I was reading my book last night (yes, I once again got into bed at 9:00 – though didn’t actually go to sleep until 10:45pm, unfortunately) and was struck by something. In the book, The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler, the main character, John Rain is pushing away his closest friends and going the lone wolf approach – doing things, solving things all on his own even though they would help him. When he realized what he was doing he had some ideas about why he would do that to himself, why he would sabotage himself like that. This completely tied into some of the stuff I’ve been seriously thinking about the past couple of weeks and have been contemplating for years. In that moment, I could feel the pinball of activity in my brain as my neurons struck connections from one to the other, from one piece of my life to another, stringing together a collection of insights that elicit some “A-Ha!” moment, a deeper sense of awareness that can deeply affect my understanding of my own sense of self and of my life. Sometimes this process has led me to experience flashbacks. Sometimes this process has led me to experience groundbreaking understanding. Fortunately, last night was the latter.

Deep down, where I don’t like to travel to, I believe that I was always meant to be alone, as alone as I was when I was experiencing the abuse from my family.

Deep down, I believe that what was done to me was truly a result of some fundamental flaw in my being and thus I am not entitled, nor do I deserve, to experience anything positive in my life. It happened because there was something wrong with me, still is something wrong with me that can not be avoided, can not be brushed aside. (more…)

I climbed (our bed is a little high and no one has ever mistaken me for someone who is tall) into bed last night around 9:15 and I am lucky I made it that late. I read my new book for awhile (always need to get that recuperation time in) and probably was asleep by 10:00pm. For the third night-in-a-row, I had wanted to work on my podcast for A Father’s Voice, but just did not have the strength. This month’s column is almost twice as long as normal, which means I need about twice as much energy to read through the entire piece and make it sound good. I should probably choose another piece, but when I read this one last week it made me tear up (I know, like that’s so hard) and I really feel like there is something in that piece that will resonate (though maybe just with me).

Unfortunately,  at 11:30pm Elijah started calling out for us. He was scared and I calmed him down.

And then again at 12:00pm he started crying out for us. This time his ear hurt, he said, and I went and got him some Tylenol and Benadryl, concerned that he had an ear infection, which would be the icing on the cake of a lovely few days of illness in our family.

After I got him settled, I, of course, had trouble going back to sleep. I had been having dreams that were not so much scary as exhausting and it was taking its toll on my mind. By the time the alarm went off, Elijah had woken up again, this time for good, and I found myself thinking, “I just don’t know how I am going to get through today.” For the second day in a row.

Both Okapis sounded much better last night and slept much better (I mean without coughing much) and Elijah’s ear didn’t bother him this morning, thankfully. But Gem and I are hurting. My body aches more and I am so exhausted that every single step from my car to the train this morning was painful. I hate feeling this way (though I know, no one actually likes feeling this way). Today I have my appointment with the back specialist so I couldn’t really stay home even if I wanted to (yes, I called the back specialist…no, I still haven’t called Michael – I really am having some issues there – I guess you didn’t need a master’s degree in family therapy to figure that one out did you? I’m thinking about leaving him a message that says I am having issues with talking to him at the very least. I mean, it’s only been about two weeks that I have been trying to call him. Is that so long? Okay, don’t answer that.).

The Okapis seem like they might be well enough to go back to school and I know Gem is hoping they do so she can get some more rest this morning. It actually is better when they are both sick at the same time because then they won’t keep giving it back to the other one – they’ll both get over it at the same time hopefully and be better.

Hopefully, we will then be better, too.

Eric Clapton has a song called, “Better Make it Through Today.” The chorus is

“If I can’t make it through to tomorrow, better make it through today.”

I just got to make it through today and tomorrow, I’ll deal with tomorrow.

Tomorrow, which I’ve forgotten to share with you, is when my grandparents are coming over for a visit and to spend Shabbat with us.

Yesterday, LuckyDad made a really interesting comment on my A Pretty Good Second Best post. He told this story of talking to two women about how daughters get so much of their self-confidence from their relationship with their father. He said something similar to what I said in my post – who knows how much longer my Okapis will want to be close to me (though he obviously did not use the term Okapis).

These two women, both of whom I respect immensely, gave me a wide-eyed look like I was out of my mind. Finally, the one I have known the longest said, “when my dad was dying in the hospital, I still wanted to be as physically close to him as I could. I was 42 years old, and I crawled up on that hospital bed so he could hold me.” The other counselor nodded and said, “Long into adulthood, when I would visit my parents, I sat as close as I could to my daddy. And now that he’s gone, I miss his touch more than ever.” (more…)