One More Day

Still here!  And the family life is going and glowing at the same time.  Like many, work is posing its own set of problems and family as well. In our case, the boys are good, its Grandma, who is under the care, thank goodness, right now of the right people, but has dementia.  And my husband, her sole caregiver is overwhelmed with a new job and looking after the most important woman in his life, next to me.

And me, well, I've gotten up today, barely showered, got semi-nicely dressed and put a little make-up on.  I damn well try.   I semi-succeed.  My life feels like a strange show no one wants to watch on Netflix.

I went to work and worked. Well.

But, I am drowning and I am not sure how I am going to lift myself up.

I went to yoga.

I did the dishes.

Somewhat, semi-succeeding at keeping my head above water.

My son had his first live band show and he was amazing.  That was this past weekend and I was so proud of him my heart nearly fell out of its chest as I cleared the way to make sure I was front and centre to record him.  I love him so much.  He plays the drums and he is good, really, really, good.

It broke my heart.

His joy, his worry that his band members wouldn't arrive.  His performance.

Perfect.

My children.

My husband was home to go with us, and we had some time together.  It was altering.  With his new job we don't get to see a lot of Senior Kovacs.  But it was nice, so so so nice to have this weekend together.

A family.

My younger son had a sleepover.  I made brunch.

Life is full of beautiful and full of wonderful moments and yet, I am not fully present.  I lag. Like the damned internet as my son will say, "The Internet is garbage mom, my game won't work."

I am not fully present.  My game is lost.  I am lagging.

I am half-here and half-alive in my head where life is different.

In my head, I don't even know, we are happy.  We are happy now, mostly.  I think I am the secret ingredient, and, not the good kind.

I want more.

I want more.

And I'm not sure what I even mean by that.  We create our own lives.  It's time I started taking my creations and acknowledging them.  If I want to be happier.  I have to move up from depression.

I'll work on it.

Nothing is guaranteed.

I really appreciate the twenty or so folks who read this blog.  I really want to thank you.

Honestly.

It makes me feel less alone.

Here's to one more day.

Sandra XXOO

Missing

I am crying like a teenager whose first boyfriend left her.

This music, classical, strange that I have come to it so late has unleashed something akin to a dam being broken.  I am lost here in these notes.  I am high and I am low.  I don't know which way to go. I follow the rhythm and I cry and I cry some more.

I've been missing this most of my life.  All my life.  But better I discovered it now, on the brink of breaking, older and wiser, rather than the youthful nuts and bolts of death by devotion and quick un-devotion.

My boys have enjoyed Vivaldi because I have him on my playlist and they say, "Oh this is pretty good Mama."

But my GOD.

And I mean my GOD.

This is too much for one person.

I'm listening to Virgil Boutellis-Taft, Incantation.

My life may never be the same again.  Just as when you meet your first lover, young and stupid, the music of your body plays along.  Until. Well we all know the until when.

The synapses in my brain where the repression is strong and not yet, of course, unleashed, is calling, but the door is closed.

Knocking.

No one is home.
_____________________________
Knock, Knock.

Whose there?

Mickey Mouse's underwear.
_____________________________
At least that is how the knock, knock joke went when I was just a baby of nine or ten.

These days the children, the teens, the pre-teens, seem much more resilient than I ever was.  But then again that is really not a feat for the ages.

Resiliency is something I've come to realize only over the last forty and eight plus years is something I have in spades.  I survive. I am alive. Always.

But now.

Now that I've been broken by Virgil, the missing parts are floating up and calling.

They want their say.

And my answer is a firm: NO.

Stay put.

You know how to do that.

You know how to shut the bleep up.

So do that.

Don't be the one that unleashes anything because you will be sorry.

Even though the missing parts of the story are begging to be told.

Sandra XXOO

Numb

As mentioned in my previous post, NUMB.

It is one of the main reasons I continue to survive.

I am NUMB overall to that which I do not want.

I am angry.  Sometimes.  A lot of the time.

Annoyed with my boys too many times.  Although, I do think that is rather normal, somehow, here the love transcends.

But underlying every one of these feelings is: NUMB.

Novocaine.  If it weren't for the NUMB the guilt of not being good enough would overcome me.  And I know I wouldn't withstand it.  It's been too many years and too many memory stores, the guilt would take me in it's validated arms and hold me tight until there was nothing more to hold.  It would absorb me.

I've felt guilt for no reason and every reason since I was fourteen years old.  It covered me like a heavy blanket and walked around with me all day every day.  Numb is a major improvement.

People do die, you know, from the pain of things:  The spiritual, virtual, mind spatial things of things.

