Mom

     My mother fell, again, a few days ago. She said that she somehow twisted her foot, she thinks. Or twisted it when she fell. A few weeks ago she fell off the step stool. She doesn't know why that time either. She really hurt herself, and just yesterday she re-hurt herself. She refuses to see a doctor. She said that a few times when in the bathroom, she's almost fallen into the tub. Not in the tub, not taking a shower, but falling into it. Luckily, there's a bar we put outside of the tub for my grandmother when she lost her balance, so that saved her. Of course she didn't tell us when it happened. I knew she got dizzy every once in a while, but she was usually able to keep her balance. She just seems so fragile, walking around all hunched over, in obvious pain. If she can get up at all. She already takes oxycodone for her back. Bad days and good days seem to even out. Right now the bad weigh out the good. When she coughs, her whole body looks like it would shake apart. I'm not ready for my mother to be old and feeble, not that 70 is old, but she sometimes seems old. I'm only 31. Her mother was so strong at 70, and well into her 80s. Gramma met with friends at least once a week, wrote, went on trips, cleaned the house, went on walks, and read the paper from front to back every day. Healthy as a horse as the saying goes. Mom has so many health problems. More than I want to list. They prevent her from doing lots of things. She wasn't always like this. I actually envy her somewhat, of having a mother so strong and healthy at the same age, and she often seems, or is, weak and sick. Maybe I'm over exaggerating. It also makes a difference that her mother was 25 when she had her and my mother was 39 when she had me. When Gramma became really sick, mom was in her 60s. I don't want to feel like I have to take care of her, but sometimes I don't know what she would do if I wasn't here. She has dad of course. Mom thinks she's going to be around for a long time. I honestly don't know.

     I guess I've always been used to her taking care of me. Even taking care of me when I don't want to be taken care of. All children feel this way. I don't want the responsibility yet. Asking why children feel this way, not ready to take care of parents, is self-explanatory. The answer is in the question. It's because it's their parents. Maybe some kids feel like when their parents reach a certain age, they feel they have to take care of them. I remember this episode of "Golden Girls" when Rose's mother came to visit, and Rose treated her like she was a 5-year-old. Her mother was perfectly healthy with all of her mental and physical functions. So what makes children feel differently towards their parents? All people are different. That's the plainest answer. I suppose in a way, it makes me feel older. Older than 31. Perhaps it makes me feel my own mortality. This is what I think I no.
 

   

I Hear Voices

A long time ago, I wrote (by that I mean typed) down some ideas for my blog. I typed them up on a whim, whenever an idea entered my head to explore more later. It may be quite a bit later, but I thought I'd look them up again. This is one idea I wrote down. I don't know what sparked the idea, but thought I'd share it:

You can't let society's voices dominate your life; tell you what to do, how you should feel, how you should be, and especially in order to find happiness. Those who constantly seek happiness in other places outside themselves rarely happens, and usually becomes depressing and demeaning. You can't worry about what other people think about you. "When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody." Especially yourself. You have to do what makes you happy, not what makes other people happy. I'm not saying to become a total hedonist, although is it really so bad? As long as you do nothing immoral? I think you need to put yourself and your needs, wants, happiness first before anyone else, including a significant other. 

Not that you should discount your lover's happiness, and try to make them happy. As long as you're happy doing it. You can't make them happy if you're not happy. If you're not happy being with them, then you need to let that person go, because it's only fair to yourself and to that person. It may break the other's heart, but you can't do it to them. Hopefully they'll find happiness with someone who is in love with them back. I am speaking partially on personal experience. But those men were not good to me, and I knew I couldn't live that way for the rest of my life. Or theirs, whichever came first. I wasted too much time on each of them. We only get one life, as far as I know, and not long at that. Life is too short to spend years in a loveless relationship, whether on one side or both. I rarely got to do anything I wanted, too busy doing what they wanted. So off with them. I enjoy being single. No one making any demands on my time, dragging me to things I don't want to do, but I try to make them happy. And spend so much time trying to make them happy even if it made me unhappy, and then resenting them for it. I really didn't mean to go off on this tangent. 

