STRUGGLING

The wife of an extremely good friend of mine, Corey - my brother really, passed away unexpectedly the other day, and I am just shell shocked.  

Dear, dear, sweet Allison Clark McDaniel.  

He is my Morehouse Brother. We’ve been through a lot together, grown together, for almost 25 years now. And she my Spelman Sister. They were perfect for each other. Both Class of ’91. Two young boys, the oldest barely a year younger than Ladybug.

She had a seizure in her sleep and just never woke up. Dear Corey found her when her when he went to wake her.

I’m heartbroken. 

Allison began having issues, mainly seizures I believe, a couple years ago and I’m not remembering all the details, but it seemed that they eased for a long while, then kicked back up again a few months ago. She and I talked several times about it over the last year. I don’t think the doctors knew just what was going on; she and I had talked about it several times over the last couple years… she had doctors’ appointments scheduled to begin to find out the day she passed.                     

Struggling here. Truly. Deeply.

I’d almost gotten used to the thoughts and ideas of how it would be for Juan and Ladybug if my diseases run their supposedly inevitable course. Of the news that yet another Lupus/Cancer Warrior whose lost their valiant fight. To the routine of living with the real, up close and personal threat of death…. Like background noise. I have found a way to get on with and lost in my life – the activities of living, managing the minutia, and all that that means, especially with a very active 14 year old, and finding ways to live the way I want to live in spite of.

Til the news of dear, sweet, Allison.

I am wrestling with, really struggling with the fact that I am quite sick. The rheumatologist, the cardiologist, the hematologist, the oncologist, the pulmonologist, and the neurologist seem to delight in reminding me of this on a very regular basis (especially lately). That I shouldn’t be here. That not only should I not be here, living, but should not be functioning as I am. Living as I am. There are so many people around me who supposedly aren’t as sick as I am, don’t have the same severity or level of disease and disease processes, aren’t officially labeled ‘terminal’, and many who clearly look sicker than me… yet die. As a very logical, 1+1=2 kind of person with a deep need for things to make sense and add up, I am unable to reconcile this.

Why? People say God has a plan for me and my life. That there’s work for me to do and people to touch through my testimony.

Honestly? This scares me. Between you and me, I don’t feel worthy. As much as I try to be – staying positive when all I want to do is burn some sh*t down because of the constant pain, my inability to do things like button/zip up my shirt, having to pick and choose what I will do because ANYTHING I do requires an inordinate amount of energy (that I just don’t have most of the time), struggling to remember basic things; by being as pleasant and sweet as I possibly can be to medical staff.

I feel guilty actually. Especially, particularly now.

I suffer from seizures also due to the trifecta of diseases that have descended and attack my brain and central nervous system. They’re definitely better now, but there were times when a good day was 6-10 seizures every day. But again, they’re better. We actually know why. We didn’t yet with dear, sweet, Allison.

She’s gone, I’m still here.

Why? And I just don’t how to reconcile all of this. I get that it may not actually be for me to get. That there’s clearly something bigger at play here than what my ridiculously inept mind is able to grasp. I really want to say something profound and deep, but I just can’t. I am fighting this urge, desire, need to figure it out. I feel I need to so that I can carry on with the fight on for Allison and all those who’ve lost their battle; that I’ll have purpose. But do I really need to understand why I’m left, why I’m still here, in order to continue fighting, living?

I’m struggling here. I really am.

Be well family ♥

The Disappation of Guilt

And again, it’s been awhile. And again, I find myself feeling guilty for being so absent, especially when there’s so many of you who’ve loved, cheered, and prayed me through so many wonderful, tough, hilarious, and scary times. And even more so since there’s been so many amazing and challenging developments the last year that I know you all would have loved to have been clued in on.

I think I’ve figured out why I disappear... I sit down to start writing, then start thinking about all that I didn’t write about, feeling like I need to catch you up, then I start feeling guilty, and overwhelmed. The other, which I suspect may play more of a role then I’m wanting to admit, is figuring out just how much I want to expose. I myself have no problem with that… I’m an open book, so to speak. However, I find myself being more concerned about and sensitive to those close to me, and whether they’d want their business in the street, even though it’d be from my point of view, or wondering if I’m hurting their feelings. There. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

But I don’t have time for guilt, or to be tip toeing around peoples feelings; as much as I do wrestle with it. Heck, other than Ladybug (‘LB’) and the Hub (my husband), most of “those close to me” don’t even know I have a blog. But, you never know…  

Anyway, I am back… yet again. And even though I have a lot of exciting things that I’m working on, and a lot going on (Ladybug is heading to high school!! ongoing health challenges, new business opportunities), I promise… I am here to stay.

So much beauty and adventure on the horizon and I'm excited...  

Be well ♥

More Reality

Hey Y’all. 

I’m realizing that I haven’t spoken to my mom since New Year’s Day and I’m starting to feel some kind of way about it. I’ve mentioned very little in the past about my family, Mommy Dearest issues particularly, fearing her wrath and mental manipulation if she somehow found out about me talking about her in such a public way, and if I talked about her too much in a not so flattering way, or not enough in a flattering way (she’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” kind of person). But as part of my preparation for 2014, I did a mental and emotional vomit here on my blog, where I shared just some of the emotional and psychological pain of my past, because I refused to bring all the crap that I’ve either not wanted to deal with, or was hiding from into the new year and on, going forward. The relationship I have with her, and my father to an extent, is the only area of my life that isn’t ‘together’, and I feel like a hypocrite most days. Honestly, it has kept me from blogging as much as I’d like, and some days from blogging all together.

With that said, Mommy Dearest had created an untenable situation for me and I continue to struggle with what do and how to handle it. How can I be candid about my own feelings and internal struggles and conflict here without going into detail? Without making her seem like a monster? Well, yes, she can be. Some would say she is. Monster or not, I struggle so with how to handle her. Some say I just need to cut her off completely. Some say I need to face her, tell her on no uncertain terms, just what she’s put me through, that she’s full of shit, and issue an ultimatum that she either get it together or I won’t be in her life. Well, what I have done is to either just deal with her or just avoid her, which is really what I’ve done most of the time. Other times I wouldn’t say a word when she’d begin her manipulations or victim playing. I’d just smile, be polite, and keep my mouth shut – like I was trained. Now there have been times, especially since I’ve been sick, when I would put the brakes on the madness, and it often got funky. But again, she’s a masterful manipulator and I am no match. So the fact that I haven’t spoken to my mother in just over a month now may very well be one of her little tests of love and adoration or just be her uniquely twisted form of petulance. 

Either way, I’m not dealing with it anymore. I’m no longer going to willingly compromise my own truth and personal integrity, silence my voice and jeopardize my health for the sake of continuing to have a twisted relationship with my mother.

At the beginning of the year I told myself that I wouldn’t be around her unless I could speak my truth, or hell, just tell the truth. But then I realized that if the truth didn’t match up to her reality at that moment, then she’d have a problem, no matter what, and back to the damned if you do (you know the rest). So here I am, feeling stuck around this situation, again. How do I end this? 

Sigh…

Be well ♥