“For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
If the internet was the Matrix, I'd have to admit to being disconnected for a long, long time now. Oh, I've logged online, lurked at my usual haunts. I read some. I type a little, but my former progress--the fire that had been crackling in my belly at the end of last year--went out.
No one is immune to change. To difficulties and struggles. I feel like that has been hammered home this year for me. This has been a very, very difficult few months. I won't get into long drawn out details and throw myself a pity party. I just thought I owed it to the loyal reader who drops by my site month after month and gets disappointed by my lack of releases, to know what is going on.
I'll tell you that there are three people I love more than anyone in the world. My Mom (single parent). My sister. And my Grandmother. Two out of three of those threatened to leave my side. My grandmother, who has fought valiantly against that wretched monster known as cancer for over twenty years (on again and off again) may very well have to fight again. Except now she is 73, and frankly, in her words "Too Damned Tired." Just a moment ago I got off the phone with her. I asked her how her leg was and if the doctors had any news. She doesn't know yet if it's the cancer causing the swelling and pain. I pray to God it's benign.
My life was effectively derailed by a suicide attempt.I was clouted right in the left side of the temporal lobe by a bus I never saw coming. My sister attempted to commit suicide by swallowing over six kinds of medication. I work as a case manager for the mentally ill and so does my mother. To see my sister in a place where I've taken my patients was a shock to the heart and nervous system. To say the least, I bawled like a baby.
I marched up a hill for a little over a week to visit my big sis in a psychiatric unit for the grand allotted time of an hour. This reminded me of the prison visits I took as a little girl to visit my father. Sign in. Sign out. No use of last names to identify the client. Thick wooden and metal doors that don't open unless the first one has closed. And you can't bring the patient/prisoner anything that hasn't been checked by the staff first. It was sort of surreal to see the nurse holding up my sister's bra as she checked it for wires.
My sister is home now, spending three days a week at my house and four days with her boyfriend (our attempt to insure she is never alone). She's not fine by any means of course. Luckily, she's been set up with a psychiatrist and Outpatient Group Therapy.
My mother and I sat around for an hour (one of many days and months) discussing her behavioral patterns. My mom has a gut instinct for such things as mental illness with over twenty years experience in the field. The manic and depressed moods. Along with a dozen previously baffling habits strongly suggest my sister is bipolar. I'd been saying something was wrong with my big sister for years. 1+2=3 was not exactly adding up. My mom had always denied such things. She didn't want to 'believe' that this could happen with her daughter but now she is starting to see the light. Unfortunately I can see the light too and I know it's rusting my mom's cast-iron spirit.
There have been about three other major incidents and revelations that occurred in my life in the last few months which I won't even get into. What I have written has helped immensely. Written words have always come much easier to me than talking. I think writing is so important to me, integral to my existence, because it unburdens my soul.
I think I'm ready to face the stories once more. I'll blow of the light layer of dust and fall in love with my characters again. That's one thing I can control. The rest is up to God and time.