Acceptance

Kate was over yesterday to visit with Matthew.  She told me the most wonderful anecdote.

She has become hormonal again and gets very moody— she feels bloated and starts calling herself ugly and fat.  Then, she responds to those inner voices—-if she hears I’m fat, she responds no I’m not, if she hears I’m ugly, she says no I’m not.  Kate defends herself from herself.

This is remarkable.  It is as if Kate has returned to her early adolescence, but this time she is armed.  This time she comes loaded.   This time she can protect herself and say this is me and I am okay.

Running of the badgers.

l was awakened in the middle of the night by a dream.  I was in a large wooden house, with big windows and lots of light.  There was a wooden staircase in the middle of the house. I walked over to the staircase and looked down.  There was an abyss that opened beneath the staircase, and on the floor of this abyss, I heard noises.

There were hundreds of angry badgers down there, running like lemmings across the floor.  I said to Robin there are angry badgers down there.  We must destroy them.They are destroying the foundation of our house.

Then I said to Robin, the angry badgers are in my head.

I woke up then, thinking about the anger I still hold for Rob.   Thinking that often when issues of control or spending money come up, I feel the badgers—those snarling, ferocious badgers.   They are there, under the stairs, just waiting to get stirred up again.

I scare myself.

Just being

We went over to our friends house on Valentine’s Day.  Lovely dinner.  I said something that I think is worth examining.  I spent a lot of time over the past two years writing about Kate and by way of that writing about me.  Kate is stable now, and I am no longer writing.  In fact, it feels like a hole has opened up inside me.

Now, I am not saying that I miss the angst.  I don’t miss any of it.  I am just aware of an opening where nothing is happening yet.

In this space within me, there is ease and emptiness.  In this space within me, there is room to breathe and stretch.  This is not a bad feeling.  It is just unusual for me.  I wondered for a while if I had Alzheimers—if this emptiness was the precursor to a greater emptiness—that I would finally just be wandering around in a void.  I don’t think so.  I seem to still have all my wits about me.

So what is this?—it is a dance floor with no dancers, it is an empty stage where you can just about make out the words of a play just finished or about to begin.  It is a lull, a break.

I am just being.

Mercy me

So Kate got well and they all lived happily ever after.

You take a river, a small free flowing river and you throw in a few rocks, a dead tree or two, and its’ course is changed.  You take a plant that grows straight and tall and you throw a little something in its way and it bends, it contorts to the changing circumstances.

You take a person, you throw a lot of shit in her way and she changes—-she bends, she twists, she survives, she definitely survives, but differently.

We are all changed.

I can only speak for myself.  These years have changed me.  Part of me has not come back.  I wonder if I will ever come back.  What has anorexia done to me?  It has made me sadder for sure.  I am worn out.  Like an old t-shirt.  I am very soft, a bit bedraggled, stained for sure.

I don’t know if I will ever come back.  What does that even mean?  After all, I am twenty years older so maybe it’s just age.  I don’t think so.  I was always pretty resilient. Has my get up and go, got up and went? All I know is that when people seem to want something affirmative, faith filled and delighted about Kate’s recovery, I feel trapped by expectations.  I can give a glib answer or I can be real.

I am delighted to hug Kate and feel her whole again under my hands and arms.  Physically she is now back. It is not Kate who I doubt has risen from the dead; it is me.

When Betsy died, my parents had the right to die a little bit with her.  What happens if the child who was to die, lives?

I am afraid I left a lot of rubber in the road.