Planning Failures Planning Pain

I tried once to explain to Number Three Son what happens in my brain before I am able to write (note: think) and while I am able to write/think.  He seemed to get it and liked it that I was finally figuring something out.  What I drew for him so he could understand didn't look like the arrows above but the idea is the same.  There is a disorder and a messiness which just can't be easily untangled, like trying to straighten that line when it has already been put to paper.  I was waiting for him to say something profound like, just turn the page and begin again, but as it turned out his quiet understanding was worth more than 100 hours in therapy.

As always I am sorry that my children, or anyone, see me as I am so often...crying, depressed, silent and reclusive...planning for failures and planning for pain.  It is not that I want to fail or be in pain, but in the darkest of days I look honestly at myself and accept that I have been in this fog for over ten years and I will be as I am ten years from now.  Right?  Is there someone out there who can say, like the former drunk, I AM FREE?  No.  So, at times I embrace the hugeness of my depression and almost drown in the ocean of "planning".  The rest of the time I acknowledge what does help - and I keep my mind on living the present moment.  Here, truth is still truth, life is still life, death is still calling as a friend, but my mind and body can calm down and be at peace, because I take this breath and I can go on.  I am surviving now.

One morning my mother and I woke to find it was the day to bury my dad.  Mom said,  "I hate this day."  I could only say that I agreed.  She then told me, with tears in her eyes that Dad had told her just before he died that she was a "survivor".  She said it made her so angry.  I told her that he had told me the same thing years before when I was suffering - but that it made me so happy.  I wonder if they know how much worse I have gotten in these ten years.  I wonder if they think I truly am surviving.  I do know that when my journey to God is over the planning of failure and pain will finally cease. And the moment of time that heals will never end.