Therapeutic Journaling

I missed posting yesterday because a swarm of fire ants attacked my hand, which required a dose of Benedryl to stave off an allergic reaction. The Benedryl promptly knocked me out, and I could not blog due to unconsciousness. 

For those few of you have commented on this blog, and offered words of support, I just want to say, “Thank you.” 

You have no idea how much I look forward to your comments, and how supported I feel when I read them. It is as if little balls of loving light are reaching out to me to support me. Even though I don’t know you, your small, loving presence means so much.

In honor of my commitment to NaBloPoMo, I am embarking on a journey of Therapeutic Journaling / Memoir writing. That the last year and a half has brought me to my knees and I am going to work to restore my sense of well-being, and my connection with a Higher Power.

For those few who are reading this, thank you so much for your support.

...But This is Now

I find it hard to admit that a part of my psyche still perceives me as a mistake. When you are a relatively successful mother with almost 18-years of sobriety, you should be “well,” or at least better.  However, for the past several years my life has been unraveling. Slowly, my self-esteem began to tank, my relationship with God began to fade, and I found myself another drone in the American Dream rat race.

A family member committed suicide, my health has declined, work has been stressful, and life has seemed like one blow after another of bad luck. All those many years ago, when I climbed out of the gutter there was a feeling that propelled me, a feeling that I was meant for greater things, that I had to pull myself up and overcome the odds because God had better plans.

Now I am here, living right in the middle of God’s plan for me. On the outside, I have all the trappings of a successful American life and I should be so very grateful. I am grateful. I will repeat...I am very grateful.

There are moments that I cannot believe that the girl who came from the ghetto, ran the streets as a teenage runaway, and finished her teen years as a ward of the State of California, is now living in a quiet gated-community with her two blond gorgeous children, her silver SUV, and her successful job.

My laundry hasn’t been put away in a week and is in a pile in my bedroom floor. I chain smoke like a junkie.  The dishes are piled in my kitchen sink. I wake up each morning and trudge through the day, and fall to sleep each night exhausted. I have an unpaid parking ticket and blood-work I’ve put off for a month. For each of these shortcomings I feel ashamed, afraid to let people come over to see my messy house, afraid I’ll be pulled over and my car towed for my unpaid ticket, afraid that blood work will come back with a diagnosis of imminent death.

Yet I do nothing. I am busy, I say. I am stressed, I say. I am broke, I say.

The truth is I am stuck. I am lost. I keep searching every house only to have the inhabitants say, “She’s not here. The woman you’re looking for isn’t here.”

Remember When

When I was 7 or 8 I had a recurring nightmare. I would dream that I was walking from house to house on Castle Street, one of the streets I lived on as a girl, and would pound on every door. 

"Is my Mom here?" I would ask frantically. 
"No, your mom isn't here," would be the reply from whoever answered the door. 

And then I would see my mom, sitting in the living room, or hiding behind the anonymous resident, or hiding behind the door. 

"Mom, mom, I need you, come out!"

"I'm not your mother." This woman who looked like and sounded like my mother would say.

"Yes you are, yes you are!" I would scream.

"Your mother's not here," and the door would close.

On I would go to the next house, only to be turned away by another woman, who I swore was my mother, but a woman, who in turn, swore she was not.

I would wake up sobbing, wanting to run to my mother's room and have her reassure me. The first time she told me to go back to bed. The second time she told me to go back to bed, dammit. So instead I would just lay in the dark and cry because I wanted to know where my mother was.

I'm sure this dream came from knowing that she wasn't my mother. Despite the book I read as a child, "Why I Was Adopted," I knew she hadn't chosen me...just me...as her special child. It was very clear that if she had to do it over again, she would have made another choice. She told me that. Not in anger or even really to hurt me, but more like it was a bad business decision we were reviewing. "The worst mistake I ever made was adopting you. I think you would have been happier with someone else." 

And this dream has come back to me lately, only this time when I run house to house in tears, I realize I am looking for the IDEA of someone who will own me, who will claim me, who will tell me I am not a mistake.