Insomnia

I’ve been awake since just before 1 a.m.  Now I need to drive across town to meet my group and run 12 miles.  I can’t think of anything I would less like to do right now.

Holiday Weekend Ahead

 

My daughter gave me the little flower between my monitors on Mothers Day.  She said “take it to work with you Momma, it will cheer you up.”  No, my daughter is not three years old, she is in her 30s, but she was right.  It does cheer me up, not because it is a smiling flower, but because it is something that was given to me with love.

There is a three day holiday on the horizon!  Woot!  I have not one plan.  Son, wife, two babies, and my “normal” daughter are going on a fishing trip.  Son and fam in their camper.  Daughter in her little tent.   She is a serious backpacker.  Son was too.  Now he has a family.  Sweet!  Of course, I had to admonish them to keep those babies away from the river!  As if they wouldn’t have thought of that without me telling them to!  How ridiculous mothers are some times.

Kindred soul daughter is still staying with me, which is delightful.  She is always on the run though.  Not sure I can make a plan with her.

So!  I think I have found something to do that is productive, useful, and might even be fun!  I keep seeing commercials on tv for Deck Over, a thick paint to put on a rough and cracked deck.  My front deck is ridiculous.  But small!  So I think I might paint it.  I haven’t done any projects around the house for several years.  Coincidentally (probably not) about the same amount of time I have been training to run marathons and half marathons.

So happy it is Friday.  I love Fridays.  Then Saturdays.  And then every other day of the week.

And grateful this Memorial Day that my son is not in a war overseas.  Memorial Day was absolutely the worst day for us when he was.  Not this year.  Not This Year.

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.  ~~ Psalm 62:8

Finding Places to Pray

I did walk to the church with the outdoor Stations of the Cross yesterday.  There was a crew of landscapers in action there.  That had not been what I was expecting; I was dreaming of a silent place in the sun to pray the Rosary. Instead I had a gasoline smelling noisy place.  And it was also good.  After praying, as I was putting away my Rosary, I noticed the shadow on the flagstone and took a photo.  Last night I showed it to my daughter and told her I was going to crop it so that the crack in the pavers is cropped out.  She said “no! it is more interesting with the line!”  I am dubious, but I left it anyway.

I am interested to know whether anyone looks at my replies to your comments.  I usually reply to every comment.  I didn’t reply to yesterday’s because I don’t know if anyone reads them.  Could you let me know if you do or not?  I LOVE it when other bloggers reply to comments, that is why I do it.  But if no one is reading them, there is really no point.

My daughter is sleeping downstairs, the birds are singing outside my bedroom window, the coffee is strong and black and good, and I am ready for another day.  Reading Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset which I am finding wonderful.  It also puts my small suffering into perspective.

When you offered so chivalrously to suffer every pain out of love for Me, you were immediately freed from these temptations of hell, because it was My will.

 

11 Days and Counting

No, not till the end of my job.  But till the first day of the iccon (deliberately misspelled) workshop I am attending the week of June 3-8.  I need to start preparing, with meditation, prayer, fasting, and confession.  How wonderful!  At the workshop, I intend to write down every little step, prayer, thought and feeling.  I want to be able to do this independently or in community with others – without the endless need for further instruction.

I have threatened to have an iccon blog which would not be associated with this blog or any other, but maybe this time I will really do it.  I might actually use my full name!  It would be so helpful to have photos of each and every single little step.  A journal of the journey through the process of iccon-wrriting.

Went to my former/future workplace yesterday and met with several people.  Do you have any idea how wonderful it is to be treated like a manager after 17 months of being treated like a not-particularly-bright line staff?  Maybe describing as being treated as a “manager” is not the best description.  Credible, knowledgeable, holder of institutional memory, possessor of skills that are needed and appreciated.  Maybe these are better descriptors.  I just have 21 more days at my current job.  I swore I wasn’t going to count days, but I have found that I am doing it anyway.  I can’t seem to resist it.

Yesterday I talked with one of the few friends I have made in my new job.  I told her about the senile remark, and the “f*** off” note and some of the other “highlights” of my relationship with my boss.  She asked me how I failed to mention these things before.  I told her I couldn’t talk about it without crying.  And then I did what I always do with mental health professionals, I told her I wasn’t trying to get “free therapy” (she is a psychologist), she told me she WOULD act the therapist for a moment and tell me that the more I talk about it, the less likely I will be to cry.  I have to be very careful.

