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on an edge
thursday february 28, 2002



this is not the entry i intended to write, but there's so much pressure and i have to let it out. excuse me while i not so much vent as just deal with what's going on inside - whatever it is. i know some of it has to do with being unable to get here, to my space, to the place that helps me work through the good, the bad, and the oh so ugly. but this quarter has been hell, and, man, am i ever feeling it. 2 weeks, i keep telling myself it's only 2 more weeks and i can make it. but i'm not so sure that's true. there's something going on inside. there has been for about a week or so now. and it scares me. i think, i hope, it has to do with school, but i'm not positive. there's a desire, a need, to go run away from everyone and everything, online and off, to go and hide. escape. be someone else. do something else. be anywhere but here.

and i am so afraid i'm becoming the one person i don't want to be: my mother.

now, before people go up in arms and defend mothers and motherhood, let me explain. my mother is a diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic. she is so brilliant, so artistically talented, but it's all lost under delusion, paranoia, talking clocks, and medication. i remember as a kid wanting to be like my mom - a blue ribbon winning artist, she was smart, she knew what she wanted, she always seemed so damn sure of herself. then this disease ate it all up, bit by bit, piece by piece. the woman she's become is such a stranger. she made my teenage years a living hell: moving because 'they' were after her, 'they' were using my 15-year-old boyfriend to drug me, 'they' were trying to change her into a man, and so on and so on. she was known by the local cops, which meant i was too. she's been homeless a dozen times. she thought i was giving up my oldest for adoption even though she was watching me crochet a baby blanket. she even disappeared and my ex and i had to go through her things like she was dead. no, i don't want to be anything like her.


but this damn disease is, apparently, at least somewhat associated with heredity. and THAT scares the shit out of me.

so when i get like i am now, i wonder how it started for her and if i'm heading down the same path. wanting to run away from everyone, even my family and the friends i love online and off, scares me most of all. i am a social person. yes, there are times i want quiet. but i rarely just want to pick myself up, leave everything i am and everything i have behind, and walk away. when i do, it's frightening to me. it's like a butterfly not wanting to ever fly again - it's not natural.

but lately i feel like one more pressure or one more responsibility and i'll lose it. i'll run. i'll freak. i'll...whatever.

i know i have a lot on my plate, i always have. but there's no one who can do it but me. saxy wants to help, but needs to finish his testing to see what he needs to get through school, and i won't sentence him to a low paying, miserable, unwanted job to reduce the pressures i'm feeling. i'll get through this, but i won't do it by making him miserable. but i question my choice to go for the mfa. i know it will make things so much easier in the future, but i feel like i'm failing - failing to take care of my kids. saxy tells me we're doing ok, but i don't feel ok.

lately it's expressing itself in non-motivation. i grab for time for myself that i don't really have. i read, i sleep, i play online. what i don't do is homework. when i sit, ready to do homework, i just sit and stare. i can't get myself to pick up a pen or start typing or read from the anthologies. i will sit and stare for hours. i don't think i'm depressed - i'm not sleeping for hours. i'm tired, but not more than usual most days (being anemic sucks). i know a lot of it is stress because my asthma is hating me LOTS.

something is about to break.

i just hope it isn't me.

site of the moment:
finalheaven.org
word of the moment:

vociferation
to utter or cry out loudly