This is one of my favorite photos.  My mother has the straw hat on, my Auntie Fran is in the middle and my aunt's best friend Ann has the blue hat on.  I'm leaving tomorrow evening to visit my aunt in England.  I miss mum and so does Auntie Fran.  My visit will be a chance for both of us to remember mum. 

I just finished reading a very good book, "Drinking: A Love Story" by Caroline Knapp.  It's a book about alcoholism, about women, about families.  It's a memoir written by Caroline Knapp, an alcoholic for twenty years. 

I've known alcoholics my whole life.  I saw what my grandmother did to my father, even though I never met my grandmother.  My sister's husband periodically blew through our family like a tornado, leaving destruction in his wake.  My son's father.  My daughters' father.  My partner.  I've cared for alcoholics going through withdrawal, shaking and swearing as their bodies dried out.  I've cared for alcoholics who had destroyed their livers and were now dying slowly, turning yellow and becoming confused, or quickly, bleeding out of their mouths and their rectums.  I've cared for alcoholics who had destroyed their minds and could no longer feed themselves or toilet themselves.  But I've never really understood why they do what they do.  Until now.

Caroline helped me to understand what it's like living as an alcoholic.  Why she did what she did.  How she lived like she did.  Three quarters of the way through the book I wanted to know more about her so I googled her name.  Sadly I found out she had died in 2002 of lung cancer.  I felt like I had lost a friend.

Here's an excerpt from her book.

"Al-Anon...estimates that every alcoholic's drinking affects at least four other people.  We worry parents, lovers, co-workers, anyone close who crosses our paths.  We lose our tempers with them, we blame them for our troubles, we push them away.  We never quite let them in, let them know us too well, because we're afraid that if they got too close they'd be appalled at what they'd find.  Accordingly, a great deal of the active alcoholic's energy is spent constructing facades, an effort to present to others a front that looks okay, that seems lovable and worthy and intact.  Inside versus outside; version A, version B.  The double life grows more sophisticated and more deeply entrenched.
Mostly, we lie.  That's a statement of fact, not a judgment.  Alcoholics lie about big things, and we lie about small things, and we lie to other people and (above all) we lie to ourselves."

What got me the most was her assertion that alcoholism was about not feeling.  She drank to anesthetize herself, to stop feeling anything.  I can understand the desire to not feel but couldn't, wouldn't go there because to not feel pain or sadness or fear means to also not feel joy or love or compassion.  You can't have one without other.  It was a wonderful, sad and profound read. 


 

i·ro·ny¹

ˈīrənē,ˈiərnē/

noun

a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.

I'm reading a book right now, recommended to me by my counselor, "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie.  On the fly leaf it says, "How to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself." and that's pretty much what it's about.  The irony is, as I read this book I start thinking about other people whom I should give a copy of this book to.  I mutter fuck to myself and then continue on reading about how to help myself.

Excerpts from the book.

     I saw people who were hostile;  they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.  They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry.

     They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control.  Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threatened to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone.  And nobody but them seemed to notice or care.

     I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done.  I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of
tolerating honesty.

     I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn't know what reality was.

All of what she writes strikes a chord with me and I keep thinking she must have lived with me for pretty much my whole life.  Apparently I'm not crazy. 

These are the flowers on the trees beside my balcony.  Their scent is heavenly.  When you're on the balcony it feels like you are in the trees. 

All weekend long I've been thinking about my co-worker and I was unable to put my finger on exactly what it was that got me so worked up every time I had to deal with her.  The big guy asked me what was bugging me and I told him.  He said, "You hate injustice."  and I burst into tears.  Then I had something to work with.  I'm finally trusting my tears, tears that for years have tormented me and embarrassed me.  Now I use those tears as a gauge of how true something feels to me.

I sat in front of the computer and used the free EMDR program on youtube, thinking about injustice and then I started to ask why nobody protected me when I was a child.  My mother didn't protect me from my father.  My sister didn't protect me from her husband.  My parents didn't protect me from the boys who bullied me.  I started crying like a small child, it wasn't fair.  And it's true, it wasn't fair but life is not fair.  I am no longer a child in need or protection. 

It seems I have spent most of my life fighting what I perceive to be injustices.  I fought for my children so that my son could have help with his learning disabilities and so that Katie could get the help she needed.  I fight for my patients.  I told a patient the other day that I think of my patients as my family and you don't mess with my family.  She looked surprised and reassured. 

I think that's why I get worked up with my co-worker, the hundred and one small injustices she visits upon our patients because of her own problems, her own imcompetence.  It's not fair.  I'm hoping that realizing this will give me the distance I need to keep my emotions out of dealing with her.  Fingers crossed. 

My son came over last night after I got home from work to help me take the winter tires off my car.  In truth I helped him as he did most of the heavy work.  What surprised me was how patient he was with me and with the whole process.  He let me help, let me unscrew the lug nuts, let me take the tire off and even watched as I attempted to put the other tires on.  I wasn't strong enough to hold up the tire and get it on the bolts, but I tried and he patiently waited as I tried. 

I am not a patient person at all, so it surprises to me find out that my son is patient, at least with me.  He turned thirty last month and has his life back thankfully.  For almost ten years his life slipped away into drugs, dealing and prison.  I kicked him out of my home more than once.  I hoped and prayed that he would turn his life around and he did.  He has one year of school left and then he  will have his Bachelor of Business degree.  He lives with a lovely young woman who starts grad school in the fall to become a Speech Therapist. 

He could have so easily been killed.  For years I would listen to the news and when a young man his age was killed or shot, I would stop and pray that it wasn't him.  When he went to prison, I visited him.  When he got out I let him move back home, all the while waiting for him to grow up, to stop being stupid, to become the man I knew he could be. 

