You Can Never Go Home Again, a Metaphysical Blog By Shawn M. Cohen BSc. Metaphysics, L.V.N.

"All my life I never really knew me till today.

"Now I know I'm just another step along the way...." by Justin Hayward, Mike Pinter, John Lodge, Graham Edge, Ray Thomas also known as THE MOODY BLUES. 

It has been a while since I wrote here. It has been a very busy year, 2015. 

First of all my daughter would be applying for University. This meant finishing up "High School" but in England we say "A" levels from "College". Her absent father wanted to connect with her again, after another long absence, as she was coming up to age 19 which means the end of his small forced by law, child support. 

We both had qualms about that. But in the end, he put his money where his mouth was and gave her some money. 

The first thing she said to me was, "Mum, let's go back to Pittsburgh and see Grandma!" And so we did....but before we left there were a few things to consider. One, who would watch the cat? And could I get all my old girlfriends from Pittsburgh who I had grown up with to connect again and meet in The Burgh! I started a group Facebook Page and invited them all in. One was in Florida, another in Ohio and the other in California. I, now 30 years living in London England, knew it would take some time, effort and organization to get us all there at the same time and co-ordinate dates. My other friends who still lived in Pittsburgh of course, had their lives, families and even grandchildren at this stage of the game! So we began the, "YES, I am coming HOME" story and when and where we would stay and so on. I was very happy to be able to do this at the ripe age of 59. I was sure it was all planned from above on some level. As a Psychic Medium I could just hear the many deceased parents of this group who all knew each other or most of them saying, "Great, Girls, Go for It!" And so we did. 

Getting to Pgh was easy. I got to work in a Metaphysical shop doing what I do best, giving readings and the owner was so gracious to me as she once was 9 years before when I was last there. She offered us her home to stay in too. I am not speaking to my siblings for various reasons so there was no way I was staying with any of them. It is what it is but we got a place to stay and we were able to be in the neighborhood I loved so much, Shadyside. Where my story with Art unfolded, I got to see the brick I had put in Shadyside, which I had done, ordered over the phone from London, 9 years before but had not seen, that says, "Art Swiden, Champ 4 Ever!" and that made me happy. Another friend of mine took me to see his grave site, as the last time I saw it, it was not even marked! So now it was marked...and not as I had hoped but ok, it is, what it is. She asked me while we were there, "Don't you want to spend some time here?" I said, "What for? He isn't in there, just his carcass, his body." She has known me since I was 16. But she still can not believe that I became a Psychic Medium....even though she knew my story, witnessed my changes when my first boyfriend died and I saw his spirit and told her...told most of them too and to this day only a couple of them actually believe I am in touch with passed on people! I gave readings to some while I was there and this was clear that they loved it, their dead relatives came through and spoke words that I could never have known, especially since some I had not seen in 30 years! But others just pretended it was not so, not interested because it took them out of their comfort zone! And what happens when you go home is this...some people who knew you growing up can not see you as anything other then the picture in their mind of you at whatever age they met you or knew you! 

So even though I had saved all their letters to me, their notes from high school which we used to write to each other back and forth, it was the highlight of our day to get these notes and letters. I had kept them even in my many travels. Why? Why had I not done what they had all done and thrown them out after a while? Perhaps they were just too precious to me. They were filled with great stories, of love gained, love lost, adventures, inside jokes between us and remembrance and all from high school and some who I was friends with even longer still wrote to me and I had those great letters as well. And then they went into details of their marriages of which I was at many and even in the bridal party, even maid of honor at one. I made many new friends along the way of my life, considering I have lived outside the USA longer now then inside. But they were my gang and I loved them all. 

