![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleI had a lunchtime appointment with my therapist today. We threaded our way through my professional insecurities, my ambivalence about sex, my ill-fated longings for things I can't seem to have, and my deep-seated need to take over the world, constantly thwarted by my passion for naps. All according to plan. All the usual, progressive path. But at the end of our fifty-minute hour, as I was reaching for my phone scheduler to plug in our next appointment, something unexpected happened. There was a knock at the door. Now, even those not in therapy, I've always thought, respect the closed door as sacrosanct, guarded as it is by the "Do Not Disturb" and the white-noise machine. So Robin looked at me, and I looked at her, and she went to open the door. And a bomb went off in the hall-- a fireball of anguish and pain I've felt explode in my own heart, but rarely seen from the outside.
I stood in the middle of the room as Robin went out into the tiny hall. It was a young woman, and I could hear in her avalanche of sobs that her mother had died. As I stood there, eyes widening, she gasped out, "I told her it was okay, I told her she could go!"
I felt like my heart was a bucket in a well, and each word was a stone. I felt like I was a soldier in a field, watching a comrade step on a land mine right beside me.
My parents are somewhere in the middle of the ocean on a luxury liner. They left Wednesday morning, flying to Florida to meet the ship which would take them south, through the Carribean, and further down, at last, through the Panama Canal-- a long-time dream of my Dad's, and a birthday present to him last Spring from my Mom. Maybe it's just me, but there's always that small, nasty voice in the back of my head, when someone travels, saying, "What if something happens? What if they don't come back? What will you do?"
But it's not just now I'm hearing that horrible monologue, I have to be honest. As I come more to terms with the fact that I'm an adult, and wrestle with how I'm going to spend the rest of this life I have, and fight with the issues of mating, procreating, nesting, there's the rising knowledge that my time with my parents is limited. They won't always be here to listen, to bicker, to support, to let me down and lift me up. One day, it'll be me on the floor, sobbing, "I told her she could go." And while Robin called back later to check on me, and assure me that woman would be fine, and was in a cab on the way home, I can't stop thinking, "What will I do when it's my turn?"
I don't think I've ever wanted to talk to my Mommy more in my life.
I stood in the middle of the room as Robin went out into the tiny hall. It was a young woman, and I could hear in her avalanche of sobs that her mother had died. As I stood there, eyes widening, she gasped out, "I told her it was okay, I told her she could go!"
I felt like my heart was a bucket in a well, and each word was a stone. I felt like I was a soldier in a field, watching a comrade step on a land mine right beside me.
My parents are somewhere in the middle of the ocean on a luxury liner. They left Wednesday morning, flying to Florida to meet the ship which would take them south, through the Carribean, and further down, at last, through the Panama Canal-- a long-time dream of my Dad's, and a birthday present to him last Spring from my Mom. Maybe it's just me, but there's always that small, nasty voice in the back of my head, when someone travels, saying, "What if something happens? What if they don't come back? What will you do?"
But it's not just now I'm hearing that horrible monologue, I have to be honest. As I come more to terms with the fact that I'm an adult, and wrestle with how I'm going to spend the rest of this life I have, and fight with the issues of mating, procreating, nesting, there's the rising knowledge that my time with my parents is limited. They won't always be here to listen, to bicker, to support, to let me down and lift me up. One day, it'll be me on the floor, sobbing, "I told her she could go." And while Robin called back later to check on me, and assure me that woman would be fine, and was in a cab on the way home, I can't stop thinking, "What will I do when it's my turn?"
I don't think I've ever wanted to talk to my Mommy more in my life.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 02:10 pm (UTC)Enjoy your parents now. Today, it's been 21 years since my dad died. I was 21 at the time. Too young to lose my dad. But I survived. My mom is in a nursing home without her memory. At times she doesn't know who I am.
You have the knowledge they won't live forever. So enjoy them NOW. Have dinner with them - for no reason at all. Deal with their weirdness (all parents are weird! LOL). Go to the movies with them. Have pizza. Sit & listen to their stories.
Here's a hint, write things down that they tell you. Video tape a conversation one day, just because. Take lots of pictures. Love them.