State of mind

Let’s see if I can remember how it went…

My sister and I were riding in a car with my father, who was driving. My sister had just won an award and we were on our way to collect it, all of us in great spirits.

I suddenly realize that my son, L, is somewhere waiting for me to come pick him up, but I am horribly late, and I also have no idea where he is. I can only hope that he will call me on my cellphone, but for some reason it's not working. At this point, a Rogers sales rep arrives with a new phone. I explain to him that I need my phone to be ready for an important call from my son. He tells me that I simply need to activate my new phone and then leaves. I frantically struggle for the next few minutes trying to get my phone to work, but it further breaks into several pieces. My sister and father are unable to help. I am overcome by an awful sinking feeling that L is stranded somewhere, alone and lost. I work on the phone, concentrating hard. I cannot focus on anything but the object of fixing the phone.

And as my body slowly wakes, I struggle to stay asleep so that I can fix the damn phone. I am becoming aware of my bed and the morning light, but my mind is also still trying to put the pieces of the phone together. Finally, I start to understand that I was dreaming, and more importantly, that I don’t need to fix the phone, because L is safe and asleep in the next room. But it takes me a long time. I almost don’t trust myself to turn over onto my other side, to stop thinking about the phone, to accept this new reality.

And the next thing I thought was that this must have been what it was like for my mother in her moments of dementia.

what in the world?

I've been keeping up with the news. But really, I shouldn't.

What kind of world is this? Bullies in schools driving young people to suicide? Female RCMP officers being sexually assaulted by their partners and harassed by senior officers? Children being molested by teachers? by Cub Scout leaders? by hockey coaches and by Mr. Sandusky. The Roman Catholic Church no longer needs to bear its burden alone. It looks like lots of organizations are trying to cover up their messes.

But after my anger, after my outrage, I'm just feeling drained and cynical.

Then I hear the worst stories. A woman recounts how she was sexually abused by her father. Another describes how his mother used to cut him with a steak knife, when he was three years old. Or a woman who when arrested for beating her...

I couldn't even finish reading it.

I don't know. How is my son going to handle all this, when he finds out about the inhumanities in our society? He can't even stand watching Voldemort, a fictional character, on TV.

One day, he might read this blog, and he will learn that I did have real fears, which I hid from him. For now, whenever he comes across something in the news, I'll say something about bad people and that it'll never happen to him and change the subject. But the fact that it happens to someone else in our society is something I can't reconcile. What do we do? Put our heads in the sand? Acknowledge that there is evil in the world? Fight it? Lock the doors and turn on the alarm system? Pray?
Although I want him to grow up with a positive outlook, there are times when I've felt something much less.

-MO

That's enough...

Seriously, that's enough.
At 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon
I suddenly decided
I'd like stop working
I'd like to go home
Right now
So I did

I made up an excuse
And muttered something about checking emails from home
But that was a lie.
I had no intention.
Because I didn't want to.
I'd had enough of work.

But now I wonder
For how long?
enough for today?
this week?
this year?
or just, "enough"
Period.

27 years down,
18 years to go
why now?
why today?
Or perhaps as I asked myself today
Why not ?