters for the things that the bankruptcy was supposed to have taken care of. 

I told him, “You’ll never know unless you try.”

“Okay Bonnie, do your thing.”

It was a lot of work, but between me and a man who deals with the credit score companies, we got his bankruptcy, finances, taxes and credit reports straightened out.

I found a house on Oxford Street that was perfect.  #B said that he wanted a garage for his convertible and the Harley motorcycle that he would buy at some point.  This garage had enough room next to the car for the Harley.  He wanted a small yard so he didn’t have to spend all of his time mowing.  This house had a small yard.

I loved the house because it had a large arch between the living and dining rooms like dad had made in the house where I grew up. It had hard wood floors, which is better than carpeting for my COPD, and there were two bedrooms.  I could use one for my office and get away from the television while I studied. 

I knew that I would love the galley kitchen after I could get the ancient stove replaced and put my carts with wire basket drawers on each side of the new stove to hold the coffee pot and other items. Those carts also gave me a place to put my utensils while I was cooking, store onions and potatoes separately, etc. 

There was an ugly wallpaper boarder around the middle of the kitchen. I found a pretty boarder to cover it with pastel colors that said “love, peace, hope and dream”.  I knew that border would be in the kitchen as soon as I could get in there.

Everything was going pretty well, but my AA brother, who was also our realtor, had to have stints put in his heart and was hospitalized. Somehow he got released and got all of the paperwork done so we could move in before Christmas.  I will always be grateful to him for that!

The day that we moved was not my best day! My COPD is never good in the winter because I have a lot of trouble getting enough oxygen when it is real cold or hot.  I had been going to grocery stores to get meat boxes to pack everything in, but by the time I got them all carried from the car I was exhausted.

Anyway, to shorten a long story, I didn’t have everything in those boxes. #B got irate and took it out on everybody.  I was so glad when everything was in the house and everybody was gone, but by that time I was pissed about his behavior.  He was still pissed that I had not, “done my job!”

“You didn’t help me pack anything either did you!”

“That was your job while I was at work!!”

His attitude toward me didn’t change after we got everything put away in the house. He continued to discount how hard it was for me to get my breath.  I learned real fast to just keep my mouth shut when he was angry because anything I said only made matters worse. 

It got to the point that I hated Fridays. We would meet at a coffee shop to play cards with friends after he got off of work, but he always treated me at least with disrespect in front of our friends, and usually said something that really either hurt or pissed me off, sometimes both.  I would get up and leave without saying anything.

When I tried to talk to him about it, he told me that it took him time to wind down for the weekend. I started having other things to do on Fridays. 

By the way, that didn’t change. I was the one he vented to most every day when he got off of work, and his daughter joined him in this habit after she moved in.  By the time they got through dumping all of their negativity on me every evening, I felt like I had been beat to a pulp.

I don’t know how much this has to do with it, but #B had stopped smoking on Chantix. If you go on the web you will see that anyone who has had emotional or mental issues should not use this drug.  I believe that #B might have had some adverse effects from it.

I tried Chantix twice. I almost flunked out of my graduate classes both times.  My mind was so scattered that I could not concentrate.  I stopped taking it.  Instead, I went on the porches at home when I smoked so I would not tempt him to start again.

I took diversity class in the summer with my AA sister/classmate. This included a required ten day trip to Albuquerque to visit the Pueblo historical sites, attend the Pueblo celebrations, visit museums and meet people from other cultures. 

I absolutely did not want to go. #B was treating me like crap in front of our friends.  Looking back now, I was shell-shocked.  I just knew that he would move somebody else in with him while I was gone.

I did everything I could think of including talking to my doctor about it. She said that I would need a scooter in order to make that trip because I could not walk that far without oxygen.  She gave me a written excuse to get out of going on the trip.  I thought that would take care of it, but my professor paid for a scooter while I was in New Mexico.

