It's Hard Being The Same Age As Old People

I know, I know . . .

The past two years have been unavoidably exhausting, physically and  emotionally. So much so that I have neglected this blog. The blog is mostly for me to "think out loud" but I know one or two of you are still looking in on it.

Christmas passed as usual, with me spending too much money on the kids and grandkids. I realized, as I toted up the numbers, that although I love to give gifts, I'm frustrated that I didn't get any. I hope  that doesn't sound too selfish, but really? Four kids, three grandkids and my own family, and nothing? 

Next year, I'm going to cut back. I honestly don't mind making gifts like hat and scarves, but spending more money on anything except yarn, yeah, I'm done with that. 

I love my kids and grandkids. I'm happy to buy things for them, but I don't have to feel guilty if I can't or won't spend excessively just because it's Christmas.

And now for something completely different

I've finally gotten approval for knee replacement surgery. It's happening in March and I know this sounds terrible, but I'm absolutely looking forward to having a couple of months recovery time not being at work.

By the time I'm back at work, I will only have about a year before I can retire for good, something I'm very much looking forward to. I'd retire yesterday if I thought I could get Social Security and Medicare. I hope the convicted felon in the White House doesn't fuck that up for me. There's no way I can work until I'm 67, my mental health won't allow it.

You see, my body is betraying me more quickly than I anticipated. Once the knee surgery is done, I'm going to ask the doctor to look at my hip. And the longer I work outside my home, the worse my mental and emotional health is affected. Let's not forget the issues I've had since my colon surgery in 2022, something that has been and always will be not even as fun as it sounds. Also, my eyes are giving out on me and I'm going deaf in my left ear. 

So being the same age as old people sucks in a lot of ways. I'll get new glasses before I come back to work after the knee surgery, but that will only help a bit. The rest of it is the degradation of growing old and I just need to accept it. 

I was asked by a doctor if I was going to do anything fun this year. My response was that I was going to have knee surgery and get to stay home for a couple of months. He was confused - he said that wasn't really fun. I told him I'd rather be home than out and about, and that once the knee heals I'll probably go to a Giants game with my daughters. He didn't get it.

Have I mentioned I want to retire? 

God is Good all the time, and He's even watching over this tired little old lady. The troubles of today are fleeting and I need to remind myself that if something isn't eternally relevant, I don't have to dwell on it. Jobs end, knee pain ends, glasses can be bought - my soul lives forever, and I'm confident in God's love for me. 

I'll be okay.

Not Making Excuses

It's been several months since I've posted. Sorry about that, but it's been a rough year.

It also was a hot hot summer, which means my physical needs overlapped with my emotional needs. The heat made it harder to both think about and do most chores at home; and work has been chaos, per usual.

The fall hasn't been much better. My car (that I JUST paid off) decided to quit on me and I'm without reliable transportation.

In September I attended a family reunion and caught Covid from my un-vaccinated sister, who was visiting from Texas. 

The Covid left me with incredible fatigue, even though I'm back at work. On my days working from home I take a two-hour break in the middle of the day. Along with my other issues, I'm even more weary than ever. 

2024 was a rough year. So what's the plan, Lord?

God is faithful. Here's a meme I found that sums it up:

Except, if I would just listen, God is telling me the plan all the time. I'm a little dense is all.

In a world that becomes increasingly hard to navigate, both physically and mentally, I am contemplating my next steps. Retirement in the next 2-3 years for sure; disability retirement a possibility. I'm still working from home two days a week, although this week I'm on vacation, which is nice. I almost didn't make it!

Finding a new place to live is a maybe - I know I can't continue in my cracker box converted shed much longer, and it's becoming difficult to keep up with chores and such. And downsizing - a definite need at my time in life. Who wants all this shit when I'm gone? No one, and I have to decide what I really need now.

And now it's a new year. Christmas was mostly uneventful, other than paying a lot of money to rent a car for the week, money that I could have used as part of a down-payment on a new car. And crawling toward my vacation - that last three weeks wasn't even as fun as it sounds.

This year also marks 11 years since My David passed away. I miss him still, especially now my life is a constant flow of all things chaotic. He grounded me in a way no one has ever done before, and he made me laugh. Now, so many years later, I still think of him and try to be the woman he thought I was.

And that's the thing. I want to be the woman I didn't have in my own life. It's a constant struggle to be me and not just "not my mother". The neurodivergent diagnosis helps, but as old as I am, the people around me still believe I'm making excuses.

I'm not making excuses, but I'm also done with a lot of the masking that has plagued my life, trying to fit into a world that I had no idea how to; the rest of the world has a script but I never got it and I am continually trying to catch up. 

However, to put it bluntly, that's on you, not me. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. At this time of life, I have to take care of myself, and if that means imagining Jesus sitting at the kitchen table with me in order to get things done, then that's what I'll do.

I am God's Creation. He doesn't do things badly.

 "I am a creation of God and the manifestation of His plan."

I got this quote from a website I discovered a few days ago. I can't remember which one LOL! but it absolutely resonated with me. 

I have always struggled with the dichotomy of my faith versus my feelings. I have never fitted in, either at church or outside of it. I didn't even really fit in my family, although a part of that is because our neuro-divergence is genetic and no one of us fit very well with the others.

