Election Day and I Have No Opinions

It's taking way more of a concerted effort than usual to put my best foot forward this week, I feel such anger and resentment burbling just beneath my forced placid exterior. I'm deeply aggravated by the weird mess of my life that cannot be undone at the moment...or ever. The lopsidedness of trauma, the resulting behaviors I experience each day are a little bit more difficult to endure when combined with my own sadness over losing Grandpa.

The kids who stole from my dad, who never apologized, who were rude and hateful to him, destructive and/or mistreated his daughter so terribly...this can't be undone. The times they raised my father's blood pressure, the times they were so unmitigatedly hateful, nearly evil, is what it was, with no remedy now available. Too late now for their apologies that aren't forthcoming anyway.

I need to work on my own deep resentment.

My father understood, he got it, that this is the nature of the life I'd chosen. He may not have liked it, he certainly wanted to protect me from it, but he did understand troubled people. He'd studied post-graduate psychological issues, he'd counseled as a pastor for 20 plus years, he knew these issues right well, but to live them is a whole different ballgame.

Like any person from the Depression Era, he abhorred wastefulness. To see everything I ever bought, made or did for the children, then so willfully destroyed by their anger certainly bothered him, now leaving me with a deep sense of undoneness, even though I know on every level he now has The Big Picture that has so long escaped us earth bound humans.

I talked with Dr. Mandy yesterday, she's noticed my flagging optimism, gently trying to steer me back, but as I face teenagers who show every indication of being exactly like their older birth siblings who defied authority, broke laws, lied and used people, and refused gainful employment, it's getting harder to face them all with a hopeful smile.

I know I've just fallen off of a horse, I know I'll regain some semblance of balance here.

Daniel spoke at the Memorial Service in his dress uniform, just as Grandpa had asked him, skillfully combining wit, observations and remembrances of how hard my parents always worked, gingerly trying not to refer to Grandma as a horse, as in workhorse, but truly, this is how my family copes with everything.

We don't just bury ourselves in hard work, but in expending the energy, it does help us not to lash out, nor to explode.

Sarah had also spoken beautifully and eloquently, later telling me she'd never looked up once, which I didn't notice, even though my eyes were fixed on her. Maybe I was lost in wondering how she could be so graceful in heels, she sure didn't get that from me. She looked both beautifully frail and utterly sad.

Taking on another client, she, too, is diving into work, as did Grandma, straightening up her side of the house after three weeks of crowds, nurses, family and food.

Today the kids have no school, a teacher work day, election day, nerves on edge I can already see.

It's up to me to model a calm exterior. I went outside yesterday, picking tons of peppers and eggplants, weeding the pernicious quack grass, soaking up the warm sun that always soothes me, alone and happy, eight dogs sprawled out in the garden area with me, one this morning - an elderly one - is scaring me, lethargic and listless, oh Dear Lord, please not today.

We've been the beneficiaries of some incredibly generous people who worked so hard to feed such a crowd. Emily, Chris, Barbie, Lisa, Diane, and Becky to name just a few. Grandma's church was tremendously supportive and helpful, I just heard today from another MYF friend of my parents in Greenville, SC, reading it aloud to my mother. Thank you Miss Imogene.