you just have to accept that you're belted in, you're however many feet in the air, and there's no getting off until either the ride is done or the destination is reached, depending on whether you've stumbled into a plane or onto a rollercoaster.
but the ride has to finish before you have your feet back on the ground.
so, to wit, last week at this time, i was taking calls for Amazon. i was getting my rhythm back, as it has been quite some time since i was on the phones doing customer service. i did, at the beginning of the year, attempt to do some telemarketing, but that's never really been my thing, and i lasted but a day. i was doing well, had cut my between phone time down to nothing and had dealt well with several customers. i was happy with my progress, genuinely. there was a lot that i didn't know, but i knew if i had time, if i was given time, to learn to use all the resources at my disposal, i would be great at it. that was the thought in my head.
was it pride? false pride? was it hubris? was it arrogance? i don't know, hindsight is yet quiet on this. i believe in believing in myself. i don't believe in bragging on myself. the vessel does what the vessel was Designed to do, and credit starts with the Designer, then perhaps the style and function of the vessel can be remarked upon.
but it is exceedingly difficult for a person of historical low self-esteem and poor self-image to do anything well if they don't give themselves a bit of hoorah. and that, i believe, is not a bad thing.
tomorrow will be a week since it fell apart.
last wednesday, i got texts from Syd and from TM, my ex-landlord. the landlord's texts were saying how things were going to have to be cleaned up far more than they were or Syd would be charged. Syd's texts were in the nature of alluding to the landlord harassing her when she was 'just trying' to get the apartment cleared out.
i had a moment, on a call. where i actually had to ask a customer to repeat something, as i didn't hear anything they said for the thoughts that raced through my head.
i had calls i did not finish properly, knowingly so. i did manage to email my instructor/supervisor an apology, a request to please log me out of the system time clock, and i was off and moving, racing to Colonial. only to find the shambles my apartment had become, the lack of any real progress on moving things out that Syd had been swearing she had been making. and something in me gave way. i had thrown my job away for a child who has, historically, lied and bent the truth into whatever form fit her most conveniently for that moment. i had given up my opportunity to get ahead, messing with Syd's bullshit.
there was anger, yes. there was despair and anxiety in large amounts, to be sure. there was depression, welling like polluted water from a Flint, Michigan aquifer. but there was something else. something that was making the tears leak down my face, though i couldn't properly cry. something that made my heart feel as though beating was a foolishness i finally needed to get over.
i can tell you honestly, i know what that feeling, that thought, was now.
it was the thought that 'there is something seriously fucked about about me. STILL. after all these years, all this recovery, all these changes, all this counseling, all this work on me, all these prayers and meetings and all this time... there is still something badly broken in my ability to reason.'
why had i put Syd and Joe in that apartment? Syd wasn't doing any better at the time. was it just panic over financial changes? in the Promises of the 12 Step program, as a result of practicing Step 9, it states "...fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us." that's as a result of making the amends that one needs to make in one's life, that one needs to continue to make as long as one is alive and recovering. i had fear. so was it a well disguised 'reaction' to changes beyond my control? hindsight hasn't revealed that yet.
why had i not gone over to just get things done? choices like that have two options. one, either allow the person their consequences, or two, do it yourself and be done with it. i did neither, and then i ended up doing both. but doing neither cost me my job, and a hundred and forty dollars to get my life hauled away. it cost me something of my spirit, my serenity, my balance, my peace and brought me a great sadness. sad to see the apartment wrecked. sad to see it empty. sad to see my things on the curb. not an attachment to the material; i don't have that even now. but to see how i have chosen to sacrifice my memories...we moved there and Syd was a little person. putting things in piece by piece. everyone contributing to our first setup. the meals cooked there, the company. having my family over for holidays. how much coffee had i brewed? how many sticks of incense had i burned? the friends, my brother coming by to eat, so i could make sure he was eating. and even with all the disagreements and the disarray that Syd lived in constantly, she was my child, she is my child. we never even got to close the apartment as a family. we didn't even say good-bye together.
when she left, with her things, for a place i don't know with people i don't know, i finished sweeping, put a few more things in my overstuffed car, and sat out under the mailbox one last time. i wanted a cigarette. i wanted to light a cigarette, light a stick of incense, and just watch the sky. i didn't. i turned off the lights (all but the hall light), i closed and locked the door. i'd turned the keys over already, and Syd's keys were in the hall closet. i went home feeling like a complete fucking failure, all over again.
but i'm not.
fast forward.
why the picture of graduation and the picture of Rachel? because graduation is my only truly happy memory of Sydney is the least 3 years. as fucked up as that is, that is the truth. and as far as Rachel goes, we are in the unenviable position of being held hostage by whatever is going on inside of her. she knows she is removed from her emotions. she knows her ob/com reactions are flaring. she knows, and she is riding her own roller coaster and i can't help her. we went yard sailing and garage sailing on Saturday, and she had plans to go to the casino later that evening. i didn't say anything; what's for me to say? i just took it as a grown person will do whatever they want to do. i'm tired of standing between a person and their consequences. and that reality made me start approaching some things differently.
when her ride to the casino fell through, i offered nothing, took her home when she was ready, and have not reached back out since. i say hello, but what else is there? Syd calls, tries to ask for favors, but i remind her that she threw away food from the freezer, food that she could have been cooking while they worked out cleaning up, but she was busy telling me she didn't have food so i would bring her stuff to eat. she was becoming dependent on the SSI and the child support, and at the moment, xhe has neither. she made no plans for when the money ran out. and she moved to hang out rather than thinking of what is in her best interest. so i told her i'm not bringing her food. i am paying off stuff. or paying on stuff that i owe. i'm trying to take care of things here. i am not going to run to the other side of Warren to visit my child in her new hangout. it's not in my contract. and i've notified her mother and brother, told them to talk to her sister, and i've notified her old daycare people, to reach out to her, to present her with some options. because once she is given choices, like living with a sibling in Columbus, living in Arizona with her mother, or even just starting with the old caretakers who do love her, if she turns them all down, and her plans, real or imagined' fall through, she is on her own. she will have to make better decisions eventually. we all do.
i am wearing a heart monitor. i had been getting the shortness of breath again, the weariness at odd moments. they're checking to see how often i go into a-fib. that's cool, but this thing is irritating. i don't know how i'm going to get through two weeks of it.
oh, and i've had two interviews with CCA, and i go for my 3rd interview on Thursday. so there's that also. i am truly grateful to Jehovah. i have worth, because the Designer made me worthy. and i have function, even if they don't hire me for CCA, because i got through the process and was honest the entire time.
i'm sorry Syd didn't have the life she wanted, but few of us really do. i'm sorry i lost the job at Amazon, but life goes on.
i'm sorry i don't always know the right thing to do. but i try my best to do the next right thing, and that helps a lot.
tomorrow will come, and if i am alive to see it, i will do what is put in front of me tomorrow.
good night.
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