There is a fine and frequently invisible line between my story and their story.  I can’t tell people inside my work circle about the abuse without also telling her story, and doing serious damage to her reputation.  I have shared my story with some people I trust, being very careful they are trustworthy.  It has always struck me as odd that when telling the awful truth about a situation, it can appear to people that you are “saying horrible things about a person.”  I have horrible things to say about my boss, unfortunately, they are true.  It is just the facts ma’am.  I don’t call her names or judge her.  I just report that I have a boss who said “you look like you’re senile,” who put a note on my desk saying “f*** off,” who insists that I need to do many, many, many things that are so far beyond my job it is incredible – but when evaluating me dinged me for “poor boundaries.”

In talking with one of my dearest friends, who is not an alcoholic, about the program last week, I explained the steps to her.  I told her about the steps around resentments and what a miracle they have been in my life.  And then told her that I will likely write inventory on my boss.  Once I leave I will do that.  It will be safe, because it will be OVER.

Today I am at home on sick leave for a reason I don’t care to disclose.  This afternoon I think I may walk up the two miles from my house to the church up the hill with the beautiful outdoor stations of the cross.  I will sit and pray the rosary there.  Calm.  Calm.  Calm.

 

 

 

Other People

MLA: Pentecost red cardigan worn on Sunday

I’m working at home this morning and have had the TV on – against one of cardinal rules of working at home.  The devastation in Oklahoma is horrifying.  I am praying for those affected and those responding.

I am sick of writing about myself.  I seldom write about others because I think I have no right to.  But it seems more selfless to do so, so I will try it today.

My alcoholic (recovering) daughter is again living with me.  She and her boyfriend have broken up.  The fact that one of her ex-husbands just got out of prison might have something to do with that.  The fact that he is in a half-way house for at least 6 months is the only redeeming grace.  She has got a job – first time in many years.  She loves it.  She intends to save her money while living here so that she can get her own apartment again, and make a life that is more conducive to having young teen and pre-teen daughters in her life.  Where the ex-con fits in that?  My projection, based on years of experience?  He ruins it.  Sorry.  That is just the way I have seen things play out year after year for her.  BUT, she IS sober, she IS working, she IS living with her mama – for today.  Luckily, I have a program and I don’t need to warn her at every moment about the dangers lurking.  She is a grown woman.

My responsible daughter is having more health problems.  She has scary health problems and has got an appointment today at 2:00.  I am frankly frightened about the latest developments.   There is a sub-population of my family who seem to manifest depression as physical illness.  But again, I wouldn’t tell her that – I am not her doctor, and she doesn’t think she is depressed.  What kind of mother would say “Hey!  You think you are fine, but let me tell you – you are depressed!”  I have tried to do this gently before, and it hasn’t worked out well.  I am not her physician.  I am her mother.

My son is fine I think.  He adores his children.  He is so patient, kind, loving, and fun with them it makes me want to cry.  He also loves his wife and she loves him.  They have notes all over the house, like “I love my husband”  ”I super love my wife.”  Etc.  So cute.  However, my daughter-in-law posted on facebook this morning that she got a concussion at work today.  Yikes.

My sponsor barely knows who I am when I call.  She knows I am “Mary” and that she loves me, but she has forgotten big chunks of who I actually am.  Like she thinks I am still in my 40s somehow, while everyone else has aged.  I do not discard people when they have dementia, so I continue my relationship with her.  But I have found other “trusted friends” to talk with about serious issues in my life.

One of my dear friends’ father has dementia.  He has been able to stay at home while his wife, my friend’s mother, has cared for him.  He is now becoming too difficult to care for at home.  They have hired someone to come in.  This is killing my friend because she is a geriatric RN.  She feels she should be able to do this – while knowing that she cannot.  They are now looking at long term care.  It is breaking their hearts.  It is hard to witness.  It brings so much back about my dad and his last year or so.  I have regrets.  Yes, I do.  I guess in the end we all do.

Maybe the older we get, the more exposure to heartbreak we have.  Our families age, our friends age, things happen.

In the love eco-system, there is joy and there is pain.  You cannot have one without the other.  It is all worth it.  Thank God I have people in my life.  I want them all to be happy and healthy, but that is not really reality.

