Roller coaster....

Dear Barbara. Today has been interesting. I had a good day all in all, I just can't keep a firm grip on whether I'm going up or down. Did the festival all morning which was of course good because for some crazy reason I love it. But it was tiring and somewhat emotionally draining; on the way home Mom apologized to me and Meg for tiring out early. Which wasn't fair, we'd been walking for over four hours. Being tired was totally legit. But she apologized and said "I didn't realize my knees were this bad" and started tearing up. I didn't really know what to say at first but I just said it's okay and put my hand on her shoulder - she was driving. I said that we'd work on it, we'd exercise and stuff. She got even more teary-eyed and said that it wouldn't make any difference. I was fighting back tears and I told her that it scares me. She said it scares me too and her voice broke. That was it more or less, she changed the subject to talk about something meaningless. My mom has been my rock, my solid driving force for good or for bad my whole life. When I have cried desperately over my pain and illness, she has always been there, comforting me and crying for me, wishing she could take it away, telling me that she would take it herself and have everything I did if it would take it away from me. And I know that's not just something she says to reassure me, that she honestly means it from the bottom of her heart and would do it without a thought if she were given the chance. But I have never seen her cry over herself. Never. And while everything that I have is awful and miserable and sometimes I feel like I can't do it, none of it is truly progressive. Hers is. She comes with a certainty that no matter what she does, she cannot stop what is happening. In any number of years, she will lose a lot of her mobility. She may take medications to help her symptoms and maybe slow the progression, but it cannot be stopped or 'cured' altogether. And the thought of that, the thought of my mother forever hurting, is terrible. I shock myself with my selfishness - I haven't given much thought to all of this. I know that part of that is an attempt to protect myself, to not have to consider and deal with everything, but that too screams of selfishness. My parents are aging and with that, they are becoming more fragile. I don't want to think about that at all. I cannot fathom this life without them, or even with them in any way impaired. It's been weighing heavily on my mind today. With my nerves still shaken and frail from that, we drove down the road towards home. Not but a few minutes after this conversation, we witnessed a motorcycle accident. We rushed out of the car to see if we could do anything to help, and running through my mind was what I could do, what I knew how to do to help him. Nothing. I thought, if he's not breathing I could do cpr, but even that I'm not truly confident with. So there I stood, watching this poor man writhing on the side of the road, blood pouring from his head, with my hands at my side. I did things like try to call 911, run for my jacket to hold over his injuries, but honestly I did nothing. I do not like that feeling. Not at all. So then we come on home. All of us got there at the same time and Meg stayed for a while then left after we decided we weren't going to do anything else in the evening. I asked Stacie what her plans were, hoping maybe I would get to see her for at least a little bit. There's so much going on in my life that I would like to share with her, but I never see her. I feel more and more that she's like a stranger, a person simply boarding in our house and hardly even doing that. She left soon after Meg to go to Brent's. I didn't realize until after she left how upset with her I was. Mom came in to see me upset and we talked about it some. Maybe it was just that I was feeling so fragile, so shaken from thoughts of my mother and seeing the accident, but I was upset. I cried telling her that I missed my sister, that I felt as though she didn't care at all. I listed off some of the things that I'd done for her, the fact that I would do anything, give anything up for her. She is my sister. But I feel as though she wouldn't do anything in return. That she hasn't. That I talk to people who are more than 500 miles away more than I talk to the person who stays in the room 5 feet from mine. It hurts. But I don't say anything to her. I think feeling this way is better than having her not respond or not care or scoff if I actually told her what I was feeling. Mom, Dad, and I went to the fish fry which was nice, a kind of tradition that we do. I cling to those. Another reason that I was upset with Stacie I think: we always go to the festival together, Mom, Stacie, and I, if we have the opportunity. She didn't even consider going with us and I know that Mom was really hurt by it. Then later tonight in talking to a friend, I fouled up and marred our friendship yet again with my unfounded overreactions. I hope to have righted this; I asked to go on a walk and we did. Not the brightest idea for midnight, but I'm still really glad that I did. So that's my day, being jerked back and forth, tossed to and fro by my messed jumble of emotions. Life is something beautifully fragile and I'm terrified to mess it up. As one of my friends told me regarding my interactions with another person, it's a catch 22. I'm so scared of messing life up, I miss out on it altogether. Vulnerability is hard for me though. I'm so scared of losing or hurting or being hurt by the people I love, I miss out on loving them at all. I'm ever-working though. Trying to right my convoluted way of thinking before I miss anything else.