What I wanted to talk about was society, and its pressure, and the pressure we put on ourselves. Whether personal, or because it's expected. Are our wants truly our wants, or because it's been ingrained into us, and because it's what we've seen since the day we were born. We're supposed to go to college, find a lucrative job in the field you studied for, get a nice car, get married (preferably to someone from college - your college sweetheart), get a nice house, have children, and it's better if you're a good Christian. Each is an accomplishment of attaining adulthood. If you don't accomplish these things, then it's like you're not quite an adult. I had a lot of these things at one time in my life. A  good job, a nice car, a nice house, some money put away. A couple of fiancés. But then the recession happened and I lost it all. It was also the job I was in. That was after the fiancés. Here no there, I often wonder how much society motivates our goals. Do we purely want them without motivation from outside sources, or because it's, well, like what we're supposed to do? Nature vs. nurture. The everlasting question. This is what I think I no. 

Qué sera, sera

Again, it's been too long since I last wrote. I actually wrote a few drafts, but never finished them so I deleted them. I'm listening to the rain pour outside my window. I can't sleep, thinking about the essays I need to finish, other things I need to take care of. I think of friends, and friends that don't seem so much like friends anymore, or friends I used to have. What constitutes a friend? Someone you can rely on? I don't have very many of those. Someone you feel that you can call and talk to when you feel down, or up? I probably have even fewer of those. Someone to call spontaneously to go out for a drink? No. Everyone has their own thing going on, whatever that thing is. Usually a spouse and/or kids. Or they're not interested. Listen to me. What a mope! I daydream of when I will build my house. What the foyer will look like. The living room. The media room. The kitchen. The gym with mirrors on opposite walls to check my form while doing yoga or dancing. My master bedroom with a walk-in closet and 5 piece bathroom. My tranquility room that overlooks a garden and floor-to-ceiling windows. A library filled with my books and my Gramma's books. Some people have a detached garage. I want a detached bar so the smoke doesn't permeate the rest of the house. I think of having Sarah, and Steven, Fransheila, and Frances with me. What their rooms would look like. What our lives would be like living together, me raising them. Getting Sarah into the very best schools. Going to Steven's soccer practices. Taking care of the babies. Cooking them healthy, wholesome meals everyday, instead of the crap they live on now. Teaching them all things they won't learn in school, like how to balance a checkbook. Although that is kind of becoming passe. How to pay bills online. Sarah and I doing yoga together. Steven and I throwing a football to each other. Or vice versa. I'll have special areas for my cats; inside and out. Maybe have two or three, or four dogs. Gardens. Maybe even an alpaca or two and make yarn from their wool, and blankets and scarves and sweaters and socks from the yarn. Just sittin' in my rocking chair on the front porch knittin' me some socks. Turn into a country granny by the time I'm 40. And then there's my practice. Despite my dreams of living in the country (but not too far in the country), I still want to be an abortion psychologist. Even though I'm far from starting a practice, it gives me a sense of...peace...to help people, or to think of helping people in the future. To help women who really need it. Then, of course, I want to become more involved in abortion rights. I want to work with politicians to secure rights for all women in the country. Make it a damn amendment. I've thought of becoming a politician myself, but I want to be a psychologist more, and I don't know if I have the fortitude to be a politician. I hope to god the political environment is better ten years from now than it is today. What nut jobs. And pansies. It's a house (and senate) full of nut jobs and pansies. I think it's worse now than the fifties. I know how I want my future to turn out, but will it be anything like that? I guess it's up to me.

Where is the love?

I just started to bitch to my friend about the stupidity of people, but instead I decided to save her from that and rant and rave on my blog. People have the right to their own opinions and beliefs. However, those opinions can be so ignorant, short-sighted, and narrow-minded. I recently signed a FB petition to designate the Arctic Refuge as a national monument. Being a lover of nature, I think it is highly important to save as much of it as possible before it's all mowed down by big stinky machines to make way for more box houses and strip malls. My cousin ridiculed me for it because he thinks it would be a waste of resources and jobs. Is he really that selfish? Oh god, what would we do without granite countertops? I don't even know if there's granite there; I'm assuming there is, but I think you get the point. Even if we tapped into that, the tap will run dry someday - whether it's oil, or stone to make counters and floors for the rich, or timber. There's not an unlimited supply of that. Haven't people learned yet? Climate change? Oh wait, that's a scam, a bogus theory, a lie. What about the oil spill, huh? What about the 11 human lives that were lost, the countless human lives that were affected, the loss of sea life and nature? What we do to nature we also do to ourselves. Don't forget that the Louisiana wetlands lose about the area of a football field a day because of human interference. I see humans in general as disgusting, despicable creatures. There are some beautiful humans I know; beautiful physically, intelligently, and/or spiritually. Unfortunately, they don't make up for the rest of the damage humans caused. I told my cousin that every animal has as much right to be on this earth than any human. He'll probably read that and think, "Tree-huggin' hippy." That is fine by me. I'd rather be that than a short-sighted, selfish destructor of life that only sees what nature has to offer for my benefit. I don't understand how people do not care. It's that lack of caring that got us here.