Now the one I was maid of honor to...her story and mine is all about how two friends grow apart because one marries and goes off into the suburbs to live a very traditional life (even if said friend did loads of exciting adventures with me before hand and well, I was a bit surprised when it was her choice to be Mother/Wife no career, that was her choice and of course I was happy for her!)  Now her older sister invited me to London in 1985...this was because she was running a work shop and needed people for it. It was not, as I realized later, a special invitation for me, but she sweetened the pot by saying "if you come to this workshop in Italy, you can do some metaphysics there." I did come, paid my way, did the metaphysics which wowed the group ((I read Auras) and then when I came back to London and her flat, was inundated with invitations from the group's participants. So within a week of this I was now sought out to live and work in London. I was asked to move out and get my own place,by her sister and I suspected then there was some jealousy but I got a place.  And the rest is history. I had a falling out over a business deal with this same person in 1991. It was clear I would have been the 3rd wheel on a business which I had brought forth and the talent as well. So I left. I made the right choice too. Her sister went back and said a pack of lies about me to cover up her own selfish behavior. So that friend was now not speaking to me! And of course she believed her sister! I was never in any running for the truth! So now here we are, her sister passed away,  30 years later, we were all meeting up and we finally did meet up. She came in from Ohio. She wanted to meet me for coffees even before the group met. We had been emailing all along, even as she slammed me plenty of times in those emails. I tried to send her sister pictures and wrote a poem as she was dying and all I got back was, "SHE has nothing to say to you!" It was really ridiculous and sad. I had helped her sister in the past with things she did not even know about but clearly on her death bed she was not about to come clean! Ok, then. Your karma!

So imagine my surprise when we are all gathered together, for our second gathering as one of my friends from California who grew up with us and I had also shared an apartment with for two years as we went to College together and were best friends then, she came in, which was great! So casually my other friend starts saying things which blew my mind! I was hearing it as she was talking out loud to our gathered group of people there. It was all about how her sisters did not like her husband! Wow...who knew? I was actually accused of saying something against her husband and the other sister used it to destroy my friendship with the other sister! It was a case of me being blamed once again for not only what I did not do or say but how what I said was twisted into some kind of "bad" person story! Me being the "bad person"! I was shocked to say the least.

I have spent my life telling the truth, seeking and searching for it. I don't tell lies! But when confronting her once the gatherings were over...she freaked out, froze and not only tried to cover her words up but then called me a "LIAR" to all the other girls on the group...who sadly....not all of them....but some of them clearly decided I was not a nice person because my words to her after she was nasty to me in emails and sniping and insidious comments I just wrote back for her to go **** OFF!" Well, "Hurtful words" was what I got for my efforts! "Don't send me an email with 'hurtful words' on it!"   I was shocked! NOT ONE FRIEND asked what happened and why it was going on, even though they all knew that we had not been friends for a long time! This "friend" showed me from the beginning when she came in and was so nervous at the restaurant. She was not sincere. She brought pictures of us all when we were teens which I asked her to bring. It was great to see them as mine were all lost in a move in L.A. But the minute she put them down, she picked them back up a couple seconds later! It was as if she was not going to "share" them. I could not see why this was except "control"! 

 So, after all that was said, the beautiful boxes of their saved letters wrapped in ribbons and given to each one with a personal note from me, the meeting of our kids to each others, being in their homes, some even meeting for separate dinners and lunches and brunches...I am truly sorry to report most of them, no really all of them hardly even write or communicate to me and that started not long after I came back to London, And when I came back home the pet sitter made a mess of my flat so that was another insult to injury story! WHAT is wrong with people!??

I spent time with my 90 year old mother in the nursing home...for the first couple of times she remembered me, the rest of the time, she called me by her sister's name, "Betty"! I know she has Dementia but it hurt. I am not even close to my Aunt anymore, as I once was...her choice not mine. I was losing my mother even though she was still alive...just.  That was the hardest part of all of this and also the fact that I had no idea when or if I would get back here again. It took me 9 years just to get back to Pgh again. I felt like people were looking at me as someone else but could not see me for who I now was, not even my own mother!  In the end, one wonders what you have to do to WAKE UP the people you grew up with and the answer is pretty clear, especially on this Easter Monday Morning as I write this, And I quote from the New Testament:  Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael said unto him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip saith unto him, “Come and see” (John 1:45-46).

 what they meant by that was what Justin Hayward and the Moody Blues sang which I first heard when I was age 14, in 1970 with my boyfriend Glen at the time who turned me on to all their music and here it is: { If you become more then you were when you were little, or when people dump their own poor opinions of themselves on you or how they perceived you when you were a teenager and refuse to see you for who you have become, when all their own insecurities are delivered to your doorstep and you are asking yourself, "what does this have to do with ME?" and finally being accused of things you not only did not DO or SAY because your own searching for TRUTH and being a PERSON WHO VALUES TRUTH ABOVE AND BEYOND ANYTHING ELSE means your "friends" find that weird and therefore are not interested in your ideas, philosophies...or you are not "ONE OF THEM"  because they can not see you for  what you do and who you are today! After all, what GOOD can come out of PITTSBURGH???}

