Another post from the other blog.

 This one was also from January 4. I wrote all day, a dream day for me. 

 

 I'm glad I did this. Whether or not I will share it is a big question. I was just copying out old posts to a disk drive and was in 2018 an 2019...darn, I really wrote some fine essays back then. I wrote well during the pandemic too, and by golly, I still do.

I'm starting to feel like I can get out from under this oppressive situation. Being a crusader for a situation that is not improving just wears a person out. I suppose that is part of the narcissist's goal, to take as much energy from the shiny people as possible. Back when I was doing her job for her I wasn't finding much time to write...I wasn't feeling very inspired by my many hours of volunteering. All the essays about the archives I wrote during the 50th season got to a few people, but no one honored them in any way. And they were significant enough to get a grant from the Historical Society. I was very productive around that time.

Then when Kirsten left in mid-2021, I had to take the weight of the organization on my shoulders, though I tried not to. I really believed her when she said she left us with a great staff that could carry on. She didn't tell us the part about them needing constant leadership to function. At the time we didn't know she had trained all of them, and without her supervision they would fail to step up. I doubt she knew that. She was off to a bigger adventure and she wished us well, but her responsibility for it ended. Not faulting her, it's just how it goes. 

It was super hard to hire during the next few years. We couldn't attract good candidates and we didn't have the right kind of volunteers in place either. It wasn't the pandemic that started us sinking...we made it through that just fine, without even touching our savings. She got us a lot of grants, and we all got our stimulus, and we did the half-size markets and made it work. It was well after the pandemic effects were over when the big cracks formed.

We just didn't have the professionals we needed, or anyone with any high-level skills, and those we had soon went off to other more rewarding tasks. It's painful to look back and I can't do it without blaming individuals for their terrible choices. Maybe the pandemic made everyone more selfish (yes, it did) and maybe we lost some of our strength as a community that cared about each other, but without certain people doing what they did we would never have fallen so low. 

I was in there...it bothers me quite a bit that I was complicit. I navigated some tough territory. I had to recommend her for her new job, carefully but positively, even though I knew we needed her still. We were a bit desperate for Board members so some people rose to power who shouldn't have. They had an agenda, and part of it was to push leaders like me out of the way, which I stubbornly resisted, but with retirements and successful campaigns to drive people out, that happened. 

Someone kind of innocent was drafted to write a letter to everyone saying that all the old people should step out and bring in young people, which sounded fine on the face of it, but the few of us who were old looked at each other and knew it was personal. It was old people saying that, too. New and young is not the same as better. With us went a vast body of knowledge and skills that were not in place in these new people. There was no one to mentor them, and they didn't think they needed any mentoring.

So it was actually kind of how she described it in her delusional interview...she was asked to do things, she had the keys, and she took the job. She took it somewhere no one asked her to go. 

When I see all that I was doing for the market in 2019, for ten years before that, and for a couple of years after, I see how much of my effort was destroyed, and how intentional it was. I had a staff member say I "needed help" and was doing "too much," which was true enough, but you don't tell older, powerful people they need help, unless you actually have an idea of what productive help would look like. That was not his idea. He was just there to disenfranchise me and prevent me from seeing what he was doing. Policies went out the window. Points were not honored. I almost lost the space I had asked for and sold in for two years, every week, when he refused to put me on the list through a technicality. Instead of letting me know, it got down to the last minute. He wanted to make me beg, or to watch while I lost my space and someone else got it. Despite my contributions, no one would advocate for me.

At the time I was shocked, but at this point, after being sabotaged by several staff members, past and present, I don't expect any support. I expect retaliation and punishment. I have to fight for even my right of free expression, and if you went back an read some of the incredible posts I wrote when the market was good, this would break your heart too. But no one will go back and read those at this point. 

In shedding the stalkers, I also shed fifteen years of dedicated readers, some of whom probably always at least glance at my posts. Of course I had a lot more fans when I posted on FB, but those days are gone and a lot of those people were just drama-seekers. Now if I want to inspire or say anything a writer would say, I have to protect myself or publish a book. What I have to say won't fit in a viewpoint in a local paper, though I may write some of those in time, as things will likely get worse before they get better. 

Maybe this shift to here is temporary, and I will probably invite some readers over here. 

But anytime I want to feel good about myself, I should go back and read 2018 and 2019. Or come here and write about it. 

I can write. I can also sing, but I need to get practicing. Jell-O Show is coming fast and I am not inspired. I need personal space to get into it. Maybe this will be the key to that.