Fight, Flight, Die

“Oh, you’re great.  You sacrifice so much,” my father told me, his words dripping with sarcasm.

I am in a full autonomic fight or flight reaction around my sister these days.

But I resist it to do what is required, errands that involve driving her around and such.

It feels like I am being beaten, but I do it.

I finished the ride and came downstairs to my bed and computer to burn it off.

My father asked what happened.

“She is here.  I did the work,” I told him

“Oh, you’re great.  You sacrifice so much,” my father told me, his words dripping with sarcasm.

My mother hits her head when she feels mushy.  She assumes I hit my fead for the same reasons.

No.

I hit my head for discipline, to silence my feelings and do what is required.  I hit my head for focus, for denial.

My father assumes that I am angry at my sister because of pique, because I am holding a grudge.

The idea that it hurts escapes him.

“Oh, you’re great.  You sacrifice so much,” my father told me, his words dripping with sarcasm.

I bust hump and it means nothing, only that I am too overwrought, hold on.

And it kills me.

Did You Ever Dream. . .

Did you ever dream of a different life?

Bob to Amber Smith, Celebity Rehab S2E3
(“It’s clear that Amber’s lifetime enmeshment with her addicted mother is a block to her sobriety,” says Dr. Drew Pinsky.)

Did I ever dream of better life?

Possibility is the key to a different future.  You may not be able to make your dreams come true, but without dreams you can’t make any possibility come true.  Dreams keep hope inflated; without the dream of better, there is no possibility of change.

Tim Gunn and his team understand this; they made a 24 year old woman feel like a princess, which unlocked her confidence and her smile.  They “saw something” in her that she had not trusted and helped her “bring it out.”

For a moment today, just for a moment, I had the dream of putting on a nice dress and boots, getting in a Volvo and driving to a very special Thanksgiving dinner.

But I’m still driving a broken Subaru that won’t pass next month’s inspection without more repairs than it is worth, still had to stuff the nice top away in a bag after imagining what it would look like without the grey badge of denial, and still had to stay up very late to roll my mother to the toilet.

Tomorrow gets worse; it’s all about my sister again.

But I still grabbed a glass of rum and coke, and still had a moment where I could dream, but only a moment.

TBB teared up today on ship when recounting her days being a rocket engineer.  Her boss, a young woman, comforted her — you know, like one woman comforts another who is emotional for a moment.

Yup, they see TBB as a woman, and expect her to make the choices of a woman, rather than beating her fpr that.

My mother said to me last night “I fear I am ruining your life.”  I think she wanted me to agrue, comfort her, disagree.  Instead I said nothing, but kept holding her hand.  It was OK.

Did you ever dream of a life different than this?

Only for a moment, but the enmeshment pulls me back.

But, I suppose, there was that moment.