 I was impressed with their beautiful homes, their nice husbands and children and their big American cars but why then was it so hard to be impressed with what I had to say or share? They saw the weight gain I had from my thyroid disease. They saw me sweat in the sticky heat of summertime Pittsburgh, they saw me as a person who clearly is not rich, not married and therefore not the same as them, perhaps. Was I not one of them? Did I not grow up with them? Go to school with them? Attend their birthday parties, even have them with my own, and have so many experiences and adventures with them?? Then WHAT GIVES? Oh, my, whatever they saw in me for not wanting to be real friends after this huge effort to get together was just sad, like a missed opportunity. 

The minute I had a fight with the other one, only defending myself the rest of them basically backed off. And you can bet your bottom dollar she is doing exactly what her sister did to me, lying about me through her teeth to cover up her own bad behavior! Coming to meet with them even though she doesn't live there and believe it or not, she was not even good friends with them, we were friends.

I am not Jesus, not even close, not Catholic or Christian nor do I want to be! But I can not help feeling that because I grew up with them, because I do something they don't really understand or perhaps see as weird, then this was just enough.  Or is it as simple as "not interested in you!"

 "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they have done"! Sounds corny to say that but I cant help feeling like the "mob"  has turned against me! After all, how hard it is to send an email? Write something in the group I keep open for them? I mean really...! 

Yes, it hurt me. Yes, it felt like a stab in my heart. Yes, I tried and tried to keep the conversation going with sending them each cards and emails and of course constant comments and content on our Facebook Group but I see that I am just kicking a dead horse. I am asking to be friends with my old best girlfriends who don't really want to know. Convinced that either I did something wrong as of our other friend (which I did not!) or that my weight was an issue or was it my daughter was too pretty? Or perhaps I was too pretty when I was younger?? Or maybe the Moon is made of cheese??!!!! WHAT THE?? For decades I have been an advocate of Natural Medicine and of course I use and believe in it. One of my friends, who is now a professor of biology at a college is sure as shit that everything that Natural Medicine does or claims it does, is "not evidence based!" and guess what folks??...I finally could not take the insults anymore! So ignorant and so sure she was right! Brainwashed by mainstream medicine! I was a NURSE but she believes her education because it behooves Big Pharma to try and belittle any other way. She also thought GMO's were ok too which in the end, I just had to say to her, "FFS, Grow UP, you are not the be all and end all of all knowledge because you studied Biology!" I studied it too in Nursing School but that point never came up, or when I would bring it up she would act like it was not important! Excuse me?? And our other friend with all her health problems and her kid's health problems for years and years I have tried to get her to go to a Naturopathic doctor. I can not tell you the TON of information I researched and sent to her over and over again! She could not be bothered to read it. She also made plenty of reasons/excuses as to why not to take her seriously overweight daughter to a Holistic Doctor. In the end, as I was finally getting somewhere with her, I realized something. The other one who fancies herself a DR. even though she is not...was telling her to do the opposite from me. That is why her child is still morbidly obese and with so many pills and health issues in her. No, she could not trust me. I was her oldest friend but since my father was not a DR.  (but out other friend's was!)even though I was a trained NURSE...she could not trust me and my information which would have very much healed and helped her and her family. She told me way down the line that she met a HARVARD Graduate who told her something exactly as I had told her years ago! Then, she realized and only then that I might have been telling her the truth all along! But she would listen to the Harvard graduate, not me! The other one made some rude comment to me about the party I made for our first gathering which I had arranged all the way from London! It was at the place where the Encore once stood in Shadyside, Pittsburgh on Walnut Street and I had invited as a surprise guest Pat DiCesare who was the Rock Promoter of Pittsburgh so when we were all ushers at a venue called The Syria Mosque (not a mosque but a music venue named this) and all those years later he walked in with his new book about his 50 plus years in the business, my friend's mouths truly fell open in surprise!! It was a delight to meet Pat and his lovely wife Kathy. And what did my friend say, "Wow, who knew you could throw a party like that?? I mean...YOU??!"  As, you can only imagine, that was like a jealous infantile slap in the face to me! I mean, I only waitressed and bartended for 10 years to get through all my college/University degrees! Are you kidding me? I have served some of the most professional people in Pgh, N.Y. Florida and California, and she could not "imagine" I could throw a party like this! What closet have YOU been hiding in!?  THAT was the first bitch slap of many to come. Although it was truly a glorious evening even if my other friend (the one with the sister issues) RUDELY got up as soon as Pat started speaking (This man brought the Beatles and every rock group who was worth anything to Pgh) and she turns her back and starts to walk away! As she was sitting next to me, and always needed to sit next to me it seems, I could not believe what she was about to say, "Well, I never was an usher." and I stopped her and said, "How many rock concerts did you go to with me alone let alone other people in Pgh??" It was then I realized not all from this gathering was what it seemed. It was not about "her" so she was not interested! Meanwhile the rest of us were very interested. And Pat was a delight to speak to and signed books which I bought for everyone. Yes, I did that for my friends. They had other gatherings and we all met up. Some came in twice and some lived there so it was a month long story. At the time, I was thrilled with it all. Everyone brought something as presents for us all and everyone picked up tabs along the way so they were all generous and it seemed really wanted this meet up. Which is why it is all so confusing to me.

