Life is what you… make or unmake it.

Responsibility is a key word for me. A word that has many interpretations, depending on the situation, the instance at any given time, how it impacts you and others. For me.. I took responsibility seriously when I began working, supporting myself as best I could, but it always seemed like the choices I made were the worst possible.

I believed, at a very young age, that I did not have any right to a relationship in the future. So sure was I, that I made myself believe I did not wish children, for I was sure that no man would ever love me enough to build a life with me, and stay with me, for the duration.

There are many theories about self-talk, about making ones’ destiny. In looking at my life now, seeing the choices I made, the many turns in the road that has brought me to the place my life is now, I can’t deny the truth of such theories.. at least in regards to myself.

I do not believe, in all honesty, that I sabotaged my marriage so that it would crumble the way it did. How it ended was not of my own construction, not my own design, nor was it my decision. That it ended, I am very happy with, in that I can see that he and I were so diametrically opposite, there was no way the marriage could have worked. His values and mine were poles apart; we just did not mesh at all. I do take great responsibility for the fact that it ever began and continued, so the fault in having had such a bad relationship was mine, but that it ended so disastrously, I do not believe it was all my responsibility.

But responsibility in a failed marriage is not really on my mind right now. What is on my mind is where my life is.. or rather, isn’t.

I have no life; I have not had a life for many years now. To be truthful, I do not ever feel that I really had a ‘life’, as many people speak of having a life. For many years now I have had no goals, I have kept myself separate from others; I have disassociated myself with everyone, except two.. DarkRen and my mother.

And in that itself, I feel myself isolated. Alone. Lost.

Realistically speaking, I know that my feelings on this are not correct, I can admit that I am far off the mark in some aspects. And yet..

And yet I am here, considering my past and the choices I made.

By keeping myself isolated, by making the mistake I made in a marriage that was completely unhealthy, by choosing many friends who were not true friends, who could not accept me as I was.. I find myself now in a unique situation. Were I to have been in a healthy marriage, with children or not.. I would not be able to be the help to my mother that I am.

Right now she needs me, she cannot dress herself, make herself meals, cannot even stand at the medicine cabinet long enough to get her medicine in the morning and evening. She is in such agony that just going to and from the bathroom or bedroom is incredibly difficult for her. Her only alternative, had I not been able to be here for her, would likely have been to resign herself to live in a nursing home.

Coming to terms with not having her independence any longer, has been a dreadful thing for her. I do my best to help keep her spirits up, but I know also that living where we do, is harder on her than if we had moved down to where she used to live. The problem with that is that I did not realize that I would be on disability as long as I have been; I have no idea how long it will continue.

She and I are truly isolated here. Our time is spent going to and from doctors, various appointments for her, and if she falls, then dealing with the emergency room or time in hospital if she is sick. Recovery is not easy, it takes longer and longer, and now she is getting close to being over the pneumonia.. she has interstitial pneumonitis, a very rare disease that afflicts the lungs. It takes a great deal of time for her to heal from pneumonia, the time now she is on prednisone, that precludes her being able to have surgery on her left foot, so that she could walk again with less pain and less likelihood of falling.

She must be off the prednisone for 8 weeks before having surgery, and when she does have surgery, she will be unable to bear any weight on her left foot for 3-6 months. In November, my brother plans to fly us both to their home in Indiana, so my mother does not wish to have surgery until next year, to not impact the holidays. DarkRen comes at the end of the year for the holidays, and due to my mother being sick and falling and having concussion on Christmas morning, she definitely does not want to be incapacitated on his next visit. She can barely remember anything that happened in December at all.

I worry that she will come down with pneumonia again at the end of the year, I worry that if her surgery is put off too long, she will pass the point where it would do her any good at all. My brother has the same fear. In all honesty, I do not know what to do.. holidays mean everything to my mother. She has missed family so very much, if she were to miss another year with my brother and his family, she would be devastated.

I find myself watching endless hours of TV, telling myself that it is so that I can be in a place in the apartment to hear her if she falls. Twice when I tried to sleep in my own bed, instead of the recliner that is against her wall, I did not hear her when she tried to get my attention using the intercom.. so now I do not risk it by sleeping in the bedroom.

My life now is centered on helping my mother. Were I to have taken any other path in my life, I might not have had a lack of life to be able to devote myself fully to her now. I do not in any way begrudge her for my not having a life, truth be told, I did not have much of one before. However, I did spend an enormous amount of time online, time with DarkRen, time with others in a game I played.. and now I do not have that.

I ponder different things I might do to adjust this, to move the computer into an already tightly packed space. I find myself claustrophobic at the computer now, and also worry constantly that I could not hear her.. and if I am in here when she is in the living room, she feels isolated from me and gets very lonely and depressed. Something that weighs on me a great deal. I do not find her sitting and crying as often when I spend the time out in the living room with her now.

I think the thing I am having difficulties with is that by doing so, I have completely disassociated myself with what I want or need. Part of me wants us to move where she used to live, although that would then make finding work again someday very difficult, unless I were approved for long term disability.. something that will take months to find out.

So as it stands, I watch endless TV in order to numb myself, to not give into self-pity. As I mentioned in my last entry, I am not terribly depressed, despite what my words might seem to indicate.

What has been in my mind more often is what the future might hold.. or not hold, as the case may be. The way we live now cannot continue forever as it is, my mother is a very social person, and the lack of social interaction eats away at her and hurts her so much. For me, I am quite the opposite, save for interactions I have online, and the times DarkRen visits.

Yet still there is that part of me, buried deep inside, which yearns for the chance to travel, to experience history in other lands, to feel the whispers on the wind, the music filtering through the breeze. It burns with the same intensity as the longing for love, or children.. two things I have come to terms with not having, at least the type of romantic love that I dreamed of years ago.

I suppose this last bastion, this dream of travel; I am having the hardest time letting go of. And yet it is the one thing that is completely and utterly impossible. The one constant in my life is the lack of finances, always living paycheck to paycheck, or even less than that. So travel is a luxury item that I must find a way to reconcile myself to not have. It is this that has been lurking in the back of my mind, but I have not wished to face it.

Even when the day comes that I am truly alone, when the time comes that I no longer have my mother to care for, I will truly know what being lost is. I won’t have a purpose any longer at that time. All the times before when I felt I just existed, I see now that I was just in limbo, until the time that my purpose came to be.

Perhaps I am mistaken in much of my thoughts right now, but it’s the only thing I can come up with that ties everything together somehow.