Yesterday was a shockingly debilitating day; I woke at 7 with an attack of sadness, and I call it that because although most days I wake up with nostalgia and sadness, it is not as intense. Yesterday it was sharp and acute, I had a stomach ache and could not eat, could not go back to sleep, wanted only to cry, could not cry. We went to the post office to mail the newsletters and meant to go to Office Depot to return a printer but I had left the receipt at home, and when I came back I felt that I literally could not go on... I told Jim I would go take a nap, but when I lay down I started to weep... gut-wrenching sobbing that took everything I had. I thought it would be better to die than to feel such intense pain. At some point Jim came in and asked how I was, and I told him I missed my daughter. And he was kind and loving, he said she surely loved me, but the part of me that takes over at those moments was sure this was not true; I felt totally hopeless. He spoke as a true Marxist of the hope in the current terrible doings throughout our planet. The rational part of me agrees, but there was nothing rational about yesterday's Silvia. At some point he said I could just call her and tell her that I missed her and I love her. And although I nodded my head no, I began to think this was something I could do.
Eventually I stopped sobbing enough to make the call... I reached her answering machine and quite simply said, I miss you and I love you. Then I thought of calling Ivan. We had a wonderful conversation about a week ago, almost two hours, and we have not always gotten along as well. He was pleasantly surprised when I just said, I just called to say that I miss you and I love you. I said that I had just called to say that, but he and I talked for close to an hour, and it was a very good call. Not one of the 'plastic' (my daughter's word) or Mickey-Mouse relationship moments that I hate so much.
One of the topics of conversation was whether or not Cati's partner 'likes' or respects me, and of course we differ there, because once again there have been two incidents that were uncalled for cruelty and almost despotic disrespect. The first one came when I was visiting during the pregnancy and she fainted and hit her head on the wall, and I wanted to ride with them to the hospital, and he was vociferous in saying that he loved my daughter very much and he was taking her. I had not suggested anything different, but I was there, she is my daughter, I was terrified. I was left out of it all.
I can't, not today when I am more 'sane' or yesterday or when it happened, put a good spin on his reaction. I understand that he was himself worried about her and about their baby, but the over-reaction is not good, and the intent to leave me out is quite clear. He does care about family, but I am not a part of 'his' family, and apparently I am not to be a part of hers anymore either.
Last night after we went and came back from getting the printer installed in the computer (at some point I was sitting outside on the sidewalk/berm and I called the house and Joan said her father had gone to the Palestine vigil and I felt suddenly bereft and overwhelmed, and I thought quickly of how to get under some car and end it all, the same reaction I had at 17 when my mother told me she would not be coming to my graduation because she was going to Europe, and I was crossing that very busy four-lane highway in Puerto Rico and I thought, I can rush into this thoroughfare and it will be all over, I will put an end to all the pain, but just then Jim drove up and that was so amazing...
One of the things I said to Ivan was that if I ever did something because the pain was too great I wanted him to know it was not because of anything he had ever done, but because the pain was unbearable, and I talked about Bardem's performance in El Mar Adentro, but he said sorry, but he would not give me a pass on that one, and said, which was quite funny, what kind of a thing would it be on Jim, who would not have gotten even his warranty period...
Jim says he does not want to trade me in or make a warranty claim (smile).
In the evening in our room we watched Spellbound, a wonderful documentary about the National Spelling Bee, and I all of a sudden remembered that I was a spelling bee winner about six or so months after I had first come to the US; I was able to spell the big words, including decapitated and bouillabaisse, but could not spell rye; I had no clue what rye was, had never seen or eaten any rye products... And my mother never came to the school or the regional competition with me, not then or the following year at the Miami Herald; I won a pen and she made a snide remark about the lowness of the price, she was happier when I won a similar contest in Cuba in second grade and the first prize was a year's free tuition at Academia Baldor. And then there was the year (fourth grade?) when I won 'best overall student' and I got to bring home the gold medal, but it was to be brought back at the end of a specified period; there were remarks made about that and I got, as I always did, a can of peach halves, and was allowed to take the first two peaches, but then the rest were to be shared with everyone else, 'because it is so important not to be selfish, Silvia, no ser egoísta."