But my faith in God is also what kept us together as a family. It wasn't easy to grow up around my mother, but she at least kept us going to church on Sundays and she tried her best, I'm sure, to navigate her own faith according to her understanding of that that looked like.

"God created Autism to offset the excessive number of boring people on earth"

I got this meme from Pinterest. I love the idea that we are all part of the Body of Christ. Sometimes, I think I'm the big toe, but really my neuro-diversity means I'm the little bit of the brain that smells colors and sees music.

My little sister (in-law) is a very linear thinker. So is my ex-husband. Ask either of them how they do math, it's all about straight lines and remembered rules. Ask me how I do math, and I'll tell you what color the number 2 is, and what patterns I see in the equations in front of me. I look at a problem and see the solution, but don't ask me how I got there. 

I'm not calling my sister or ex boring. I'm saying there's more to my neuro-diversity to be celebrated than most people might perceive. 

"I thought I was bad at life. It turns out I was bad at living a neuro-typical life"

Another Pinterest meme. I absolutely identify with this statement. Unfortunately, everyone else is busy living their normal lives around me and get frustrated with me for not being like them. Sometimes that hurts worse.

I've had people ask me if I've heard of Temple Grandin. I see posts everywhere about famous people who were/are neuro-divergent. I look at other's success despite or because of their neuro-divergence and I am discouraged by the fact that I'm not as successful in my life.

That's nonsense, I know that. I raised four successful children, I am gainfully employed, I am creative, passionate and gifted. But I still feel a lack because my giftedness has a short attention span and I'm unable to use my gifts to, for instance, stay financially stable or some days even clean my house.

My therapist gave me a book to read called "How to Keep House While Drowning". I don't get any affiliate money from this (because I can't figure out how to do that) but it's an incredibly insightful look at the issues involved in being neuro-divergent as an adult.

I'm not done reading it - busy with work, busy with, yes, cleaning house. I also need new reading glasses, and my prescription is an expensive one. But I'm looking forward to learning more about what she has to say, and learning more about myself.

I'm not sure what else I had in mind when I started this post. Some days are like that.

Ecclesiastes 3:11, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (NLT).

Adult Autism in the over-50's Population

There isn't a lot out there for us. Most Autism resources are geared toward children and teens, with a few addressing the growing population that has aged out of school and is learning independence.

I never got that. 

And I'm sure most neuro-divergent people over the age of 30 have had the same problem - no one wants to hear that there's an issue, they mostly just want us to fit into their idea of "grown-up".

I grew up very fast when I had my first child. I was a single mom at the age of 21 and I had to struggle to find and keep a job while finding daycare and emotional support. I managed, mostly, but with a lot of help from my oldest brother and my younger brother and his wife/girlfriend. When I met my ex-husband, I was living on my brother's couch and the baby's crib was in the living room next to me.

I also had people my age at church that didn't care if I was a single mom. Older folk, not so much. But I survived.

But between raising kids, being married and all the learning I had to do in order to function, it was quite the curve. It was a miracle that, without understanding the reason, my ex and I decided that being a stay-at-home mom was the best thing. And looking back, despite financial issues and finally the end of my marriage, I believe it was the right thing to do.

So I raised my kids, eventually pulling them out of public school and homeschooling them, not only for the sake of their education but because I also had trouble understanding the social cues of being a "PTA parent". I also couldn't understand the lack of proper education in the public school system, but that's another beef for another time.

I've mentioned before (long ago in another post) that I loved homeschooling. It was fun for me to organize everything, and fun to learn along with my kids. It wasn't fun that I had trouble recognizing my own neuro-diversity in my children. But homeschooling, in a way, celebrated that. Teaching to the individual instead of the group, something I wish I'd had in my childhood.

Unfortunately, after my divorce, I ended up putting my two youngest into public school, a decision I wish I hadn't had to make due to having to go back to work full-time to support them. My thought is that, of all my kids, my youngest would have thrived if he'd been able to continue to work independently. And my youngest daughter, it was very hard for her to adjust after only being homeschooled.

I wish I could have helped more. I made some very bad decisions during this time, both financially and socially, although everyone graduated high school on time, and I'm very proud of all my kids.

The point here is not me apologizing for everything I could have done better, but stating something that should have been obvious from the beginning: I am neuro-diverse and despite a long line of therapists and psychiatrists, it's only now that I'm discovering that.

And as I've said before, after 62 years, I've developed scripts, strategies and coping mechanisms in order to function in a society that says they support diversity but don't really mean it. That my neuro-diversity has finally been addressed is a validation of everything that went on before.

BTW, I checked into getting an "official" diagnosis - the least costly for an adult Autism diagnosis is $4500. Outrageous. So I stick with what my therapist and doctor have told me, take my meds as directed and try to get on with my life.

But the resources available are limited because I'm not a child, I survived my teens and twenties, went on to raise a family. People see that surface and don't believe anything other than I'm crazy (or that I don't have enough faith in God).

I'm not crazy. I'm not lazy. I'm not stupid. I do have enough faith in God (mustard seed quote here). But I see the world differently than you, react to it differently than you, get overwhelmed more easily than you, need down time more often than you.

I might look like you and have learned to act like you some of the time, but I'm not you. I have lived a generally good life, despite my own errors and being neuro-diverse. I hope someone who reads this might realize how wonderful they are in God's eyes even if they aren't 'normal'.

