The Trouble with Wicker

Yes, we did get the paperwork done for my son to get into treatment only to find out there is a four-month waiting list.  I started the whirlwind of making phone calls again but then stopped myself.  I was told by someone that a mere 7% of our already dwindling healthcare budget is all that goes towards mental health.  Is it any wonder there are waiting lists at every turn.  So, another go-round the labyrinth.  Well, walking a labyrinth is supposed to be a spiritual practice, so I am trying hard to look at it that way.  I’m trying not to get discouraged even though it is discouraging.  And that’s about all I have to say about that.  The good news is that he is doing better.  He has had a couple slips but we are nowhere near where we were a couple months ago.  We have all survived this long without much help or support from the mental health world, hopefully a few more months won’t hurt and hey, I’m no sissy, even if I do own pink bunny slippers and still like to watch Walt Disney movies – I’m a mother!   

And believe it or not, a few things have gone bump in the night since my last blog. 

I woke up one night about 3:45 and suddenly my closet door that I always shut tight started opening.  Crrrrrreeeeeeaaakkkkkkkk.  It only opened a couple inches but it was enough shake me out of my grogginess to stare at the closet door for several minutes to see if  ghostly fingers were going to slowly inch out and grasp the edge of the door.  I did lift my head to look at the bottom of the door to see if maybe the cat was there but then remembered the bedroom door was closed, so Sassy couldn’t have gotten in.  I laid back down and pulled the blankets up to the bottom of my eyes and waited.   I would probably only be slightly terrified if it was Vanessa but if the freaking hat man or the hag were in there, all hell was going to break loose because I’m not sharing my closet with anyone!  Hell, I can barely fit all my purses in there.  “Oh, come on hat man!  Your hats don’t need to take up the whole shelf!”  Having to pee finally made me brave and I got out of bed and inched my way along the mattress so as not to get pulled into the vortex that my closet now was.  The eerie feeling of being watched made me b-line it to the bathroom once I hit the foot of the bed and I quickly switched on the bathroom light, which I normally don’t do.  I just as quickly shut it off as that blinding light and my reflection in the mirror at 4ish in the morning was worse than facing any interdimensional closet monster.  When finished in the bathroom, I took the same route back to bed, jumped in and pulled the cover over my eyes, just in case I disturbed the dead on my bathroom trek.  I tried to sleep but it was just tooooo deadly silent and I inched my hand out from under the covers, felt for my tablet and put on Scooby-Doo.   

Another day I was making supper and I was going back and forth from my wee office to the kitchen to check on everything.  On about my forth trip, I walk into the kitchen to see the lid of one of my small pots in the middle of the counter.  I had not taken it out of the cupboard and put it there and I was alone in the house (insert Outer Limits music here).

Yeah, Vanessa would think that it is all hilarious.   I, on the other hand, have had weird things happen to me since I was a child.  And though I likely wouldn’t go screaming down the hall because I am somewhat used to strange things, I also don’t have a desire to become a paranormal investigator because as alluded to above, who needs the extra company in the closet at night? 

The last odd thing I remember happening is that I had gotten five new blue pens and stuck them in a drawer beside my desk in my wee office.  The next day, I pulled one out to write with (and they were all there, present and accounted for) turned around to close the drawer, turned back and the pen was gone.  No where to be found.  I looked everywhere.  The floor, every inch of the desk and under everything on the desk, in, around and under the surrounding area.  Went back into the drawer, got another new blue pen and did a bit of writing with it.  Went into another drawer to get more paper, turn back to the desk…the pen is gone.  No where to be found.  I looked everywhere.  The floor, every inch of the desk and under everything on the desk, in, around and under the surrounding area.  The other weird thing is, I now only have one new blue pen the drawer and I only took out two and have one on my desk.  Where the hell is the other new blue pen that I didn’t even take out of the drawer?  Trevor or Rodd didn’t take it because they both know touching anything in my wee office will likely end in a one-way trip to the closet.  God forbid.  I love them both dearly but they are moody buggers and can both be scary enough to live with as human beings.  And I will just end by saying that having lived with an addict, I can’t see a specter being much more scary.

Ah yes, blogging.  I love to write and need to write so why am I not writing?  To be honest and blunt, I have been trying to save my son’s, our oldest, life.  Having already lost a daughter, our youngest, to an overdose of fentanyl, I have been spending most of my days and hours battling, praying, despairing, hoping, crying, yelling, and on and on the list goes trying to save my son.  Of course, the big lesson learned is that I can’t save my son any more than I could have saved my daughter.  Crap news for a mother but a mother will try as long as she possibly can (and it’s different for every mother). When I finally had to admit defeat and release the last prayer and depend on the prayers of others, salvation came.  We have an appointment on October 28, 2020, to see his psychiatrist and fill out the paperwork to get him into a program.  He finally wants to go of his own volition.  I am utterly exhausted. 

