OW!
It has been like forever since I typed a post for Writtin's. Today I need listeners who have no suggestions, solutions, or support. Just want these words to get out there so it's outside not inside. I put it out in the Universe, so it leaves me, spills out like blood cleaning out the pathogens as it flows. A wound cleared.
Phrases like "at the end of my rope", "losing it", and "I'm out of here" come to mind for me today. Do you ever have those days when you want to slink away in the dark of night never to return, stop paying your bills, cancel the phone, take what bit of money you have in the form of cash, write a suicide note and just disappear?
When I was in my twenties that was my yearn. Before my real adult life ever started I wanted to rearrange it; put it on a different path. It was like I could see into the future and I wanted to change it. I wanted to disappear, go off the grid, venture off the reservation...become a mystery, someone who was, but suddenly was no more. But instead of doing that I did what most responsible people do...settle down, get married, raise a kid, start a business, be there for family, and reluctantly whittle out an American Dream...accept my accidental life, convince myself "this is best".
But honestly I never convinced. I have fought it my entire life. The urge to go "poof " like a rabbit in the hat has always been in the back of my mind...I fantasize, and it feels good, it frees me up, I go somewhere, I am someone, I recreate me. I become one of those free wheeling people, you know the ones I'm talking about. They never married, they left school in the 10th grade and disappeared from small town life. They never had a "real" life, and yet they seemed so free, they had no one depending on them because they were completely undependable, no one had expectations of them because they were immune from expectations, they lived their life their way and only their way. Maybe you're one of these lucky souls?
Zoning out is something I need in order to keep my fantasy life going...to weed out real life from my secret one...and when I don't get that zone out time, then I am a fantasy interrupted. I can't breath and the overwhelming feeling of "I'm dying... with regrets" comes on so strong, it's like a freight train loaded with rocks colliding with one loaded with sand...BOOM!
Wanderlust is my disease of choice! A mental disease...one for which there is no apparent cure, it is a mind in loop, like the ticking of a clock; it keeps moving around and around tic by toc. The spirit wants the freedom to be wandering till the day you just drop dead of over living...not of yearning or regretting. These thoughts bring me back to my preoccupation with time. Time, the river we all float in, the one we drift about in, the river we pollute, the one we let run dry and the last bit of what we hold dear. Tic Toc...
Time is affected by speed and gravity....when you feel weighted down time passes so slowly...when you feel lighter than air time passes so quickly...well you barely know where it went.
A need for the solace of free wheeling and wandering tightens around my neck. I feel like a Pitbull living in the ghetto...the chain is huge the locks are tight. Is the need to escape directly related to the gravity of the load one is tied to...the stronger the drag, the stronger the pull? Just askin'.
I am watching my mom slowly lose her mind, her time is running out and I realize how quickly that happened. In just a few short years she went from an independent self sufficient person to someone who has forgotten how to care for her own physical needs, (so glad I wrote down how she prepares her dentures for daily use as I watched her do it one day about a year ago because now she has no clue where to begin). She can barely read and can no longer write, and has no comprehension of what she reads. She has forgotten how to go about everyday life unless you remind her. She thinks she has not eaten when she has or thinks she has eaten when she has not.
This watching destroys how you feel about life when someone slowly disappears but right before your very eyes...just like I wanted to do only I wanted it to be one swift disappearance, not this meandering away day by day, hour by agonizing hour. The eyes grow vacant...awareness is slow, the look is fear.
She sees people who are not here she thinks our dogs are not in the room when they are, she thinks she can still do things she did years ago like drive a car, prepared her own meals, and take care of herself. Oh how I wish she could. In reality she can do none of these things and each day it gets harder to deal with the mental state she lives in... her fantasy is difficult to deal with same as mine is. Her fantasy is taking her away from me, away from her family minute by minute... while mine waits...so who is in a better place? The knowing is not enough to stop me from getting angry at her when she tries to leave the house while I'm busy with chores, I forget she is my Mom, I forget to be understanding, and I lash out at her with words she does not understand and has no perception of right or wrong...how dare she escape while I am left to deal with this reality.
