I never know what I want to write about. What I do know is I write - and it may be random, and it may not be. Simply Sunshine With Occasional Showers just describes each of us every single day.
I remember being so excited that I had him on St. Patrick's Day (after all, his sister was born on Texas Independence Day and Dr. Seuss' Birthday). He came into the world at 345 a.m. and has kept me on my toes from day one. I was 19.
Born with jaundice, a rare urinary defect and a heart defect that was detected a few days later - Rob and I spent a lot of time in the hospital his first weeks. (Though, I do remember my grandfather seeing him for the first time and questioning the paternal lineage because of his bruised face and yellow skin.... this still makes me smile.) I remember the doctors and nurses deciding whether or not to put the IV line in his head because they were having a difficult line finding a site that would stay.
Yes, Rob (Robbie at the time), sure did come in the world showing me that it was going to take a lot of determination on my part to bring him into this world safely and without fear.
He drove his first car when he was 2.5. Slipped out of his car seat (while I was standing beside the car on a cold winter day), wiggled his way to the front and slipped - grabbing the gear shift and slipping to the gas. He drove my car into my best friends car, into her living room.
In Kindergarten the principal called me to let me know that everything was okay - don't panic - but they had shutdown the school because they couldn't find my child. (This was after he was 3 and disappeared for 3 hours, riding the neighbors school bus, much to the joy and chagrin of the Abilene Police Department and his mother....) Alas, the elementary was in lock-down until they could locate my child. Don't panic though. They found him. In the cafeteria. Where he had slid a 5 gallon bucket of chocolate pudding into the cafeteria from the kitchen and was quite adeptly finger-painting the walls and offering his version of decorative improvement.
In later elementary, his principal required him to turn a KISS t-shirt inside out because Gene Simmons tongue was offensive - this chapped my hide five-ways-to-Sunday and I remember having a long discussion with her about classic rock and roll bands and little girls wearing t-shirts with a cute bunny that says "Boys are Dumb" - pick your battles.
Robbie - Rob - was the teenager who made choices that challenged the very rock that I had desperately tried to stand-on. No drugs. School is required. He challenged me.
And he surprised me. He is and was the most kind and thoughtful child I'd ever known, often to strangers and always searching for ways to help others. Charitable and questioning why others were without when we had plenty. His heart was bigger than any challenge he sent my way.
He graduated from high school without his mom there to pressure him, having made the decision to stay in Texas and not join me in Montana. I'm still so proud of him for this.
He's now looking at college - excelling at a customer service job (working for USAA) - and just a good guy.
Yesterday, we talked on the phone and I finally told him a little about my past few months and my own struggles. I explained my awful deep hole that I couldn't get out of, my need to just not be, and my choice to get help.
He was quiet for a minute and then said, "I want to send you something and I want you to listen to it. Okay?"
Okay - and I listened (even though his and my taste in music has always been a little different) and I cried. It was a good cry and it was Rob's way of saying "I love you...."
He's 23 today. How is that possible?
To Rob - i love you so much - I am the luckiest mom in the world that you're my son.
That's a simple enough entry to introduce my place in this world right now. Simply, I'm back home and my head-space is where it should be.
My diagnosis - no longer depression - but PTSD with depression and suicidal-ideation as secondary diagnoses to the primary. Who knew that PTSD could present itself so far after so much. I always prided myself in overcoming my past. Hunger, homelessness, teen pregnancy, drug use at an early age, abuse, rape - you name it, I fit the gambit of not ideal situations. The thing is - you can overcome all of that and think you're okay. But if you haven't dealt with it - if you haven't called out and "put in the light" the darkness you've endured and call it what it is, healing will never happen.
That's what I've learned the past months during care from some amazing staff. You have to admit it happened, put it into the correct context and only then can you move on.
I was really good at hiding behind work. Or caring for other people. It wasn't until the only person I had to care for was myself that little cracks started showing. Then bigger cracks. Then the dam broke.
And I'm not the only person in the world who has gone, or is going, through this. There are so many.
Get help. Talk to someone. You are responsible today for taking care of you - even if that means admitting you weren't responsible for somethings that happened in the past.
