Updated Feb. 9, 2025
To All,
My very rough winter has not yet ended, yet perhaps I may allow myself to hope the deepest freeze is beginning to thaw, allowing the promise of spring on the distant horizon. Thanks to your kindness and generosity, I'm at least comparably safe in my once-upon-a-time home of Columbus, OH. As the wonderful people I'm working with in person have described this moment in time, I'm at a "stepping stone" amidst the "storm" of my life, and I'm working on my next steps for health, home, and (hopefully) a more stable happiness.
Please know every single safe stepping stone along my path was put there by you. Please know how deeply grateful I am to stop and rest awhile.
<3
KMG
~*~
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Day"
-Robert Frost
___________________________
Original Post, January 10, 2025
For those of you who know me, you know that I have always tried to be a helper. I haven't always gotten it right, but I hope that the trajectory of my life will show I helped more than harmed and healed whenever I was able. Being recognized for being a helper is a wonderful perk; but perks don't pay the bills. So what would you do if the expectations of your job eroded your mental and physical health so badly that your loved ones thought the only way to save your life was to put you in the hospital? Now what would you if that happened twice within a three week span? And what would you do if that timespan happened over Christmas and you rang in the new year in a psychiatric ward? What if that new year was 2025?
This is my story.
I understand why everyone who loves me and tried to help me did what they did. Many of the things my loved ones did were exactly the help I needed, and I'm so grateful to anyone who shows me love in any form that love takes. But what anyone who has reached such a dark point in their lives can understand is that sometimes those people who love us don't know all the information, so they can't make the "right" choice based on what you need. I believe in my bones that everyone made the choice they believed was right, and I won't take that away from them. I see their gifts of love and I'm grateful for it. But some of their gifts of love have accidentally caused me more harm, and I find myself in the darkest moment of my life.
On December 2, 2024 I turned 40. There is so much joy in that number for me. My life has been has been beautiful. It has also been mixed with so much sorrow and grief that anyone who has heard my story describes me, above all, as resilient. The amazing poet Lucille Clifton wrote, "Come celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and has failed." By January 8, 2025, I lost the hope that I could survive this one without asking others for money. The expectations outlined in the FMLA currently protecting my job--and with it my access to health care and a future paycheck--expect me to be healthy enough to return to work in Pittsburgh, PA on February 2. While that's not an "impossible" deadline, it is a difficult one in the best of circumstances. And my circumstances are far from best. The compounding complications and constantly shifting circumstances could only be described as the worst.
Across December and the bit of January we've already lived, I have lost the following:
* my financial stability: FMLA does not protect pay, so I cannot count on a regular paycheck until I return to work.
* my home: I cannot return to the home where I lived with my partner for the last two years. Given the financial limitations I have access to personally and within my family, I cannot afford to make the journey back to my current hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I cannot afford either a new apartment lease on my own or even temporary housing in PA.
* my mobility: Everyone thought it was best that I return to my birthplace and family home in SC to heal. I sit here in my childhood bedroom writing this without a car to drive to access services on my on and while winter storm Cora shuts down not only interstate traffic but also threatens to affect the power and heat access to all of the residents of the Carolina Piedmont region.
* my time: Every day since I was released from the hospital into my family's care, the precarious circumstances at my job and within my life have eaten away at the "time" everyone wants me to take to heal while also making my health increasingly worse.
* my doctors and therapists: All of my established medical relationships are currently restricted to only serving those who are physically present within the state of Pennsylvania. Every South Carolina mental health resource I have either found on my own or was given by a medical professional has said they cannot take me for weeks. And with the winter storm making things worse, most health and social services resources have been limited to much worse health situations that the one I am currently in. Depending on the outcomes of the storm, these delays may increase further.
* my partner: The stress of this worsening situation has harmed my beloved partner of 3 years and his family so badly that he made the difficult decision to end our relationship to protect them and take the time to heal himself. I feel no animosity towards him, but I am so very sorry that loving me caused them all such harm.
Many have advised me to choose harmful or punitive responses to the above losses I have suffered. But the one thing I will not let be taken away from me is my kindness and my love. I'll take those to my grave, which creeps closer daily.
But as South Carolina's motto says: Dum Spiro Spero
"While I breathe, I hope."
My friends: I can't breathe.
Can you help?
In Solidarity,
Karly Marie Grice, PhD
Former College Professor of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio
Former High School teacher of Upstate South Carolina
Current Teen Library Services Associate of Pennsylvania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS5fTzMP_mg
