a few random thoughts

Three ideas have been conflicting with each other through my mind of late. They are with me day and night, whether awake or attempting sleep. So much so that I've even wondered if I shouldn't simply begin taking the nighttime meds again, in an effort to numb my mind and calm these thoughts and get some much needed sleep. But, I realize how unhelpful that mind numbing can be and have, so far, successfully avoided the tiny little pills, once some of my best friends. Surely that is an indication that I'm getting better, right?

So, about those three thoughts. The first is related to the upcoming marriage of Jr and Brandie. Let me first say that anything I say in my blog has already been said to them, in front of almost everyone who knows them or me, so I'm not trying to send them a message through my blog. I'm excited for them to marry. They are such good friends. They seem to enjoy being together. They don't agree about everything, but they seem to be able to work through to an agreement. I can only hope for the best for them and can hardly wait to see them exchange their vows to commit to each other. I am so looking forward to sharing that once in a lifetime, never to be repeated, get em while they're hot perfect evening with them, their friends, and their families.

So there's that thought. And there are the thoughts I've been having about Stu. He's on THE LIST. The liver transplant list. My 27-year-old son is awaiting the call that tragically, someone with O-type blood, who is within 30 lbs of his size (after he puts on the 30 lbs the docs have asked him to try to gain), has given the gift of life that he needs in order to stop the deterioration of his young body, to enable him to watch his garden and his children grow, to hope that he will see many more birthdays. It is such a painful contradiction. Since I have no control over this situation, I seek ways to find some level of control. I think about it constantly. I watch the website that shows how many people need livers in our region, what diseases they have, how sick they are, how young or old they are. And where he fits in to all of those statistics. I can see where he is on the various reports I put together from the data on the website. And while it passes some of the time when I cannot sleep, it does not really give me any control over anything. Reorganizing the data into various reports does not reorganize anything else in the world. It does not give me control. But it does pass the time. And it does help me see that right now, he has been on the list for the least time--less than 30 days--is no more than 13 transplants from his transplant, is one of four patients with the same liver disease he has, is the sickest of the four, and of those four, one is a teenager, one is in his twenties, and one is in his thirties. I say he, but the others could be female. I haven't compiled that report yet, but I will soon, maybe in a few hours if I wake and cannot find sleep again tonight.

And then there's the recent work at therapy. I don't know if I've said this before, but therapy with my first therapist was like visiting with a good friend for an hour every week or so. She was someone I could talk to about anything. The best thing she did was keep me alive until she could get me into the hospital. There were a couple of therapists in the hospital and one immediately after my discharge that I don't really count as my therapists. Then there was Carolyn. I've been seeing her for about a year and a half. She has been amazingly patient with me as she's had to keep working on the same concepts with me over and over. During that 18 months, there have been brief--brief--moments when the light hasn't filtered in, it has struck like lightning. I have had several of these blindingly bright flashes of understanding--sometimes the work I need to do, sometimes a glimpse into myself, sometimes a clue to my relationships with others. Sometimes these flashes are brief, like a shock from static electricity. Other times they are like a wound that hurts and hurts and then becomes infected and must be reopened in order to allow healing to begin. But almost always, they include a component of realization that I have so much work to do to become whole. And that realization keeps me awake at night.

So that's where I've been lately.