I was thinking about how miserably I have been achieving my
goals lately. I started thinking of where I was twenty years ago. Hmm? 1993. I
got divorced from my first husband, my dad died from Alzheimer’s and my sister
was diagnosed with cancer, all while raising two kids (ages three and seven at
the time) and working fulltime at a clinic thirty miles away from where I lived.
A long time ago I filled out a survey about stress in your
life, you know, the big things that come up in life – good or bad – which take
off the years you are expected to live. That year of 1993, it took a few years
off of my life.
Here I sit twenty years later with what I feel is just as
much stress. Or maybe I am older and all these things going on in my life take
more of a toll than they used to.
Besides my feeble attempts to keep writing, to promote my
book, to train for running in a 5K and to help my daughter start up a nonprofit
organization, there is the stress of having an aging parent. Whenever my mom
asks about my writing, she admonishes me, saying that I better not be writing
about her. So I won’t expound on that any more than saying, it is more stress
than I ever thought it could be.
So as you have guessed I haven’t worked on many goals this
week. I’ve posted to my other blog three times, finished my presentation on my
trip to Kenya, been reading some of my books (but haven’t finished any of
them), gotten up to two miles towards
the 3.1 I need to run on July 4 (but I won’t tell you how much of that I actually
ran and how much I walked). I have been dedicating most of my time to the
nonprofit organization my daughter wants to start to help the people she is
working with in Kenya. It is a lot of work, all made harder by doing it long
distance while Val is still in Africa.
I’ll get there though. I’ll make it. I will survive. And
thrive.
Yes, you will survive. I think I will contact you later, maybe we can meet halfway between our homes & do lunch!!!! Which we could both use.
ReplyDeleteYes, Denise, we must do lunch!
DeleteI used to have a lot of worries and concerns about my family and my writing. My mother, especially, is prone to use guilt and manipulation, and there has been a climate of "ganging up" on those she wishes to control.
ReplyDeleteThen I remembered that, when I was 11 my mother and brother were discussing the movie Mommie Dearest. She said that if any of her kids were going to write about her, she wanted them to do it while she was still alive to defend herself.
I strive to be fair and compassionate. But hiding so much of my truth, so that she won't find anything offensive, hobbled me as a writer. Speaking it, and writing it, frees me to be honest and fearless in all my writing.
In the end, I tell only what I need to say, and I do it with fairness. What was done, was done, and it was done to me. i have every right, and a personal need, to explore it, to understand it, and to write about it.
Your situation with your mother may be different, but I can understand the various pulls - toward family loyalty, and writing your life - and even wanting approval from her.
It sounds like you are very busy, in good ways. Perhaps the writing time will come, when some of these other things have been tended to...
I wish you a relaxing and productive summer!