Growing Up

I’m at the church running the office, filling in for Mandy who’s off celebrating her son’s birthday. Fred’s just given me a treatment, and it’s really helped my jaw and teeth. This pain is residual from the Celexa, and my tongue has been in abject pain for the last week. I’m unconsciously pressing it very forcefully against my teeth and jaw. Soreness unbound. I’ve been living on 400 mg of ibuprofen every three hours to keep myself from crawling into bed and shaking in agony.

So Fred gives me a treatment – after I did him – and it’s taken away the pain. That’s a miracle in itself. Plus, my shirt’s wet on the shoulders where he had his hands. Now THAT I don’t know if it’s from his hands or from me. Oh, well, not important. I feel better, that’s what counts.

Last night I was helping Vivian get around in her apartment – she’s to stay off her right leg for a week following the surgery just below her knee – and she wanted to wash up. So I wrestled the wheelchair into the bathroom and got her all set up to sit in front of the sink. Then I stood outside the bathroom on pins and needles, waiting for her to finish. I was so afraid she’d fall, and I’d have to call 911 to pick her up.

I was so scared because I was back into the caregiving mode that I lived in with Sherry. I felt responsible for her, I felt like it would be bad for me if she fell. After all, I’d have to tell her daughters what had happened, and I was afraid they’d blame me for it. I know, I know, all fears from the past. Well, I still have those fear reactions.

The fear did me in. After she got ready I helped her back to bed, got her set, and brought a chair in to sit with her. And I cratered. All the old tapes from taking care of Sherry flooded in and I began to get sick to my stomach. I realized I was going to end up shaking and crying from the old traumas if I didn’t get stabilized. So I up and left, going upstairs. Crawled into bed and tossed a bit before I was able to fall asleep. I was in bad shape, mentally.

That was about 8. During the night I woke up and called her. We had an hour’s conversation about my “running off.” I was lying there in bed and shaking in fear again, this time afraid of her being mad at me. That’s been a major factor in my life, and was most of the reason Sherry was able to abuse me so viciously. I tried to get across my problem and we sort of reached a point where there was understanding. I fell back asleep, exhausted emotionally.

This morning I jerked awake. Got dressed and a bite to eat and went down. She was upset – badly. She felt like she hadn’t cleared her feelings from last night. So we spent an hour trying to hash out all THAT stuff. I had to leave, to get over here to the church, and we left it for later this afternoon. I’m going back over when I’m done here, to keep her from getting up and walking. Yeah, caregiving again. I just can’t seem to get away from it. But then, I’m her Friend – with a capital F – and we’ve already been through too much for me to abandon her when she needs help. Not to mention that I need her Friendship just as much as she needs mine.

In another area, I’ve been feeling like I want to write again. Want, not need. There’s a big difference. Wanting means I can skip it for a while, let the ideas rumble around in my head, build trains of thought to spin out in pixels. NEEDING to write means it’s past thinking, it’s GOTTA be done. I HAVE to sit down and let the words come out. That’s what happened with the books. That was a need.

So I’m wrestling with the writing desire. I realize now I have to spend some time in the recliner, letting my mind freewheel so I can gather those thoughts. I have to have time alone, quiet time. Meditate, maybe. There’s something I haven’t had time for, since I met Vivian. I’ve been too busy talking and exploring aspects of my life, my relationship with Sherry – and Jackie – and listening to her talk about her life. So I’ve been too busy. Maybe I need to meditate again.

But right now I’m knee deep in taking care of her. Being the Friend she needs, to get stuff for her, to make coffee, to sit there and listen to her while she’s in bed – under doctor’s orders to stay off that leg for a week. We’ve worked out how to get her into the beauty parlor tomorrow: I’m going to take the wheelchair over there and be ready to wheel her in, after her daughter brings her over in the car. Vivian really doesn’t need to be climbing up into my pickup. And the wheelchair’s too heavy for the girls to lift. So I’ll go over and wheel her in. Then when she’s done I’ll go pick her up and her other daughter will bring her home in her car. I’ll bring the wheelchair back. Seems like the only logical way to do it. The ramp at the salon is a real killer for her – especially coming down. She doesn’t do well coming down steps or slopes. I figure this is the least I can do.

