Operation: Validate

So I'm not supposed to know this, but my mother is sick. I also probably shouldn't be mentioning it to anyone, because, well, I'm not supposed to know. My mother herself hasn't told me, though I'm sure my father and my brother know. I have a confidential informant; that's how we do things in my bio family. All the stuff that needs to get to me comes via the secret spy network that runs counter to the secret spy network my mother has running for herself. It's underground resistance meets underground counter-resistance. There may even be double agents. It's complicated.

Anyhow. The spy network says my mother has brain cancer. That was what, 3 weeks ago? Yeah. I've been sitting on that little bomb for three weeks. And the worst part is, I don't know anything else about the situation at all: where's the tumor? Is it operable? Is she opting for treatment? Is she dying? I'm about ready to call her up and ask her myself, but then she'd demand to know where I got my intel, and I swore I wouldn't give that up. She sent me an email, but there's nothing in there about being sick at all, so I've been sitting on that too -- I have no idea what to do with it. How do I dash out a reply and pretend nothing is wrong when I know she's sick? Is she ever going to tell me?

This whole thing has my brain all twisty. I spent so long trying to convince myself I didn't care that I had no idea what to even begin to think about this. As a matter of fact, I asked for the emotional distance that's probably keeping me out of the loop. I wanted it. So part of my brain 's confubble is trying to figure out how much of a right I have to be offended that I'm getting my information 3rd-party instead of from the source itself. I know I told her not to call, but "Hey, I have cancer." is a pretty good excuse to make an exception, right?

And then there's trying to sort out how I feel about her, period. Do I hate her? Yes. Do I love her? Yes. Do I want her to die? No. What I want her to do is stay alive and be well and become a whole new, really nice person who really wants to be my mom. That's what I've secretly wanted for years. I know it's a pipe dream: never, ever going to happen. And yet part of my mind insists that I hold onto that hope. And now I'm faced with the fact that if my mother dies of cancer, that hope will die with her. So on a human level, I'm mourning the possible loss of my mother and the definite loss of that hope, because this check-in with my mother's mortality has made me realize how ... how hopeless this hope is.

I asked my new therapist if you could grieve the death of hope, and she said absolutely you can. Then I asked her how I could hate someone enough to want them dead, and at the same time love them so much to feel broken that they might actually die. And you know what she said? She said that given my experiences, that's completely normal. Normal! I thought I was this mean little alien stranded out in the middle of an absolutely ridiculous grief, and I'm normal. (My Dad tried to tell me that too, but I often have to hear things from more than one source before I'm willing to buy into them. Natural reticence.)

I'm supposed to be working on "validating my emotions." You know, telling myself I have a right to feel however it is I feel, instead of beating myself up for being kind of a mess right now. I suppose this means I'm to stop analyzing my feelings and simply feel them. So okay.

Today, right now, I feel fine. I'm together today. Tomorrow I may not be; I tend to get anxious and jumpy a lot lately. I think part of that is just no news! Not knowing what's going on makes anybody nervous. And all the work my brain has been doing has made it hard for me as far as PTSD triggers lately. Trying to go to church on Sunday was a mistake; I was cruising too close to childhood and wound up right back at South Liberty. I nearly put my teeth through my bottom lip trying not to cry at one point, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop if I got started and I didn't want everyone staring at me. I came home and cried instead. And in the past 3 days, I've eaten my emotions in the form of more donuts than I care to reveal. And this is okay. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel confused. It's okay get mad and depressed ... I think It's even okay to write this entry and post it, because I needed to. I needed to put these things out and have them heard as part of the validation process. Most of my readers don't know my mother anyway, and those of you who do -- well, I can't control your behavior. You will do with this information what you choose to do with it, one way or another. Having a knowledge like this and having to keep it largely quiet was becoming detrimental to my well-being. And no, I do not reveal my sources. Think of me as a journalist, and of this entry as part of the free press.

It's okay share your feelings ....