It's Not That I Don't Love You, I Wouldn't Touch The Hands of Time

 I have been awake since 5am. I got to bed about 10 last night, but by 10:30, my sister was up and trying to walk out some of her pain. I had just drifted off. I've been on the verge of tears for days. I can't do anything to help her pain. I'm doing all I can to help with everything including logging her meds because she's so high she can't remember what she took or when. This is not okay for someone struggling so hard with sobriety.

I got up and got my nephew ready to go to school in record time. He is so much like my own child, heart of my heart, that I just do the same things that worked with him. He is absolutely exhausting. 

I went out just before 6 this morning to move my car out of the way. I looked up at the sky the way I always have and always do. The moon was so big and bright, peeking through the clouds as if just for me. She's so round, she's got to be painfully close to full. My god, it was beautiful. So I stopped and snapped a shot, hoping it would come out okay. I think it did.

I woke up some time before her alarm went off. The cat was between us on the king size bed and I scratched his face while he leaned into my hand. They are such a comfort. I am tired in so many ways. I feel like a complete wimp because I'm not doing any more than she does every day. Well, with the addition of taking care of her as much as I can. She leaves the bed for half an hour a day and that's about all. She hasn't been able to feel her right foot for days and it's creeping up her leg. I've rubbed that cold foot every chance I think about it. Speaking of which, her PT said to use an ice pack so excuse me momentarily while I fetch that up these steep ass stairs to her.

She's dozing, higher than the grocery bill. I feel really alone right now. I think you get an allotment of people you can lean on heavy at any given time and my current stash are physically incapable and otherwise I don't know, disinterested, unavailable? I have no right to feel so abandoned, and yet. So there's the cry I said I was on the verge of. Have to slip away to the bathroom so my sweet, sensitive niece won't see that shit and me with no way to explain her why.

She needs a hot drink for her throat. I just caught her climbing on the counter to get a glass for water. She's so much like me. I think she'd rather hurt herself than ask anyone to do something for her, but at the same time, goes so far out of her way to help anyone else.

If there was ever a time for cooperative coparenting, this is it. But, par for the course, the ex is trying to charge her for every day he keeps the kids on her days. And when she told him that I was going to be here with the kids because he didn't want to leave them with her alone, he had some whole snarky commentary about how I'm a "historically bad mother." All I can think is that if he needs lessons on how to be a good man, or a good father, or a good partner, I'm better at all of those things than he is and I can help him. Still hurt my goddamn feelings. Just one more thing he uses as a weapon. Manipulative, cruel, controlling, hateful, misogynist. That's him. He has always despised me. That's probably because even if he gets to me, I'll be goddamned if it shows to him. Like I tell my sister, you can't let him have access to your feelings.

That's true of so many people right now. I have to limit who I let hurt me because my emotional bandwidth is so little. I have to put some of those walls back up for now. Fortify the protections. And I hate that I come off as mean sometimes when I do this. I don't want to be mean, I just have to limit who I hurt for. You have to save some of that energy for hurting for yourself. And the cup is real near empty.

Writing saves me. So much. I feel so much better just talking about this. A few things help empty that ugly part: writing, working out, drinking myself stupid, getting a tattoo. So we're trying to choose the healthy ones, and I'm way too tired to go to the gym.

I have to go to the office tomorrow. It's Halloween and there's a whole thing planned. I'm dressing as Merida because seriously, that's barely a costume for me. There is to be axe-throwing and a catered lunch. And I need to talk to my boss about working from home so I an be with my sister. She needs me pretty bad. And there just isn't anyone else. I think who I would call in a moment like this. I would hate to lean on Gabe and I really don't have too many folks outside him. I feel like I've poured everything in me that I didn't need for myself into him. And I know sometimes that was not nearly enough. Maybe I am a historically bad mother, but I raised a historically wonderful man, and I'm more than content with that.

I've got so many stories to tell from the past week or so, but I just cannot muster the energy to find the right words. And the right words are important. If y'all are the praying kind, please do. If you aren't, do whatever it is you do for people you love when you hold them in your hearts. I sure as shit need that out in the universe for me right now.