Isaiah 54:10: God's unconditional love is a promise to you of His compassion. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Invisible

Neuro-divergency is often ignored by both the person who is neuro-divergent and/or the people around that person. I've spoken before about how different people in my life have treated me over the years and how separate I've always felt.

In the interests of (fairly) full disclosure, I had to take several months off from work because of stress-related issues, and discovered several things about myself.

One, I was re-diagnosed yet again, and this time it actually makes sense. The diagnosis is, of course, ADHD and Autism. I think I already knew that, but it's nice to have it validated by a diagnosis. One of the diagnosis criteria tests scored me as 199 out of 163. That's a big number

Of course, being almost 62, I have spent years creating strategies and habits in order to present normal to the world; however, not a lot of people are willing to believe I'm not like them. They believe I just need to pull out of myself and get it together. 

Nope.

Here's a blog post from an adult on the spectrum about the true meaning of "high-functioning". She got it spot-on.

https://autisticempath.com/dont-call-me-high-functioning/

This is partly why going back to church has been so hard for me to do. The expectations of the other sinners can become both obnoxious and frightening. Having to sit outside the sanctuary just to be able to concentrate on the sermon, well that looks anti-social. 

The Church, especially Evangelicals, expect everyone to participate and don't understand the one person out of a hundred who can't do crowds, is sensitive to loud noise and needs something to keep their hands busy in order to listen better. My mother drew pictures, I crochet.

My Christianity has always, and will continue to be, about service. It's just that the older I get, the less I want to get stuck in any ministry that will wear me out emotionally. Lately, that's basically everything.

Anyhow, back to self-discovery.

Two, I spent a lot of time in both group and individual therapy. It is there that I realized that I don't actually have to live up to everyone else's expectations. I have been a people-pleaser all my life, going all the way back to trying to get my mother to actually love me.

And there's the rub - my mother, from going through my own issues and memory lane, was probably neuro-divergent. I can see that she probably never had the opportunity to learn some of the tools I have, and had a difficult time "fitting in" the same way I do. 

However, this doesn't mean she shouldn't have tried a little harder. 

That sounds petty, but the fact is, I was still the birth-control pill she forgot one morning. I was still "nervous jervis". I was still like my crazy grandmother. My brother and I were still the extra kids she never should have had.

I tried so very hard not to treat my children the way I was treated. I was not a perfect mother, I had my moments, as I'm sure my children will tell you. But I made a very conscious effort to love my children unconditionally. And none of them were mistakes - any mistakes were my own.

Three, I am creative, passionate and loving. A neuro-divergent diagnosis does not negate these qualities; they are a large part of who I am as a whole person. I am also abrupt, bossy, highly sensitive and a small-picture person. That is also me.

I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am.

Four, my neuro-divergence isn't an excuse, but it's also not an apology. I'm done people-pleasing, especially at work, now that I'm back.

I have put a lot of myself into my job, and even though I don't react the same way to situations as someone else might, it doesn't mean I don't care about my work, care that it's done accurately and to the best of my ability. I care about our population, I care that we have the resources to serve that community.

But my job is not your job, and I'm done doing your job for you. I'm done being the office mom (except when it comes to wiping down the front counter and changing the date stamp - that's the OCD)

I'm done.

Five, my children still love me. My daughters especially have been my support for the past 5 months. And I hope my sons know how much I love them, will always love all of them until my dying day.

That's pretty much all. I'm still struggling to make ends meet after being on extended disability, which barely covered the bills for a couple of months. But God is faithful, even when I'm hiding out at home on a Sunday morning.

Here's a verse to ponder:

2 Timothy 2:13

If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who he is.

God will always love me and take care of me.

Ten Years Ago Today

It's ten years ago today that David died.

I miss him. It's been ten whole years, but really it's only been ten years. 

I don't grieve him the way I did in the beginning but that doesn't mean I'm not still grieving. He was the light in my life for such a short time, but also forever. 

Oi! To The World

It's Christmastime again, almost two full years since I last posted here. COVID came and we all hunkered down, except my job doesn't allow me to work from home.

My job has me dealing with a demographic that can't find real jobs, needs me to hold their hands (or other appendages) through the process; basically they don't respect themselves so they don't respect anyone else. That includes me. 

I could use a vacation about now.

So yeah, the past two years have been a bit stressful. And the past two months have been worse than that.

I read through a couple of my previous posts just now, speaking of my mental illness and the consequences of allowing circumstances to dictate my reactions. It's not easy, but the emotional energy I've had to expend lately is really pulling me down.

No, I haven't been to church in almost two years. It started because of COVID and not having a car, but it has turned into just not wanting to put myself out there anymore.

The older I get, the less nonsense I can tolerate, even from myself. Church, in general, isn't nonsense, but the past few years of Evangelicalism being co-opted by a blatant anti-Christian occupant in the White House and his sycophant followers has me wishing more and more for the Rapture.

I sit here, listening to Bing Crosby ('tis the season after all) and wish I could just go to church and worship.

I grew up knowing that being part of the Body of Christ means service, so I try to do that wherever I end up. It used to be music and Children's ministries, but the last time I was teaching Sunday School, it just didn't click anymore.

I used to be the church choir director, too, but the passion for that went away after David died. He was a musician too, and not being able to share that with him meant that I couldn't share it with anyone else. I grieved for two years after he passed, had a minor breakdown and it's taken me six more years to even out into a (mostly) mature woman.

