Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

 

Taken from a mountain overlooking Playa Pinellas here.

One of my absolute earliest memories was the death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. I remember it well because of seeing how much it affected the adults around me. It felt like a very unsafe transitional time. Our house staff was greatly affected, our housekeeper,  and our gardener most of all. I remember my mother holing up in her bedroom in front of the television with bon bons and her favorite adult beverage, crying for days on end.

It marked a time of uncertainty for me. I have had a number of transitional times in my life that have felt unsettling, even if some were happy, like getting married and moving to Europe. Our last one involving moving here to the English language school in the mountain town for a semester. Buying our home on the outskirts of Las Baulas and Playa Grande. Selling our house in the States.

For the past year I keep telling my friend Cindy and others that I sense I'm coming up on another cataclysmic huge change. It didn't quite shake out like I thought it might. But it is change. Today I made the decision to step down from writing for No Longer Quivering and Patheos after ten long years.

Well over a year I've been juggling unsuccessfully writing several books and other projects as well as NLQ. NLQ has turned into an enormous time suck starting about a year ago once I managed to anger the friends of Bethel Redding and Steven Anderson. Lately it's only gotten worse. I've pretty much shut down so much of the ways I could be contacted through NLQ, ending up with a email box I rarely check this last year.

It was a move to protect myself from the flood of less than balanced ravings I've gotten, and it's worked pretty well. At least until the last two months. Once the election got ramped up so did the insanity. Now it's nothing for me to get up and have a  thousand emails from Anderson supporters saying things like they were going to come to Costa Rica to forcibly hold me down and shave my head. That was the mildest of the suggestions; Some are biologically impossible! Most illegal. Plus many crazier things. There aren't enough hours in the day to post then all at Jerks4Jesus.

Jim's been begging me to give up NLQ, because dealing with the crazy has taken up so much time and we're supposed to be retired here, not facing longer and longer days on the computer. He wants me to finish at least one of the books and shut down most of my social media. That time has come.

I got up this morning, with my dizziness problems and everything connected to my mast cell to another set of let's shave your head, then rip off your head and shit down your neck messages combined with a few crazier things and I had hit my brick wall. No more. I am done except for wrapping up a few book reviews. 

It's a sad day when women have to leave the world of online columns and journalism because some stupid patriarch types are acting like knuckle dragging mouth breathers, but it's happening more and more lately. I see more women leaving the field due to the threats from men.

The stress of it does not do anything good to my wrecked immune system. 

I'll still be here, and heck, I might even come back in some ways. I owe various websites articles right now. I'm not leaving writing, I'm leaving the daily grind and the threats to regain a bit more control of my life and my time. 

I have to finally finish the book and stop fretting and reediting it. That will never happen with the time consuming nature of what I've been doing. As sad as I am to be losing contact with many people I consider friends I have to admit when I finally made the choice I feel about a million pounds lighter, almost euphoric!

The guys at the NIFB will have to find some other person to threaten with head shaving and the like. Go figure.