Until There IS No More

Today I am guest posting at The Mindstorm, where the lovely Chrisa has given me a space to discuss the challenges of raising a child with mental illness. Come and give it a read!

A Pocket Full of Thistles

It was one of those moments. You know the ones, when you are flying through life with a pocket full of promises and a head full of dreams. It is always those moments that steal your breath with dizzying happiness, when your hair blows in the wind from the roots and your soul whispers your most secret hopes to your heart. It is always when you are caught up in the expanse of life - when you can see clearly the endless blue sky - when your feet are solidly planted one in front of the other - that something turns. Suddenly everything seems different, although you cannot put your finger on it. Something has shifted beneath your weight, knocking you off balance.

It is funny how something can look so completely different when you only turn it over in your hand. A slight flick of the wrist. The thing is, you really never know what you'll find on the underside. Good, bad or indifferent. Now I know that some people resist looking for the other side of things. Some prefer the silver lining, others thrive in the tarnish. I've always thought myself to be one who considers all sides. Who contemplates across the landscape. I really do not know if I intentionally refused to turn over the penny, or if I really thought I had. If ever a Wiz there was, indeed. Like milk down the paper funnel, perceptions slip through my fingers into nothing.

No matter how many times I reach into the top hat, I come up empty handed. No solid truths, and no damn bunny. Ever.

I unwittingly stumbled into the thistles, and I've been trying to ease them out of my skin ever since. Like a jumble of life size puzzle pieces, I've been pushing on the sides and trying to make them fit into a logic. I tell myself that I am not invested in the actual truth, but like a scientist, interested only in the process of making one fit. But deep down I know that isn't true. It can't be.

It can only be part of the process, because eventually, I will have to view the bigger picture it creates. And I will have to draw some conclusion. I will have to decide if somewhere in the bricks I place; heavy, unyielding, and real; there is room for a door.

And if there is, whether it is an entrance, or an exit?

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be under the oak tree, pulling on the threads to that magic curtain and waiting for the big reveal.

Last Year

Last night I read over the story of us. I traced the patterns of our words, the progression of our thoughts, and measured the distance of how hard we fell. You promised you would catch me, and at every juncture I see your arms cradled around my heart.

I fingered the old wounds we came with, now scarred over. They are the raised ribbons of the years without each other. They are a matched set. Like bookends, we mirror those hurts in each other. We see beneath the lined surface and understand that there is healing left to be done. With patience born of a thousand traumas, we spread our hands over our broken hearts and allow the circuit between us to form new beginnings.

How many times have we started over? I can see the stairs we have climbed, some leapt over in our reckless rush to each other, some tripped over painfully. Each time we have lifted our feet, we have moved together towards tomorrow, hands clasped and hearts smashing. Each time our feet landed, they crushed fear, anxiety, and old demons under our toes. And sometimes, one of us fell down. Always, ALWAYS, the other has sat patiently on that step, fingers outstretched to help the other find their way back. We cannot leave one another behind. We are old soulmates in broken bodies. Never again will we be abandoned or betrayed.

We have raised each other from the ashes time and time again, twisted and turned shards of each other into complete masterpieces. We developed the ability to look past the beautiful green irises and see the soul that lies beneath. We talk with our mouths, our skins, our hearts, and our souls. Sometimes we speak without words, and sometimes this is the greatest gift of all. There is great peace that comes with sharing one thought, one understanding, one worry between us.

I didn't know love before I knew you. I knew you before I can remember. You are my all, my everything. My past, present and future belongs to you.

With you.

In you.

Enmeshed

Sometimes we struggle. We push and pull at each other, at the threads between us, at the ties that bind us. We strain against the fabric and look for tears to appear. And then all at once they come. Little rips that loosen the tension and we spring back, each of us gripping our edges in terror. At once grateful for the space, and panicked by the distance.

And then comes the calm.

Wordlessly we work from opposite ends of the universe. Weaving those threads together, closing the rips with respect and love. We meet somewhere in the middle in whispers, our hands working closely to tie knots in our mending, to bind together our tomorrows. We fix those tears with heartstrings, newly formed sinews that are forever unbreakable. Somewhere in our work we see our fears, anxieties, old hurts and future worries. We knit them together like an old quilt, a story of us. Before and after. Past, present and future.

And somewhere, across the roadmap we have created, hides our souls. Stitched together with hope and reckless abandon. Somehow we have become one. And we are strong.

Life is a runaway train you can't wait to jump on

I had an epiphany last night. It's funny how that works... at first it seems like it comes smashing out of the blue and hits you, but when you look back you can see the rumblings of change across the landscape.

Yesterday I lost my best friend. Or, what I thought was my best friend. It's funny how people change. That's what I get for choosing a chameleon for a partner in crime. What is more strange is how little the impact really is in the aftermath... there are those rumblings again. I guess you could say I saw it coming.

We met over psychology and students in a random college auditorium one day. We were very different then, but somehow we fell into a fast friendship that hinged on coffee and ruckus days... college projects and observations. She became close to my children, and they began to look up to her. Over the years she became like a spouse, coming to holiday dinners at the parents, planning birthday parties for my children, spending long hours at the mall, sharing teary secrets on late night drives around a small town. She was a friend that became a sister - and we shared too many things to list on this tiny little blog.

We don't fit like that anymore. I saw things that I didn't see before, watched as she became someone else, became like someone else, to please someone else. When that exploded, I ran to pick up her shattered heart and began the process of gluing those tiny little pieces back together. Tried to make her stronger, wiser. And then she did it again. And threw me under the bus for it. I felt like there was a perception of competition, a jealousy that need not exist. I did not, and would not, take what was hers. I didn't want it to begin with. Even then, we patched the holes in our little boat and marched forward a couple more years...

See, I loved her. I love her still. The girl she was. I don't know the woman she is now, that belongs as half of another... she has taken on traits of another life that is different from mine. In place of loving my children, she now complains about them. She shows up for our girls night with him as well. Instead of standing up for what she loves, she pushes it aside for the wishes of another. She creates a new life from the pieces of his, and I do not belong to it. I wish her well. It breaks my heart that she has not mastered the art of integrating both pieces of her, but I will not stand silent while she tears me down as part of a unit... only because she is not strong enough to speak for herself. So here I am, waving goodbye on the front porch alone. I will miss her.

I will miss you.