Horse and Carriage

Lake Quinault, one of my favorite places

From the encouragement of a friend, I decided to finally start writing in my blog again. I took such a long sabbatical on account of school, and other pressing matters, but mostly school. I've been writing a theory paper for what seems like a year for a women's studies class. I picked the subject of the impact of Eurocentric capitalist patriarchy on the Native American woman. Interesting, yes. Theoretical, not so much. But I was too stubborn to pick another topic (a taurus thru and thru), and wanted to write on a topic close to my heart. I liked it because it is challenging, and a topic I doubted other students would write about. At least in my class. Even as I attempt to free-write now, I come to an impasse about what specifically my theory is, which was rather stupid of me to try to write a theory paper without knowing what my theory is; just a vague subject. My teacher tried to warn me more than once, but I obviously didn't heed them; determined to write about this matter - that I could do it.

Over these last months, I reflected on my conceptions of marriage and motherhood in relation to the patriarchal ideologies of these matters. I decided that I don't want to marry anyone (except maybe myself) or have children (of my own at least). Maybe I stated this in a previous post. I even want to sell my eggs if i can. That brings in quite a few bucks. Yes, I think the world is overpopulated as it is, but if there's a woman out there that really wants a baby and she's infertile, and I can help, it would make me happy to make that dream a reality for her. And also for the money. Marriage is only to support patriarchy. Or was I should say. I think many marriages enjoy an egalitarian relationship. However, it was instituted in the name of patriarchy, that women must be taken care of. It ensured her a future of domesticity while the man went out to earn the money and had other opportunities. He had a sense of the world. That made her totally dependent on him. I feel like I would be doing what I'm supposed to do, which the rebellious side of me pushes back against. I wouldn't be opposed to marriage if I fell in love with someone and wanted to commit myself to that person for the rest of my life. But again, I have my convictions of marriage. I'm more happy to hear about divorces than marriages. I know far more many that haven't worked out than had. However, I don't hold any contempt for people who do get married or want to get married. Right now, I don't feel that I need it to show, or prove, my love with a marriage to anyone. It just seems that not long ago I wanted what many young women want, a heterosexual marriage and children. Not anymore. When I said I didn't want children of my own, it's because I may want to be a foster parent, if I have the strength, conviction, and money (and energy). I wish I could start with children in my own family. Little Sarah, Stephen, Fransheila, and Frances - Allien's kids. My worthless cousin in Alaska whose own mother told my family that she's a drug addict, and I think she sells as well. She's been to jail a few times. Stephen's father has custody of him, but my uncle thinks that he hits him and neglects him, such as not feeding him enough, or at all. If I had the means, then I know those babies would get a good education, good healthcare, love, attention, support, and encouragement with me. Sarah (9) and Stephen (7 or 8) aren't exactly babies, but they still are. Fransheila is only 18 mos. and Frances is a little baby. From the brief time I spent with Sarah, she's shown much more maturity, sense of responsibility, compassion, and thoughtfulness that would never dawn on her mother. And she knows her mother, how she is. She's also smart as a whip. I don't know why a whip is smart, but that's how the saying goes. She's always excelled in school. I want her to realize her full potential and have opportunities. I also want her away from her mother, in fear that in a few years she will start down that path, as Allien went down her mother's path. I don't need to have my own children when so many out there need a compassionate loving guardian who's not afraid to show tough love. That's what scares me about being a foster parent. I want to work with teenagers; the ones who need the most help. The ones that have been shipped from home to home with no sense of security and trust. The jaded ones. I want to be that person they can learn to trust and have a permanent home with me. That I'll be there for them when they do stupid shit, which is almost inevitable, and not ship them away again. But then I can't trust them myself. At least not in the beginning. I'd be afraid of them stealing my grandmother's wedding ring to pawn for drugs. My older cousin, Stephen, was in numerous foster homes where he was abused until he was 12 and landed himself in juvie, and hadn't really been out since. He's about 30 now. I haven't seen him in years. I keep promising myself that I will find him, a promise so far I've failed to keep. I always have so much to do. That's an excuse, not a reason. I want him to know that not all of his family gave up on him. Fred, his step-father who adopted him, my mother's brother, died 5 yrs ago, and that's all Steve had. Fred had nothing to do with him being in foster homes, and horrors his mother put him through. Fred loved him.