The professor wanted us to feel what it is like to be discriminated against. I explained that I had lived amongst other races, and in several different cultures including driving semi over the road where women were treated like ‘lot lizards’ (whores).  I did not even bring up the prejudice I have felt since I got out of prison, but none of that mattered to him.  In order for me to pass that class, I would be in New Mexico with the rest of the students.  Since I needed the credits so I could start my internship and get my degree, it looked like I was going to New Mexico.

A couple of mornings later I was driving. There was a dead eagle on the street.  I got to the store and called the police to have someone pick it up.  Later that day a man gave me some sweet corn on the cob.  It was not corn meal, but it is what I had.  I took an ear of corn and sage with me. 

There was no sidewalk between the golf course and where the eagle had died. I parked at the top of the hill and walked on the grass.  When I got to where the body had been, I laid the corn down in the grass next to the street, burned the sage and prayed for its soul. 

I knew that it was safe for me to go to New Mexico after a few minutes standing there.  I didn’t have to fight anyone or anything any more.  I was on my path and would understand later. 

It is also about this time that I realized that my life is a series of AFGOs (Another Freaking Growth Opportunity - and I cleaned up the ‘F’ from the way it was told to me).  That is what is on my brick at the AA club, and what I want to be remembered for.  There are lessons for me to learn from everything in life, especially in the worst of times.

My AA sister and I booked our tickets so we could fly to New Mexico together.  We booked a hotel room at the hotel the professor designated and planned to share the expenses for renting a car to meet the rest of the class at the sites the professor designated each day.  Our boyfriends kissed us and waved goodbye.

We were laid over in Denver and landed during a thunder storm in Albuquerque.  That was thrilling with the plane doing the bugaboo!  We rented a car and got directions to the hotel. 

We decided that since I was a trained driver, I would do the driving while we were in New Mexico.  I don’t really remember what kind of a car it was, but it was mid-sized and handled well, especially in all of the rain that was dumped on us while we were there. 

We found our hotel room and settled in. She had a cell phone and called her boyfriend.  He and #B were at the coffee shop.  After a while she asked if I wanted to talk to #B. 

I asked him, “What are you doing?”

“Sitting here talking to my girlfriend.”

I immediately envisioned him talking to another woman and said, “Well fuck you then!” Click and threw the phone on her bed. 

I went to the bathroom and started crying. A few minutes later she knocked on the door, “Bonnie, YOU are his girlfriend.”

Then I remembered the eagle. I had been told that it was safe for me to go to New Mexico, but it still took me a few minutes to calm down and apologize to him. 

I started compartmentalizing, focusing on where I was and what we were doing. I had to stop worrying about what he was or was not doing.  “I didn’t cause it, I can’t fix it, and I’m not going to worry one more moment about it!!!”

We visited museums, and I think they called it Old Town where there were lots of souvenir stores and cultural restaurants.  At the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center we got to see beautiful museum items made by these people and their ancestors, videos about some of their famous artists and then we watched them dance.  We visited quite a few of the pueblos during ceremonies, and some of the ruins built by their ancestors hundreds of years ago.

As part of the class, we had read books about the history of the people in this area and submitted papers of our understanding to the professor before we left Des Moines.  It was fascinating to actually touch the buildings and ruins I had read about.  I was finally glad the professor forced me to go.  I even ended up thanking him.

I had been so worried about it being extremely hot in New Mexico and me not being able to breathe that it was a wonderful surprise when it was rainy and cooler in Albuquerque than it was in Iowa for those ten days. 

When we went to Pueblo Bonito we had to forge a small stream that had gotten wider from all the rain. Normally I don’t drive though water crossing the road, but it was the only road, and I needed the credit for the class so I could do my internship and graduate.

We were privileged to hear people talk to us about their Mexican-American tradition of folk healing and we were able to buy some herbs from their healer. The woman did a ceremony on me and told me that I had to stop smoking.  I brought home some literature about herbs, but I go to ‘drugs.com’ to make sure they do not have an adverse reaction to the medications I already take.

