October 20, 2012

• So many things weighing on my heart these days, I'm not sure where to start. My mother is still in the dementia unit, deteriorating. Her speech is slurred and she sounds over-medicated. She perks up more as we talk on the phone. These days, the mom that could be kind, the mom that was glad to hear from me or see me is more present in my mind then the woman who beat on me, subjected me to molestation from different men and who was paranoid.  I worry that I have not been a good enough daughter, wonder how I could do more and then settle for knowing that she is in a place where she is safe, has her basic needs met and cannot take her medications wrong. I miss the woman who liked to feed the birds in the field behind the house in Stockton and walked in the woods beyond. 

  I've also been thinking of a friend who was a teacher who gave lip service to us being peers. I had her on a pedestal. I trusted her with a secret I was ashamed of and she used it against me. I've come to see that part of it was her discomfort. Part of it was me not shedding the past, putting it behind me as something that happened and time to move on. There are things I learned from her that would benefit me in my current journey with Lyme, but I can not bring myself to do them. If I do, then I am affirming that she was right that I should be ashamed. That I was broken and would fall apart and need to be picked up and put together. I don't like the feelings this arouses. I find myself considering that the thing I said to her, to punish her and to hurt her, was unnecessary pain inflicted and I regret that I did it.

  I am taking the antibiotics every day now. Three times a day. it's becoming harder to work, fatigue keeps rearing it's ugly head. I try to maintain a positive attitude, but some days it is a struggle. I become irate when people don't pay adequate attention. My patience is thin.  I've been up for four hours today and I'm ready to take a nap. But when I sleep my dreams are vivid and sometimes disturbing. The frustration I feel in waking life spills over into dreams. Sometimes I wonder if I am dreaming my future and wish for a way to rise above. I've been practicing Tong Lin, breathing in the pain knowing others are suffering, too and breathing out the hope that pain will be transformed into calm, into peace, into something else. 

  Perhaps a nap is in order.

  Blessings abound

  • 2:32 pm
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