a post is coming

I had been planning a little post on why I think I was sad a week ago.

I was sorting it all out in my mind, and well in doing that the urgency seemed to pass.

I think it was a perfect storm of things, I can get moody, and maybe a little depressed, but I have never found dwelling on it to be effective, and maybe, its not really depression - just life. But there are days I am overwhelmed and sometimes I just read a book while laying in bed, but it gets boring after a while, ya know.

But anyway I'm not exactly sure how it started, but I think it had roots in helping my friend who is getting divorced, from a guy who has serious addiction issues. And in someways she is a point of her life similar to the one I was in when I left my mother's house.  Obviously its different, because the nature of the love between a parent and a child is different than between romantic partners, but that feeling that you could have loved them better on your end, and on their end they are thinking the same thing, because they are blaming outside forces for their life, and you are blaming yourself. Both are wrong, but you have to stop engaging in this dance... and its hard.

But thinking of that time, brings up memories of feelings, and those are terrible to fight, because you shouldnt have been feeling those feelings, but you were, so the memories are strong, and you fight in your brain about it. And the memories of that time, are all what is it about myself that makes me unlovable. The craziest part is, I HAVE ALREADY WORKED THROUGH THIS! I have cried those tears, and come to terms with it, and I was lovable, and my mother loved me, she was just... broken. All that bullshit, I have been passed it for years... its infuriating.

In the beginning of this ... spiral... I was talking to one friend who lost her father this year, and we are hoping to get a group of partially orphaned friends together for some Scotch, when another friend (this was at work) asked if she could go, since her stepfather who had raised her, was basically dead to her, and at that moment, I realized it wasn't the same, I would have said it was the day before, but not now... its all fresh, fresh in all its stupidity. I have mourned not having a meaningful conversation with my mom about anything that ever happened at any time in the past, a million times in the last 20 odd years, but it unaccountably makes me very sad now.  There is nothing I could have done different, but still she was my mom.

Which brings me to possibly the last piece of the little puzzle, a game people play is the my parents are crazy and they have messed me up... blah, blah, blah.  and two of my close friends right now, play the game, and they are a bit dramatic about it, and sometimes, I pipe in, then they jump in to defend their poor mothers, and disparage my bad mother, and they can't see how I loved her at all.  But she was my mother. One said her mother would adopt me. Well, I have had other mother figures in my life, but for better or worse, they aren't your mother. I don't think its an obligation of blood, necessarily, maybe early formative years, the codependent validation of the parent child relationship? I don't know. But I had my allotment of mothers, and I am sad my original one was not all the story books said it should be, but I don't think I need another.

This whole episode of grief sort of surprised me in how sad it made me, how much I could not shake it off, it lasted about two weeks, then I cried a little about not wanting someone else's mom, and it lifted just like a cloud.  I'm a little weepy right now, but I think I'll rally.

Holiday Cheer

Got this email today.

Sigh.

I do "get it".

I bother, it makes me a bad person, I don't bother, it makes me a bad person.





Laura,
We got your card, I showed it to Sylvia, it appeared she read it, no reaction and no comment (she only talks when she is pissed & sometimes in her sleep). I guess you do not get the reality, she is "non compos men to". I put her to bed, I get her up, I feed her, I turn on the TV to programs she likes. I cook dinner at which I suck. I catch naps when I can (I sleep in the living room). I wash her bed clothes every day and change her diapers 2 or 3 times daily.
Do you get the picture? Hopefully I do not die before her, otherwise she will be screwed.
I hope you have happy holidays.