From One Mother, to Another

(Written Nov 29, 2022 ~ Still relevant... picking up July 20, 2023) 

It's been a while. 

I mean... I've typed out a whole bunch of words... over and over again... but I've been so stuck. 

I had a meeting with one of the executives I support in my current position this morning. She was telling me that she's leaving the company. 

She's an amazing woman. Her credentials and education are so far beyond impressive, I can't even describe... but today, she said that she was going to take a beat before moving into a new role... and spend some time with her kids. 

She has two and they're young. 

Her comment was that (I'm never going to get the wording right on this) she isn't the 'kind of mom that I am'. That she isn't 'there' to put them to bed and she isn't 'involved' in their day to day like I am. That her mother recently reminded her of the fact that they grow up... 'with or without you'. 

I have a great deal of respect for this woman, I truly do... and to have her lay down a compliment like that to me was beyond moving. 

After ending the video conference, I cried. 

...because she's leaving and I'm losing her. 

...because she's the heart of the organization and we're losing her. 

...because she recognizes the sacrifice it takes to be connected to her progeny... and having it all, means doing it all... and it is fucking exhausting... and thankless... and necessary. 

It made me feel relevant. 

I haven't felt that in a very long time. 

The break down of my longest (and only remaining) friendship (with my bestie of more than 30 years) has lobbed off my metaphorical legs. I still have awful dreams about her. Accusing me of lies and incompetence... her words swirling around my skull. 

The demise of that relationship broke me in a place I'm not certain is repairable. I mean I did attend therapy to attempt getting over the effects of the experience, but I'm still very much broken. I don't believe in myself... have zero confidence in anything I do, say or think. I can't even fake it that well anymore. I'm a bloody mess! Everything is about me. Not because I feel important, but because I genuinely think there is a direct link between something I've done wrong, neglected or instigated, and every teeny nuance in my sphere. 

(July 20, 2023) 

As much as I enjoy being right, I wish I hadn't been about my previous mentor. She was the heart of that place and whether everybody else knows it or not, we lost something incredibly valuable with her. 

Happy to report that I'm not only still with the company, but I've been given a meatier role and the biggest raise I've ever gotten without changing positions all together. 

That was a pretty great feather for my cap... if only I was capable of accepting the positive nod... 

If only. 

I like my job and I'm really enjoying getting into the meat and potatoes of what we do. Specifically, I'm now involved with development of visual media. Movies, series, animation, anime. I mean, I'm not integral, but I'm part of paying screen writers and animators. Mind you, with Hollywood currently burning in the flames of strikes, it's been pretty quiet in everything except animation, but it gives me the time to really learn about what I'm doing.

I also support most of the Studio leadership and manage company wide travel. I'm grateful for this job and hope I can keep it for a long time.

There have been a number of health issues I've been battling. I didn't realize how damaging my being so severely anemic for so long was, but apparently I should've insisted on better treatment YEARS ago. It's likely what killed my gallbladder, what's been causing the brutality of my headaches and what has left me laying on my face in a puddle for the last five or six years! Jesus! How would you know? I trusted my doctor to take care of me... but she quit. Closed her practice. Now we have nothing for medical care.

My oldest child, who is almost 21, is struggling terribly. They've recently withdrawn from a 2nd college without completing the course. They're not eating anywhere nearly enough to keep a bird alive (and this kid is 5'8" and not a small build) and weight continues to fall off the kid. There is measurable self harm being committed, and the only means the kid has to eat, sleep and even just 'exist' is to smoke pot... and trust me when I say, Stretch is smoking a metric shit-ton of pot! 

Last week, they had a panic attack so severe, I wound up putting them into a cold shower to calm down. My only other option was to call an ambulance... or maybe wait until they hyperventilated themselves unconscious... I really didn't want to face that alone. They've been throwing around suicidal thoughts (out loud) lately, too. My mind tells me Stretch wouldn't ever go through with something like that, but that part of my spine where I feel most of my 'mom instincts' isn't so certain. A woman I used to be very close with, who works in the medical field and is a fantastic mother, lost her youngest to suicide.

I can't even imagine going through that. Though I get it... the way Stretch feels. Defeated. Terrified. Lonely. Unlikable. Pointless. Useless. 

Hopeless.

I get it. I feel like this is it for me. That whatever happiness I was meant to have in this life is behind me, so really, what's the point of continuing? I know it's a dramatic statement, but I can assure you, it's embedded in my bone marrow right now.

I have been trying to take a few minutes every morning before I get up and every night before I fall asleep to remind myself of the positives:

*Our relative 'good' health... mental issues notwithstanding.

*My job. 

*My youngest having graduated high school with highest honours, bursaries and a scholarship. She starts her BSc in Sept, which (at this stage) is pointing her toward a career in Neurobiology. I'm so very proud of her.

