I find I am disconnected somewhat to my feelings of love in my relationship, as if it's an exercise of stacking things on a very high shelf and my arm is dead tired from lifting. The thought of putting one more thing on that high shelf is utterly exhausting. I just look at it and think, am I not done yet? Ugh.
I have no room in my body, no space, it's full of work, peoples needs, my perception of peoples needs, how to declutter my immediate future, how to make sure peoples needs are met, and how to be fair.
I have my sister's daughter and it weighs on me. She should be with her family, her mom (or dad), but my sister is a blistering hotbed of emotional infection. I was thinking this morning about how I can't be around her - she can't have a conversation, as if she no longer knows how, she just fucking rambles nearly incoherently from one subject to the next. She doesn't talk with you, she talks at you and when you tell her to stop - because eventually you must, it feels like an assault that you can't put your finger on - she gets indignant that she's not allowed to express herself. Everyone else can but her. So she tries to spit guilt at you, guilt that you know, because you live in the real world, has nothing to do with you - but still, her spit is on you and it's gross.
Probably the last time I had a sane, normal conversation with her was when she was pregnant with the daughter I now have. To her credit, she never touched a drop of booze or drugs during her pregnancies. That was 12 years ago now.
We're certain she's been smoking crack, certain because she has admitted to it. Somehow, she manages to not fall into the face sore, street zombie crack user life. She manages to keep up appearances - she's always done coke like others drink coffee (therefore she doesn't see an issue with it; she loves it, it's her cigarette) and she's got it under control. It's madness.
Even if she's not actively doing coke/crack, the incessant chatter prevails her. To be clear, she's exhaustively chatty without help, but doing this makes it, as you can well imagine, horribly worse. Her mind is a pile of mush - and this wears on me. I can feel it invading me. A slow invasion, perhaps preparing for an ambush.
So, I'm writing this book, this book that intends to redeem her of herself. A book that explains how she got here - not why she stays - but that she had good reason to have arrived, that she shouldn't feel shame for it, there are many witnesses now... we all see you and have empathy for the war you lost. We see you and don't think you're horrible; we understand and apologize for any part our ignorance played. This is what I am trying to write. And... it's hurting me.
Just write the book. That's been my mantra. I wake up in the dark and just as my mind starts to slip into other things, I hear just write the book. Write the fucking book.
But I must, or it helps, stay some what detached. I must create characters that show the heart of the story but are not us. I must create a world that is the magic of love and stuff of nightmares - and not get pulled in, not lose my strength of character to the weakness of my broken people. It is hard, hard work and it's what I do in my down time, my alone time.
Then... then I go to work where I am the sole understander of this feature (massive re-versioning) vision for our product and our users. The functionality we must provide for our users, the experience they deserve, the business cases they have, the software we are. I fight for their needs and experience.
I must teach our engineers why we need to do all the things and I must do it with grace and gratitude, because our engineers deserve to know what they are building and why, the deserve to be excited about what they are providing for small and large businesses. So I am pulling a bungee cord of information into the room and then pulling a bungee cord of engineers into the same room, holding them there, struggling to help the two meet, with all my strength - forever holding the tension of the two who keep pulling back and back...
and while I'm doing that, I'm balancing spinning plates of fires.
It's glorious work, I could only dream of having such a challenge. I'm very happy about the work. However, I am under resourced. I'm getting tired. My heart feels sore, I feel a little wrecked and I don't know what to do. I want to do my best. My very, very best. I want to see this project all the way through and then some.
And I want to write a good book, a book that people enjoy and only realize afterwords that they were there as witness to my/our lives - an adventure book first and emotional journey after. I want to write a book that begins my new life. A life where I can finally let go, a book that tells my sister, once and for all, that "I see you. We all see you - more than you see yourself - and we love you for all that you have endured by your own hand and the had of others. You are redeemed." And from there, the marker will forever stand, the marker where she ends and I let go. Where I understand I have done all the things, the only things I could do to thank her. From there, it will be up to her to decide the life she wants and I will not and don't want to judge it. If she decides that coke and booze are who she is, then okay. But I don't want to watch.
I want to use this spark, this lovely spark (that we both have in our own ways) to write more adventures and I want to make people, myself included, laugh with every piece of their hearts. I want them to laugh and cry with a feeling of completeness and joy. I want to give them gifts that other writers have given me - beautiful idle time where the mind unfolds like a playground.
And I want to travel the world with ease and joy. I want to laugh and dance. I want to feel and give just enough love so as not to feel saturated but satiated.
I want to share this all with my wonderful daughters and their children (when and should they have them)
I want the sweet attainable bliss
...that's funny - because that's the name I've finally decided my sisters name will be in the book - the big reveal is that her real name is not Sorrow (that was a well earned nickname) her real name, the name she was given because that's what her mother thought of her, was/is Bliss.Perhaps it's not weird at all - that is the ultimate goal - a little bliss for everyone.
So, yeah, where was I? My relationship, my love, that one more thing that I feel needs me to raise my arm to that high shelf, the arm that feels dead tired, I'm sorry... I just can't. If you can wait for me, I would be....
