Today, something regarding my mother died today for good.
I have been remembering the times she has chosen to remain by the side of a man and forsake her children. So many times.
I don’t know why.
I asked these questions about my father decades ago. Did he know, when he touched me, that he was hurting me? Would it have made a difference if he had? Did he know when he lied, when he stayed in bed, when he didn’t come to my events, to play outside, to partake in life?
I don’t know.
I know he offered me advice. I know he wrote letters to me at college. I know mom said he worked until he knew my brother had made it through school. Then, he collapsed and was dead five years later.
So I don’t know.
I don’t know how to reconcile someone who hurt you deeply but had tried to be good, to do good by you, but their weaknesses won. How in the end, the scale tipped the other way.
I think you move away, with sadness, without hate. You respect and honor best you can from a distance, but there is a distance. There isn’t closeness. There isn’t hatred, but there can’t be true love.
So for me, that’s the final choice.
I will continue to honor on some level, to be present for practical matters, but the loving, the attempts at closeness or a relationship are over. The price has been too high. My body has kept the score, and the other side has been winning.
Tonight, I even feel slightly sick. I’m scared. I’ve been shaky this weekend, since what has happened in town as I was leaving, literally, getting on a plane to escape.
I don’t want to be in the same city anymore. It is hard to keep myself there. I don’t know how much longer I can endure it. I’ve decided what I have to do to keep my sanity.
I was out heading to the beach walking the puppers, glorying in the wind, the mist, the ocean in the distance, looming. I walked by a store with a large glass window and saw a picnic-themed display. Do I like picnics, the thought in my mind said. Do we do that?
And then it hit me… all at once as a formed thought. I have been looking for my identity in so many places. Somehow, it left me dozens of years ago, and I thought maybe, I could find it in a store. Then, this:
Where their fingers touched me,
they made holes.
Those holes
Let myself run out.My forming identity.
My soul.
My future.Tiny rivers carried myself away.
I didn’t know this.
***
All my life
I spent searching for myself.In people, in shops, in movies,
In things, in places, experiences, food,
Culture, books, anything.It was terrifying, paralyzing.
I never found what I was looking for
Because I didn’t know that’s what
I was doing.Yes, shopping creates anxiety if you’re looking
For your soul,
Not a shirt.I always envied people
Who were so calm, so assured.Wherever it was that I was, what was left of me.
Other shoppers looked so calm, so peaceful.
Buying shirts that made sense to them.
Buying food that they knew they wanted to buy.
Buying and finding their way in the world
On a path they already knew.
I’ve stared at the world with terror.
The choices overwhelmed and all felt unfamiliar.
Where once my body and face was open,
I closed myself inward and tried to fashion a life from
what hadn’t washed away.
Why did these things cling behind,
Like barnacles on the side of seawall, stuck.
Bitterness stuck around. Rage. A strong sex drive
That wouldn’t be fulfilled.
A desire to collect things, anything.
Lipstick. Good hair. Comedy.
Once in a while,
And I never knew when,
I would find something, in a random place,
and I knew it was a piece that fit back in.
The holes were still open
So I’d push it in.
If I was lucky, it get grabbed by something else still inside
And stick around.
Once in a while, it’d wash back out
And I’d be sad to see it go.
That short time I liked sunsets, or jazz.
I remember that.Then one day, there were too many
Holes, too much passing
To keep going
And so I laid down.I took a break
From looking
And living.
I stopped searching and hoping
And quit.
I knew people were counting on me.
I knew truly quitting wasn’t an option.
But I didn’t see any other path.So I rested.
I talked w/ people who understand
How holes are made.
How other people make them.
How sometimes we make them
Ourselves.Over the next few years
I didn’t feel any better.
I didn’t change quickly
But slowly I realized
I didn’t have any new holes
And the ones I had,
Had healed.Two years later, I remembered
A happy memory and smiled.
Something that was a deep part of me
Was still there.
It had stayed and bloomed
Like a seed long buried
Slowly unfurling.*****
Finally, the holes were covered up
By the things that were
True to who I was.A daisy, my daughters’ eyes,
Words.
Rocks.
My hand.
This is a work in progress, but something profound shifted in me today.
My mother died to me, and I was reborn to myself.
One of my greatest sources of anguish and confusion, this muddling through life I’ve done. This inability to focus and be confident in whatever I do. The constant searching and questioning. The never knowing.
Now I understand. The metaphor makes sense, what happens when your identity is shattered so young.
This is why prisons are full. This is why relationships shatter. This is why our world is still in chaos. The pain is to great for our brains to comprehend and process.
Tonight, I’ve been shaky. I went to the play to be distracted and not fall asleep too early at home.
These are deep waters. I am dreading going home. I have plans to help resolve things, but even those, I almost am not sure what I can do.
Tonight in the play, there was a character who personified Hope. She was perky and cheery and almost like a caricature, but then would say things where you knew she wasn’t.
