No, not forever

My version of the story is the one i am sticking with. i think my father is having a mid-life crisis. although he cannot see that. for him, mid-life crisis-ing is for weaker minded, less original people. No, he simply has come to the rational and not crisis-induced conclusion that he wants nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my mother and nothing to do with my sister. Should he have a major heart-attack and barely survive it, I am not to come to his side- I am not to even call. If my mother dies tomorrow, i am told, I will not be welcome at the funeral.

Oh, how the mighty fall.


I spent six hours on the phone with this bruised Ego, this disillusioned man-child. I was bewildered and perplexed by the time i got off- still in my pajamas. I was abused, and he abused my care for him, my concern for my own place in the family. He wanted to hurt me. He made me literally sick.

The next day i couldn't focus at work. I could not. I felt sick in my stomach, light-headed, fuzzy. i felt bruised up inside.

i felt out of control and i was... i was at the mercy of his tantrum.

my dad has earned his crisis: he has been the chief contributor to it. My dad deserves to rage: lots that is presently making him crazy is not entirely his fault.

But not a bit of it is mine either, so i am not paying the tab.

I am going on with my life, the only one i have. I will not invest in his breakdown, though i honestly hope he regains his footing.

Once my aged and wise therapist held my hand and told me that i could not be the stabilizing force in my family. He told me he understood why i had tried, that he believed me when i said that i played the part i did because i feared the chaos that would ensue if i did not.

He told me I had to let happen in them what would happen-

and now I am doing that. I let them destabilize in my absence because i cannot struggle with them forever.
my son is growing up too quickly for that.

Rolling with it.

I am the type pf person who really gets into the movie or tv show she is watching.
I really need to identify with the characters or there is no point in my watching... i don't inherently value stories about people i do not relate to.

That said, i am in the fifth and final season of Six Feet Under and

Hot F-in Damn.

that is what i have to say. I have to give props to my girl, Nancy Oliver, for her mad screenwriting skills...
okay, ditching the vernacular i want to talk about a special crazy phenomenon that i just experienced.


In this season, without giving too much away about a show that aired its final season about three years ago (a shout-out, too, to the netflix people who keep old shows fresh for years) ,
Nate breaks up with Brenda because they fight too much; he's tired of it and they don't seem to "fit."

And i got totally sucked into that world and remembered that not that long ago Chris and I were seemingly ill-fit, and though we weren't really fighting with each other, it felt as if we had been fighting for our life-together for as long as either of us could remember and we were tired.
sick-tired, nauseous-tired, dreadfully-tired, bone-tired. marrow- tired. and we felt like the brave thing to do, i definitely thought that the brave thing to do, would be to break-up: to walk away and cut our losses and face the world as individuals. individuals, the parts that cannot be divided being the ones we keep. let go of each other and stop fighting the very matter of reality and give in.

We didn't belong together it seemed. fate was apparently against us and we were

fatalities.

i have struggled with a dreadful sense of fatalism probably since my youngest sister died. it makes sense, you know? And this was that all over again- the need to let someone go even though everything inside of you is begging and pleading for that someone to stay, to live with you, to be with you. So i mustered up the idea and then the will to face that maybe, just maybe,
we were doomed. star-crossed.
for real.

It was at first a terrifying thought and since it was i knew i had to face it, i knew i did. so i held the thought in my mind and tried to embrace it with my heart and sat with the notion for about a month. yes, a month. for a month i did not look away from the tired sad thing we had become together, from the misery and the despair, from the existential questions that seemed legion.
I did not say to myself that God was with Us or that we would See with our Eyes some Good from this Pain. I did not make excuses for the rot and decay of the years set into our blood and bones; a sepsis and cancer. I did not look away to some better future.

as an exercise of the moment. to be present and to be brave.

tonight, watching nate and brenda collapse reminded me of that haunted time. the echoes of disappointments and disapprovals, of unfinished business and buried hopes filled my ears. i heard and i remembered the hollowness and illness.

and no one around me could answer for it, because it isn't the question of the mind hearing or realizing that the night has passed.
but of the ear listening past the echoes for what is now being whispered.
i heard something better tonight after the echoes.
something solid and something hale.
something set aright,
Illinois.

Falloween PictureGanza

Our House, The Bag of Autumn, & My Favorite Tree

Fall in Illinois is a beautiful thing and my little one and I took it upon ourselves to relish it by collecting leaves and examining ladybugs in the tree by our house. It's brisk here mostly, sometimes cold but every now and then it is warm again. In other words, it is annoyingly inconsistent.

Halloween was short-lived but really fun while it lasted. Judah is an A-list trick-or-treater. He scurried up to the houses and managed to get out

Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!

Some pics of my little dragon:

This is a very scary dragon, as you can probably tell by his very scary stance. I believe Judah stated his goal was to "thcare them thso bad they run away crying and thcreaming!"
People dutifully pretended they were scared by a three-and-a-half foot tall adorable green thing.

Connected

I feel most here, in Illinois, when i am at home, cleaning. I feel more connected with my space when i am cleaning it. Probably because I have to notice it, bit by bit. I can be so wrapped up in the atmosphere of my mind that i miss the material details.