Watching all the work by the parents, or when they could not help the contestants, their presence at the various contests brought back so much pain and dejection that I thought I had to write this down, so it could be a part of my grieving process...
I am better today. I slept well, I am loved and I love myself. I will survive.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Loss
Every day I mourn the loss of my children; some days the loss is sharp as the pain of a burn or a new cut; I want to scream, sob, hide away, tear my clothing, die. I think about the offer of pills to ease the pain, but I cannot do this; somehow I feel that it is my pain to bear, to live with, and it will become easier, I pray in time it will not hurt so much.
Somewhere in between the lullabies and the home-made baby food, the nursing and the play and the kisses, I did or didn't do, something so that all of my babies have grown up with pain. I thought if I went to therapy, took them to therapy, was willing to withstand any amount of pain or abuse for them, they would be healed of the pain I grew up with, the gratuitous and casual cruelty in the house of my mother, and they would literally inherit the earth. But somehow, and yes of course I am being codependent and blaming myself, there is no one else here this morning in this room except the well-known pain which announced itself as soon as I came back from the bathroom, my love was not enough.
It is easy to blame the system which Jim always does, and surely some of this is aided by this cruel system that enshrines greed... but the sick part of me at heart says "You were not loveable. Your mother did not love you and most of your children have barely tolerated you."
When I get out of this mode, and I will, later today when I put on the activist robes, sometimes the pain is replaced by rage, but that is the sickest part of it. Anger helps me cope, it does the quid pro quo that is always thrown in my face, but right now, it very simply hurts. I have been wanting to sob, have been sobbing inside for the past hour.
With the children go the grandchildren; the pain is mine to bear, but I will not willingly put myself at the mercy of anyone again. The casual cruelty is true enough; the casual indifference is quite real, and possibly my needs and hopes are unreasonable, but they are what I have left... to be loved as I am for who I am, without needing to do anything else for anyone or bring anything to the table. But I will neither submit to emotional blackmail nor, goddess help me, perpetrate it on anyone else. This is what I have elected, and I stand by that.
Somewhere in between the lullabies and the home-made baby food, the nursing and the play and the kisses, I did or didn't do, something so that all of my babies have grown up with pain. I thought if I went to therapy, took them to therapy, was willing to withstand any amount of pain or abuse for them, they would be healed of the pain I grew up with, the gratuitous and casual cruelty in the house of my mother, and they would literally inherit the earth. But somehow, and yes of course I am being codependent and blaming myself, there is no one else here this morning in this room except the well-known pain which announced itself as soon as I came back from the bathroom, my love was not enough.
It is easy to blame the system which Jim always does, and surely some of this is aided by this cruel system that enshrines greed... but the sick part of me at heart says "You were not loveable. Your mother did not love you and most of your children have barely tolerated you."
When I get out of this mode, and I will, later today when I put on the activist robes, sometimes the pain is replaced by rage, but that is the sickest part of it. Anger helps me cope, it does the quid pro quo that is always thrown in my face, but right now, it very simply hurts. I have been wanting to sob, have been sobbing inside for the past hour.
With the children go the grandchildren; the pain is mine to bear, but I will not willingly put myself at the mercy of anyone again. The casual cruelty is true enough; the casual indifference is quite real, and possibly my needs and hopes are unreasonable, but they are what I have left... to be loved as I am for who I am, without needing to do anything else for anyone or bring anything to the table. But I will neither submit to emotional blackmail nor, goddess help me, perpetrate it on anyone else. This is what I have elected, and I stand by that.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Back in rage/Hiroshima-Nagasaki
Pretend love, pretend words, the things I fell for in the years when I wanted to be loved despite it all. Not feeling worthy or lovable, I had to push the envelope always... And gifts were essential, because no gifts meant no love, as had so often been the case in the house of the accountant and his wife, my mother.