Next topic, I said I'd marry myself. Of course I want my dream wedding. But it would be my wedding with my friends where I want to have it (Lake Quinault). No wonder women so much look forward to their wedding day. A big party for you (and the person you're marrying), with a new dress, new jewelry (not from the street fair), and a nice trip afterwards! One on hand, marrying myself is still marrying, even though it isn't the conventional marriage. On the other hand, I see it as committing to yourself what you commit to your partner - to always be there for yourself, through sickness and in health. As I said before, you are the only person you can really count on when it comes to it. You can't count on other people, no matter how much you love them and think they love you. Christina, my "best friend," married earlier this month. Her cousin married the month before. This past Sunday I visited my friend in the hospital who was preparing for the birth of her 2nd child. I, being the only non-mother, sat for a few hours in the room listening to her, her sister-in-law, mother-in-law, her aunt, and her mother talk about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and the first precious few years of motherhood. But of course, they were awaiting the arrival of the newest family member. One on hand, I wished I had something to share, but none were my experiences. I did briefly talk about my own birth, from what I've been told. At times like these I wonder if I'm missing out. Or is it upbringing and society that enforces this ideal of motherhood that women fall into? I think it's a choice to marry more than it ever has been, however I think it's still encouraged by media and society itself. I also think that it is natural - apart from societal influence - to want a baby. Instinct maybe? To want to procreate, when you get down to our animalistic attributes. The females in any species I know of share that same goal, for the survival of their species, whether this enters into a woman's mind or not. I've actually contemplated having a child with a full blood Native to do my part in raising the Native population. But that would be the only reason. S/he would at least be 3/4 Native. Did you know that in 2008, Natives represented 1.5% of the total population in the US? I'd like to help with that. I also think it's natural for people to not want children. Actually, that also happens in the wild kingdom, or the zoo kingdom - of mothers abandoning their young. So, obviously, we're not all different from them.

In Sickness and In Health

A long day of mostly fog with a few sunbreaks finally falls to night. What I thought (or more hoped) was the common cold turns out to be the flu. Carmen told me first thing this morning that she talked with her sister's friend, trying to track Cecilia down, presumably to talk to her about Gramma. The friend spoke to Cecilia a couple months ago when she told her that her boyfriend hit her and she gave him all of her money (before he hit her). She hasn't heard from Cecilia since. Sounds like the set-up for a murder. I just said, "It sounds like something Cecilia would do." Mom also told me that she spoke with Gramma's case worker, and that because Gramma was lucid, understood the questions and gave sensical answers (if molesting a 90 year old woman makes sense), that it's very possible that someone molested my grandmother. I want to see her, but on the same hand I don't. Isn't that awful? I feel like I can't look at her the same way. It's not like she did anything - she's the victim. Even if this is part of her dementia, it's real to her.

I was able to study, and watched a few recorded episodes of Dr. Maddow interrupted by throbbing headaches. I read the news; Dow was up (when I last looked), and so is the death toll of American soldiers in Afghanistan. A while back I read a book written shortly after the Civil War in 1910 about how the ruling class effectually exploited the working class to do their dirty deeds for them. Most wars are based on territory, authority, and religion - they're really wars between the ruling classes, but most aristocrats found they could easily persuade the working class to go to war for them with the empty promises of glory and honor, offering them meager benefits when many of the young working class could choose that, or a dreary career working in a factory or mine, or today Walmart or Starbucks.

When reading about different cultures, and I live in an individualist culture, but it's mostly understood that individuals still conform to their surroundings or the group they identify themselves with, even though many people move from group to group where those in a collectivist culture stay in one group. So it seems that it would stand that most members of an individualist culture are still somewhat collectivist. The same cannot be said vice versa.