One of her last lines, when comforting a despondent character, was to affirm to him, “It’s always good to hope.”
That is what I’m taking tonight. My ego and heavily-groved brains wanted to dwell this evening on my sadnesses, on all the trauma, the drama, and the like.
Instead, I said small prayers all the way home, of thanks. Thanks for that tsunami sign that someone put up. Thanks for the actors tonight. Thanks for my daughters in their homes. Thanks for a home to drive back to. Thanks for the man in the home. Thanks for my car zipping along. Thanks for my happy belly of food. Thanks for this dark, rainy night. Thanks that I didn’t hit an elk as it ran across the road. Thanks, thanks, thanks.
What’s one of the miracles about gratitude no one talks about? Just on the surface, it’s distracting. When your brain is looping, you just need to distract it, stop the looping. That’s one thing. And it never ends… the thanking. You can literally be thankful and full of gratitude all day and never run out of things. So you distract your brain. And then second, what everyone talks about and is true? It feels better in your body to be positive than negative. Just a fact.
So distracting, nice fake and bob move, then positive energy.
My brain tells me we need to dwell on these things to figure them out. That’s bullshit. This sick brain that got us here isn’t going to get us out. What gets us out is doing NEW, better things, like yoga, and gratitude, and the arts and reading and beauty and awe. These simple things will solve these complex problems.
My hips and low back are getting better. It’s a Christmas miracle that isn’t a miracle.
I’ve been panicked I’ll never be well. And it’s happening, the wellness, partly because I’m taking it more seriously with my own practices.
Why this at the end here? I might not have anything keeping me anymore from my greatness. No more hiding. That’s what so many in my family have done: they gave up their greatness to hiding.
No, not this girl.
The time is coming, now, and it’s going to happen.
My holes are healing over, and I’m filling back up with my true self, little by little. I’m still a confusing package as all the pieces aren’t there, but I’m starting to feel like it’s coming back together.
*****
My mom refused her insulin again on Sunday.
They went on an unplanned drive.
My brother got involved and was able to get them back home after a stop at the hospital.
She has a UTI which is what has caused the most recent imbalance.
Hopefully with medicine, she can stabilize while we try and plan for the inevitable move.
My position continues to be that I can’t live in a space where we try to bring services to them in the country. I can’t live in that insanity, with multiple voices determining what will and won’t be needed/good/necessary/urgent. I won’t let myself be in that position anymore in my life. It’s either they are there and live in that self-contained world, or they are somewhere else, in another world.
I’m happy to manage the finances and details, but I can’t be in a spot where I am called on at any minute.
My step-sister hasn’t made that connection yet in her mind. I am hoping this latest incident helps her see what we’re up against if we don’t make changes.
I am not thrilled w/ them being someplace that is run by a for-profit company. Aides and workers, not being paid probably what they should, etc. But we don’t have many other choices.
*****
Something shifted inside me today. We had a glorious day of February hiking, low 50’s temps, full sun, puffy clouds here and there. It felt like a gift to be outside, walking off our angst and worries. Talking, being together, being companions on this crazy road of life. I felt like I was being reborn with hope that I can be free of the responsibility this extended family has been.
We made this decision to move back to our hometown to be with family. When we first arrived, we drove to the last house we lived in before heading back home. We lived here in PDX six months on a short-term project. We considered staying permanently.
The neighborhood is a average-ish place w/ already semi-run down houses that were brand new when we moved in in 1994. I remember thinking, these feel like big apartments. That’s what they felt like.
But they were new and the neighborhood was safe and it felt like everything back then.
We left there because of or kids. We were losing our minds, I was losing my mind. I had no support and two little kids. I didn’t know how to make connections and how to do this alone.
So we moved back, and we were welcomed. Our parents helped out with our kids when there were needs. They didn’t swoop in and take over and weren’t at our beck and call, but it made a world of difference to have some help. They were there for us.
Now as we head home, I’m reminded of all that as we make decisions about their ending years. They have both been difficult parents, for similar reasons. WIth boundaries, I can still do the right thing by them, but only with boundaries.
We talked w/ the girls last night and I probably talked too much.
It felt so good to know I’m safe and things can be handled by other people. It felt so good to not have my day completely interrupted like so much of my life.
So I probably went on too long and could have been shorter. I was emotional and rambled and have to work on that.
Maybe it made the girls happy to be living away from it all.
My body seems to be healing and improving w/ my hips and low back although tonight they are seizing some. Still, I feel hopeful that I can make better decisions, feel confident enough to see what’s happening, adapt and improve.
I’m no longer buffeted by the winds of chance.
To feel you have to rudder in life, what a horror.
Especially if you actually have a sense of where you want to go, but have no good way to get there.
So talk less, ask more questions. Be okay with whatever is said.
You’re not needy anymore. That’s not who you are. That will help things w/ the girls.
Gearhart, OR