At this point in my life, most Protestant so-called worship is too selfish and too self-centered instead of God-centered, and way too loud. The current worship leader at the church where I was going thinks he's Jon Bon Jovi. Basically, it doesn't lead me to worship, it leads me to turn off the sound on the YouTube broadcast until the Pastor gets up.

For awhile, back when David was alive, I went around the corner to the local Catholic church. My very Protestant upbringing kept me from even walking into a Catholic church for years and years. When I finally went, it was an experience I didn't know I would love until I did it.

Actually, I disagree strongly with several Catholic doctrines, including worshiping the Virgin Mary, purgatory and praying to saints. Scripture clearly says that 'THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME', that to be absent in the Body is to be present with the Lord, and that Jesus is our High Priest.

But I love the Catholic Liturgy, the cadence of Mass and the absolute faith in God that, to me, permeates every part of the service.

I'm not a Catholic so I can't take Communion at Mass, but that doesn't bother me. God knows my heart, and when I do go to a Protestant church I take Communion when offered, confessing my sins before partaking, as we all should.

Sitting, kneeling and standing during Mass, though - the cadence and repetitiveness of the prayers speaks to me like nothing else. Repetitiveness isn't quite the right word - it's something more along the lines of having the words ready to speak rather than fumbling for something to say to God when I don't know what to say.

So . . . lately I've been considering going back to Mass on Sundays. I'm not talking about "converting", whatever that means since Catholics are not cultists like Mormons or JW or Scientology. In any case, it's not about that.

It's about allowing myself to sink into a worshipful atmosphere where I don't have to worry about the next step because it's all planned out already. It's about allowing the Holy Spirit to come down and speak peace into my soul. It's about hearing the Word of God relative to the season and how it's new every time.

It's about forgetting myself and remembering that God the Holy Spirit is in me, God the Father knows all and loves me unconditionally and God the Son, Jesus Christ suffered, died and rose again in order that I might live for Him.

I need to remember all that every day, but somehow, for me, going to Mass makes that happen more. No one expects me to help out in the Nursery, no one actually cares that I'm not taking Communion (at least not so far) and no one has any great expectations of me except to be a part of the whole, lifting my eyes and heart to God.

God Bless us, everyone.

More Stories from Behind

My son said at one point he was interested in hearing more stories from when I was a kid. Here are a couple of them.

Childhood story: 

My sixth grade teacher was Miss Joseph. She was probably a lesbian, she was in her 50's and very athletic. I don't care. She loved the Cincinnati Reds and let us listen to the World Series that year on a radio in the classroom. She made us use the word "lavatory" instead of bathroom when we needed a pee break.

There was a little twerp in my class, I think his name was Jeffy or something. Anyhow, he used to sit next to me and whisper abuse in my ear, "You're ugly, you're stupid, everyone hates you." One of the good things my mother taught me was to ignore people like that because they just want attention and I could choose not to give it to them. (Sometimes I wish I'd been able to do that with her, but alas every hurtful word made its way directly into my heart)

One day, it had been going on for awhile, Miss Joseph walked past and finally heard him. She hauled him out of his chair and asked me why I hadn't said anything to her about it. I looked at her and told her what my mother said. She asked my deskmate why he never said anything and he told her I didn't say anything, why should he? 

Then she grabbed Jeffy's arms and pinned them behind him and said to me, "Go ahead, hit him."

. . .

I said no, of course. Even at the age of 11, I knew right from wrong and was appalled by an adult's behavior. She moved him to an isolated desk at the back of the classroom and probably, although I don't know for sure, made his life hell for him the rest of the year. And I know she never favored me after that, getting on my case for crossing the double yellow line on the playground that separated us from the little kids and yelling at me at the 6th grade picnic when I stated how disappointed I was with the chinzy little prize I got. 

We moved that summer, so I didn't go to Jr High and High School with those classmates. I never saw Jeffy again, at least I don't think so. And I got bullied far worse in Jr High and High school than whatever he could come up with.

Not  a happy ending. It's just a story that sticks in my mind. 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

High School Hijinks

When I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher's name was Mr. Wergeland. He was a kick! When he was in college, he worked at a mental hospital . I don't remember any of his stories, but it helped shape my perception of him that I knew he was teaching English to high school students after dealing with mentally ill folk. He also had a banana in a jar. It was pure brown liquid, because it had been in the jar for several years. 

Freshman English was the last class of the day and I'm sure Mr. Wergeland was just happy to be almost done by the time we all trooped in. The people in my class, and you know who you are DK! were a bunch of wild and silly people, mostly boys. I remember one day during a spelling test, one of them piped up with, "How do you spell that again?"

Mr. Wergeland sighed and proceeded to spell it out for us. Then he spelled the next word. And the next. About 10 words in, he looked at us and said, "Was I spelling those?" We cracked up, and so did he.

Another time, he was trying to tell us something about his Argumentation and Persuasion elective that we could take the next year. He gave us a topic, asked us to defend, then proceeded to rip apart all the arguments. 

Then he got to me. 

I made my statement, then he went off like he had with the others. In the middle, I interrupted him and said something like, "You're off topic, that doesn't have anything to do with what we were talking about." The rest of the class just stared. He smiled and said, "That's right, and you were right to interrupt me." I was the only one who dared argue back. 

