Well, my 40th birthday has officially come...and....gone. I feel like I am spinning like a top that can't stop.
So much stuff has happened in the last six months and I feel as though I haven't worked through all the emotional/brain aspects of it. My body, I know, is not completely healed from the broken elbow and staph infection and I've been staying up way too late. Like tonight. I have been awake since 2 o'clock yesterday (Friday) morning. About 30 minutes ago the last of my children staggered off to bed so here I sit in my favorite chair and it is blissfully quiet. The only sound is the faint squeak of my chair as I rock and type. And the occasional rustling of Snuggles the guinea pig hanging out in her cage behind me.
To be quite honest, I have literally been afraid to be alone with the jumbled thoughts rolling around in my head. I know there are things I need to sort out and try to make sense of.
Major mind boggling things I need to deal with are trying to figure out just how I truly feel about turning 40. On the one hand, a little more than two years ago, I had absolutely no intention of celebrating another birthday. Ever. On the other hand I am in awe? amazed? disbelieving? that I am sitting in this chair at 1:35 AM Saturday, May 5th adding a post to my blog.
One thing I KNOW for certain about this milestone birthday is that I really don't feel "old". A little chubby and out of shape, yes. But old, no. I am deeply looking forward to scuba diving again this summer and since we decided to put our boat in the water this year (she was in dry-dock last year) I am looking forward to spending time on her, too.
The next milestone occurring around me is the graduation of my first-born son (he's also the first born grandson for my parent's) in June and his deployment to San Antonio, Texas for Air Force basic training in July.
I can't quite wrap my brain around either of these two events because I am in denial. Yep, the big "D". I'm tremendously proud of him and, um, a little freaked out about being a military mom. What makes this step into the military for this young man so emotional for me is that, because of his age (17), his dad and I had to sign a waiver giving our permission for him to enlist. Matthew's recruiter drove more than an hour and a half to my office to obtain my signature. I remember the jolt I felt right in my gut as the recruiter handed me the paper and the sound of the pounding of my heart in my ears as I read what the paper had to say.
Matthew's enlistment in the military came as no surprise to me. He's been part of the ROTC at school and he's always wanted to fly planes. But, my God, just last week I put him on the school bus for his first day in Kindergarten. Last month he was learning to ride a bike. Seventeen years of memories, some very painful and some incredibly beautiful, have brought us to here. To this spot where I have to hold out my hand and let him go. I struggle to recall his face and voice the way they were before hormones turned him into a young man.
That ten-pound, twenty-three inch tall baby now stands almost 6'5". Matthew was my first and for the first five years of his life, he was all mine. It wasn't easy for us in the beginning. I was a single mom but insanely determined to provide him with everything he needed. I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during those years so I would have enough money to buy diapers, milk, food and clothes for Matthew and keep a roof over our heads. To say I was anorexic at that would have been pretty accurate. Another chapter in my life that I look back on and wonder how we ever survived.
When Matthew was five, and just days into his kindergartner school year I had to surrender myself to the black hole of depression that had been gnawing at me for years. With the wave of hand I sent Matthew to live with his father then left my second marriage and my ten-month old son, Connor, behind.
Every time I think about the sequence of events leading up to that painful crossroads I get a sharp pain in my heart. Then I go round-and-round with myself about how the dreadful decision I made was the right thing to do at the time. I have never and would never hurt my kids and I didn't want one of them to find me dead in my bed from an overdose of pills. (Connor's dad likes to create opportunities where he can tell me how selfish I was to walk away from my kids and only a despicable mother would do something like that.)
I've been cruising a long the past three months with this stimulator in my chest. My mood is pretty stable and my thoughts are not 100% consumed with thoughts of suicide. Then today I receive news that my 14-year-old nephew was just released from the hospital for his SECOND suicide attempt in the last month. The first time he tried to hang himself and the second time he overdosed on cold medicine, among other things, and booze. That was definitely a cold, hard slap across the face. I know all about attempted suicide and just exactly what it takes for you to fall so far into the black hole that you just don't have the strength anymore to fight the demons that are clawing their way down your throat dragging what's left of you to the very bottom of the pit.
I've never been on the innocent family side of attempted suicide but my instinct kicked in and I called my nephew, J's, dad and left a voicemail imploring him to let me help him (the parents) and J. When I got home from work I spent a great deal of time dusting off my resources on how to get J help.
I have so much knowledge about mental illness from so many different points of view that it truly is mind boggling. I emailed my (younger) sister a very long email with an enormous amount of information. I pray that she finds enough useful information in it to give her the knowledge she needs to battle the mental health services maze.
My youngest son, Hunter, is 10 and his "billable" (for insurances) diagnosis is bipolar. Every aspect of the testing he has had during his numerous and lengthy stays in various psychiatric facilities points the arrow to "PDD" (pervasive development disorder) -- in the autism spectrum.
So many times over the past few weeks I've found myself shaking my head in half disbelief and half dizziness. I was hoping that blogging some of this stuff tonight would bring a little peace to my weary soul but instead I feel no relief whatsoever.