See? See how I’m throwing myself into helping? It’s the way I was raised, to help out. Duke did it all his life. He was totally involved with the church, he was always available to help people who needed a hand, he volunteered at various community charities, he organized people to get things done. He was a GREAT organizer. But he spent hours and hours and days getting people to take the steps they needed to get their projects done. He neglected his family.

Now here I am, taking care of Vivian, taking care of Dorothy, helping out as much as I can at the church, stepping in to help the complex manager, being a good neighbor…and neglecting ME. I don’t take time for naps – even though Viv keeps harping at me to stop running all over the city helping people – and I don’t take time to fix decent meals for myself. The only way I wash clothes is when I help Vivian take her wash. Otherwise mine would just build up until I didn’t have any clean shirts or underwear left. I mean, totally outwardly directed. Just like my dad.

And there’s the point of my caregiving Vivian. It’s just something I do, because I’m here and there’s nobody else to do it. So I step up and help.

Makes me wonder if my tongue and jaw and teeth problem isn’t partly fueled by my tension over whether I’m helping Vivian or hindering. I try to give her all the room she needs to take care of herself, but that equates to her getting up and standing around in the kitchen making dinner, putting groceries away, washing dishes, making another pot of coffee, and piddling around. Hurting her leg. She’s so used to taking care of herself she can’t let me do it for her.

I mean, it’s almost like pulling teeth from a wildcat to get her to sit down so I can give her a treatment on her knee. She says they work, she gets pain relief and her incision is absolutely beautiful – NO inflammation around it – but she’s too busy to let me take the hour to channel all that healing into it. I mean, I get such a different reception from Dorothy – she sits there and holds still because it brings her so much relief.

Oh, well, at least I can help some.

This morning while we were talking about the emotional hour we spent on the phone last night, I had an epiphany. I have been given a Gift. A Huge Gift. I mean, a LOT bigger than my healing hands, bigger than my writing talent, bigger than my helping others, bigger than helping at the church, bigger than anything else in my life. I’ve been given the Gift of healing ME, getting all my internal emotional walls knocked down, clearing my spirit to get me to true Inner Peace, the peace that passes all understanding. And to do it now, in this life. To get there, I’m trusting that Vivian will be there for me to talk to, to pour out all my angst and hang-ups. I mean, I’m there for her, wide open and listening to everything she has to say. And I really am going for it, going for the goal of becoming peaceful inside.

When I was growing up, and living my life for those 59 years, I spent hours begging God for Inner Peace. All I knew was manic-depressive cycles where I wasn’t functional most of the time. I was always at the mercy of my messed-up brain chemistry. Bipolar disorder is horrifying. So when I got on the Lamictal, in 2005, suddenly there was stability, calmness, a huge peace. That med has been a lifesaver. But now that it’s been 4 years, I’m finding I need more depth. There’s just not enough peace. I’m finding corners of my mind that are so convoluted I can’t be still.

And there’s the Gift: a Friend with whom I can work this stuff out. I have Jim for some aspects, I have Vivian for the others. And I have the VA counselor for the real nitty-gritty. At least I’m covered, I have help. This all gives me the opening I need to delve into it and clear up the bad parts. I just hope Vivian’s taking the same opportunity. I think she is, but she’s got her own timetable. Well, we’ll see.

CS: I finally wrote the interview with Danny. He approved it as written, and I’ve emailed it here to be picked up and added to the church bulletin, which comes out every two months. Usually I knock those out the same day I do the interview, but things have been a bit topsy-turvy recently. I’m hoping that my life will calm down here soon. Problem is, I LIKE my life. I just wish I had more free time to write. I miss it.

Later, at home:

I’m back from Dorothy’s, and she feels better. I’m going down to Vivian’s soon, to help her with her supper and if she needs anything else. Gotta go get her mail, too. I’ll have a couple of cups of coffee and we’ll talk and maybe I’ll work on her knee. It’ll be relaxing.