checking in- rambling on a weekend

I don't particurlarly feel better about myself as a person for going through this. I question myself always. But I DO feel so good about people who are using their words, their wisdom, their encouragement, their qoutes, their love to help nudge me daily toward the finish line. If I am changing at all, it is slower than anyone thinks, because I am also aware of the terrible self-pity and despair that I can conjure up for myself. But, like unexpected cake with frosting, a cup of coffee, a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie and a bowl of fresh fruit after a fine meal, you come along and say... "this sucks, I am sorry, I feel for you, and know you can get thru it!" and you tell me that some of my words are meaningful. Just know I am refreshed by the strength and support. I can't say it enough. It is the one constant that seems real, that I do not question. Some of you I know, some of you I don't and some of you I know now in ways that I never knew you before. And, of course, Kathy is a pillar of love for me. I couldn't have made it this far without her.

There are surprises in this that no one prepared me for. How long a night can last. Some mornings I am almost delusional. For example, the other morning, after being up from 1AM to 6AM I started thinking that all my activities were being monitored by doctors in Omaha, so at least they would know how the night went, and who I spoke with during the night. One morning, I got up at 3:30AM and realized I was only given 100 more lines to write or speak until this was done. I immediately started writing a blog entry, in my head, and then tried to type it. Fortunately, I didn't hit "publish post" I think it is a combination of taking a narcotic, a sleeping pill, and still lying awake and feeling sick most of the night. I say, I am almost delusional, because the delusion passes by the time I am in the shower. Another thing I was not prepared for is how weak "feeling weak" really can be. Getting up for my 6:15 shower, even though I have been lying awake almost brings me to tears. There are mornings I wish I would just not have to face another day. (Don't worry...I am not suicidal...sir and madam, I remind you I am a psychologist! I have good insurance, and I have been in therapy with myself for nearly 30 years. I am my own longest term client.) and there is a difference in that thought and the thought that i want to be dead. What I want is to be back FROM the dead.

Here is a lovely poem...as I have mentioned...the value of a person, the value of a tree...tree of the moment --tree of my own sad, mortal heart--the value of the acorns on my window growing in a longer line.

The Oak Tree at the Entrance to Blackwater Pond
by Mary Oliver

Every day
on my way to the pond
I pass the lightning-felled,
chesty,
hundred-fingered, black oak
which, summers ago,
swam forward when the storm

laid one lean yellow wand against it, smoking it open
to its rosy heart.
It dropped down
in a veil of rain,
in a cloud of sap and fire,
and became what it has been ever since--
a black boat
floating
in the tossing leaves of summer,

like the coffin of Osiris
descending
upon the cloudy Nile.
But, listen, I'm tired of that brazen promise:
death and resurrection.
I'm tired of hearing how the nitrogens will return
to the earth again,
through the hinterland of patience--
how the mushrooms and the yeasts
will arrive in the wind--
how they'll anchor the pearls of their bodies and begin
to gnaw through the darkness,
like wolves at bones--

what I loved, I mean, what that tree--
tree of the moment--tree of my own sad, mortal heart--
and I don't want to sing anymore of the way

Osiris came home at last, on a clean
and powerful ship, over
the dangerous sea, as a tall
and beautiful stranger.