I've got ten minutes

I’ve got ten minutes in which I ought to be making phone calls, editing, looking at my checking account. Today is Mom’s 80th birthday. We were at her house yesterday celebrating her birthday and mine. I’m taking her somewhere today but there is not enough money this week for me to do that. I’m sure this is all symbolic somehow, but I feel too tired to think about it.
The manuscript I’m editing is taking me way too long. I wish I worked faster than I do, but I’m very particular about how things look in a manuscript. Unless it’s this blog. Here I just write.
I want to have something hopeful to say today, but my house is a mess, I’m low on cash and I’m feeling sort of silly and incompetent.
I’m taking Mom and Dad to child #2’s play this weekend only neither of them knows the other will be there. I’ll have to tell them and then they may make other plans. I’ll have to tell Mom today so that she can make other plans – plans to which she will want me to drive her.
I am such a bitch.
It is not helping me to talk this way or to think this way. Sometimes I think this kind of hopelessness is “real” and we need to write what’s “real.” But how is hopelessness any more real than hope? It’s all “real.” I do know that it’s temporary. It just never feels temporary at the time that I’m feeling hopeless.
The antidote for this is action. I will get into my day. I will drive child #4 to school, do the final edit on the manuscript, go to the appointment and meet the next client, take my mother out. Then I’ll come home and host the poetry reading in town. And I’ll be alive when I do that.
All of this, ALL of it has to do with my life with God. Everything I do is spiritual. Life is spiritual. So what does that mean when I am feeling like shit?
It means I am majorly feeling sorry for myself. There is redemption even in this, but it seems like I’m in the pre-redemptive phase of my cycle.
80 is probably older than Mom thought she’d ever be. I love Mom. And I get so irritated with her when she calls five times a day and says, “I have a suggestion…” I don’t pick up the phone unless I want to.
So what if she leaves this life when I am being rude or irritable with her? What if I’m not being a loving daughter when she dies? I’m only sometimes a loving daughter and she’s pretty tolerant, though I know she wishes it were different. She used to say I was selfish, but that was in high school. She used to say she was afraid she’d get very sick and I wouldn’t take care of her, but she doesn’t say that anymore. She’s got her husband to take care of and that has changed her. She was born to be a nurturer and she’s good at it. It can also be a little suffocating if I let it. But it’s my choice to be suffocated or not.
I want to find my balance with Mom and enjoy her. She’s really a lot of fun. This morning I am not a lot of fun.
Time to take child #4 to school. I’ll dive into my day and then I’ll be fun.
Gotta back up; gotta see the big picture. My son is watching me type, wondering whether I’m putting any bad words in my writing. When I stop, he says, “What?”
Good question.