I'm thinking my anti-authoritarian tendencies probably date from that moment.

One other thing I wanted to say about Mr. Wergeland's Freshman English class was that a bunch of the guys in there got together and invented a fake person. His name was Alan Hobbs. Alan Hobbs checked books out from the book room and library, was blamed for several incidents of mischief and his sister even dated my friend DK just to make one of my other friends jealous. Alan Hobbs almost graduated with us, I'm pretty sure. 

Next class reunion, DK, let's hold up a sign that says, "Alan Hobbs, where are you?"

On the Edge of Normal

I haven't posted here for awhile. Normal is just beyond my reach most of the time and when I get to where I think I'm able to put down some words, normal scoots away again and I'm stuck with nothing to say.

Or too much to say.

I was laid off in December, and believe me, that is no easy thing for a woman in her 50's. Four months before that I had to give my car back to the bank because the job I had paid poverty wages and I could barely pay my rent. A few months before that I ended a toxic relationship that was sucking me dry emotionally and is only just resolving itself this month. Not a good year for me.

My mental illness keeps me from seeing things the way normal people see them. Which can be a good thing a lot of the time. The problem is that normal people run the world, want me to pay my bills, want me to work for a living, want me to say and do the normal things. I struggle to find activities that allow me to do the normal stuff while still being me. 

Daunting. Scary. Infuriating. 

My dream for a long time has been to open a daycare. I like kids. I'm good with kids. They don't care that I'd rather watch cartoons with them than sit behind a computer doing soul-sucking busy work. They're happy with glue and glitter, the same way I am. They like to eat macaroni out of a box and don't care if we play all day instead of doing something the world deems productive. They're easy.

I know some of you are horrified. Children? Easy? Yes. They don't judge, they just get on with it. I love 2-5 year olds. They delight me. 

So, is working from home doing the things I love the great lie we've been told by Facebook? 

The normal people want me to pay them money so I can do what I love. I want to do what I love and get paid for it. I don't want to make a million bucks, I just want to pay all my bills on time every month. And I want to love on babies. I'm a good grandma because I love being grandma so much. That makes me happy, it fills my soul with joy and helps me face the normal world. I have a t-shirt that says, "I used to be a people person, then people ruined it." That doesn't mean children. They make it worthwhile. 

For those of you who love me, agápē, I am honored. For those of you who know me from way back when or from church or other places now, please be patient with me. For those of you who know me only through this blog, I say welcome to my world but don't get lost. 

For everyone else, well, is there anyone else out there who feels like they're on the edge of normal?

Throws glitter

Life and Death and Life Again

The death of my mother two days before Christmas has left me with much to say but no real way to say it. I meant what I said when I said I wasn't going to grieve much when she went. It was time for her to go and we knew it was coming.

Still, the circumstances contrived to make it just that much more ... I don't know. Stupid is the wrong word but I can't really think of a different one. It was a Saturday and I was getting ready to blog about how it was exactly four years ago that day that David died. And then my sister called.

And I couldn't write one single word.

Two days later at Christmas dinner, the consensus among my brothers and me was that we were surprised she didn't die on Christmas Day, therefore ruining one last Christmas for us. She used to do that, pull some dramatic trick just to make sure no one was happy on the happiest day of the year. She used to have the Christmas tree down and all the decorations put away by noon, too.

You're shocked, I know. In some ways, it was a great relief to know she was finally gone, finally unable to affect us negatively in person. Unfortunately, her legacy is that she negatively affects us even in death, by the way she raised us and how we had to deal with her nonsense over the years.

Now we have no parents. My dad died 11 years ago January, and frankly, while not a perfect father in any sense, I miss him more than I'll ever miss my mother. 

But dealing with the death of my mother isn't a good thing. In my head, or rather, in other people's heads, I'm supposed to be heart-broken at the loss of a parent and apparently unable to be happy ever again. 

At least, that's what one church lady was telling me. This church lady is sweet and sincere. I didn't have the heart to tell her how relieved I was I never had to deal with my mother again. 

Here's my mother's legacy to me: I was the birth control pill she forgot one morning. I was going to be fat just like her when I got older. She pitied the man I married. When I got pregnant with my oldest, she wanted to know why I did that to her. She wrote a scathing letter before my wedding, telling me how awful I was and that I was only getting married to have a father for my child. And then she showed up at the wedding.

Yeah.

And the ultimate legacy, she passed down her mental illness to me. Not just to me, to all of us. We have all dealt with it as best as we could, hopefully better than she did. 

Here's the thing, though: I have no doubt in my mind that she's with the Lord. Despite her emotional abuse, her attitude of victimhood, her absolute certainty that nothing was ever her fault; she loved God. And He loved her.

Just as He loves me. 

I just wish I could remember some of the good things and describe them here. 

That's Just Mom

Mental illness is difficult to understand.
I understand that I am who I have always been. I understand that as I get older, my physical body changes and sometimes that affects my ability to deal with the mental illness. I understand that circumstances don't help.

Mental illness takes its toll.
In general, I am more highly sensitive to changes around me. It could be noise levels. It could be other peoples' reactions to me in any given situation. It could be an abrupt change in my schedule or even someone trying to surprise me. Sometimes it just happens and there's no warning. 

Not even the people who love me (and there are few enough of those) can bring me out of my own head as I struggle to deal with the overwhelming the feelings of guilt, resentment, anger, sadness, heartache and emotional pain that come when I feel as if nothing ever works right for me. I don't think it's their fault.

