That statement was my mothers “Good morning” to me today.  We missed church, and we are going to my sisters where she is going to feed me beef and cake.  Not on the same plate, but you get the idea.  Anyway, the statement got me thinking, and not that she’s right, just that I’vee been climbing back into my head and not leading with my heart.  True, she meant it because I’m fat, not that I’m regressing and retreatimg into my old world, living an internal life instead of forging forward and moving away from the bleeding edge. Let me explain….

I’ve been sort of planning life after Mom’s funeral.  How I’m going to decorate the house, what I’m going to get rid of and I’m not really going to keep anything.  Part is purging for my move out of state and dreaming about what that will be like, and part is just I don’t like the style of the crap we have.  I took time on Friday to go through the consignment store and took pictures of furniture I would like to use to make a salon in the front room, something Mom would never be for.  How I’m not going t show relief at the memorial no matter how much I want to.  It’s crass and cruel and even in some ways vicious to wait with baited breath for a loved one to die.  What can I say, I’m only human.

The other part of living in my head is the idea that I can eat anything I want because my doctor would rather I focus on my stress level rather than the diabetes at this time.  Apparently the heart is more important than the sugar.  So, I’ve been allowing myself the simple pleasures denied to me as a diabetic.  Safeway’s Colossal Carrot Cake is my current “stress relief” of choice.  They have got the cream cheese frosting down to perfection.  It’s sweet without killing your sweet tooth and moist with a lot of raisens.  It’s divine.  True, I shouldn’t be praising the virtue of carrot cake, but it is the best I’ve ever had.  And like the name says, it’s colossal.  Yum.  But it does count against me, though I’m not supposed to let it worry me.  I’m sure I’m stretching the doctors good advise to fit my palate because I have a great doctor and she wouldn’t give me advise that will only hurt me in the end. But the emotional stress relief has been so wonderful, that I can buy something so yummy and be content for days afterwards is wonderful.

Okay, praise of the food is over, the reality I’m avoiding is starting to over flow my waist band.  To begin with I’m starting to see the extra girth it has added t my already generous form.  There is a new layer of fat on my body, brand-spanking new fat. You you can tell when your skin looses that crappy look and sooths out like a baby’s bum.  That doesn’t last long whenyou are over 40 (and in my case pushing 50).  I’m starting to get too big for my britches and my credit card is maxed.  So I need to figure out some way to make things work for me again. 

The main change that has to happen is not living, or truthfully, hding in my head and leading more with my heart.  No more planning on my Mom dying before my bad habbits killing me.  I know that’s a bit extreme, but I feel it’s true.  I want to live the life I’ve planned, I want my library and my own house that is just mine.  I want to be published, and to be able to support myself as a writer, having a simple job to hold me over between royalty checks.  I can’t have that if I don’t hunker down and start now.  I’ve forgone a lot of my life for my writing, I don’t want to loose any more for it.  Spending the time consoling myself with redcoration plans and my library I should be writng, I should be sending out my manuscripts and offer letters to other publishers until I get a bite.

If I can pick up speed with the amount of drag and hill I’m cruising on now, how much faster I will go when the girth and baggage is gone will make up for most everything I’ve had to give up for present, for the birthdays past and the girthday present.  I’ve only ever wanted to be published,  it would be a sin to die before that happens.

I have felt so happy lately.  Hopeful, happy and even, when I’m really still and listen really hard, I can feel joy.  Of course I love this feeling until the darkness, which shrinks away from the lightness of my soul, whisperes (you’re always happy, just before you die.).  Bastard.  But it’s a real fear.  It’s like I feel complete, that I’ve learned what I’ve needed to learn so I will depart from this earth, after wasting most of my time trying to get a grip, without becoming or completing my plans for this life.  But then wake up the next morning, happy, hopeful and almost giddy to face another day.  I am truly blessed.

Though I am trying to embrace my inner child and not make some snarky remark about it, I have refrained from some of the other New Age philosophies of crystals for healing (I think they’re pretty, and I love what they’re supposed to represent, but I don’t use them in place of medication/medical servcies/common sense).  Just as the concept of “re-birthing”, trying to force yourself to remember emerging from the womb.  LIke ANYONE wants to have a visual passing through the cervex and vagina of their mother.  Ewww!  That said, I am completely in love with playing a heartbeat beneath all the sounds that I’m trying out to find what will put me straight to sleep, or at least comfortably to sleep.