People say a lot of things:  I'll always be there for you, Call if you need me, Don't worry everything will be all right.  I bleed for you.

All of us have said things we don't mean.  And all of us have said things in earnest, but we don't quite know how to translate the earnestness to action. Its ok.  We only have one person we need to be telling things too and that is ourselves.  Let's shore up there before we get ahead of ourselves.  Of course, I am speaking for myself, entirely.

We are individual seekers.  We are ourselves and we are whole at the same time.

People change.

Their minds.

Or their minds, like mine, play tricks on me and make me believe the impossible is true.

Numb.

I am like everyone else.  Minus the part where I think I don't feel,  I miss those I miss.  It doesn't mean they miss me. I love those I love.  It doesn't mean they love me.  (I may be off the mark, but I'm pretty sure all those that I love, minus Ricky Martin, love me back.  Yes. Ricky Martin. It's a story).  I dislike those I dislike, and most of the time they dislike me too. It's just the way things go.

Things go on.  We are not going to be here forever, but for right now, to get through, to keep going, to keep loving, I need to feel less.  Strange but true.  Doesn't mean that I don't carefully review my husband's Valentines Day card.  We both agree the one I gave him is by far better.  True, not just because he has to agree with it.  After seventeen years together he knows how to love me.  Even in this season of less.  And that helps the Numbness to begin its thaw.

The beautiful bouquet of roses, that once smelled so sweet, are beginning to fall apart petal by petal. It's just one of those things.

He loves me.  He loves me not.


Sandra XXOO

Left to the curb...

I feel things heavily, darkly, like a hole in the earth should just swoop me in and I should cease.

I have serious case of Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety.  And I haven't felt like a human in as many years as my meds keep increasing in dose.

I am broken.

And to the broken ones the pain of being discarded like a piece of trash is so much heavier than it is to someone who can process that they are good enough, they are okay.  Those of us who are not okay raise our heads slightly from the curb we've been dropped off at this day, this hour and hope things will soon be over.  But we manage to drag our smelly asses back to our homes and slip into bed for a little while longer, hoping that this time things will be different.

I have felt nothing for years. Except unworthy, not good. Dumb and Numb. Sounds like a stupid movie that should be made about the absolute ridiculousness of this disease.

I know on a heart level, a brain level, that I am good, I am smart.  In fact, I've always been one of the smartest (based on silly scores) in school, but it is what I based my value on.  I was always poised to succeed, despite this darkness in me, I lived two lives, one smiling for school pictures and getting shockingly good grades, whereas the other half wanted to stop existing.  This has been going on since I was fourteen and, friends I am tired.

I am tired of feeling too little and too much.  I give up.  Chasing the light is tiring and yet, when it shows up, it blinds me and I am fully in its grasp fully, trusting everything it promises. And, for a while there is an extra skip in my step, my armpits get shaved, I wear makeup and wear nice outfits.

Its only in recent years that I have become more open about my affliction (not sure how else to say this?), strange that I also had cancer and that was so much easier to talk about.  But this, this can skew the perception an employer can have of you.  It can make you act in strange and inexplicable ways in order to gain the approval of those that are above you.  And in doing so you just make yourself (myself) look more like the mess I wasn't only moments ago.  You become untrustworthy in the corporate world where every face better damn well show the same dry business face day after day.

And for the record I am a good and decent employee.  I work hard. I look after things and for the first time in one year I took two sick days.  Days where I didn't shower, get out of bed or notice the snot on my pillow from crying so hard that my insides hurt.

I am in awe of those people that walk around just being themselves.  I am myself and so many more as I try to please that person and that person and that person.  All I want is to be liked.  All I want is approval.  When I am in the midst of episode.  Which, in case, it wasn't clear, I am.  Spiralling.

I withdraw.

From the world.

But she won't let me go so easily.  I went to work today.  Showered.  Hair unwashed.  Looking a little like a hippie hobo.  But I did it.  I got out of bed today and I worked.  But I can hear it whispering to me:  "Settle down," the dark says, "we've got you, there is never a need to go back. You can trust us.  You cannot scare us away, no matter what."

And I want to find a cave where I can lie down, curl up and never get up.  But I don't think it works like that when you are a mother.  When you remember your love for your children.  Respect your husband for his insane continued partnership with you.  Even when you tell him.  You tell him, you can't go on.  And he reminds you of the children.  But there is never a need to remind me.  I love those boys more than any darkness, more than any infinite hole, more than anything.  And my husband knowing me, knowing me so well says, "But you'll call me if, for a moment you forget."

"I've got to call my husband."

Sandra XXOO

(P.S. I'm fine for now - no need to worry)