I woke up after about two hours of sleep last night, and when I couldn’t get back to sleep, I did some catch-up for my WriYe stuff. I realized that I didn’t work on Mourning Dove (re-titled Damages) as much as I’d wanted to. In fact, I’m not sure I put more than 800 words into it all month. I started it as my WriYe resurrection project in April; it had been meant as a memoir of sorts when I started it a long time ago, and now there’s actually some wordage into it…

…but then it opened some old wounds, and those wounds have remained raw since. Coupled with the rapidly declining health and eventual hospital stay my mother is currently experiencing and my own recent diagnoses, it’s been a sore issue.

Raw wounds. In my family, everything has always been shoved under the rug so the public and more extended relatives could see the bright shining smiles, the obedient, well-behaved children, the golden aura outshining the bruises, the emotional scarring, and yes – outright mental illness. But underneath all the happy there are raw wounds. For all of us; in reality, everyone has a raw wound of some sort – probably even you, as you’re reading this, you can think of something in your life that hurts like nothing else, but that you must keep bandaged – and it all sucks. It’s life. It’s shite. Smile, chin up, get over it.

The problem with all of that, it boils down to never being able to let the wounds heal. Just when you think it’s done, over, and in the past – something or someone rips it open again. This time, it has ripped open and everyone is seeing the crap festering inside, and are realizing that we’re not as horrible a bunch as they’ve been led to believe. That I do not have to think that my extended family – on either side – will crucify me for any decisions I make has been like a damned ray of sunshine breaking through 40-odd years of being under heavy cloud.

They know, after all, that it’s been her all along, and not us. Maybe they don’t know all of it, but they know enough, enough to see that it’s not our fault.

It is NOT our fault that she chose to live the way she did.

It is NOT our fault that she started smoking 3-4 packs a day.

It is NOT our fault that she went back to smoking in any amount after the last hospital scare.

It is NOT our fault that she lied to us and to her doctor about her life and choices.

It is NOT our fault that she ended up sick enough that she will be in the hospital for a month or more.

It is NOT our fault that her house is such a cluttered mess that it’s unsafe for her to return to.

IT IS NOT OUR FAULT. None of us, and that includes her youngest son and his wife.

We’ve all – close & extended family and her friends – we’ve all been played off one another for far too long. That we allow it to continue is our fault; each of us needs to stand up and be accountable only for ourselves, and say “Enough.”

And for me, to mean it this time. I said enough when I walked out of her house Thanksgiving of 2010 with no intention of ever returning. I allowed myself to be drawn back into it all to the detriment of other relationships and indeed my own health. Now, my health and relationships have suffered enough so that it’s going to be monumental work to get them back. My health and well-being must come first, if I’m going to do what needs to be done – not out of duty or love or respect for my mother – but out of respect for my grandparents, because it is what they would have wanted, and respect for myself.

Respect for myself. Something I’ve never really had.

That means getting the bandage off, lancing deep into the wounds, and finally letting all the crap out. Damages is going to be my main writing project for the month.

That also means putting things to rest that need to be put to rest, either by relinquishing the work to someone else or by saying goodbye, one last time.

Tomorrow is Belfire catch-up day, and then… we’ll see. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

’til next week – get those creative juices flowing!
<3 JL