Fortunately this is one of the last weeks I have to deal with her daily care as I have done for many of these past years. If all goes as it is planned out I will be turning the torch over to my sister. She who has been a free bird will now have wings clipped.
I feel free and sadly empty.
Phrases like "at the end of my rope", "losing it", and "I'm out of here" come to mind for me today. Do you ever have those days when you want to slink away in the dark of night never to return, stop paying your bills, cancel the phone, take what bit of money you have in the form of cash, write a suicide note and just disappear?
When I was in my twenties that was my yearn. Before my real adult life ever started I wanted to rearrange it; put it on a different path. It was like I could see into the future and I wanted to change it. I wanted to disappear, go off the grid, venture off the reservation...become a mystery, someone who was, but suddenly was no more. But instead of doing that I did what most responsible people do...settle down, get married, raise a kid, start a business, be there for family, and reluctantly whittle out an American Dream...accept my accidental life, convince myself "this is best".
But honestly I never convinced. I have fought it my entire life. The urge to go "poof " like a rabbit in the hat has always been in the back of my mind...I fantasize, and it feels good, it frees me up, I go somewhere, I am someone, I recreate me. I become one of those free wheeling people, you know the ones I'm talking about. They never married, they left school in the 10th grade and disappeared from small town life. They never had a "real" life, and yet they seemed so free, they had no one depending on them because they were completely undependable, no one had expectations of them because they were immune from expectations, they lived their life their way and only their way. Maybe you're one of these lucky souls?
Zoning out is something I need in order to keep my fantasy life going...to weed out real life from my secret one...and when I don't get that zone out time, then I am a fantasy interrupted. I can't breath and the overwhelming feeling of "I'm dying... with regrets" comes on so strong, it's like a freight train loaded with rocks colliding with one loaded with sand...BOOM!
Wanderlust is my disease of choice! A mental disease...one for which there is no apparent cure, it is a mind in loop, like the ticking of a clock; it keeps moving around and around tic by toc. The spirit wants the freedom to be wandering till the day you just drop dead of over living...not of yearning or regretting. These thoughts bring me back to my preoccupation with time. Time, the river we all float in, the one we drift about in, the river we pollute, the one we let run dry and the last bit of what we hold dear. Tic Toc...
Time is affected by speed and gravity....when you feel weighted down time passes so slowly...when you feel lighter than air time passes so quickly...well you barely know where it went.
A need for the solace of free wheeling and wandering tightens around my neck. I feel like a Pitbull living in the ghetto...the chain is huge the locks are tight. Is the need to escape directly related to the gravity of the load one is tied to...the stronger the drag, the stronger the pull? Just askin'.
I am watching my mom slowly lose her mind, her time is running out and I realize how quickly that happened. In just a few short years she went from an independent self sufficient person to someone who has forgotten how to care for her own physical needs, (so glad I wrote down how she prepares her dentures for daily use as I watched her do it one day about a year ago because now she has no clue where to begin). She can barely read and can no longer write, and has no comprehension of what she reads. She has forgotten how to go about everyday life unless you remind her. She thinks she has not eaten when she has or thinks she has eaten when she has not.
This watching destroys how you feel about life when someone slowly disappears but right before your very eyes...just like I wanted to do only I wanted it to be one swift disappearance, not this meandering away day by day, hour by agonizing hour. The eyes grow vacant...awareness is slow, the look is fear.
She sees people who are not here she thinks our dogs are not in the room when they are, she thinks she can still do things she did years ago like drive a car, prepared her own meals, and take care of herself. Oh how I wish she could. In reality she can do none of these things and each day it gets harder to deal with the mental state she lives in... her fantasy is difficult to deal with same as mine is. Her fantasy is taking her away from me, away from her family minute by minute... while mine waits...so who is in a better place? The knowing is not enough to stop me from getting angry at her when she tries to leave the house while I'm busy with chores, I forget she is my Mom, I forget to be understanding, and I lash out at her with words she does not understand and has no perception of right or wrong...how dare she escape while I am left to deal with this reality.
Fortunately this is one of the last weeks I have to deal with her daily care as I have done for many of these past years. If all goes as it is planned out I will be turning the torch over to my sister. She who has been a free bird will now have wings clipped.
I feel free and sadly empty.
