Fresh Start at Fifty in Kansas City
Donation protected
I have changed my campaign.
If you want to read the original [War and Peace length] explanation, it is pasted down below my photos. I have faced a lot. In brief: long term single parenthood, one of my children is severely developmentally disabled due to an abnormal chromosome, and constant and myriad stresses I have known parenting alone for a couple of decades (even while love, love, loving my girls) took a toll.
Instead of seeking a traditional remodeled home and trying ro raise something close to $90,000 which was my first goal, since houses in the 70-90,000 price range seem pretty sturdy in KCMO, I have found a nice cheerful remodeled mobile home advertised for $12,000. I am asking for $15,000 to aid with moving expenses (a Relo Cube, getting my cats and I to KCMO). My goal is to move, get started at any job that I can do fairly easily, and begin the next phase of my more formal career. This may mean applying to a Master's in Writing at UMKC. It may mean freelance article writing. It may mean beginning a book or writing short stories. There will be poetry. Maybe I'll be doing all of the above. : )
See the Mobile Home here
Maybe this mobile home is meant for me. It was manufactured in 1966, the year I was born, so we're both turning 50 this year. I need a fresh landscape so that I can hit the reset button of my life. I don't know quite why I see KCMO as my next home but I can't shake it.
If I make this move and really settle in for a year I will start the process of moving my younger daughter into a group home closer to me. I will come home to visit before the year is up - can't go that long without seeing my kids.
If, after a year I don't see the region as quite right for me, I will have an income-generating rental that could help me tackle the cost of living in CA again...
Much love to all.
It is embarrassing to be asking for help this way but I have had a lot of hard knocks in my life. I managed to stay soft, but soft clay gets dented easily. I don't want to harden myself or become bitter. I crave help so I can have more stability.
I turn 50 in November. I am asking for a lot but will put any amount toward the same or a similar end goal.
Here is a link to my LinkedIn profile to show my professional strengths, that I am real, that I have been trying very hard.
I became a single mother of two at age 25, after a few years with a drug addicted husband. The drugs he took were not street drugs. He was a nurse and was stealing various opiates from the clinic he worked at. I did not know the cause of his erratic behavior, and once I did I tried to support him in getting help. He didn't want help, and to this day has not been open to the recovery path.
The circumstances of the divorce from him were very chaotic and traumatic, involving leaving with a baby in arms, painfully separating from my step children when I just could not function with everything being left up to me, his and then my rebound relationships - mine was with someone who was offering me shelter from the storm, except it wasn't shelter at all - a pregnancy, paternity testing. In the end I was alone, beginning five months before my second child was born, when my oldest was a toddler.
I may sound like I only see myself as a victim, but I do not. I made some poor choices and participated in relationships that were precarious, though I was the resposible and honest partner, the one trying to keep everything on track. By the time I was 25 a lot of very hard things were set in motion. I bore and learned from the consequenes of these. My children's fathers did not shoulder the consequences of their actions, so to a large degree I bore the consequences created by three people. And there were grave hardships to come.
When my second girl was a year old she was diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality. I began taking her to early intervention therapies, numerous doctors, and we began our journey with the neurologist, and through special ed programs.
I had to involve the district attorney to obtain minimal child support; both fathers dodged and fought against this. Neither of them did any of the actual parenting. My second daughter's father did not pay any money for the first five years - he went on the run and he has never been in her life. There was a lot of love between my girls and I, and a lot of difficulty I faced without help. I wasn't intrinsically a strong person. But I stood at my post and did my best.
I feel privileged that I got to be my girls' mother and we had a lot of sweetness and creativity in our little family, as close to impossible as everything was! I felt very threadbare all the way through.
I covered as many bases as I could, working as much as possible until it became impossible to find appropriate childcare for my special needs daughter, and a job that would allow me to take her to all the therapies she needed. I tried very hard to be present for both of my daughters and the huge variety of things that go into parenting.
For a number of years there were regular trips to the local food banks. I came to have to rely on social programs for our survival. Eventually there were trips to the psyciatric ward for depressive breakdowns for me.