I am pulled in ways that are impossible to bear; I am thanked endlessly, lest I figure out that these thanks are wrung out of despair... Behind it all is the resentment that things are not as they always were, without order or boundary, without the ability to do anything or do nothing in a world that consists only of yourself. Funny that once again I am in a situation where a narcissist attempts to rule everything. But this time I am here to say no more, I am here to set and protect my boundaries. No more guilt, no more laying down on the floor and saying, please step on me (unless in a nice massage...)
Yesterday at the gates of the Livermore Conversion Project we heard a Japanese survivor who was 16 at the time of the bombing of Hiroshima. He told of being in school and seeing a bright blast, and then being blinded by sound and noise. But then "it was deathly quiet and pitch dark." Only later would he realize that the roof of the school had fallen on their heads. He talked about seeing people whose eyeballs had popped out of their sockets, and others seeing confused people trying to put their intestines back into their bodies. He watched people all day and all night, as he walked home, holding out their arms in pain... He is one of the Hibakusha, and we had a computer linkup so that they in Japan could see our candles in front of the gates of one of the two places in the US that manufactures every bomb we make against the people of the world.
How many of our children even think about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when we unleashed an inhuman bomb that killed a quarter of a million people and laid waste to two cities, to mothers and their infants, elderly men and women, vegetation, hospitals, indiscriminate destruction.
And when we talk about Japanese imperialism, the truth is that the U.S. wanted to get into the war in Europe but public opinion was strongly against it, so the U.S. manipulated Japan into attacking us so they would have public support to enter the war. We froze Japanese assets and blocked trade. We never cared about British, French or Dutch imperialism in the Pacific, only Japanese. True, Japan had a treaty with Italy and Germany, but the Japanese had made diplomatic concessions to avoid war. We stalled, and as soon as the bomb was made, we flattened two cities and a whole country. It was unnecessary, it was brutal, it was inhumane. Empire always is.
I am pulled in ways that are impossible to bear; I am thanked endlessly, lest I figure out that these thanks are wrung out of despair... Behind it all is the resentment that things are not as they always were, without order or boundary, without the ability to do anything or do nothing in a world that consists only of yourself. Funny that once again I am in a situation where a narcissist attempts to rule everything. But this time I am here to say no more, I am here to set and protect my boundaries. No more guilt, no more laying down on the floor and saying, please step on me (unless in a nice massage...)
Yesterday at the gates of the Livermore Conversion Project we heard a Japanese survivor who was 16 at the time of the bombing of Hiroshima. He told of being in school and seeing a bright blast, and then being blinded by sound and noise. But then "it was deathly quiet and pitch dark." Only later would he realize that the roof of the school had fallen on their heads. He talked about seeing people whose eyeballs had popped out of their sockets, and others seeing confused people trying to put their intestines back into their bodies. He watched people all day and all night, as he walked home, holding out their arms in pain... He is one of the Hibakusha, and we had a computer linkup so that they in Japan could see our candles in front of the gates of one of the two places in the US that manufactures every bomb we make against the people of the world.
How many of our children even think about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when we unleashed an inhuman bomb that killed a quarter of a million people and laid waste to two cities, to mothers and their infants, elderly men and women, vegetation, hospitals, indiscriminate destruction.
And when we talk about Japanese imperialism, the truth is that the U.S. wanted to get into the war in Europe but public opinion was strongly against it, so the U.S. manipulated Japan into attacking us so they would have public support to enter the war. We froze Japanese assets and blocked trade. We never cared about British, French or Dutch imperialism in the Pacific, only Japanese. True, Japan had a treaty with Italy and Germany, but the Japanese had made diplomatic concessions to avoid war. We stalled, and as soon as the bomb was made, we flattened two cities and a whole country. It was unnecessary, it was brutal, it was inhumane. Empire always is.
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