I know you can do a repetitive sound and it will calm the baby and make them think they’re safe and back in the womb.  Well, it calmed this baby and I woke up so refreshed, so happy that it was down-right startling.  I felt so good about me, about life, about my jobs.  I was just plain happy.  It was as if all the medication, for one moment, worked in harmony and I was done.  So, the beat is going to go on as the third sound, the lowest sound and my mission while relaxing is to try and tease the stead thud-thum out from the crashing waves and crackling fire.

I need better sleep,I know that is a key if I want to get out of the void.  However, it’s at odds with my mother who is afraid I won’t hear her if she falls down in the middle of the night.  It’s a valid fear.  I sleep deep enough at times to sleep through a bomb explosion, but lately I just skim through the dreams and the skip off the slightest sound back into consciousness.  I realize I probably won’t have a full and complete night sleep until after Mom passes.  The question is, will I be able to hang on until then. My stress level is high enough for my doctor to want me to come in to have my blood pressure rechecked after having one high reading and to tell me not to exercise, just eat three meals a day for my diabetes and not to worry about anything else.  After having been lulled to sleep by the Tin Man of sorts, I feel like I’ve dropped almost half of the load that I have been carrying.  Yea Me!

There is this idea in the bible about casting the mote out of your own eye before you try to pick it out of someone elses.  It’s a good mantra to live by.  Why is it in my family, well, specifically my mother and sister C, believe they know what is best for me and have full license to tell me how to be.  I don’t need to be their creation, I don’t want to be their creation because from the safety behind my mote it appears they have totally f***ed up their life.  Okay, strong words, but one has to rely on the kindness of her family, and he’s damn lucky we are innately kind, and the other keeps chasing her happiness at the tip of a penis and is willing to sacrifice everything to that happiness, is no way to live.  You shouldn’t be….You need to be…..You have to be….I don’t want to be.  I’m in the process of redfining myself, that’s not a secrete, but the idea of rebaking myself isn’t to invite other short-order cooks to put their tooth-picks in to decide if I’m done yet or not. 

I will be who I am when I a have decided I am who I am meant to bs me.  How do I communicate that to people whose motes seem to extend into their  ears because when I try to explain what I am trying to be, they don’t hear it.  So, I will continue to whittle away my mote and try not to let their motes push me into a rage of insecurity against them and mostly, against myself.

I’ve got a job, I’ve got money.  You’d think that would be enough to make me happy, or sane, or whatever it is I’m supposed to be striving for here.  But no.  I’m sitting in my bed, twisted up with anger because Mom said something to hurt me, and I know she’s doing it on purpose.  No one can be that vile without knowing it.  And of course I fall prey to it every freaking time. 

I’ve been unable to continue with therapy, so I don’t have the sounding board that I normally have to help me put things into perspective.  I’ve not had the time to read and to center myself because as soon as I get in from work I have to play slave to the mother.  In her defense she is just coming off a gastric bleed and a stint in rehab, but that’s no reason not to say ‘Please’ in stead of ‘get me’.

I”ve bought a Franklin day planner again, I’m trying to get back to scheduling my life and my writing so I do it again.  Part of that is writing here and in my other blogs.  I need the creative release even if it’s just for a few minutes before bed to vent.  

How far have I fallen?  Well, the fact that I can kill a bag of white chocolate M&M’s in less than thirty minutes should be an indication. 

I cried last night, I mean had a tissue-in-hand-supressing-sobs kind of cry.  I had to put Sammy in the hospital yesterday, as broke as I am too, was an extra strain.  I couldn’t not take care of her.  After bedtime prayer I asked Mom for a hug, and she leaned into me so I could hug her.  I NEEDED THE HUG.  I know she was mad at me, but she couldn’t reach passed that to comfort me.  I went to my room and broke down.  I didn’t cry this much when Mom was in the hospital, so yea, it’s a little uneven [my love] between Sammy and Mom, but Sammy saved my life and sanity….can’t really say that for Mom.  What I really realized is that I am alone, utterly alone on this mortal plane.  I know Heavenly Father is there for me, and yes, I get comfort from His Spirit and the knowledge that Christ is there, and all that.  However, sometimes I just need strong arms around me to tell me that everything will be alright.

