44 Thoughts

Today has been a quiet day as I watch my students complete their state testing. This leaves me with a lot of time to think which is often either a good thing or a bad thing. Or sometimes in between. Today, it’s in between although swinging closer to a bad thing. My thoughts have been pretty consistent and focused on how much I’ve really missed in my life.

I didn’t really have my own life until five years ago after my mother passed away. Until then, with the exception of the one year I spent as a nanny in New Jersey, I lived under my mother’s roof. At first as a child, obviously, and then through college and my first “real” job. She never gave me that mother bird push but I have wished for the last five years that she had.

When she died, I was finally out from under her umbrella and on my own. It has not been an easy transition at all and being formally diagnosed with clinical depression and OCD hasn’t helped either. Although I had hinted a few times that I had wanted to move out, she always poo-pooed the idea, calling it a waste of money. I am not the type of a person who goes against authority figures so I never stood up for myself in my desire to be on my own.

I don’t blame my mom; I blame myself. Children should obey their parents but at a certain point, I think it’s okay for the grownup child to what to indicate independence. I was unable to do this. I was the youngest child and even into my thirties I was treated like I was still ten years old. Thus, I wasn’t able to stand up and say “Hey, I want to explore life on my own.”

Instead, I stayed under my mom’s roof and in her last few years of life, while I fought cancer, I took care of her both physically and financially. I made sure she had what she needed in terms of food and smiles while I had no one who did the same for me. Once I was on my own, that realization really caught up to me and now I understand how much of life I have missed.

My years under my mother’s roof have made me a pretty strict homebody and it’s manifested itself into a social phobia. It takes a lot for me to do anything out and about. I still wonder how I’ve made it through five Daughtry concerts although at my last one I did end up in a panic attack afterwards and needed to find a quiet spot to sit.

I turn 44 this year and I’ve done and experienced so little. Let me take that back. I have experiences but they have not been good ones like cancer. I have no knowledge of the phenomenal and personal experiences that and now, I feel I’m too set in my ways, too unattractive, and even too old.

This thinking has made me feel small and reinforces this feeling I have that I am not worthy, that I’m not a real person. It’s kind of hard to explain.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at today. On a better note I have made good progress on my new book. It’s nice to know that my ECT treatments didn’t harm my creativity, something both I and my therapist were worried about.

Dana