Can't keep going.... something's got to give!

I can't, just can't keep going like this.  Eventually I will swallow several lethal doses of everything I've been saving for moments like I've been having every single moment of the past - I never know how many to say - years - decades, about three plus.  Can't keep going.  Something has to give. So I stop eating.  All I know is that I don't feel as bad when I don't eat.  It's been this way for nearly 40 years.  After I left home at 17, I just got into the habit of eating a small meal once a day, or more like a nibble, once a day.  I didn't get so tired.  I could function better, not like everyone else, but I could stay under the radar at least, and pass as relatively normal.  So, as much as I know eating real food is the key to getting well, I won't live to get well if the agony is this profound.  So today I ate half an apple and half a piece of sprouted bread toast with peanut butter.  I could have, should have, skipped the toast.  

Felt horrible waking up, like my brain was full of mould, aching everywhere, and dammit, my heating blanket is dead.  But once I finally flopped myself out of bed and into the bathtub, I was ready to find that ENORMOUS little spider that I'd seen earlier in the shadows.  The bedding came off, the mattress swept, the

cracks and crevices in the boards and storage space under the mattress vacuumed, everything into the washing machine, bucket of warm water and everything in my room wiped down..... NO SPIDER!!!!  Just a ton of dog hair, dog food, dog toys, and a dog collar, and also the little white and brown chihuahua waiting, confused, worried for his space on the bed to get put back together.  It was suggested on Facebook that maybe the "spider" was just a cluster of dog hair creepily floating by in the shadows of the early morning.  I acquiesed to the suggestion, knowing very well there was a spider! A big one! (biggish, you know, like, not small, not tiny, but too big to be creeping around my space)!

I took half a Vyvanse about half hour before starting the arachnid search.  And without food, I was able to keep going for five hours before I realized how much time had gone by and I hadn't been desperate to knock myself out!  And I was still going!  Yes, my back hurt, but you must understand this kind of desperation, the agony, the profuse, and diffuse pain, normally wracking my entire body.  And today it wasn't there, just the "normal" back pain - the back pain about which, at age 24 I remember sighing to myself, "well, I guess I finally, (FINALLY, at age 24!) have to admit I have a back problem.  I didn't eat today. That's all.  I am so allergic to food - Leaky Gut Syndrome - that fasting for a month actually gives me energy!  They say you must be super spiritually charged to be an "autotroph" or whatever you want to call those people who say they get their nourishment solely from breathing and a little water.  Hey, maybe I am.  Seriously.  Maybe.  Maybe not too...  I mean, I try not to use that suspicious word, "spiritual" - doesn't it sound sort of arrogant?  Or in my language, "Poofy"?

It is 12:22 a.m. and I have to force myself to stop. That's how non-bad I feel!  I can't upload the videos waiting in queue because I'll run us out of internet usage again.  And I don't go to Tim Horton's for their free wifi because I don't do caffeine or doughnuts or sit, although I may give it a trial whirl.  Or something.

July 25 vlog

Dr. Bev even said I looked terrible.  That infection set me back about a decade. I have much to learn, to connect the dots.  Wrap my legs in the heated blanket instead of hydromorphone.  Eat.  Even cookies.  Decades of malnutrition takes its toll.  Don't be me.  But how to eat when everything feels like poison? When every bite adds to the pain....?

Vlog - Love one another... it's easier than not loving

The subject matter in these videos is extremely personal and sensitive, so please watch/listen/read with respect.  The intent in posting these videos and reading just one text, and not even a particularly cruel one, is to implore all parents to treat one another with dignity and respect, regardless of whatever feelings or opinions you have about one another.  Think of the child/children, to whom you both gave life - that's kind of a big deal, the biggest and best, so treat it as such. 
 
 

I don't have the physical stamina or mental focus to splice these videos together, or set up proper lighting or add music to set the mood... so you get to watch separate videos, as thoughts come to me.  As I begin to rehabilitate from M.E., you'll know, because sitting here will get easier, videos, templates, designs, etc, will be much more creative.  But until then, this is what you get.  Deal with it.

