Damned if I stay. And damned if I go.

Feeling the calm after my morning break-down. Feeling that cold, emotionally-drained, numb sort of resignation.

Canceled my attendance in the grief group therapy program. I’m just not ready.

Or maybe I am, just not in that format.

Giving up.

No, not on physical existence. I had my chance to leave with Cancer and I passed it up. Had to go and get all “Up With Life!” back then. What the fuck was I thinking?? It would have been the perfect way to bow out of this place gracefully! And now I recognize that I am stuck. Because if I choose to leave, that would not be fair to the ones I love. Not that I believe that I’m doing them any good, mind you. Au Contraire! I think my absence could actually do them some good. It’s just that permanently leaving would cause more drama and damage and they don’t need that. At all.

People often say “Just let it go!”, or “Let go, let God!”…and they’re right. I need to let go…. But my problem is how. How to do it in a way that would cause the least harm.

All I can come up with is to emotionally and mentally check out; if not some temporary physical removal of some sort. Like, go live somewhere else. If only money weren’t such a huge obstacle… But then, if I did, I’d still have to live with me. No matter where you go, there you are. And I’d feel guilty for leaving them with all the housework and pet care and chores. Yeah. Because that’s apparently all I can do; and even there, I’m no Martha Stewart.

Checking out emotionally and mentally would help with the resignation to letting go; to letting go of the notion that I can help my kids in any way, to the notion that anything I say or do benefits them, to the notion that I add much value to the world; to the resignation of my Sisyphean lot of cleaning and laundering and driving and grocery shopping and scheduling (because I was unfortunately too messed up to create any sort of career when I had youth on my side)… To the resignation that not much that I do matters. Not in the grand scheme of things. My father’s death, I’m realizing, reinforced this feeling I’ve had most of my life. And in some ways, that’s okay; that’s a bit freeing. But also, that sort of takes any sense of purpose away as well.

The problem is definitely, undeniably, indubitably, me.

Actually, I take that back. This world is pretty fucked up. So, it’s not ALL my fault. There are some real and truly hypocritical, ignorant, mean, greedy, selfish, egotistical, unprincipled, bigoted, violent, unthinking, uncaring stupid assholes out there. And the world is brutal; just the way it’s designed is pretty cruel! Nasty, brutish and short. It’s true. But I’m wholly ineffective and inept and shit at helping my family cope with it all, and that has been the one job I’ve had to do for the last 22 years. And I managed to mess it up. Because I’ve never really been good at coping with it myself…with this existence.

Because I care too much, I worry too much, I talk too much, I think too much, I feel too much, I want too much… It’s all too much. I’m too much. And not enough.

A mother’s lament…..