I keep thinking i would do better here if i worked four days instead of five... but i don't think it's financially realistic-- at this point anyway- we aren't even sure what IS realistic as we are just getting a solid idea of what our every month responsibilities will be.

WE have been eating at home more than I ever have before and- wow!- it is so much cheaper to eat at home. No wonder i ran out of money before the end of the month- seriously, I have eaten out enough times to last me a life time. no, really, THAT MANY TIMES.

----------------&&&&&&&&*********$$$$$$$$$$%%%%%%%%%%%%%%******

Judah and i spent the whole day at the mall--
we went for a costume. I know, it is last-minute, but i have issues with money. I can't spend it until... damn, it is the last latest minute and I MUST purchase-- a case of need, or it is under fifteen dollars. The best situation is a combination of the two. I know, i am weird.


So i went to a couple of stores with no real luck- then i went to the Children's Place and (more proof that the Universe is on my side) I found the Cutest little Dragon Costume EVER! for $4.99!
I don't even need to tell you how cute Judah looks in it...he fills it out great. I'll post pictures, k?
I am not sure if it's good or bad but even Judah listed the getting of the costume for "five bucks" as a highlight of our day. Is that too soon to teach bargain-hunting? what about plain ol' cheapness?

Did i tell you that Chris is working overnight and that i admire him for it? That he does an Incredible job about not pitying his lot too much?

Did i tell you that I am not cut out for the job i have? That i am not naturally detail-oriented and that i am in fact quite flighty about such things?
I knew that going into this position and i feel pangs of insecurity whenever i make dumb mistakes ( about three times a week!)

i was hoping to develop these skills...

today i watched a lot of TV.
Some Gilmore Girls...Rory Gilmore is my fashion muse, by the way.
Some Six Feet Under Season Five...damn great writing.
Some Five Days...damn you HBO with your premium prime time line-up.


Some resolutions:
tell my dad what he can do to make it up to me and Chris.
Develop Real Live Budget-- we've been rounding and guesstimating thus far.
Hold proper staff meeting.
Invest in ways to get music flowing throughout the house...I need music.
Take Chris out to show him how much i appreciate him.

Forgetting

if you want a fresh start, if you need one, i think you have to prepared to forget the past for a little while.

I feel so different from how i felt in San Antonio. I have been pondering the themes of proactivity vs. passivity. It sometimes becomes a mantra of Becoming Creative, Living Creatively.

I am enthused about this new chapter and its themes.
There is great continuity for me between what I have been before and what i am now becoming-- if i think about deconstruction as a precursor to construction-- winter becoming spring, the flow of life and ofcourse, death.

True that the dead of winter can sometimes feel final, can threaten forever with its chill.
But i am sowing now, is spring when you sow seed?
I am creating my own life! How fun! What a gift to find myself with the resources to define the moment, and God help me to seize it.

In the past week, i sense i have forgotten. There are steps i am taking, and in the taking i know that I could not have done the things i am now doing before. I remember that i could not, but i don't remember, really, the feeling of not being able to. And how invigorating to know feel myself able to. . .

To have the ear and Have the stomach

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Zora Neale Hurston

As you all know by now, i have returned to Illinois. I have returned, as if in a dream.
The incredible force it took to get here, that is all foreign to me, so i feel transported here, though indeed I brought myself here in a rented car.

And i bet you thought i would be happy. I bet you expect posts with picutres of my new life with a matching smile, and I may do that with our Halloween photos.

But right now what i know for sure is why i left Illinois in the First Place my dearests!
It was asking the most ridiculous questions. The most scary questions, questions ranging from the practical... how to pay for a baby while in school?. . .to the existential: what in the world am i going to do with my degree?

I opted out of that quiz. I strongly suspected that i was headed nowhere and courting poverty.
Moving back means i suspect otherwise now.

Oh to refuse to ask the questions, to live in San Antonio and play at a life with the most convenient answers, was absolute torture, the most exquisite pain at times.
Oh to move back, to listen to the questions, to ask them, to open myself to some other answer not yet written for me to read, not yet written by my own hand. . .
is not cake in the afternoon, darlings.

I am trying to create a life for myself and i am not creative in that sense... so accustomed to being a passenger, so pleased to let myself be overpowered have i always been that now, now the task of creaing my own way seems severe... severe!
i am now so easily frustrated.

Precious

A moment fully realized is the rare commodity. Am I the only one who wants to know? To peer into the fabric of the second that the words are uttered, the ones you hold to your heart like a talisman against the little deaths that bite at everything precious in a day. What is this symbiosis? Blood and breath fight meaningless and monotony. These are our struggles- to strengthen our pulses, to enlarge our lungs.

His eyes have a ring of mossy green inside a caramel tinged brown and they are more to me than anything has ever been. He sleeps upstairs and my world is balanced in that bed, so fragile am I now: I am no stronger than a three year old’s frame.

How could I not be religious? Be spiritual? When I know that the best parts of myself are walking around outside of me now and are designed to be my remains when I am gone from this earth. when I am in the earth still I’ll walk the earth.

The feet I wash with chocolate shampoo sometimes will carry my heart into the future.

So I pray.

We make tacos together the three of us, then we watch Scrubs.