 We did some sightseeing on our own.  I found a Native American drum that hangs on my living room wall.  I put it in the windshield of my car on a sunny day to tighten it up.  I play it sometimes with the Native American flute music I listen to most of the time.  I also played it when a Native American friend of mine was in surgery.

I have to tell you about one excursion we made. We were to meet the class at a pueblo where we had to drive on a real skinny highway, around curves where she could not see the bottom of the ravine out of her window. 

The way she kept saying “Oh God” every time we were going around one of those curves, and there were a lot of them, had me laughing so hard I was crying. I could barely see the road.  I kept telling her to stop, but that just made it worse.  Her face went even more into panic.  My sides were sore from laughing by the time we found our classmates, but she has never found that amusing.

Oh yeah, another thing I had better admit while I am at it, we were not supposed to smoke in the rented car, but we are both heavy smokers. We went to a store and bought a couple of those ashtrays that hook on to the door by the window and a can of Fabreze.  We smoked the whole time.  The morning we left I handed her the can of Fabreze and asked her to use it liberally, “We don’t want to pay extra to have the car cleaned.”

By the time I drove from the hotel to the airport, my pants were soaked with Fabreze. The poor man who inspected the car could not have smelled smoke if his life depended on it.  She told me that she had used the whole can, but I think she sprayed most of it in the driver’s seat to get even for me scaring her on those curves.

It was good to get back home. #B said that he had missed me even though we had talked on the cell phone every day.  I was hoping that I did not have anything more to worry about when it came to him flirting with other women, but knew, if I had to, I could walk away without paying for a divorce this time.

At some point my AA sister/classmate and her boyfriend started talking about getting married. I knew they were going to do what they wanted so I prayed for them, but they both had to tell #B to butt out of their business before he would stop going to her about the things her boyfriend was and was not doing.  I am still not sure what that was all about.

I started my internship in the fall of 2008. Both of my supervisors had completed the graduate rehabilitation counseling degree from Drake University.  They were working for the Iowa Department of Correctional Services (DCS).  One was a parole officer and the other woman had been an employment specialist for a number of years.

The Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) is the administration umbrella over all offenders in custody, both in prison and in community supervision. The Iowa Department of Correctional Services (DCS) supervises offenders in the community.

My internship was as a volunteer for the Iowa Department of Correctional Services. Since my placement was at Iowa Workforce Development, a state employment agency, I also helped people who had completed their sentence find jobs.  All of them had a criminal record which hinders a person’s ability to find a job.

I participated in all aspects of the DOC Employment Specialist. I completed intakes, distributed orientation packets and acted as a resource for clients. I contacted potential resources such as local clothing stores and community agencies to request assistance for the clients.

My supervisor said that I furnished a perspective to committee meetings and groups that is often over looked, or even ignored, and that is of someone who has received services from the Department of Corrections.

The woman I worked with was amazing. She could ask a few questions and figure out exactly what our client needed to do, what type of job they should apply for and many times she knew where to send them. 

I watched her for a while and noticed that she would ask me to get the same forms out of the file cabinet for each client. I started putting together folders with those fliers to make it easier for her.  She could take out the fliers she needed and ask for different ones when necessary.  She told me that the folders were a good idea because they saved a lot of time.  I made sure there were plenty in the file cabinet.

I attended many agency reentry groups and disability agency meetings while I was doing my internship. I volunteered to put together a reentry resource list to be handed out to our clients, people coming out of jail and prison, and it was distributed throughout Iowa.  The Iowa Department of Corrections’ staff asked United Way to put the information on their web site.  It ended up being over forty seven pages before another agency took over the responsibility several years later.

A men’s store in Des Moines had a sale where customers could turn in their slightly used suits and dress shirts for a discount on new ones.  The store donated the suits and dress shirts to Iowa Workforce Development.  Some of the men in reentry received a suit and dress shirt.  Several told us that it was the first suit they had ever owned.

I went to consignment stores and bought silk ties for a dollar or two each. I encouraged them to go to consignment stores for black socks and dress shoes to polish so they could have the complete outfit. 

