Sad + Scared

These fragile, pale pink roses return every year, 

on branches that weather the grip of winter frost.

The rosebush, a gift from my Girl Scout troop in 2007, 

has thorns but produces delicate buds that seek the sun and unfurl. 

(Dan puts fencing around our 

flower and veggie gardens because deer ravage them.)

Do I need fencing around my garden of life? Yes. 

I try every day to keep healthy boundaries in the face of mental health issues in my home. Many mornings, I wake up feeling scared and sad. I'm working on that with my DBT-trained therapist. Day by day, I try to remember I can protect and distance myself in a calm and mindful way. I am separate from the person with the mental health trauma and from the trauma itself. I do not own it, cannot fix it, though we keep hoping we can, trying many supports and interventions.

I try to practice "radical acceptance," a DBT term.

I prayed today, and sobbed at the kitchen table. (Awkwardly, my cell phone pocket-dialed a Montclair friend, and IDK if my sobbing and praying aloud was recorded.) I felt alone. Fearful. I saw signs today of seriously unhealthy and unsafe interpersonal behaviors, and I am shaken. They are ways NOT to cope with life, with fear, anger, abandonment or love. I did lift myself up off the couch and walk around the block, though my heart was in my sneakers. I picked up a plastic water bottle and glass Starbucks bottle along the way, to recycle. 

How to face the wrath of these dangerous thorns on someone's branches? These things can jab and stab, stopping us from reaching and enjoying the gift of flowers, the blooms that other parents may take for granted. Maybe they see roses, a flush of youth in their daughters' cheeks instead of too much drugstore blush and the rise of fury.

Diseases and fungus can prevent the rosebush itself from blooming. The leaves might get spotted and lacy, from mites or another illness, things that consume its beauty. The rosebush might die. We plant it in the sun, water when needed, fertilize sometimes and try our best to protect it from pests, but in the end, a rosebush is a present on loan from the lords of nature and life and we may not be able to save it. Radical acceptance.

***

Dan is supposed to drive me in two hours, at 7 p.m., to Sis's in Connecticut so she and I can leave in the morning for a long-planned trip to the Cape with friends Meg and Greg from Vermont. 

But I am worried. All the worry in the world won't change a thing, my mother used to say. I guess I was a worrier as a young woman, since she left us for the heavens when I was 20.

I need to take a shower and shampoo my hair. I have to gather up the bath towels and sheets for the Cape house. I look upset, and I am.

To the one who watches from above, to God, or the goddess of the stars, or the power and beauty of the sea, or the fairies who fly over flowers, please, show me the next right thing to do. This pain is raw and deep. I am one person, and I try very hard.

I have to get in the shower now. I pray I won't get overwhelmed with worry. I will pray and I will trust.

Thank you for listening.

I wanted to write a post about my four-day solo visit to Florida to see our Figgy last Saturday through Tuesday, but I didn't get around to it. Here is a photo of us from Monday 

at a beach on Amelia Island. It was a lovely time 

to bond and immerse ourselves in birdwatching and nature.