But that was then and this is now...

Soon I will be 60, and one of my friends from this group was born 3 days before me in the same hospital. I was so happy to be with her, meet her family again and we spent some lovely time together but for some reason she just was not interested in speaking to me when I came back to London! My daughter told me about "What's App" and it is a free app on the phone which allows you to call anyone in the world for free or text them. I put it in our group and a few of them did take me up on it. There was a minimum of hellos...only one of this whole group sent me a beautiful card and a gift to say thanks and lovely to be your friend again. She wrote me the most on What's App. None of them wanted to Skype, except the two I was already Skyping with and the one in California who I was so close to when we were young I wanted so much to renew our friendship. Unfortunately her beloved older brother passed away not long after the group meet ups. I know she was hurting and therefore one can only hope in time she will want to really connect again, especially when she said she could count the friends she had left after she got her son, on one hand! (I had the same experience when I had my daughter!) 

So, in rounding up this rather long and rather sad rant.... I am sure there is a level where we all love each other. That the back biting, the jealousy, the insecurity  and competitiveness and the shame of being overweight, (or some with their own grown up children have this issue!) even a little or a lot does not matter one iota! What size you are is meaningless, who you are and how you love is much more important! That our love and memories of being kids, then getting Bas-Mitzvahed and going to each others, growing into teens who smoked cigarettes, cut school and smoked pot, watched soap operas together, flashed peace signs and marched against the Vietnam War and for Women's Lib,  were "peace and freedom" Hippies, ushered rock concerts, danced to soul music and slow danced with boys to " A Whiter Shade of Pale", passed out at a Jethro Tull concert,  hung out in Frick Park, Highland Park and Schenley Park in Pgh, loved bell bottomed jeans, and had one lay on the ground while the other said, "ok, now suck it in!" while she zipped up the new jeans,  hitch hiked through Pittsburgh, had endless sleepovers, our own inside jokes,constantly wrote notes during class and passed them along in the hallway between classes, made each other laugh until we cried, and laugh and laugh again, graduated from driver's ed  (just!) and attended as little as possible Peabody High School, went to the free breakfasts across the street put on by the seminary and saw it as our personal hang out spot with donuts and coffee,  some traveled and vacationed to other states together and even some of us hitch hiked through Europe together! And then came Junior Colleges, Universities, who went, who dropped out, who graduated and who did not and who got married instead, our first cars...and all the many, many lucky boyfriends we all went through until the right husband came along. (And not all of us married!)  Bridesmaid dresses, Maid of Honor dresses, catching the bouquets! I caught 3 myself! And after all the babies, the kids growing up, loving them like your own and seeing in them what was once your best friend's youthful beautiful face in their children's looks, and now the grandchildren and again what delight to see again this face which comes again in their descendants...so much joy to witness these experiences and be a part of them, even a small part. And finally, deaths, attending funerals too... we were there for each other as our parents, one by one, died, not all of us, not all the time and not all are passed but some, providing comfort, crying as if it were your own parents.  I have seen it all, witnessed their lives like technicolor on film. Not every moment, nor every story but the whole magilla in upshot, in glory and in outcome. They called me the "Historian of the Group" and I wore that label proudly. I remember so much and even I don't know why. I told them I was working on a book and I was looking for the "Happy Ending" and that meeting up with them was so great, it would be my happy ending! I cried when I said good bye to them all at our last meeting...perhaps because I loved them all so much, for me they were my real family and even their families, who I grew up with, were also that for me.Seeing some of their siblings too, what a treat! I suspect, that is it.  I would have loved it if they could have got past their own reasons for not wanting to really and honestly connect with me again after the meet ups. I would have loved it if we could be real friends again, actually communicating on What's App, Skype, Viper and all the FREE ways we can all speak to each other now with modern technology. There isn't a poor one amongst them so they really could also pay to call me in London but I made it simple and free and still no communication so alas... here came the excuses....they "are too busy", they "are grandmothers", they have "no time", they "work",  the truth is... they just don't want to. Period. It is simple, if you care you make the effort. A conversation is free, no one is that busy. I know that some of them do meet up in Pgh so if I brought some of them back together then that is something, I guess.  I was there in Pgh, June to July 2015, so it is now 8 months later, enough time to know that they are just not that into me or believe whatever heinous lies the other insecure ex friend is spewing. It is a true shame as we come upon our collective 60th year on the planet. You would think my loyalty was proved by saving all their letters to me and presenting them as the beautiful gift they were...but apparently not. I am sure not one of them will be reading this and since I have mentioned no names I can safely say my book's ending has changed. 