*The kitties... all three of them. They bring me pretty much the only joy I experience regularly. Milo and Toots are still in kitten phase and they make me laugh all the time. I miss laughing so much. Plus, I love them dearly. When I provide care to them, they thrive. It's rewarding on a level I don't get to experience often anymore.

*Our new place. We moved... again. I don't like the area we're in, but it's safe and I really like the house... plus I have a bathtub again. I never imagined how much my mental health gets from getting to soak in a tub a couple of times a week.

*It would seem our previous landlady is about to run out of time to come after us for the bogus damage we allegedly caused her precious money pit. 14 days... that's how long she has to 'officially' file. Then she's S(hit)O(utta)L(uck). I know it was only a bluff on her side to try and scare us off after we won our case for overpaid rent, but what I don't think she realizes is that ours was done properly and she lost her appeal. That judgement is on the books. Hers isn't. Honestly, it's worth not getting the 8 grand she owes us just to never have to think about the crazy bitch again, but either way, she can't do anything after August 3.

*My partner. We've managed to stay best friends for all these years. Just about 21 married and 24 together. Hard to imagine, really. But we're bored and limping and exhausted. Just getting a stiffy a time or two a week is a struggle... and I feel pretty strongly that's mostly due to pharmaceuticals and recreational 'medication'.  

I do try to mold my perspective to a positive one. I had been doing really well with scaling back booze and pot usage... but in the past few weeks, I've just lost my steam. I feel like I'm empty... there's just nothing left to prop myself up on. Nothing to look forward to, except maybe continuing to eek out a sad, broke, bored and unhealthy existence... if we're REALLY lucky. I look at the money we bring into this household every month and it boggles my mind that we are barely getting by...  everything is so goddamned expensive in this bullshit, contrived post-Covid economy, there just doesn't seem to be any relief in sight. 

My future doesn't look terribly bright... even if we can maintain the status quo. I'm likely going to have to support my oldest until I die. I'm looking at my youngest with the only hope there is for the future. I believe she will succeed and have a meaningful life. My husband and I will likely both have to work until noon on our respective funeral days - not that it will matter much, it'll only be the surviving spouse and maybe our kids that attend... and we're getting older every day... it's coming for us at some point, so either I'll have to carry on without him, or he's going to have to do it without me. Either way, it's going to suck.

Lately, I can't see above this insidious cloud of doom... even when I try really hard to rise above it, Stretch is there to pull me back down. I want to help the child, I truly do, but as they continue to get older, they are digressing emotionally. We can't get access to a psychiatrist to make necessary changes to the medications they take. There needs to be a complete overhaul in their depression/anxiety/panic/gender treatment. I am not enough support... and I am running out of, well... everything; energy, ideas, strength, patience... and I feel like I'm crazy. Not the ha ha crazy I often refer to, genuine, honest to goodness mental and emotional exhaustion. Every word that comes out of my mouth or even passes through my mind is fodder for ridicule and paranoia. I've truly never appreciated just how savagely mean I can be... I don't trust a thought in my head. Not one.

My sister is home for a month with her son. She bought a place and has come from the great white north to bless all of us with her presence. I don't even want to see her. I know I don't really mean that, but I kinda do. I'm so tired of all of these non-relationships I have in my life. I know I'm the problem (it's me). I guess it only stands to reason that I have no friends either. It's just that I have nobody to talk to. It's a pretty lonely existence.

I was lying in my bathtub last night, with my head submerged in the water... I could hear the blood moving through my veins and my heart pumping... a sound that upsets me for reasons I've never understood. My mind was roiling through the usual topics... Stretch, guilt, how truly awful I am as a human, everything I've said to anyone outside of my immediate family, the fact that work is so quiet and I'm certain to be let go, anything I have done, said or thought in my lifetime that can be used as a blunt object with which to beat myself... you know, the usual... and I was crying. I haven't cried in a very long time. I mean, I've teared up at shows or movies when they get sad, but these were tears for me. Let me tell you, I have no lack of self pity at present, but I've not been able to start that tap for a long time... perhaps the fact that I had such a hard time getting the tap turned off, had something to do with that. Then I proceeded to plop my fat arse in front of the telly and watched a particularly emotional episode of ER...

Let's just say that my eyes were practically swollen shut when I was awakened by my alarm this morning. Not the best way to start the day, but science indicates crying helps release toxins. Let's hope I managed to unload a gallon or so worth of toxic waste. 

I promised myself I would write and post something. I've tried and failed to put anything sensical together for what is bleeding into years now. There are at least a dozen starts that went nowhere. So, here it is... a finished, rambling complaint about my life... but it's the first promise I've been able to keep in so long, I couldn't even put a date on it.

D ~ out.