It is 5:15 am and I have just opened the windows wide to let Fall arrive. A cold front approaches and the wind is wild.  Leaves  rustle in the trees. Acorns drop like snowflakes, making popping noises as they hit the deck. It is still dark now that days are getting shorter.  A few cars drive by.  Early morning risers, off to work.  Or, mothers, on their way to 6 am yoga classes, where I should probably be headed.  A group of voices in the distance, getting closer.  Runners, adorned with headlamps, starting the day with a five-mile run.  A new season.

I tried to read but couldn’t concentrate.  There is too much buzzing around in my head distracting me.  My 4:30 am coffee didn’t seem to do much to help me focus. I’m sad. I feel misunderstood, betrayed, disrespected.  I don’t feel like a “victim”.  Rather, I feel as though I am the punching bag for someone’s own misguided, ill-informed, convoluted reality – a combination of her own projection, self-doubt, and entitled perceptions. Unfortunately, that person is my only daughter, who has managed to tell herself a story that she actually believes.

And now the dilemma:  How much of this is mine to own?  How much of this is mine to fix?  Will this blow over like the wind outside my window?  I am not so sure.  The attack, the accusations, the words, the threats and the foreshadowing are heart-wrenching.

Over the years, therapy and self-help books have been my go-tos.  That, along with conversations with close friends, who have listened, not just telling me what I hear, but often giving me pointers….things to consider…all helpful in different ways. But, I am tired.  I can’t “fix” or repair these things myself.  I can meditate, go to yoga….distance myself from the “toxicity”. But, these things are bandaids on a wound that is so raw, so deep and oozing with the ickiness and poison which are the result of resentment, hatred and emotions seeping into me day after day after day, month after month, year after year

I’m not perfect.  That I know. But, I have tried.  I’ve done my best. I have given and given and given.  Maybe therein lies the problem!  How ironic!

However, more than anything, all I can hear…the phrase that repeatedly keeps popping up in my head is “How like a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child?…”  And this, is really disturbing.

If only this October wind could blow it all away….. 10/16/2007