Sometimes I feel sick over this. I have been physically sick for about a week maybe a few more days...but Yesterday I did pretty good. I didn't feel sick or get the knot in my stomach like I had so many days before. However, I just had to send an email with another invitation, which was similar to one of the other invitations about meeting with a mediator. Except this is my last time to try to accommodate someone who is very unreasonable. So I had to talk to my husband about the insurance and the deductible and the mediator is out of network...so then begins the knot. The knot gets worse as I begin how I have to write this email. The knot gets so big it feels like it is creeping into my throat. I feel it inching to my toes. There have been days that the knot has been so large and so tight I thought I might fall over or I need to lay down.
Someone close to me recently said how she thought I had come out of "this" ( my 38 years on earth dealing with all this so far) relatively unscathed. Then I had explained how sick I had been over the past days. And she paused and said she realized then that I may have come out a strong, independent, different than what I saw growing up person, but I was not unscathed. I was physically feeling the years of damage. When confrontation occurs with my mother I have always gotten or felt ill. Is it fear? Possibly. Is it strength? Possibly. Is it me feeling like I may lose? Possibly. Lose not in this is a battle, lose as in lose myself, my strength, my person, lose my sight, lose my hope. Like climbing up Mt. Everest to be so close to the top and then realize you just slipped halfway back down. Not a battle of losing, a battle of self. So no I am not unscathed, I knew that though. I know I have scars, they just can't be seen. Some of them I bet I can't even see. We all have those kind of scars...buried deep beneath our trenches of self, lies tiny scars and bruises that we may not know we have. But they effect us none the less...
The therapist has some wild analogies this week- like I was compared to a brook. This crystal clear flowing ever changing stream of beauty. Always wanting to be fresh and changing with the days. My mother was compared to a swap. I felt bad for a minute but then I realized that was really how it is. Think about a swamp. ( Okay so I just looked up the definition...good grief.) An area of uncultivated low lying ground where water collects. A lowland region flooded with water. A bottomland. All of this is the best description. This is how she is. Low and stagnant, never changing. Stuck in the muck, and trying to get others stuck there with her because indeed misery does love company. I then got told not to tie a rope around my waist and tie the other end around my parents house and try to drag it around every day behind me. Time to cut the rope, and walk. Part of the reason I wasn't feeling well I think.
So I sent the email with one date and one time and said all details were worked out ahead of time so all we needed to do was meet there at this woman's office. Neither of us having prior visits, because to me that defeats the purpose all together. I am trying but I am not doing this forever.( I did not say that in the email.) So I was as neutral and as nice and as open and as encouraging as I could possibly muster up the strength for in the email. All the time knowing in my head if she decided to reply with another "no", I had to walk away from the uncultivated low lying ground, so I was no longer pulled into it. And perhaps when she was ready she would let the brook refresh her but for now we wait... we wait for a reply. I have hope, because I always have hope. I have a lot of hope for a lot of things every day. My latest tattoo is of and about Hope. It is one of the best things a person could have I think.
( However this was one of the hardest decisions to come to terms with in my head. Lost sleep, heartache, headaches, back knots, stomach knots, but the alternative sometimes is worse.)
Do you wonder what will happen? I wonder. I wonder so many things about this situation. I wonder if the sun will ever dry up her low land region. I wonder if she will ever have hope. I wonder if she could ever have compassion. The same compassion that she wants from everyone else...someone recently suggested I could try to feel bad or sorry for her. I am trying but that is a hard thing to do because she never has that attitude for other people...including myself. She is one to say- pull your boot straps up and keep going, it's a bitch ain't it. The words of a swamp no doubt....does the swamp echo? I bet not. Nothing resounding about a swamp.
Strangeland I am in. Perhaps some sun rays while I sit and wait with my hope in hand....
May you have peace and love and light this day and all of them- and hope.
May they all find you easily.
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