Thanking God for another day.  And asking him to please help the people in Oklahoma.

Happy Anniversary Blog

My excuse for posting this photo yet again?  It was the photo I used one year ago today, when starting this blog.

I expected this blog to be short-lived.  In fact, I almost deleted the whole thing a couple of months ago.  At this point, I am so grateful that I logged this journey through the hell of a bad job and the worst bout of depression I’ve ever had.

I actually think from time to time “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”  If I read any random post from the last year, I can see that it was, indeed, that bad.  A person might wonder what value that has, but it helps me tremendously to realize that I am not exaggerating the severity of the depression, or the severity of the abusive climate I have been in.  It has been difficult.

God has been so very good to me.  He has gotten me through each and every day.  He has provided a way out that I never saw coming.  All with impeccable timing.

If this new/old job had been presented to me a year ago, I would have turned it down.  I still had the illusion that my career trend needed to be upward.  When it almost ended, and I realized how relieved I was, I realized that I may have gotten as far, or further, than I ever needed – career-wise.  I am not meant to be in the ivory tower with all those folks.  I am happy to be with regular workers working with real patients – real people with names we actually care about individually.  Not just collectively, the great abstract, “the patients.”  No, we know these men and women.  They are real.

My pride has been decimated.  Although it was terrible, and the treatment was not right or justified, my pride probably needed trimming a bit.  I will certainly bring a different attitude to the workplace than I had before.  Happy to be a worker among workers, happy to be where I am, and not dreaming to be somewhere else.  I’ve been “somewhere else,” and it nearly killed me.

Yesterday I attended a party where a long time friend was celebrating 30 years of sobriety.  It was lovely.  Sitting outdoors on a warm May afternoon.  Her husband had supplied the food.  When I got there I was starving and was confronted with a choice of ribs, barbequed beef, or barbequed chicken.  There were a couple of dried up beans on the bottom of a dish.  And for a vegetable?  Tortilla chips.  I broke down and had a piece of chicken.  Then instead of going to Mass as I had planned, I ran home in horrible stomach pain.

So, this morning I went to a meeting at 7:30 and Mass at 10:30.  It was a revelation to me.  I invariably go to Mass either on Saturday evening or early Sunday morning – never after 8 a.m.  Amazing to be at this Mass with young families, a full choir, and a leisurely pace.  No other Masses followed, so we had Pentecost Sunday at a pace worthy of Pentecost Sunday.  We were dressed in our red, interesting to see the variations.  There is a shade of red-orange I call “Pentecost Red,” and whenever I see it, I buy it.  I love it, and I love to wear it on Pentecost and Palm Sunday.

As I got to Mass and lit a candle, I wondered why it is that I always try to “squeeze” Mass into Saturday night or early Sunday morning.  It often causes me anxiety and rushing all over the place.  I was “forced” to go to this later Mass today and found that I loved it.  Why can’t I consider Mass the central part of my Sunday?  And try to rest for the remainder of the day.  I might actually feel better if I did that.  We’ll see.

I want to thank anyone who has stuck with me for the last year as I have logged my daily journey.  It can’t have been fun to read.  It certainly wasn’t fun to write most of it.  But in posting it here, I frequently found that I was not alone.  That is the most important thing of all.

Thank you.

 

I Love Saturday Mornings

 

This time last year I had peonies everywhere.  This year the tree in my front yard doesn’t even have leaves on it yet!

I am going out with my running club this morning.  It is one of the last runs of the spring session.  I am considering not joining again for the summer – it is $200. and it is getting up at 4 a.m. or earlier every Saturday morning.  I’ve got half-marathons on June 16, August something, and the end of September.  I need to train….. I will decide in the next week or two.

For now I am going.  My daughter is sleeping in the room she uses when she is fighting with her boyfriend.  The weather is going to be fabulous.  This afternoon one of my dear friends is having a party to celebrate her 30th AA birthday.  Wow.  I remember going to her 2nd anniversary.  Amazing.

Gotta go.  Have a beautiful day if you can.  And if you can’t, I will not judge you for that.   We can only do the best we can with what we have got and some times having a good day is so far out of our reach, it feels like a slap in the face to be told to have a nice day!!! Or even better “Make it a great day!”  That all sounds cheerful unless you are in the midst of hell.  OK – but I am not today!

Thanks be to God.