Tomorrow is another day. I mean today is.
So much stuff has happened in the last six months and I feel as though I haven't worked through all the emotional/brain aspects of it. My body, I know, is not completely healed from the broken elbow and staph infection and I've been staying up way too late. Like tonight. I have been awake since 2 o'clock yesterday (Friday) morning. About 30 minutes ago the last of my children staggered off to bed so here I sit in my favorite chair and it is blissfully quiet. The only sound is the faint squeak of my chair as I rock and type. And the occasional rustling of Snuggles the guinea pig hanging out in her cage behind me.
To be quite honest, I have literally been afraid to be alone with the jumbled thoughts rolling around in my head. I know there are things I need to sort out and try to make sense of.
Major mind boggling things I need to deal with are trying to figure out just how I truly feel about turning 40. On the one hand, a little more than two years ago, I had absolutely no intention of celebrating another birthday. Ever. On the other hand I am in awe? amazed? disbelieving? that I am sitting in this chair at 1:35 AM Saturday, May 5th adding a post to my blog.
One thing I KNOW for certain about this milestone birthday is that I really don't feel "old". A little chubby and out of shape, yes. But old, no. I am deeply looking forward to scuba diving again this summer and since we decided to put our boat in the water this year (she was in dry-dock last year) I am looking forward to spending time on her, too.
The next milestone occurring around me is the graduation of my first-born son (he's also the first born grandson for my parent's) in June and his deployment to San Antonio, Texas for Air Force basic training in July.
I can't quite wrap my brain around either of these two events because I am in denial. Yep, the big "D". I'm tremendously proud of him and, um, a little freaked out about being a military mom. What makes this step into the military for this young man so emotional for me is that, because of his age (17), his dad and I had to sign a waiver giving our permission for him to enlist. Matthew's recruiter drove more than an hour and a half to my office to obtain my signature. I remember the jolt I felt right in my gut as the recruiter handed me the paper and the sound of the pounding of my heart in my ears as I read what the paper had to say.
Matthew's enlistment in the military came as no surprise to me. He's been part of the ROTC at school and he's always wanted to fly planes. But, my God, just last week I put him on the school bus for his first day in Kindergarten. Last month he was learning to ride a bike. Seventeen years of memories, some very painful and some incredibly beautiful, have brought us to here. To this spot where I have to hold out my hand and let him go. I struggle to recall his face and voice the way they were before hormones turned him into a young man.
That ten-pound, twenty-three inch tall baby now stands almost 6'5". Matthew was my first and for the first five years of his life, he was all mine. It wasn't easy for us in the beginning. I was a single mom but insanely determined to provide him with everything he needed. I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during those years so I would have enough money to buy diapers, milk, food and clothes for Matthew and keep a roof over our heads. To say I was anorexic at that would have been pretty accurate. Another chapter in my life that I look back on and wonder how we ever survived.
When Matthew was five, and just days into his kindergartner school year I had to surrender myself to the black hole of depression that had been gnawing at me for years. With the wave of hand I sent Matthew to live with his father then left my second marriage and my ten-month old son, Connor, behind.
Every time I think about the sequence of events leading up to that painful crossroads I get a sharp pain in my heart. Then I go round-and-round with myself about how the dreadful decision I made was the right thing to do at the time. I have never and would never hurt my kids and I didn't want one of them to find me dead in my bed from an overdose of pills. (Connor's dad likes to create opportunities where he can tell me how selfish I was to walk away from my kids and only a despicable mother would do something like that.)
I've been cruising a long the past three months with this stimulator in my chest. My mood is pretty stable and my thoughts are not 100% consumed with thoughts of suicide. Then today I receive news that my 14-year-old nephew was just released from the hospital for his SECOND suicide attempt in the last month. The first time he tried to hang himself and the second time he overdosed on cold medicine, among other things, and booze. That was definitely a cold, hard slap across the face. I know all about attempted suicide and just exactly what it takes for you to fall so far into the black hole that you just don't have the strength anymore to fight the demons that are clawing their way down your throat dragging what's left of you to the very bottom of the pit.
I've never been on the innocent family side of attempted suicide but my instinct kicked in and I called my nephew, J's, dad and left a voicemail imploring him to let me help him (the parents) and J. When I got home from work I spent a great deal of time dusting off my resources on how to get J help.
I have so much knowledge about mental illness from so many different points of view that it truly is mind boggling. I emailed my (younger) sister a very long email with an enormous amount of information. I pray that she finds enough useful information in it to give her the knowledge she needs to battle the mental health services maze.
My youngest son, Hunter, is 10 and his "billable" (for insurances) diagnosis is bipolar. Every aspect of the testing he has had during his numerous and lengthy stays in various psychiatric facilities points the arrow to "PDD" (pervasive development disorder) -- in the autism spectrum.
So many times over the past few weeks I've found myself shaking my head in half disbelief and half dizziness. I was hoping that blogging some of this stuff tonight would bring a little peace to my weary soul but instead I feel no relief whatsoever.
Tomorrow is another day. I mean today is.
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