I am not putting my son on a pedestal here.  We all have our struggles.  But I've witnessed the bizarre behavior of this person.  For instance, when I went to visit them the first time, excited, thrilled, happy to meet her, I walked in to see her following Hamish around the apartment, yelling at him, "YOU JUST WANT TO FUCK YOUR MOM!"  Astounded, shocked and embarrassed for the both of them, I walked back out and slept in my car.  Hamish told me later that the accusations went both ways - apparently I wanted to do the same to my own son.  I should also clarify that Hamish doesn't have "former" friends.  His friends from childhood are still his friends, along with the friends he's made along the way.  She says his friends and family are his "cheering squad [and] are all idiots." I don't know where her insecurity comes from.  Like I say, I would love to be able to just hold her and love her, not just because she needs it, but because I did, and do, love her!  I would try to find out where the hatred comes from, and try, gently, to pull it out of her, help her replace it with kindness, love, honesty and respect.  How horrible it would be to have to live with such a negative emotion your entire life, to live with hatred, the desire to be cruel and with invented stories/lies, especially as a mother and grown adult in her mid 30s.  If you ever watch this,  "V", I really do love you!  Just accept it.  It's free, beautiful, and necessary.  No one can live without love, and I mean real, unconditional love!  Try it out - just accept it.  You don't even need to offer the same in return.  True love is freely given.  What harm can it do to just take it, try it on, see how it fits/feels?  It's already yours!

I will probably take this post down after a week or so.  But while it's here, think about it, especially if it applies to you.  I didn't read the really horrible emails/texts. This one was mild.  That's why I chose it.  We simply cannot and should not judge anyone, because we don't know where that person has been,  or has had to come through to get where he/she is today.  We're here to be kind and to love one another!  

marriage

"The doors open both ways",

you always said.

And so I used the door

to come in

cook for you 

wash your dirty woolen socks

powder your expanding bald patch

giggle at your silly attempts

to be serious

and

maintain our sacred spaces.

Marriage

and the family

we grew

has been my freedom

from having to decide

who to love.

Boys of Summer

Sun burnishing the earth

its brilliance

saturating the air

with sultry stillness

except for the crickets in chorus.

Pockets of breathable air

where you couldn't find them

until you were right inside.

Even the flies had

fled from the fever.

Distant fence lines
shimmering through waves
snaking across the prairies.
Power and telephone lines
buzzing tales of 
all the neighbors' secrets.

You and I tracking gophers
and other unsuspecting rodents
squirting water down their front doors
thinking weren't we smart.
Poking through the reeds
for frogs and other
hapless slimy creatures.

Stripped to our shorts

plunging through murky surface   

algae and water beetles

scurrying to escape                      

our voices muffled

by the muzzle of heat.

Distant rumblings

lead sky against

tumultuous golden horizon.

A splat of mucky weed smacks

against my face

and subsequent chortles from

across the pond

instigating war!

Counting seconds between

bolts and blasts

lightening and thunder

until they became simultaneous and

rain beat upon us

from above

and below

a flash across the expanse              
then 
your arms jolting upwards
out of the water
like fence posts
and for a moment
you walked on water

like Jesus.

Then you stepped out of your body

and my tongue froze to my mind and never uttered a word again.

When my husband still loved me, children were young, and they all still thought I was a sort of okay mom.....

Yes, they were pretty sweet babes once - all four of them.  I think they despise me for being an "other"..... so it goes.  Happy Mother's Day. Mom!  Every picture of my little family has that tired, worn-out-looking girl/woman in it though. I don't know who she is or why she appears like an apparition in all of my photos!  Kids are gone and have their own offspring.... but she's still there... just more solitary, holding shadows of her babes.

  

From the name game - "Deanna Bo-bana"...

(in case you can't figure this out.....)


Deer Mom
We Love You 
Very Much. U Make R
Home A Very Special Place 2 Bee. 

Heart,
DAViD OSWALD, HamiSh, Benji, ABiGAiL

Hamish

My lovely second born, came to me
in the silent stillness of a morning, quiet, no lights, no monitors, in an empty hallway.... he knew me.
He understood everything.  He was born
knowing because I sang to him, played to
him. He even arrived with my memories intact. I was so young and so little from
being so sick.  But then he came to me, he never cried, even when those sores were all over
his tiny body and I fixed him up without a single fuss from him.  I loved that boy! He made me
laugh, smile, cry with joy, cry because I knew life would not be easy for one so passionate, so knowing, so real.  This boy, this man.
I was never well enough to teach him music
so he taught himself.

I beg him to believe
in himself.  He is so strong, so beautiful, and has
oh, so much to give the entire world... yet his own young son is enough for him.  Knovah, you are not only enough, you are everything to him, my Hamie.  This man, your daddy, was once my little boy. Love him. Know him.  Believe him.  Always.  He is always right, not in an authoritarian way, but in the quiet, lovely, painless way he was born to me, the mother who happened to give birth to him, and then loved him with all her inner, quiet might.

These beautiful baby boys began long ago, not with me, but with the seed of their fathers.  I only gave birth to one, but loved them all.

So, World, just listen.... Do you hear what I have always heard???