We encouraged them to wear the suit when they were applying for a job, even when they were just dropping off their application. We told them that it would be a great first impression.  Many of those men got jobs by listening to us.

My supervisor and I used one of these men as an example in reentry class. He said that he had found some dress shoes and black socks in a consignment store.  He polished the shoes.  He put everything on, picked up several copies of his resume that we had helped him compose and, even though he had never worked for one, he applied at a fast food restaurant. 

When they asked why he wanted to work there he told the manager, “Because I want to manage it some day.”

He was hired that day. The manager told him that he looked like he could be a manager in his suit, and his ‘can do’ attitude was the cherry on the top.

It was time for me to start studying for the Certified Rehabilitation Counseling (CRC) examination.  It was one of those humungous tests that I had to take under supervision.  I would take it on a computer, and it would take hours to complete. 

I was terrified! It didn’t matter how well I had done in all of my classes, if I didn’t pass the CRC exam, I would not graduate.  All of my hard work would mean nothing.  I had to figure out a way to pass that dammed thing!

I heard that there was a CRC computer program on the web that I could rent, but that took money.  Money I did not have.  I went to my Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation counselor.  She sent me to a religious agency funded by a consignment store.  They gave me the money.

I started taking the practice tests.  It was worse than the GRE exam.  There was no way that I was going to be able to memorize everything.  I became obsessed with taking those tests.  I was shown the answers that I marked wrong so I could go to the text book and study more.  I didn’t get much sleep for a while.

I asked for the reasonable accommodations of time and a half to take the exam in a private room so I could read the questions out loud to make sure my brain comprehended.  I submitted documentation from my doctors about my post concussion syndrome and was granted the accommodations, but I had to drive to a town in eastern Iowa to have the private room.

I drove there the afternoon before the exam.  I got a motel room where I could smoke.  I tried to study that evening, but realized that I was just freaking myself out. If you don’t know it by now, it is way too late to worry about it!

I went to a restaurant and relaxed with a nice shrimp dinner.  It had been years since I had shrimp.  #B did not like fish.  I know, I know, that has nothing to do with me eating shrimp, but it always seemed silly for me to fix two separate meals. 

Besides, I normally would not have been able to afford shrimp, but I had the money and decided that I deserved something as a treat for all of the hard work getting ready for the torture of the next day.

I went back to my motel room, got cleaned up and got in bed. The next thing I knew the alarm went off.  It was time for me to make some tea and go over the outlines I had created about all of the theories.  I took a shower and drove to where I would take the exam.

As I was walking into the building I told my Higher Power, “If I don’t know the answer for sure, I’m going to hit ‘b’!”  And that is what I did. 

Well, once again I had to put cold wet paper towels on the back of my neck in the ladies’ room. After I was breathing normally again, I told the attendant as I passed her room, “Here goes nothing!”

I walked into my private room with the cameras watching me and took the exam.  I had a long break in the middle and several short ones in between to have a cigarette.  After I was finished and walking back to my car, “Thy will be done because I have done everything I know how to do!”

I drove home.  #B asked me, “How’d it go?”

“Okay I guess.  I gave it my best shot, but I got to fulfill one of my fantasies while I was at the motel.”

He gave me a dirty look, “Oh yeah?”

“Yes, I got to have a cigarette while I had a bowel movement.”

He looked relieved, “You can smoke in our bathroom!”

“Okay thank you, but I’ll keep smoking on the porches the rest of the time.”

I spent the next few weeks with the nagging fear that I had just spent four years working my ass off in graduate classes and my professor would announce, in front of the rest of the class who had passed the CRC exam, that I had flunked it. I even had a few nightmares where that happened. 

There was nothing I could do about it. It was going to be whatever it was.  If I didn’t pass, then we would all know how stupid I really am, and I would have to find something different to do. 

I don’t remember for sure how long it was before the professor’s announcement during class that all of us had passed.  Actually, it still seems surreal today that I passed both the GRE and the CRC exams.  Thankfully, the only kinds of exams I have to pass now are medical tests.