The world of mental health is the labyrinth of all labyrinths and it seems there is no exit point for many people, families, and friends who are plunged into it.  My son has never been prescribed a drug that actually helped him stop hearing the horrible voices he hears.  Is it any wonder that he turned to street drugs for relief?  Many people dealing with mental health do, it is often the only relief they can find but the long-run outcome is not a good one to be sure.  Street drugs take their toll in so very many ways.

Street drugs have taken a big toll on my son and I don’t know if he will recover from some of the damage done but I am grateful he is still alive.  I already have that tear-soaked t-shirt and prefer not to have another but I also know that there are no guarantees in life and that my son’s journey is his journey and all I can do is journey beside him.  I will always pray; I will always love him but I know ultimately I have to surrender my hopes for him to a higher power than myself.  Crap news for a mother but a mother will try as long as she possibly can.  And this mother knows she is connected to that higher power and we talk.  Not in English necessarily but more of a heart language and a mantra that says, “All is well with my children.”   

There have been times I have been plunged into despair but I always come up for air and remember that yes, all is well with my children, that life is eternal in some form or another because energy never vanishes it only changes form. 

I swear of late that Vanessa has been around moving stuff because she loves to tease me.  I put something down, turn around, then turn back to pick it up, and it’s gone.  I find it on the ground on the other side of the table.  No thud, no rolling across the table sound; it’s just displaced.  Figures she would come back to haunt me.  She would find that hilarious not only to tease me but to scare the shit out of me as we did share the same kind of sense of humor.  Call me crazy but I did say out loud one afternoon half chuckling and half darting my eyes around, “Vanessa, stop doing that!”  No apparitions so far but I wouldn’t put it past her and I believe if anyone could, she would have the life force to pull it off.  I miss that girl like crazy but she was definitely a force to be reckoned with in her human form but those stories are for another time.  And in the Wiccan and Pagan belief systems, October is the month when the veil between the physical and nonphysical worlds are thinnest.  I will wait and see if Vanessa goes bump in the night. 

Well, I will close by saying that motherhood is not a journey for sissies.  Crap news for a mother but a mother will keep trying as long as she possibly can.

Or-I’m Starting To Babble, Want To Hear?

I don’t know about you but I was already having a challenging year before Covid hit. My dad passed January 1st at 11:16 am. I was there watching him take his last breath and didn’t know what to do except saying, “I’m here dad!” over and over again. The hospice nurse assured me that hearing is the last thing to go and that he heard me. I was happy about that…and sad. My dad was diagnosed with cancer December 4th and died January 1st. While I am glad he didn’t have to live in pain for long, it happened way to fast. My siblings Jay, Kayla and Becca and me (or is it I?) didn’t have time to even process that he had cancer never mind him leaving us so soon.

One of the last grand statements my dad made one day after getting weaker and weaker to the point that he could hardly talk was, “How the fuck do I get out of here!” after he spent about five minutes mustering up strength. I guess he figured it out. And I’m starting to feel the same way. After being in my own company so much, even though I am awfully cute and darn funny. I think I’m starting to get on my nerves.

And I (and we) are still dealing with the firsts after losing our daughter/sister last year. In truth, we have already gone through the actual firsts but because everything was so raw last year, this year feels like the firsts. First birthday (August 29th), Halloween and Christmas etc. Grieving sucks! It usually just makes me cry but this time it made me a little nuts. I yelled at a lady to, “Learn how to drive your fucking car!” And I wasn’t even driving. Trevor’s eyeballs popped out of his head because I never, NEVER, behave like that. My only consolation afterwards was that our windows were not down very far and she likely didn’t hear me and that my teachers from my ministerial studies weren’t around.

This morning when I looked at my phone, this picture was boom, in my face. Don’t ask me why?

I was like, “Oh shut up!”

I bought a 55 Plus Fitness program this afternoon.

On the up side, we got a kitten this year. Her name is Sassafras or Sassy for short. She is a crazy thing and has defiantly kept us entertained. And broken things and ricocheted off of everything in the house. The chair she is on in the picture below spins and she loves to run across the living room as fast as she can, ricochet off the couch on to the chair making it spin as many times as she can. She talks back too. If you say, “No!” to her she talks back and will never stop no matter how many times you say, “No!”. She wins every time.

I burned myself really badly earlier this summer. Right on the chest otherwise known as the boobs. I had a fight with a french press and lost. I was leaning forward pushing down and boiling hot coffee shot up and out and right down my pajama top. I found myself sitting in emergency wondering what the hell had just happened and why those who had coughs or had been out of the country in the last six months could wander around freely if they so choose. I became very grateful for T3s and my old stretched out sports bra. (Picture not included…at least not until I’ve been doing the 55 Plus workout for a few months).

Well, that is my Oy Vay babbling for today.