I am grateful for my family helping in ways over the years, keeping us from destitution. I am grateful for many others who have helped me out in times of need.
Even so, those many rough years wore some deep grooves in my physical and psychological being and functioning, and I had some emotional weaknesses even before any of this came about. Nonetheless, I went back to school and got my BA in English over the course of 10 years and while parenting my girls. I worked during most of the years I was in school as a hotel front desk clerk. I also did work study jobs. After graduation I worked my way into the field of journalism, soon making a go at having my own literary, art and feature article magazine (The Ojai Bubble aka The Bubble). I had been stifled for a long time in terms of my adult creativity and involvement with other creatives and it burst forth with the magazine for over three years, but wearing all the hats, learning to sell advertising and working side jobs to support myself and also being there for my kids and their needs and milestones (which I would not have missed for the world!) took a toll on my health.
After that endeavor, I worked for two years as an editor of two national trade magazines, a job that involved learning engineering topics in energy and water resource management that were entirely new to me, and traveling to trade shows and conferences regularly. I managed the workload well, in spite of feeling wobbly on the inside. And then I crashed emotionally, and almost literally, having become suicidal while driving to work one morning.
My girls are in their 20s now. My oldest daughter is on her own and doing well, having recently won a prestigious book award. I learn so much from her and cheer her in her marvelous life process.
My youngest daughter is in a good group home and I bring her home regularly for visits. Developmentally, she is like a very young child, a 2 or 3 year old, but she makes incremental progress and warms my heart. She can also be quite a challenge.
I love my time with my daughters always.
I also have a passion for living that comes out in watching my cats play, sewing, cooking, writing, editing, drawing, comedy improv class, volunteer work with kids, singing, dancing and just hanging out with friends. Really I have so much passion I want to swallow life in big bites, but I feel like I live in a straightjacket created by my past that has been hard to shake off.
Intellectually and creatively I have a lot to give. But the hardships I have been through, along with managing, managing, managing all these years, has broken me so that I function like a cart with only three wheels - a little clunky. Well, I should say that half the time, now that my daughters' needs are met and I have learned to be good to myself, I am ok, even hovering in the vicinity of having a sense of stability. But the other fifty percent of the time the remaining hardship of living in humble circumstances, continuing to expend energy to keep afloat when depletion happened such a long, long time ago, undermines my good rebuilding work. I am ever vulnerable to weariness and overwhelm.
So I am asking for big help. I never had a wedding shower. I have two children but only had one baby shower. I never had an engagement ring, never had a partner take care of me or meet me 50-50. But you can help create my miracle on 34th Street if you feel called to give in any amount. And I only want people who have it to give, and who feel good about giving to give.
There are some inexpensive older remodeled homes in Kansas City, Missouri. I want to move there to start again. I want to live in a house with a yard for my cats to play in, with a dishwasher and a washer and dryer. I have done my dishes by hand for 16 years in my public housing apartment. I have carried my laundry across the complexes to and from laundry rooms my entire adult life. My intention is to settle in and then move my special needs daughter to a group home there. I would like to have a place with two or three bedrooms so when my oldest daughter visits we are not cramped. If I can raise even $50,000 I would be able to finance the remainder of a house priced in the $75-95,000 range. If I can raise only $5,000 this would help me move, rent an apartment, get a new job (or secure the job first - I am searching for work in KCMO) so I can lean into my dream, financing a house myself.
I want a new life and can only envision it as a possibility if I move to an affordable place. I can't ask for help of this kind - helping me to get into a house - in California with the amount houses cost here.
I have an attraction to KCMO. I had a business trip there in 2014 and liked it for some reason. I have researched it enough to feel like I will find my way into a strain in the culture where I will fit in, like I will find work and perhaps further education opportunities. I love Ojai, this artists' enclave, but I will find the art, music, literature and tenderness I need in KCMO. The Midwest may be very different but I sensed and saw a strain of culture running through the tapestry that I can relate to, creative and environmental, foodie and offbeat. There are some progressive minded people. And there are surely aspects of the culture that will surprise me, educate me, add to my life. I intend to add my gifts to life there.