Mental illness is deceiving.
"You don't look sick." "That's just mom." "Why can't you just let it go?" "Drama queen." "You can learn how to deal with things." That last statement implies I have some control over the darkness. I don't.

Mental illness does not mean I'm stupid.
High-functioning. Genius. Explosion in a paint box. I've been called all these things. But intelligence and common sense don't seem to mesh well inside the bubble of my mental illness. I can't seem to pull the trigger that brings all the knowledge together with all the experience and shoots out a normal person. 

I've heard it described as being inside a glass tube where you can see the normality but you can't break through to touch it.

Mental illness is physically debilitating.
Not once in awhile. Not even once a week. It's every day. It's in the morning when I force myself to get ready for work, and then force myself to actually go, then force myself to do the work, then force myself to deal with the drive home and then force myself to eat and force myself to stay awake until it's time for bed. 

It's the weekend when I have nothing to do, no schedule to keep to that forces me to deal with the outside world. I do my laundry because I know I need clean underpants. I eat, sometimes. I take lots of naps. I go to church because that's where I need to be.

Mental illness sometimes keeps me from God.
I go to church because I know I need to be there, and I bring my grandchildren because that's when I get to spend time with them and they get to be in a place where they learn about a God who loves them. I know He loves me, too, it's just that even when I'm there, even when I know the Holy Spirit is poured out, even when the pastor preaches straight at me, I just can't seem to get past whatever it is that keeps me from experiencing what everyone else seems to get automatically. 

It's like I'm the only one who doesn't get it. It's like that for everything.

Mental illness keeps me alone.
I live inside my head and that scares the hell out of me, because no matter what I do, or say or think or feel, it'll never be good enough. Not for me, not for God, not for my kids, not for anyone. Inside or outside my head, there is always chaos. 

Even when I know the truth, know that there is an Almighty God who is love, and who loves me and made me who I am, the mental illness is a barrier, a sinkhole, a mire of self-recrimination that keeps me inside and doesn't let me go.

It is a darkness that is always there.

Mental illness is a legacy.
My mother is dying. She turned 90 this year but has been in and out of the hospital for a month, two brain surgeries and my sister has brought her home to die because there's nothing more to be done.

All I could do was go say goodbye to a woman who has never been happy. Unfortunately, I think I only saw a reflection of myself in 30 years time. We have always known that the mental illness is hereditary. 

I hope and pray that my children don't end up suffering through everything I have. I hope I did a better job as a mother, no matter the mistakes I made. I pray every day for my children who have rejected God. Personally, I can't not believe in Him. 

I have mourned my mother all my life. I don't know if I'll grieve when she's gone because she'll finally be free. 

Mental illness is what it is.
I started off by saying I accept that this is who I am. What I want my words to do is help other people get a sense of it. It probably won't work. It probably shouldn't matter as much as I think it does. The reality is that wherever I go, whatever I do, it is there and it is me. 

If you know me, you'll try to understand. If you love me, you'll try to be patient. If you need me, I can only give you as much as I can. It is what it is.

Falling Leaves

Falling leaves

She stares out the window, the glass protecting her from the ebb and flow of the wind as it knocks the leaves from the trees. It swirls them around, like her life, moved by an invisible force that isn't good or bad, it just is. 

Her mind isn't particularly on the leaves falling and floating; she is considering her life and the circumstances which have brought her to this point, and the tears that fall like the leaves are silent. 

She wishes things could be simple, like the leaves. They come, green and lovely in the spring, a promise of new life with a hint of summer in their scent. Then, at the appropriate time, they begin their change to the colors of autumn, yellows, reds and browns. Eventually the wind comes and they fall down, down, only to be taken in by the ground to nourish the very tree they came from so new leaves can grow again next spring.

It's all so uncomplicated, so orderly, so beautiful. She cannot say the same of her own life. Her childhood was filled with the knowledge of not being wanted or loved, that no matter what she did it would not be good enough. Her adult life consisted of trying to live the way she had been taught in Sunday School, only to fail time and again, never knowing why she wasn't allowed to be normal. Now as she grows older and finds out her brain has physically failed her, she realizes nothing will ever be normal.

She cannot see beyond this. This is her existence, the chaos. The past haunts her, the mistakes of a life attempted and failed, of a marriage full of conflict and children who succeed in spite of their upbringing, better than she did. It haunts her, the ghosts of people she has broken, worn them out by using them to try to be like them, only a few of them hanging on because of a love she will never fully understand or even feel.

She sits in church, knowing she needs to be there, knowing all the right words and all the right things. Yet when the pastor asks if there is anyone there who doesn't fully believe God loves them, she gasps silently, hangs her head and lets the tears fall. God is real, God is good, God is love but her marred mind will never allow her to accept that completely. 

The leaves fall and die; she cannot because that would be a pointless end to a seemingly pointless life and she is afraid of the eternal consequences if she takes matters into her own hands. Somewhere, somehow she knows God is watching. Is he a policeman, waiting to catch her out? Is he a judge, waiting to pass sentence? Is he a loving Father, something she has searched for her entire life and has yet to find? She does not know the true answers, only the words she has learned and repeated over and over. 