 Perhaps Justin Hayward and the Moodies were right...

YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME  

By The Moody Blues (c)  The Moody Blues. 

I don't know what I'm searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

All my life I never really knew me till today,
Now I know why, I'm just another step along the way,

I lie awake for hours, I'm just waiting for the sun.
When the journey we are making has begun,
Don't deny the feeling that is stealing through your heart,
Every happy ending needs to have a start.

All my life I never really knew me till today,
Now I know why, I'm just another step along the way,

Weep no more for treasures you've been searching for in vain.
'Cos the truth is gently falling with the rain,
High above the forest lie the pastures of the sun,
Where the two that learned the secret are now one.

I don't know what I'm searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

By, Shawn M. Cohen 

Shelter From the Storm, You Can Never Go Home Again

Copyright 2016 (c) 

March 28, 2016 

Moody Blues song lyrics and video above not infringing on copyright. They belong to the Moody Blues only and Dans Blue, thanks Dan for allowing me to use this on my blog.

my daughter and I our first day back in Shadyside.

My dear friends whom I love so much meeting at the house of where they grew up and we all hung out. 

 Kindergarden at Sunnyside Elementary School in Stanton Heights, where some of my friends were also in my class and when we met, age 5!  

The gathering at where the Encore used to be, with Pat DiCesare and my beautiful childhood girlfriends.

A picture of Shadyside to prove I was there! 

Art Swiden, see the Pittsburgh Phantom and Me, my other blog. Here is the brick in Shadyside at the Parklet near where the Encore used to be where I honored my wonderful boyfriend who passed in 2004.

And finally, my mother in the home in Pgh, age 90 and me, she barely knows who I am to her. Imagine that? Who am I if you do not remember me? Who are you if I do not hold some of you in my heart? We must be kind and loving to each other, we must love one another no matter what. 

And so, here's to friendship, old and new, it is a precious gift, one where the other person knows all your flaws but still loves you anyway! That my life has never run the "straight and narrow" path of conventional ways continues to show me again and again how much we all need to be our own best friend. I continue to open minds and hearts with my blogs, my psychic medium readings and all my Metaphysical work. If you were touched by this latest entry to "Shelter from the Storm" please do comment below. I respond to all comments. Thank you and cherish your friends and find the ones who cherish you back! 

Want a Psychic Medium Tarot Reading? Astrology Chart? Go to my website and check it out, email me from there. http://www.tarotbyshawncohen.weebly.com

And finally, Happy 60th to all us born in 1956! Elvis had his first hit with "Heartbreak Hotel" then...one wonders if he was psychic!