My senses will be stimulated by new sights, sounds, smells, and weather. I want to see fall colors. I want to feel snowflakes on my face like I did as a child growing up in New Jersey. I want to smell BBQ smoke (while advocating for humane practices in raising meat). I want to look out at a new landscape and let the newness get inside me.
I want to get out of Public Housing so I can comfortably work as a freelance writer. In Housing you have to not only report all your income, and I have been fine with doing this, but Housing writes letters to your employers verifying all your income. So if I want to work at home and freelance for several publications, I have to have this verification stuff going on and it is embarrassing to ask employers to fill out the verifications, and also difficult to get the rent amount settled when your income level varies from month to month. I have done it over the years but I feel like I am going to burst into a thousand pieces if I have to keep living this way. I almost moved out of here with the last job I had because I was earning well, was paying the highest rent possible for my place, but rents in Santa Barbara were even higher for fewer square feet, and the process of looking for an apartment after my long work day and before my hour commute home was part of what led to my breakdown.
I have put effort, a lot of effort, into building a satisfying life and I cannot get past the periodic breakdowns, which includes autoimmune issues as well as emotional instability. I take care of myself so I have few physical and emotional problems but the stress of life is constantly wearing on me. Won't you help me get one big piece of the puzzle of life stabilized (a house, remodeled, with good working appliances) so my body and mind can have just that little bit of rest in the mix of it all, so I can get enough of a career going to give of my gifts and have some peace of mind in old age?
This is the hope that I am hanging onto. Or maybe this campaign will lead to something else entirely, or to nothing, in which case I will take a deep breath and try again to bloom where I am planted.
People need things to feel happy and inspired about. I really need some help. My heart and spirit are craving two things: stability like I have never had it in my adult life, and some new adventure. I see this as a way to have both.
Much love to all and to myself too.
If you want to read the original [War and Peace length] explanation, it is pasted down below my photos. I have faced a lot. In brief: long term single parenthood, one of my children is severely developmentally disabled due to an abnormal chromosome, and constant and myriad stresses I have known parenting alone for a couple of decades (even while love, love, loving my girls) took a toll.
Instead of seeking a traditional remodeled home and trying ro raise something close to $90,000 which was my first goal, since houses in the 70-90,000 price range seem pretty sturdy in KCMO, I have found a nice cheerful remodeled mobile home advertised for $12,000. I am asking for $15,000 to aid with moving expenses (a Relo Cube, getting my cats and I to KCMO). My goal is to move, get started at any job that I can do fairly easily, and begin the next phase of my more formal career. This may mean applying to a Master's in Writing at UMKC. It may mean freelance article writing. It may mean beginning a book or writing short stories. There will be poetry. Maybe I'll be doing all of the above. : )
See the Mobile Home here
Maybe this mobile home is meant for me. It was manufactured in 1966, the year I was born, so we're both turning 50 this year. I need a fresh landscape so that I can hit the reset button of my life. I don't know quite why I see KCMO as my next home but I can't shake it.
If I make this move and really settle in for a year I will start the process of moving my younger daughter into a group home closer to me. I will come home to visit before the year is up - can't go that long without seeing my kids.
If, after a year I don't see the region as quite right for me, I will have an income-generating rental that could help me tackle the cost of living in CA again...
Much love to all.
It is embarrassing to be asking for help this way but I have had a lot of hard knocks in my life. I managed to stay soft, but soft clay gets dented easily. I don't want to harden myself or become bitter. I crave help so I can have more stability. I turn 50 in November. I am asking for a lot but will put any amount toward the same or a similar end goal.
Here is a link to my LinkedIn profile to show my professional strengths, that I am real, that I have been trying very hard.
