Who Am I?

It's been a rough couple of weeks.  I think losing Dad is finally catching up with me.  Right after he died, I kept very busy getting ready for the holidays.  Then we went to Nashville for a couple of days.  All good.  I needed that.  Then, John's anniversary.  Melissa's anniversary.  Sue's Anniversary.  Melissa's birthday.  Thank goodness for basketball.  It helps us get through the holidays and the first week of January.  

Now, basketball is winding down, and it's hitting me that Dad is gone.  For the last five years, I spent a lot of time with him, especially the last two years when he moved back to Ohio.  I'm really missing him.

So the last couple of weeks I've been in a funk.  Donny is a good motivator to get me out.   I love taking walks, but not around a track inside (I prefer the great outdoors)!  But we do it.  I recently discovered Audible (I know, I'm WAY behind the times) and have several books to listen to.  Right now it's The Handmaids Tale.  Depressing, but very interesting.  And it keeps me walking.

Trying to get motivated to start downsizing around the house.  We have so much to get rid of, almost too overwhelming to even know where to start.  This morning, I woke up early, the sun was shining and I had a *twinge* of motivation.  So after a cup of coffee, I got started in Melissa's room.  The goal is to get rid of clothes, a dresser, clean out the cedar chest, closet and eventually paint.  And that's just the first room!  Got through the closet (it's still full, even though the bed is covered with clothes to get rid of), and started on the cedar chest.  Full of pictures, a folder with Mom stuff - her resume, which is amazing.  She had a pretty important job at WPAFB!  Everything in the cedar chest is sentimental - a letter from my grandma to mom (dated 1953) a couple of letters to mom from (boy?)friends in the service - one dated Sept 1953.  After she and Dad were married.  He did know that mom was married, talked about meeting Bob (Dad).    Mom journaled randomly in multiple places-spiral notebooks, tablets (the paper kind) and on envelopes.  Obviously didn't accomplish much here.  Too much reading, but uplifting.  I know I have to get this stuff organized.  It's a start.

In one of the folders, I found this.  Wow.  Synchronicity.  Something I needed today.

I Wear A Thousand Masks

I hope you won't be fooled by me for I wear a mask.  I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and one of them is me.

I am likely to give you the impression that I'm secure, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water's calm and I'm in command and that I need no one.  But I hope you won't believe me.

My surface may seem smooth...beneath I dwell in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.  But I hide this.  I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.  That's why I frantically create a mood to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated facade to shield me from your understanding.  But such understanding is my salvation. My only salvation.  And I know it.

If I don't keep the mask in from of myself I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

So I play the game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling feeling within.  And so my life becomes a front.  I idly chatter to you in the suave surface tones...I tell you everything that's nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me.  So when I go into my routine, I hope you won't be fooled by what I'm saying.  I hope you listen carefully to hear what I'm not saying.

I dislike the superficial, phone game I'm playing.  I'd really like to be open, genuine and spontaneous. I want your help in doing this.  I want you to risk approaching me even when that's the last thing I seem to want, or need.  I want this from you so I can be alive.  Each time you're kind, and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my courage to risk sharing myself with you increases. 

I want you to know how important you are to me, how can you be a creator of the person that is me if you choose.  But it will not be easy for you.  A long conviction of worthlessness leads me to maintain distance.

The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.  It is self-defeating but at the time it seems the safest thing to do.  I fight against the very things that I cry out for.  But I am told that empathy is stronger than walls and therein lies my hope.  I desperately want you to understand me in spite of my distancing tactics.

Who am I, you may wonder?

I am someone you know very well.  

I am every man and every woman you meet.

***

So as I started to read this, I knew this was about ME.  What I didn't realize was it wasn't JUST about me.  We all wear a mask sometimes.  Another reminder that "no matter how bad you have it, there's always someone who would love to have your problems".  I am not alone.  Time to get busy doing something.  And God knows, we have plenty to do right in our house!  A little sunshine and warm weather might help too.

And before I sign off,  I forgot to mention in the last post another sign we got from Melissa!

The night before I talked to the UD Women's basketball team, I couldn't sleep.  I tossed and turned because my brain wouldn't turn off.  I was going over what I was going to say to the team. I didn't want to leave anything out, how was I going to present her story (even though I'd done it before). So at 4 a.m.,  wide awake, I went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch.  At 7 a.m., Donny came down and sat next to me.  I woke up and proceeded to tell him that " I couldn't sleep, tried to figure out what I was going to say to the basketball team, etc."  As I was telling him this, my phone was on the table behind me charging.  And suddenly, my phone said "I'M HERE".  ???????

I sat up, Donny and I looked at each other wondering WHO was here???  Melissa????

I told Nick the next day, he (kind of burst my bubble) said "Mom, it was SIRI.  You don't have to be holding your phone for SIRI to respond to you."

So, my phone sitting on the table next to me, I said "SIRI".  It responded, but in typing.  I couldn't get her to say "I'M HERE."  

I'm inclined to believe that since Melissa has figured out a way to communicate via the puzzle (she has pretty strong energy!) she's now figuring out how to communicate through SIRI!!!  Oh how I wish.  I would love to get messages like that from her every day.  Maybe someday a phone call.  

I'm dreaming again....and wishing.