Today's theme: panic
I've just pulled random videos about panic. I mean I guess this is my thing right - I talk about shit going on in my head, or in my life, and I pair it with videos that somehow work with the theme. It's been months now since I've come over here to dither on about something. There are two very distinct reasons for this. First, I am quite simply too busy. Life exploded over the summer, and I can't seem to catch up. I know it was the right thing to do to bring my mother up from her little apartment on the coast. I know this. But I'm a planner. I prepare, I project manage. This hasn't been well planned, and so there's a lot of chaos going on.
Chaos - there's a theme to explore.
I don't think well with clutter around me. I'm one of those people. I always feel just a little gnawing at my soul when things are cluttered and I need to think. It's all just an illusion of course, because truly my best brainstorming turns into chaos. That's kind of the fun of it. A dogpile of thoughts and good creative energy.
This isn't that kind of chaos. Good chaos = creativity. Bad chaos = danger.
I decided to be a "yes" person at work this quarter as well. Sure, of course I can do your project. Yes, I would love to present for your conference. I can't think of anything more fun than designing this two day meeting. Oh and please let me write that book chapter. Now that one was important to me. I mean all of my projects mean something and I enjoy just about everything I work on. But this piece for the book. A book being put together in honor of a man that I truly cared for and admired. Outside of my normal scope of work, it fell outside of what I could realistically work on.
So, the first reason I've been scarce has just been a matter of time.
But I'm being vague, aren't I? And that leads to reason #2. I am a pressure cooker, you see. The lid is clamped on tight so that nothing escapes. Inside the pot, things are whirling around, getting hotter and hotter. But on the outside, everything must remain calm.
To cut the shit a little bit on this one - inside me I'm just a mess. But I can't lose my grip. I can't get upset or let myself feel anything too deeply, because I just don't have time for the mess that would ensue. I know how many things I have not been doing. I know how many visits I have missed with my mother. I know how much of her move there is yet to sort out. I know that I need to take care of her life to the same extent I should take care of my own. My lists grow longer and longer and I am slower and slower to cross things off.
But this isn't about lists, or finances, or appointments. It's about grief and loss and fear. It is about the image I have in my head EVERY SINGLE night - and often during the day if I don't keep myself distracted - of what my mother is doing. Of HOW she is doing. Of what happens when she is all alone. Because I know that I am not taking care of her to the extent that she needs it. I know I am failing at this task. I can feel her fear from six blocks away.
I hear it in the reports from my brother and husband. Asking for me. Mad that I am "never there." I do not think I am making things up when I say that what my mother wants (needs?) is me, there, all the time. But I can't do that. That cannot happen for a laundry list of reasons.
I remember my father's sad voice near the end of his life. "I miss you. I wish you did not have to work so hard, so that I could see you more."
Ha! So here's the appropriate video for that:
So there you go. Except that child that's growing up? That is my mother sinking deeper into her illness, and she's never going to be independent and not need me anymore. She just isn't going to know me at all.
And so there is panic. The sheer agony of knowing that I am hurting another person.... not just any person, but my mother, whom I have loved and admired (though not always respected... I mean I was a teenager at some point) my whole life. It is my fault. You can logic me out of that argument all you want, and I will still know it is true. Her Alzheimer's is not my fault. No, I don't blame myself for her genetic mutations.
Whatever. I'm tired now so it's time to wrap up another super-cheery version of my little blog. But look, when I say my "inner siren," I mean two things, right? I mean the beautiful woman inside me that sings and is stirred by beautiful music. But I also mean the horrible wailing noise that deafens me on occasions like tonight.
I do my best. I do my best.
So anyway, here are a few songs about panic.