And he has to walk away from me to walk beside you

Possession

Not better.  Worse.  What am I not getting???  Dr. Bev has reserved a quiet room with comfy couches where I can sleep for a couple of hours before our 1 - 2 hour session.  But then this chronic low grade UTI turned acute and has possibly gone into my kidneys.  No amount of morphine is decreasing the leg and abdominal pain.  So once again, even though just a week ago or so, I was off my meds, I'm knocking myself out with sleep-in-a-pill.  That's all that helps. And, it was the long weekend.  No walk-in clinics out here, and too far to drive into Calgary.  So here I lay myself to, er, not sleep, moaning my favorite mantra, "ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod......".  It gives me something to do.  So.... here comes an onslaught of more old poetry.....

possession

I could open up your skin     peel it from the bones     like magic it would fall away     and I would cut away the flesh     or burn it off     and there would be all your bones     stock and sturdy     and I would stand above you     with a stick attached to strings     attached to each bone     and I could make you dance or kneel before me     or lie prostrate on holy ground     or run from me   but I would always be there with the stick and strings     to reel you back in     and I could take your bones apart     and reconstruct them to resemble a Neanderthal     or infant reptile     and I could make the whole world believe I'd dug you up from beneath a coal-smeared rock near Drumheller     and I could even put your bones in a box and bury them behind a wall     then patch it up with bricks and mortar     and monalisa posters     OR     I could just leave you alone there     where you sit across from me     and I could watch you manipulate your own strings     or construct your own primordial ancestry     that nobody but me would believe     and I could follow you into the murmuring fields     and watch you open up your arms and rise into the air     and fly away  
then back to me     that's what I could do

Misfit

myriad voices

inside the great crystal ball

before me, cannot penetrate the

surface. Distorted faces pressed grotesque

against a concave pane, groping 

fingers, death-white with 

constant despair. 

Either let them

out or let

me in.

About the Pain....

I wish to say it

about the pain

because that is all                                           

I am made of.

They were like the Imp's                                   
shattered looking glass
which made all good things
appear evil.

I have traveled to places                                      

they can't imagine
to plead for its excision
but there it remains
knifing deeper
into who I am -
  
        - who I was -
                                               




I wish to pull the words

from these unspoken glances
we exchange.
I wish to say, "Say it!"
but can't expect the stillborn
to give up their wisdom.

                                                 

                                           Can you hear it?                                         
                                           Can you breathe it?  



It hurts it hurts it hurts!
But there are no words
no metaphors
for what is unrecognized
and inarticulate.



                                          Still, I wish to say it
                                          about the pain
                                          for its own sake
                                          to give it power
                                          because sometimes pain
                                          is a beautiful thing
                                          when it's all you've got.                                            

Momma

(Well.... no, not me, not yet anyway.... So, in the meantime, you're going to get a bunch of old poetry, and a photo of my momma the moment she left)

Miss you, Momma, I love you, more, I think, than you ever knew...
and despite, or more probably, because, of what you did to me.  It just doesn't matter.

Apology seeps through her cracks

of which there are many.

At 75* it gets harder to plug 

the holes.

Her protective scales

no longer serve to detract

or retract.

She sheds them everywhere.

She's mortified of course,

unaware of the secret glory

that illuminates her unlaced

nakedness.

Soon she will be the Empress

proudly modeling her new clothes.

And I shall be there to applaud!

*and I was, 16 years later,                                                              

as we watched and waited, 

a mist came out of her side 

and wafted upward 

then dispersed....

energy neither created nor destroyed, so...

.....I can't help but cry when I hear

"Drops of Jupiter" now.

Thank you, Pat Monahan,

for writing that song 

   for your own mother

"Honesty" (???!) Down the Drain, Baby!

It doesn't kill you.... it kills who you are

                                                                                            

                    

I should never have allowed myself to be on my feet, even with a cane - using a cane or crutches just hurts your arms and shoulders, and doesn't really take the pressure off your legs and back.  "Carry a camping stool!" says Dr. Bev.   

I joined a Facebook group here in Bragg Creek, asking for help, not expecting any responses.  So I was astounded to find a couple dozen offers waiting for me when I got home.  Let's see if they're serious.... usually when I ask for help, everyone disappears in a hurry and never comes back....

I need to talk more about the consequences and aftermath of the rape.... back to the "Rape is Rape is Rape: A Love Story".... but I still have much processing to do.  If anyone wants to add something, I would love to have guest posts. Leave me more comments!  Poetry, personal stories, art, music, whatever is on your mind.... tastefully and truthfully.

UPDATE!  Yes!  Thank you to Lori for picking up my sleep study kit and returning it to the Foothills Hospital today - despite having the big dogs jump up on her!   And more recently, thanks Marina for picking up and dropping off my prescriptions, despite your very recent medical/health stuff.  You gals are awesome!