I became a single mother of two at age 25, after a few years with a drug addicted husband. The drugs he took were not street drugs. He was a nurse and was stealing various opiates from the clinic he worked at. I did not know the cause of his erratic behavior, and once I did I tried to support him in getting help. He didn't want help, and to this day has not been open to the recovery path.
The circumstances of the divorce from him were very chaotic and traumatic, involving leaving with a baby in arms, painfully separating from my step children when I just could not function with everything being left up to me, his and then my rebound relationships - mine was with someone who was offering me shelter from the storm, except it wasn't shelter at all - a pregnancy, paternity testing. In the end I was alone, beginning five months before my second child was born, when my oldest was a toddler.
I may sound like I only see myself as a victim, but I do not. I made some poor choices and participated in relationships that were precarious, though I was the resposible and honest partner, the one trying to keep everything on track. By the time I was 25 a lot of very hard things were set in motion. I bore and learned from the consequenes of these. My children's fathers did not shoulder the consequences of their actions, so to a large degree I bore the consequences created by three people. And there were grave hardships to come.
When my second girl was a year old she was diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality. I began taking her to early intervention therapies, numerous doctors, and we began our journey with the neurologist, and through special ed programs.
I had to involve the district attorney to obtain minimal child support; both fathers dodged and fought against this. Neither of them did any of the actual parenting. My second daughter's father did not pay any money for the first five years - he went on the run and he has never been in her life. There was a lot of love between my girls and I, and a lot of difficulty I faced without help. I wasn't intrinsically a strong person. But I stood at my post and did my best.
I feel privileged that I got to be my girls' mother and we had a lot of sweetness and creativity in our little family, as close to impossible as everything was! I felt very threadbare all the way through.
I covered as many bases as I could, working as much as possible until it became impossible to find appropriate childcare for my special needs daughter, and a job that would allow me to take her to all the therapies she needed. I tried very hard to be present for both of my daughters and the huge variety of things that go into parenting.
For a number of years there were regular trips to the local food banks. I came to have to rely on social programs for our survival. Eventually there were trips to the psyciatric ward for depressive breakdowns for me.
I am grateful for my family helping in ways over the years, keeping us from destitution. I am grateful for many others who have helped me out in times of need.
Even so, those many rough years wore some deep grooves in my physical and psychological being and functioning, and I had some emotional weaknesses even before any of this came about. Nonetheless, I went back to school and got my BA in English over the course of 10 years and while parenting my girls. I worked during most of the years I was in school as a hotel front desk clerk. I also did work study jobs. After graduation I worked my way into the field of journalism, soon making a go at having my own literary, art and feature article magazine (The Ojai Bubble aka The Bubble). I had been stifled for a long time in terms of my adult creativity and involvement with other creatives and it burst forth with the magazine for over three years, but wearing all the hats, learning to sell advertising and working side jobs to support myself and also being there for my kids and their needs and milestones (which I would not have missed for the world!) took a toll on my health.
After that endeavor, I worked for two years as an editor of two national trade magazines, a job that involved learning engineering topics in energy and water resource management that were entirely new to me, and traveling to trade shows and conferences regularly. I managed the workload well, in spite of feeling wobbly on the inside. And then I crashed emotionally, and almost literally, having become suicidal while driving to work one morning.
My girls are in their 20s now. My oldest daughter is on her own and doing well, having recently won a prestigious book award. I learn so much from her and cheer her in her marvelous life process.
My youngest daughter is in a good group home and I bring her home regularly for visits. Developmentally, she is like a very young child, a 2 or 3 year old, but she makes incremental progress and warms my heart. She can also be quite a challenge.
I love my time with my daughters always.
I also have a passion for living that comes out in watching my cats play, sewing, cooking, writing, editing, drawing, comedy improv class, volunteer work with kids, singing, dancing and just hanging out with friends. Really I have so much passion I want to swallow life in big bites, but I feel like I live in a straightjacket created by my past that has been hard to shake off.