Is it enough for her to know these things? No, because it's never enough. It's never good enough. It just is and the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute struggle that not even the medications can help wear her down until all she can do is sit and stare out the window at the leaves falling. 

New Diagnosis, Same Old Life

The past two weeks have been nothing short of horrendous, and I have hesitated to describe here the things I've been going through simply because I'm still in shock. 

It's not that I'm incapable, it's that suddenly it's all gotten very scary for me.

I've been very up front about my mental illness, trying to sort through my life by writing about it here; somehow the new diagnosis has made all that too trite. Perhaps it's been that all along and I just didn't realize it.

I'm not going to name the new diagnosis, not yet. You can ask me and I'll tell you, but not here. 

So for those of you looking for another childhood memory, I'm sorry but for now I can't. I was trying to come up with something but I'm more overwhelmed than usual with this, and of course circumstances around me have conspired to keep me from thinking of anything else.

There are a couple of good things, and I try desperately to focus on them. I get to take my grandbabies to the pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon and they're spending the night, too. There's still two games left for the Houston Astros to beat the Yankees and go to the World Series, because if it's a Yankee/Dodger series I won't have anyone to cheer for. I finally get to go see Blade Runner 2049 on Friday night.

I'm taking new medication for my new diagnosis, and I think it's starting to kick in, although that could just be (no pun intended) psychological. 

I'd just like to point out that no matter what the diagnosis is, I'm still me. The good, the bad, the ugly, the un-filtered. The child of God, the cherished woman, the explosion in the paint box. I think, though, I'm mostly pointing that out to myself.

Cellophane Flowers of Yellow and Green

It's been a couple of weeks, but I've been sick. Meanwhile, here's another short and probably meaningless story of my childhood. 

It starts out with me watching a clip of The Graham Norton Show on You Tube the other day. Now, if you don't know who Graham Norton is, it's okay. He's a talk show host in Britain who is absolutely hilarious and has an appalling laugh. In any case, this clip features Ryan Gosling telling a story about his own childhood.

Okay, Ryan Gosling can tell stories absolutely deadpan, which makes them even funnier. This story was about how his parents somehow came to acquire a truckload of cellophane (plastic wrap, in case you didn't know it), and wanted him to sell it to their neighbors and take it to school and sell it - pretty much every kid's dream, help their parents make a million dollars the easy way.

He tells it better, but it made me think back to when I was eight years old and my mother had just left my dad and taken us with her to a small two-bedroom house to live. Okay, she didn't come across a truckload of cellophane, but what she did do was spend money (I don't know where the money came from) and printed her own greeting cards. They weren't ordinary greeting cards, no, they were full of lesser-known sentiments, like "Go Get 'Em, Tiger."

They weren't even printed on card stock, just black ink on colored paper. As an aside, I think with the right packaging and marketing, these would make a million dollars today, for sure. However, in 1971 no one cared. The reason this story comes to mind is that she bundled them together and packaged them in, you guessed it, cellophane. And then expected us to go door-to-door selling them for her.

Here's the thing. I don't do door-to-door. I don't do street evangelism either. I barely do meet-and-greet at church. I'm pretty much the hermit you read about, only without the explosives. Give me a piece of land, a room dedicated to arts and crafts and a great internet connection and what do I need with people? I don't even need cable TV, the internet is that good these days.

Later on she would create a line of 3-D greeting cards on card stock; they were art projects on their own because you had to color them in and cut them out and paste them together yourself. A great idea, if  the drawings weren't too fiddly to use actual scissors on. I think the kids and I used the last of them as art paper; the backs were blank.

So yeah. That's the story. I don't know what happened to those first cards. I think if I asked my oldest brother about it, he might know where the metaphorical bodies are hidden. In any case, that was the year I got glasses, discovered the joys of OCD and got to know the neighbor kid who was also a pyromaniac. No, really, he loved to burn things. The next summer we moved to the SF Bay Area from Sacramento. 

I have a few million-dollar ideas myself; we all do. Fred Flintstone and 412-Up soft drink, but then Barney Rubble is invisible. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to illustrate a children's book, publish a book of hand-drawn mazes and sell craft items online. Just one or two little ideas. Or maybe I'll just put that PayPal button on the bottom of this blog. Free book of mazes to the first person who helps me make my first million, no cellophane needed.  

Things I remember about The Mansion

As you might recall, The Mansion is what we called a very large Victorian house on O Street in Sacramento, where we lived for three years starting right after my 5th birthday. It was converted into medical/dental offices after we moved out.

The house was partially furnished with antiques and there was an old Victrola in the living room, with some records. Sometimes we'd get to play them. Most of the time, the TV was on, and our antenna had a rotor on it so we could rotate it from inside the house. Cool beans. Please don't ask my oldest brother about E-skip.

We had a full dining room that was separated from the living room by sliding wooden doors. There was a dumb waiter from the kitchen to the second floor, but we never used it. I always thought it would be a blast to try riding in it, but no such luck.

I remember standing at the very old-fashioned sink in the kitchen. I think it was aqua blue, but I could be wrong. There are no photos. That kitchen is where I learned how to make sugar toast.

I think there was a front stairway, all wood and polish, that we hardly ever used. There was a back stairway that we used instead. I remember jumping the last few steps all the time, wishing I could fly.

