There always had to be a fly...

...in the ointment.

If things were going well, there was always the knowledge that my father’s parents were shut-ins and deleterious hoarders. Or that my mom was manic-depressive. Or that my brother had a horrible stutter.

There was always the reminder that my clothing was bought at discount stores, that my father had an awful temper, or that my mom’s parents had died under circumstances that ripped her family apart and isolated us against them.

If things were going well, there was always a skeleton or two to whisper in your ear about not believing good things were for you, about being dragged down, about not being allowed to be happy.

Today, those long-quieted skeletons, imagined they’ve been exorcised for years, have begun their murmurous palaver again.

Yesterday, I had a phone call with my mother. She is sick. Again. It’s the same or similar cold/sinus infection she’s been struggling against for over a year. And when it came up last year, when she didn’t know why she kept getting sick, when doctors didn’t immediately know why either, I called my psychic.

Because at the time, all roads led to cancer. Did she have it? What was going on? What can I do?

No, said the woman on the phone. It’s not cancer, but whatever it is, if she doesn’t deal with this, with what’s underlying it, it could be the beginning of a long road to the end. This could be the thing that takes her out.

Whatever your thoughts about intuitives aside, I’d worked with her enough that she knew of what she spoke. And from all indications since that phone call over a year ago, it’s proving pretty accurate. My mom is still sick. Healthier, Sick, Healthier Sick.

And I’m dragged immediately back into a curtain-drawn bedroom where she’d curled up against the light, fighting another one of her chronic migraines. I’m dragged immediately back into being a child taking care of her mother, telling her to get out of bed. Leaving her there, and getting my brother and I out the door for school.

My mother is a woman of chronic ailments. And this newest one, whatever its cause, reason, purpose, is dragging me down again with her.

What is love, comes the question? What is equanimity? What is detachment, enlightenment? Fate? What is the caustic, oxidizing rust that others’ baggage leaches onto you and your own path?

And what is my responsibility in helping them through their pain?

Especially if they don’t recognize it as such.

So much has come up lately about codependence versus interdependence. About leaving others to their experiences and feelings, and letting that not affect what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. Even something as simple as the play, and trying to not let the audiences’ reactions sway my mood.

I feel angry. I feel angry this feels like it’s happening again. I feel angry that I’m powerless about how she cares for and treats her body, about how she schedules her work in the 12-hour days without lunch breaks. About how she spends her off days flattened, recuperating from her over-working.

I’ve had to do so much work on letting her have her experiences, despite my opinions, and yet. And yet. I’m human. And I love her, and I don’t want her to be in pain. And I don’t want her to deteriorate.

And moreso, I don’t want her life to affect mine.

When does a child grow up? What is the role of a loved one? How can you, and can you, let someone crawl along the bottom of their own experience, while you make strides in the direction of your own fulfillment?

Because that’s what’s at stake here. Callous as it may sound, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, what happens with my mom. What matters is what I take on about it. How I allow it to affect me. And mostly, can I continue to make my life what I want it to be when there are still murmuring skeletons?

My whole life, I’ve been distracted by the flies. I’ve allowed my attention to be derailed in fishing them out, or I’ve simply allowed them to decree that I cannot be happy because they exist. That I cannot find success because there are flaws in the tapestry of my surroundings.

Obviously, I write about it today because I’m upset and I don’t have the answer to these questions. Because I don’t know how to move forward when there are tendrils threatening to draw you back.

So, for today, I’ll leave it both as an open question, and as evidence of a success. Because, today, I get to tell you about it. And darkness can’t live in the light.