The Wrong Life

Sometimes in therapy I learn something about myself that seems so new, or I get a brilliant new perspective or I see something I hadn't seen clearly before. I guess that's why going to therapy remains worth it. (Besides that whole life ring while I'm drowning in depression thing, of course.) Moments like that bring into sharp focus how for quite a few years I learned nothing new in therapy.

In my mind, I sometimes try to "re-do" my past, think that I can somehow "fix" things. I know it isn't rational: I'm not going to be able to make my family be alive again or change any of a number of other past traumas. But emotionally I feel as if I can do so if only I do it right.

People define themselves differently. In many places in the world, people define themselves by their place within their community. The Navaho people define themselves by their family connections. LIke the Navaho, so did I. Without my family, I feel cut off, I feel like there are huge gaping holes inside me that nothing can fill.

This is not how my life should be. I wanted to marry and have children: I would have made a terrific wife and mother. I am nurturing and loving and giving. The fact that no one ever wanted to marry me has long made me feel there is something wrong with me. I see so many people who have lifelong relationships, people who don't seem to have the qualities I have, people who are takers or who are high-maintenance, and I have to wonder what is wrong with me that no one wanted what I have to give.

My brother was supposed to be my friend when we grew up. He was supposed to be here with me after our parents died. Our children would have been friends and we would have spent a lot of time together.

Baby Steps, 3, The Null Day

So no baby steps happened yesterday. Instead, I pretty much pulled in the sidewalks and shut the curtains. It was the anniversary of my little brother's death — a long, long time ago, but it still gets me, no matter what I do. I pretty much just felt sad about that and about life in general and super anxious about the still not job thing.

I stayed up very late, trying to avoid going to bed (why? because sleep certainly is a great way to lose yourself), I woke up a few times, then today I chose to go back to sleep and slept until 1:30 pm. I don't really expect any baby steps today. Maybe I'll take a quick turn around the yard for some (really gray) sunlight.

That's all there is to say for now.

Memories of Mom: Gin!

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

My mom did not sew or knit or or even cook very well when I was a kid, so I didn't learn any of those traditionally female activities (although I really wish I'd learned to sew). She did teach me how to clean house and do the laundry, both of which I was grateful for when I got older, but they just weren't mother-daughter bonding activities.

Until I hit eight or nine, we really didn't do much in a parent-child sort of way other than the usual go on vacation, go shopping (which neither of us enjoyed), go to Disneyland as a family, etc. But nothing just us.

Then she decided I was old enough to learn to play cards. Perhaps my father had grown tired of being beaten by her because I didn't see her playing with him. Her game of choice was gin rummy.

When she was teaching me, she took her time and showed me which cards to play and why and how to play competitively. Then, once I had the basics down, her killer instincts kicked in and it was no longer Ms. Nice Mom. If I hadn't already learned not to cry when I lost a game, I'd have learned it quickly then.

She beat me — at cards — six ways from Sunday on a regular basis. No playing nice or letting me win. I had to learn and catch up on my own. And I did. Oh, I didn't achieve her ability to completely annihilate the other player: I don't think I have that killer instinct. But I started winning more often. Not as often as she did, but more than before. And I could see my progress, so I figured eventually I might get as good as her.

There was nothing she loved so much as slamming down her last card and shouting "Gin!" at the top of her lungs. Then she cackled her evil laugh. For such a sweet-looking, mild-mannered lady, she could be as evil as they come.

Memories of Mom: the War of Water

My friend Judy,Judy,Judy gave me a lovely idea in her comment on my most recent post: to post good memories of my mom every day for awhile — until her birthday I think would be best — to offset the negative ones I've been remembering from just before she died. So here's today's good memory of Mom.

Mom was always the "grown-up" in the family, because my dad could be such a kid. It was always Mom who said "look out" and "be careful" and "are you sure you should ...". So when she let her inner child out to play, it was always a surprise and so much fun.

I grew up in So. Cal. We had a swimming pool from the time I was ten. We lived in a tract ranch-style house with sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard and the pool. One day while Mom had just finished washing the dishes in the sink (pre-dishwasher time), my dad said something to her. I don't know what it was, but she grabbed the sprayer next to the kitchen faucet, turned on the water, and let my dad have it! He was drenched.

Undeterred, Dad headed for the backyard and the faucet back there. Mom, meanwhile, filled a plastic cup with water and sent one of us kids out to throw it on my dad: my brother and I were entirely flexible about whose side we were on at any given time during a water fight. 

Mom and Dad proceeded to drench each other, us two kids, and parts of the house before deciding that the amount of water on the floor indoors and the cement outdoors was becoming hazardous. Then we all bent to the task of cleaning up.

There was no clear winner in the War of Water, but it has always filled me with wonder and laughter that my mom, the grown-up of the family, started the water fight, especially from the kitchen. She may have been the grown-up, but she had a tremendously mischievous inner child!

My Attempt to Gain My Parents' Attention

It wasn't that my parents ignored me. They were simply on autopilot a lot of the time and just did what was easy. And as my brother was a boy and good at sports, it was easy for our lives to revolve around first his Little League baseball practices and games and then his Pop Warner football practices and games. Both came with lots of other people who socialized (especially the football people — they loved to party). So when I realized that most of the family attention and time was going toward my little brother (Including mine — I was in charge of walking him to and from his practices and being at games even if my parents had to be late), I decided to go out for a sport too. Obviously it was the sports that made the family sit up and pay attention.

At the time I was singing in Honor Choir. I should have stayed. Sure, no one came to watch my rehearsals, but they would have come to the performance and stayed.

January Sucks

My boy, HS senior photo

As I wrote yesterday, my brother killed himself 29 years ago,  just days before my birthday. I always get depressed in January. I was also always used to having my family making a big deal out of my birthday, even as an adult. Mom called me every year on my birthday ever since I went away to college and sang Happy Birthday to me on the phone, even when I lived in the same city as she did. She called me with my brother, then with her second husband, then with my grandmother, then just her. But she always called and sang. So I'm feeling quite unhappy about January these days, even more than before.

My mom, HS senior photo

Because of my brother's suicide, every January hurts, but at least every year prior to last year I had my mom — whose own loss of a child was greater than I could imagine — for comfort and to take my mind off my birthday loss and pin it on birthday gains (such as all those additional years that are better than the alternative). I miss her voice.

Missing My Boy

He was born three years and almost nine months after me and he was always "my boy." He was my treasure and my gift and I'd have given my life for him. For a long time, I wished that our parents had died and at least left me him. 

But he died when he was 18; this coming week it will be 29 years since he killed himself, just days before my birthday. I always get depressed in January. 

The thing about suicide (which I conveniently chose to ignore when I was thinking hard about it, some time ago) is that you never get over that grief. It remains sharp, like a deep cut from a sharp knife. It gets better, but never entirely heals. Everyone I've ever talked to who survived a loved one's suicide tells me that. Even people who were friends, not even close, remain affected for years and years.

So every January I bleed inside.