introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- where home is the breaking - 15 july 2014 "homesick....because I no longer know where home is."~kings of convenience these last few days haven't been so good for me, guys....but i'm hoping that the rest i got this afternoon is going to help shake the sads from my head a little bit. on saturday, in the woods, my phone rang. no matter what my sound settings, my mother can always get through to me. i took the call, surrounded by trees and birds. "it's not that i can't talk here, mom. it just feels a little weird for me to be on the phone in here. can i call you when i'm out?" i don't like tech in the woods short of a camera...leave only footprints, take only pictures, right? she understood but let me know that my aunt had called to talk to my dad back in pittsburgh and that my uncle is really not doing well. "they've turned off the defibrillator in his heart." we ended the call with plans to call her back later in the afternoon. i still stayed my course but if i had to point to the moment when the sad kicked in, it was sometime on that walk. i enjoyed the sunshine, i felt healthy with every move my body made. i felt the baby move occasionally. i felt terrible that my uncle was back in syracuse dying and my aunt was there alone and there isn't much of anything i can do about it from here. my uncle and i weren't very close, admittedly...but i did live with him, my aunt, and my grandmother when my parents and brother and sister first moved to pennsylvania. i wasn't ready to leave new york yet. my aunt never had kids of her own and in a way, i feel like i have been a daughter she never had. she helped me when i was in school, she has always had cookies waiting when i come to visit, even when she wasn't feeling super up to it. she has been good to me my whole life. when she had lung cancer the first time around, i remember telling toby that i would leave for awhile if she needed me to take care of her. but i was in pittsburgh then. getting to syracuse was a 5 hour drive, tops. do-able in an afternoon. when she had lung cancer a second time last year, i would have driven up every week to make meals if she would have let me (she didn't.) and now, now when i feel like she could use my help more than ever, i'm stuck here. it is at least a ten hour drive to get back...and while i have the weekends off, practically, i'm not sure that my car could handle more than a handful of trips. "i'll let you know when i need you. i'll probably need help packing up his things when the time comes. sit tight for now." she has hospice coming in for 2 hours a day...but hearing her explain that my uncle isn't completely lucid, won't let hospice care for him if he has to use the bathroom (he'll only let her do it), and the stress in her voice tells me this isn't enough. she's trying to get him into some sort of care home but the one she wants for him has a waiting list from what she's told me. when i called, there wasn't the yelling and frustration that my dad reported but just the sound of someone who is tired, who is coping with her husband dying, and also managing a dog that is equally stressed from the disruption of the status quo. and there is nothing. i. can. do. as if on cue, the weather got thick on saturday, too. the air was so humid and i haven't had very restful nights. it isn't that i have nobody to talk to about it--my dearest friends are a phone call away and i know that. i just feel so separate from everything else that matters in my life and this is the first real underscore to that distance. my try-to-keep-it-positive attitude that has been helping me manage my homesickness is wavering. what is all this useless beauty around me if i can't share it? if i can't break away from it more readily to be near the people i love when they need me? so this all presents a new challenge with which to cope. i'll call my aunt every few days to see how she is doing. i'll make contingency plans to get there if she needs me to come. i'm trying so hard to balance this with still being happy here and still having something good to say. but i feel like these last few days, i've had nothing of value to say. not to you, america. not to that fella. not to anyone. i've just wrapped myself up in my head and started trying to triage my heart a little because i feel like this is just the beginning for some reason. in the back of my mind, i'm waiting for the storm, i guess. is this baby going to weather the stress in my head and heart? when am i going to see a familiar face again (my mother and rachel say they'll come in august but i don't know when so it's hard to count down and look forward to it their visits.) has he already lost interest in me because i have so little to say right now? or for some other reason? stupid thoughts bombarding me from inside my own head. a huge part of my distress and frustration has been because of the weather. i've had no energy and while i've been up by 8am for weeks, this week, i can barely keep my eyes open even after 10 hours in my bed. my sleep has been restless and filled with strange dreams, none of which i particularly cared for. this afternoon, the weather broke a little and while there is still a certain mugginess to it, i felt like i could rest. and i did...and woke up feeling a little better. a little more collected. i hope my aunt gets some rest because i know that's part of the stress for her right now. i sent my only acquaintance here in town a message last night because i feel like...if i cry at this point, i may as well just pack up and move home and that isn't even an option. i need to be around people. "can we just play some games? i can cook dinner." he agreed...so if this weekend looks like it's going to be another case of the sads, i've got a rescue plan. i keep thinking of that feeling i had when i came home from boston last...i felt like i was really coming home. this week, i've felt more like i've been in exile than homesteading on my own. i know it's going to take some time before this feels like home again...but what else have i got but time? until, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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