The tear stained revelation came to me that I have to do the work in the Homecoming book by Bradshaw.  It’s not something I can just joke about, or fear any more.  I don’t want to be that alone anymore.  I’m not talking about going out and finding a man, I’m talking about being whole enough to be able to find the comfort in my own solitude when things get this scary for me.  Only when I am whole, or as whole as I can get considering the privation of my rearing, then I will look for someone.  I don’t want to have to rely on someone for my happiness, that’s a trap no different from relying on your parent for comfort when she is too depth-less to understand how anyone could need comfort more than she does.

Of course the depression has a small side car of paranoia that loves to spin conspiracy theories right and left.  I made the ultimate mistake of telling Mom how much Sammy means to me and why.  I even had to choke back the tears as I told her.  (I know better than to cry in front of her), and then Sammy, about ten days after this little talk ends up vomiting glittery, crystalline substance, not unlike the sequins on her red skirt.  I keep telling myself that Mom wouldn’t hurt her because she loves Sammy almost as much as I do, but Sammy has been bugging the crap out of her lately and she has become a full on rival for my unconditional love…..you can see the little sticky wheels spin, can’t you.  I was actually beginning to think that Sammy loved my mom more than me lately with the way Sammy kept hanging out with my Mom…but the way she’s snuggling up with me and just rubbing her head all over my face has made me change my mind.  She was just annoying Mom to make me happy. (I just love her to bits)

The crying though, made me scared when it kept coming and I couldn’t stop.  When I started this blog, the thought of Sammy not getting well, or even dying made tears come back to my eyes.  I don’t like crying.  Crying is for sissies…..okay, it’s really not, I know that….but it makes me feel so vulnerable.  I don’t like feeling vulnerable around a woman who uses your weaknesses to manipulate you into doing her bidding for her…..Again, I digress into a little angry rant.  I’m trying to keep those under control.  I was afraid for a while that I wouldn’t be able to stop, which tends to be the standard fear when I cry.  What if I can’t stop?  What if I can never cry again?  I know it’s important to the emotional health of humans to have that release of whatever hormone it is that makes you feel better after you cry, I’m hoping that’s what Lexapro does because, well, I don’t want to be a cry-baby.  I don’t want to be ruled by my emotions.  Strangely enough I feel like those deep, dark emotions are like some sort of manipulation….I can’t really explain it….it’s like a war between my consciousnesses…if you cry your subconscious wins because you can’t keep it together.  I don’t like to lose.  Maybe that is the wrong way to look at it.  The tears might be the rain that flower the creativity of the soul? (Isn’t that so icky poetic).

The truth be told, I still need a good hug.  My nephew promised me one on Thursday.  I need to start this process no matter how much it hurts, or how much ectoplasm I hemorrhage.  Like a boil, my psyche needs to be lanced so the healing can begin.  Hopefully, it won’t kill me.

I’ve attached a comment as to why Sammy means so much to me, if you are confused why a 47-year-old woman is neurotically attached to a fickle little mini macaw.

I asked my best friend how long was it going to be before I could stop being disengaged from the world in order to figure out what is going on with ‘me’ and re-engage.  She gave the best yet most frustrating answer, not quite as simply, it’ll take as long as it takes.

I feel like I’m an engine revving to go, waiting to engage the clutch to move the car forward and, like the novice standard transmission driver that I am, I’m terrified I’m going to pop the clutch and stall and hold up the world behind me.  I have to do my work in Homecoming before I can safely venture out again, I know this, but at the same time, I’m afraid to actually engage those methods for fear what will float up to the surface.  If I’m kept them so completely bound in my subconscious, why would I want to bring them up?  What kind of moron would do that to themselves…..Of course, I’m the kind of moron that is willing to do this kind of work because, like the dragonfly before it’s metamorphosis, I’m tired of living my life surrounded by cold water, keeping me from actually engaging or feeling anything around me.  I need to rip open my skin and let the wings emerge, and I can’t help but feel that it will hurt some, but like the dragonfly, it will be worth it.  I just need to keep telling myself that….IT WILL BE WORTH IT.

In the mean time, I need to keep practicing letting the clutch in and out in first  gear so when the time comes, and the light turns green, I can move forward into traffic and continue on my journey through this life without having to have to rebuild the emotional engine again.