When my son was sixteen, a year before his life went off the rails, I was home alone with the kids.  It was a hot spring evening and I had put Katie to bed early like I always did.  I was usually worn out by seven and so was she.  Katie is a painter, by that I mean Katie likes to paint with poop.  That evening I could hear her in her bedroom and then I could smell her.  I went upstairs to change her but when I opened the door I found her covered in shit, from head to toe.  Her bed was covered in shit, the walls, the carpet and the door.  I looked at her and burst into tears.  My son heard me and came upstairs.  Without saying a work he took Katie by the hand and led her into the bathroom where he bathed her, washing the shit out of her hair and off of her body.  She would have been eight at the time.  I cleaned the rest of her room and a week later we took the carpet out of her bedroom and installed laminate, much easier to clean shit off of.

The memory of that night, of my son taking care of his sister, helping his mother, dealing with shit stayed with me all those years he was gone.  I knew, I hoped, that one day he would be that young man again.

Last night after we changed the tires he asked what I was doing for supper.  I told him just barbecuing some meat.  He asked if I would mind if he got a steak and joined me.  I didn't mind at all.  It was nice to have his company, to spend time with him.  He's my son, my baby but he's not.  He's a man with his own life and now it's him helping me.  How strange.

Miss Katie at Special Olympics bowling.

It's been a difficult week.  Not because of Katie, she's doing well, but because of work.  We've been short staffed to the point of insanity.  I work in cancer care.  The things we do can't really wait.  Patients need to start their chemotherapy, they need their scans.  Cancer doesn't take a holiday.  So I worked my ass off this past week and last night I crashed.  I came home, almost too tired to eat.  The big guy let me cry, cooked  supper and we went to bed at eight.  I slept for almost twelve hours and feel like a human again.  I am thankful.

Katie's dad is coming this weekend to take her out.  He comes out usually twice a month to visit her which is good and  I appreciate the break on the weekends.  I don't care for her full time anymore but I'm still responsible for paying her bills, for doing her shopping, for making her meals, for any emergencies that come up, for attending doctor's visits and meetings.  Writing it down makes me realize that it's still a lot of work.  It's the forms I hate most.  I loath filling in forms. 

The estrogen replacement is slowly righting my tipped over hormonal system.  I know that menopause is normal.  I know that it's what is supposed to happen but I couldn't cope any longer without estrogen.  The hot flashes happened once or twice an hour, all day and night, making me dizzy enough to sit down, disrupting my sleep, bathing me in sweat.  I couldn't think straight.  I forgot things.  I couldn't make sense, didn't make sense.  It scared me.  I'm starting to feel like my old self again. 

I continue to judge others and myself.  My sisters are both on hormone replacement therapy and I thought, to myself only, what is wrong with them?  Menopause is normal.  Why can't they just suck it up and deal with it?  And now I know why.  The universe has conspired, once again, to teach me a lesson.  I learn everything the hard way apparently.   Note to self, slow down, be kind, you don't know it all.  Respect the universe.

Mum died a year ago today.  I was too busy today at work to mourn her passing.  When I got home I sat in the bath with a glass of wine and tried to have a conversation with my mum.  I tried and it didn't work, I need to write it out and so here I sit.

I miss you mum.  This past year was hard, a year of firsts.  My first Mother's Day without you, my first spring, my first birthday and lastly, my first Christmas ever without you.  It's better than it was a year ago.  I don't cry all the time.  I don't cry every night when I got to bed.  I don't hang up angry and frustrated with people on the phone.  I don't want to rip anyone's head off.

In fact most days are good days.  I can remember the good things that we had, supper on Sunday, walks in the river valley, knitting, having a cup of tea and of course jokes and laughter.  You taught me without realizing it how to laugh, how to see the funny side of things and even how to tell jokes.  You were my first audience.  The rubber chicken that somebody gave you one Christmas still sits on the shelf beside my bed.  That chicken reminds me of your sense of humor every time I see it.

If I am honest with myself, and I do try to be, I am thankful that you died.  Thankful that you are no longer suffering.  Thankful that you are no longer frightened. I know how scared you were of going completely blind, know how scared you were of being dependent on others for your care. 

You were frightened of dying too I know, scared of a vengeful god.  I told you that god doesn't work that way and I believe that.  I don't believe any divine being would punish people for eternity.  I believe that god, the divine, is about love, not about hate and retribution. 

When I remember you, it's not how you were for that last year before you died, it's the you from a few years ago.  The woman I went to England with, who got stuck trying to climb over Paul McCartney's fence, who laughed so much that you couldn't get off the fence without help.  The woman I walked with down river valleys both here in in England.  The woman who taught me how to garden and love birds, although you never convinced me to love roses. 

But as I sat in the tub, I realized that I also mourn the mother I never had and maybe that's a normal part of grief.  I never went to you asking for advice, nor did I want to share my troubles with you.  Partly because you told the rest of the family and partly because I didn't respect how you dealt with conflict, all passive aggressive.  Of course I do both of these things and of course I hate that I do them. 

You were a great one to make a compliment sound like a criticism.  I was always too loud, too aggressive, too much for you.  Even as a middle aged woman, you would try to dampen down my spirits.  I'm not sure why but you did.  Actually that's not true, I know why you did it, you were always concerned with what others thought.  I wish I'd had a mum who could have accepted me just as I am.  I'm guessing you would have wanted the same from your mum, or mummy as you called her.  I understand with my head that you could not give me what you had never been given yourself, but inside of me there is still a young girl who wants desperately to be accepted and loved. 

You were a good mother.  You taught me that family is first.  You weren't perfect and maybe that's the greatest gift you gave me, the knowledge that we can love people despite their imperfections.