My grandma came and lived with us for awhile and took up the whole side-front room, which my mother called The Library. I suppose the built-in bookshelves were the reason for that. The full bathroom was between that and what was called The Study, but was really my dad's bedroom. My mother took the very back bedroom on the second floor. I remember being very surprised once when I found my mother and dad in his bed together because it was so rare.

The bathtub in the full bathroom was an antique clawfoot which my mother de-valued by painting it elaborately and gluing fake jewels all over it. She did the same thing to the bathroom walls. It was big and pink and maroon and fairly hideous. She wanted to be a hippie, I think. 

There was a laundry room off the kitchen that led to the back porch. Or maybe it was the back porch and was just closed in. There was a small stairwell that led downstairs to the basement; my dad kept a workroom down there, in the small finished part. We could go out under the rest of the house from it, which was all dirt and cobwebs and musty. One year, my mother decked it all out as a haunted house for a church Halloween party. I didn't go down there for the party, it was for the adults.

Our front porch was huge and I remember sitting on it once in awhile. I also remember my next older brother getting ahold of the movie camera and making several short films of my little brother and me, stop action; and of flowers, bees, butterflies - you name it, he filmed it. Those are in the box in storage too.

I remember sliding around on the hardwood floors in my socks with my little brother.

I remember there was one full bathroom and one water closet on the first floor; and one sink and bathtub upstairs on the second floor. 

I remember my oldest brother built a miniature golf course in the window box of his bedroom.

I remember my sister and me sharing a room for a bit before she left for the Army, and it seems to me we had a walk-in closet. I remember her dressing to go out with friends in all orange, including stockings and shoes. Possibly.

I remember the entrance to the attic was in my next oldest brother's room, which he shared with my little brother. 

I remember for awhile I had a black and white TV in my bedroom - the height of luxury, because then I could watch TV from bed, something I eventually grew out of (in my 40's).

I remember being told to clean up my room, then getting the only spanking in my life from my dad because I had just shoved everything under the bed. No joke, I was a cliche from the beginning.

I remember the back yard was huge, at least to a five-year-old, and we had to go down about 25 steps off the back porch to get to it. My dad grew purple irises and there was honeysuckle and an orange tree. When the house was converted in the mid-1970's, they paved paradise and put in a parking lot.

I remember my dad mowing the front yard by hand. With a push mower. There are home movies of me mugging the camera and imitating him.

I remember swimming in a little 2-foot wading pool in what was laughingly called a bikini. There are movies in The Odd Saga of my older brothers splashing each other and running around. 

I remember chasing bugs in a field on the corner, which is now an office complex. It's where I began a love of ladybugs and pretty much got over my fear of insects. The grass was tall; I think we were lucky there weren't any snakes in there as well.

I remember having my "boyfriend" from school come visit for a playdate. He was the baby boy in a fairly prominent Sacramento family, from what I was told. He only ever came over once.

I remember our last Christmas together as a family. My parents blew out the stores, apparently, and there are photos of me in a brand-new blue satin robe, pretending to iron clothes with a toy iron and board. I remember figuring out there was no Santa that year, too. A few months later, my mother was moving us all to a two-bedroom house in a different part of town, where I had to share a room with her and my little brother, while my two older brothers had the other bedroom.

I remember running downstairs to my daddy in the basement, because I had asked where he was going to sleep in the new house and my mother told me he wasn't coming with us. 

I remember for years after we moved out, whenever I dreamed at night of home, it was The Mansion that filled my head.

I don't remember everything about living there, but what I mostly remember is I was happy, when the family was still a family and I was young enough to believe it would be that way forever. The home movie that was my life, and which, childlike, I believed God was watching while eating a bag of popcorn, was mostly perfect.

I'm not sure I wasn't right.

Stories of Childhood, Part 2

My first memory is of being dressed in plaid, standing next to my little brother and in front of my older sister having my photo taken. I think I remember it because I've seen the photos. I was about three or four.

My next memory is of sitting at the kitchen table drawing while my mother washed dishes or something, and it seems to me the song "Happy Together" was playing on the radio in the background. That's not necessarily true, but it sounds about right. I drew what I thought was an elephant and also a scribble I called Dennis the Menace. I remember it because both pictures are glued into my baby book. I was still about three or four.

There are home movies of us watching The Lawrence Welk Show, and I think I remember trying to hog the camera. "No," you say, "You're not the dramatic type." Notice the sarcasm coming from your mouth. My mother put the date on a piece of paper with some M&M's and took movies of that. My oldest brother hid beneath a blanket so only his toes were showing. This was before we moved into The Mansion, so I was almost five, I think. 

About the same time, there are movies of us standing in full sunlight in our best Easter clothes. All I remember, aside from what I've seen in the video, is that my eyes were (and still are) extremely light-sensitive. Today, and also because I'm getting to the end of middle age, I tend to wear sunglasses on rainy days and I definitely don't drive at night if I can help it.

My oldest brother edited all our home movies in the late 1960's, early 1970's, and called it "The Odd Saga." Hmm, he was right about that. In any case, I haven't looked at them for years. He edited our trip to Texas in 1969 as "Voyage to See What's At The Bottom of Texas." I'll talk about that maybe another time. They're all sitting in my storage unit, waiting to be converted. I'm not sure it will ever happen, but perhaps if I write about it I'll remember more details. Or maybe I should do a Kickstarter campaign to "preserve the heritage of the white middle class family in America."

Insert major sarcasm here.