Intellectually and creatively I have a lot to give. But the hardships I have been through, along with managing, managing, managing all these years, has broken me so that I function like a cart with only three wheels - a little clunky. Well, I should say that half the time, now that my daughters' needs are met and I have learned to be good to myself, I am ok, even hovering in the vicinity of having a sense of stability. But the other fifty percent of the time the remaining hardship of living in humble circumstances, continuing to expend energy to keep afloat when depletion happened such a long, long time ago, undermines my good rebuilding work. I am ever vulnerable to weariness and overwhelm.
So I am asking for big help. I never had a wedding shower. I have two children but only had one baby shower. I never had an engagement ring, never had a partner take care of me or meet me 50-50. But you can help create my miracle on 34th Street if you feel called to give in any amount. And I only want people who have it to give, and who feel good about giving to give.
There are some inexpensive older remodeled homes in Kansas City, Missouri. I want to move there to start again. I want to live in a house with a yard for my cats to play in, with a dishwasher and a washer and dryer. I have done my dishes by hand for 16 years in my public housing apartment. I have carried my laundry across the complexes to and from laundry rooms my entire adult life. My intention is to settle in and then move my special needs daughter to a group home there. I would like to have a place with two or three bedrooms so when my oldest daughter visits we are not cramped. If I can raise even $50,000 I would be able to finance the remainder of a house priced in the $75-95,000 range. If I can raise only $5,000 this would help me move, rent an apartment, get a new job (or secure the job first - I am searching for work in KCMO) so I can lean into my dream, financing a house myself.
I want a new life and can only envision it as a possibility if I move to an affordable place. I can't ask for help of this kind - helping me to get into a house - in California with the amount houses cost here.
I have an attraction to KCMO. I had a business trip there in 2014 and liked it for some reason. I have researched it enough to feel like I will find my way into a strain in the culture where I will fit in, like I will find work and perhaps further education opportunities. I love Ojai, this artists' enclave, but I will find the art, music, literature and tenderness I need in KCMO. The Midwest may be very different but I sensed and saw a strain of culture running through the tapestry that I can relate to, creative and environmental, foodie and offbeat. There are some progressive minded people. And there are surely aspects of the culture that will surprise me, educate me, add to my life. I intend to add my gifts to life there.
My senses will be stimulated by new sights, sounds, smells, and weather. I want to see fall colors. I want to feel snowflakes on my face like I did as a child growing up in New Jersey. I want to smell BBQ smoke (while advocating for humane practices in raising meat). I want to look out at a new landscape and let the newness get inside me.
I want to get out of Public Housing so I can comfortably work as a freelance writer. In Housing you have to not only report all your income, and I have been fine with doing this, but Housing writes letters to your employers verifying all your income. So if I want to work at home and freelance for several publications, I have to have this verification stuff going on and it is embarrassing to ask employers to fill out the verifications, and also difficult to get the rent amount settled when your income level varies from month to month. I have done it over the years but I feel like I am going to burst into a thousand pieces if I have to keep living this way. I almost moved out of here with the last job I had because I was earning well, was paying the highest rent possible for my place, but rents in Santa Barbara were even higher for fewer square feet, and the process of looking for an apartment after my long work day and before my hour commute home was part of what led to my breakdown.
I have put effort, a lot of effort, into building a satisfying life and I cannot get past the periodic breakdowns, which includes autoimmune issues as well as emotional instability. I take care of myself so I have few physical and emotional problems but the stress of life is constantly wearing on me. Won't you help me get one big piece of the puzzle of life stabilized (a house, remodeled, with good working appliances) so my body and mind can have just that little bit of rest in the mix of it all, so I can get enough of a career going to give of my gifts and have some peace of mind in old age?
This is the hope that I am hanging onto. Or maybe this campaign will lead to something else entirely, or to nothing, in which case I will take a deep breath and try again to bloom where I am planted.
People need things to feel happy and inspired about. I really need some help. My heart and spirit are craving two things: stability like I have never had it in my adult life, and some new adventure. I see this as a way to have both.
Much love to all and to myself too.
Organizer
Nancy Gross
Organizer
Ojai, CA