I found an old friend who always filled me with new information and insight. An interesting character to say the least. We talked of philosophy mostly, which I always enjoy. I understood Plato much more in the period of an hour than in the past six weeks.

I had an interesting dream the other night. I had to have open lung surgery, that was performed while I was still concious. The surgeon used an electric saw to cut down the middle of my breast plate and remove my left rib cage. That's the part I remember most vividly. I thought why I dreamed about needing surgery on my lung was because I was worried that I was smoking too much, even though very low compared to some people. I thought the removal of the rib cage was very symbolical of Adam & Eve, and that pertained to my women's studies class. But maybe I'm wrong. Now maybe some reading before I "ride the wooden shoe."

"Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know." ~T.S. Eliot

Poe

Today is Edgar Allan Poe's deathday. He died 160 years ago on this day. Doesn't seem like he lived so long ago. I visited my grandmother, Gramma, today after class. I was on my way to my favorite Thai restaurant to pick up dinner, and decided to swing by and visit for a while. I picked her up a decaf mocha and yogurt parfait from Starbucks. She introduced mochas to me when I was 12. She looked good and was fully alert. I know I need to spend as much time with her as I can, before it's too late. She has four children, but only one comes to see her. Two are in Cali and the youngest, Damien I like to call him, is hopefully burning somewhere in the core of hell, but he's probably right here in Seattle. She actually had five children, but my mom's older brother died five years ago, three years after his son committed suicide. I miss both of them, especially Curt, my cousin. We'd instant message every single night for two to four hours, sometimes more. We talked about everything, from poetry to perfume. He wrote poetry. I have some of his poems tucked away in a folder.

Every day I seem to realize something more about myself, even if it seems perfectly obvious but never thought about it before. I started acting kind of crazy after the first time Queen broke up with me. I lived with them for a while, and felt happy and safe. Then when I had to move back home, that security was stripped away. I'm also positive I suffered a traumatic brain injury (tbi) from my accident, because I'm not the same person I used to be. I would fly off the handle at things that shouldn't seem like that big of a deal. I'm much more irritable and short-tempered. I can also be obsessive-compulsive about some things. These are all symptoms of people who've suffered from tbi's. Unfortunately, Queen and Diego would see the worst side of me, but that was also my most vulnerable side. I was always very emotionally even - no real highs and lows, even during my period. Then I became this other person I don't like. I want to get back to who I was, but don't want to depend on drugs to do it. However, if that's what I need to do, then I'll do it. Hopefully, it won't be a lifelong requirement.

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

~Edgar Allan Poe

Grandpa

Today seems like an appropriate day to start my first blog. It's my grandfather's birthday (happy birthday, grandpa). He passed away four years ago next month. I couldn't find any pix of him so his boat will have to do, his pride and joy. I miss my grandparents a lot. They were always two solid unbreakable rocks in the family, and what kept the family together. But I suppose the matriarchs and patriarchs in most families serve that purpose. I was mostly unproductive day yesterday, at least much more than I wanted to be. I did get to see a friend I haven't seen in years for about half an hour, so that was nice, and walked two times around the golf course. I also had physical therapy before that, which felt wonderful for the most part. My therapist can get a little rough sometimes. I keep reminding him that my body parts are attached, but he's still amazing. My mother is bent on getting TWO kittens now (it was one 2 days ago). I know at some point the roles of parents and children often reverse, but I'm 26 for god sakes and shouldn't have to tell her that we can't get any more damn cats, no matter how cute they are. We already have five. I confess that four are mine and the other is my aunt's that she left here when she visited some years ago, and I can understand (sorta) why she would want her own cats even tho 3 of my cats have lived with her longer than they lived with me. They all need check-ups and right now I can't contribute financially. I feel guilty about that. I can't give any of them up tho. There are already too many homeless pets out there. But it still stands the last thing(s) we need are more cats! We're three people living in a house and not one has a job. My dad threatens to leave every now and then (my parents aren't really together but kinda are. that's a whole other blog), but I know he never will. I wish I ran as far and as fast from here as I could like the rest of my mother's family did, so I didn't get left behind cleaning up the mess that will eventually fall on me, but I have somewhat cleared a path before me that nothing will deviate me from.