Brain Surgery,Day Three, but one day late

 

I want to thank everybody again for prayers, good thoughts, energy sent across the county and the Pond for my mother, who continues-much too slowly for all of us-to recover. Her personality is there-stubborn, complaining, but wanting to do stuff for herself until she tires. And her sense of humor is intact. She will catch up, I think, to her old self eventually. Thank all Holy Deities, male and female, and all else the is out there for healing.

 

She has always seen herself as "not much more than a housewife" and as not doing so great with her kids. Luke and I gave her problems in our teens, and she has been worried a lot about Catherine more recently. And to be blunt, it was not a happy home to grow up in, nor a happy marriage for many years (though after 59 years they have worked out a way of living together, with no intimacy of any sort, but acceptable companionship). But I see her a a woman as strong as an ox, an amazing example. 

 

In the last 4 years she has survived cancer, radiation, chemo, obstructed bowel(twice!)-both of which nearly killed her, and now this fall and brain surgery. All this with her personality and odd sense of humor intact. So what if she's still confused about where she is at times, and looks like she went 10 rounds with Mohammed Ali in his prime. She is quite incredible, and is obviously where I got what ever it is that keeps me crawling back from depression, abandonment, and ten surgeries in fourteen years!

 

She even called this morning with a request for a sweater, books, a pad and pencil, and a hearing aide battery. Considering one eye is so swollen shut the doctor cannot pry it open, and the other is a barely a slit, and wearing her hearing aide on her swollen left side-just under her surgical scar-is painful, I'd say she is plugging along quite well, all things considered. She's my hero.

 

Of course, now that the crisis has abated a bit, family dynamics has raised its ugly head. Both Luke and my father want control of her medical situation- a repeat of two years ago which climaxed in a shouting match in her hospital room. The doctor sided with my father, after which Luke stayed away for over six months (and remember, he's the one who lives out here) I don't care who controls her medical info, I just want to make sure no errors are made in her medical care-which I have painfully come to see as wanting a kind of control myself.

 

Where I need to be is willing to help where ever I can, even though she tells me she does not want Mary and Luke to visit at all, and Allison (my dad) only for an hour or so a day. And when she begs me to stay with her, to tell them that, I have to tell her gently that I cannot do that-they love her, too, and are worried and want to be with her. She hurrumphs, and calls me a disobedient daughter, then smiles a bit. When they are there she keeps urging then to go, and I bite my tongue to say nothing-because they do love her and want to see her as much as I do. She has never told me to leave, and I think it's because I have a nurses aide background (two or three lifetimes ago) and am used to dealing with most anything (except my family) due to my HIV testing and counseling background, working in prison.  I can anticipate her needs and advocate. gently, to her nurses.

 

Last night we were all there when my father and I had a big go around. Apparently he felt I was not moving away from her fast enough when she needed to sleep (my suggestion in the first place). I was murmuring to her about taking slow deep breaths and relaxing, and was completely surprised when he jumped up, marched across the room and hit me-hard-on the shoulder, ordering me away from her. I moved away all right, enraged, right over to him.  I had completely lost it. "You will never hit me again, " I hissed at him.  He leapt up balling his fist, obviously afraid I would hit him back. I would never do so, and the fact that he was afraid of me tells me how little he knows me. "You will never hit me again, I said loudly. He refused, just as loudly, to go into the hall so I could tell him why I had lingered for no more that 30 extra seconds at her side (She and I had worked out a way that I helped her relax into sleep, a 30 second relaxation technique, that she liked) and I was so furious I found myself wanting to hit him back out of sheer frustration. My brother helpfully chimed in that I should have moved sooner, and this was not to place to argue it out. Flames to the fire. I wanted to slug him hard enough to knock him out (something I learned, by the way, in boot camp before I worked at the prison, and wasn't half bad at).

 

Instead, of course, I took several deep breaths and moved my walker to the far side of the room, where I sat flashing on the three times I saw him hit her, and the time he pushed her so hard that she  cracked her ribs so badly she spent a week in the hospital, something Mom told me about quite graphically later. And the number of times I'd been hit, too.

 

On the other side of the room he was yelling at me that it was my fault she fell (she had insisted on giving me her bedroom and was sleeping on an expensive blowup bed in the living room when she fell on her way to the bathroom) and I was to get o ut right nowand be on the next fight out of Denver because I was not welcome in his house.

 

I took several slow deep breaths and looked across at this frail old man with emphysema, so totally unable to do anything with his anger that he had to hit and threaten and could not even look me in the eye, or consent to go into the hall so I could explain why I had not moved away from his wife in his time frame. I struggled, somewhat successfully, to let go of the anger, to see his fear at her illness and his feeling of loss of control, and his lifelong unwillingness and inability to deal with feelings, happy or angry or sad. For whom intimidation, withdrawal into his own head, and occasionally hitting, literally and figuratively, was the only way he has to express what he feels, and I felt unbelievably sad for him.

 

I said, quietly, but so that he could hear me, that I was not going home on the next plane, that Mom had invited me to stay, and I would, and he must never hit me again. He did not respond, though I knew he heard me. At that point Mary, the eternally chipper one, chimed in that we were all invited to her brother and sister-in-law's for dinner, and she would not take no for an answer, so we kissed Mom good night, one by one and put on our happy family faces as we trooped off to Scott and Glenda's for a very nice dinner, most of which I could not eat. Dad and I had separate cars (remember, I will not drive with him) and came home and went to bed without speaking.

 

This morning, as he was leaving for the hospital, I said we had to talk. As he looked away, I calmly and quietly apologized for my anger and ill behavior the night before, explained what I had been doing with Mom-something we has worked out together before the surgery while he was not there (he left at 2:00PM the day of the fall, and did not return until I called at 8:00 PM to tell him about the surgery. He was already in bed at the time) and that I needed him to know he was never to hit me again. He kept looking away, silent, until I told him I needed to hear it from him, and -finally- he muttered that he would never hit me again. And I could let go of a good big knot of my anger, finally. But not all of it, of course.

 

Reading this makes him look like a constant abuser, and he wasn't. It usually happened when he'd had too much to drink, and (I believe) the abuse tapered off as we left home, and he began to drink much less. I do not know this for sure, and of course, we did not call it abuse 25 or 30 years ago. Mom truly believes that she provoked him, and, though we have talked about abuse as adults, she still only half believes that how ever she provoked him, hitting her was abusive. She has told me he hasn't touched her in over 20 years, and it's all in the past, when we didn't know about abuse anyway, and it is a subject I am not to bring up in front of him, ever. I will respect her request, but smolder because it is just one more secret we keep as a family full of secrets and disconnection.

 

I do really feel badly for both of them, caught in a dance of 59 years, unable to do much more than hold on, each wishing for a life the other cannot give. And I know I can give him nothing, and my mother only my occasional presence and laughter and maybe-someday-before she dies, onelast trip to Taos.

 

Now I am off to the hospital for my shift, and will stay in a waiting room during the 2 hour rest period, while Dad comes home to rest, and we'll all be there until Luke and Mary arrive, after a day of skiing. Then back here, to our bedrooms, and again tomorrow, when I have the early shift...

 

And I just hope to Goddess she continues to return to us, to heal from the fall, and we can all help her in some small was, despite out very different out looks.

 

Blessings-and I need them- Margo

Tags: My Mother, Frail & Strong as an Ox, My Hero, Family Dynamics,  I Will Not Be Hit.

Brain Surgery, Day Two

 

My mother is alive and reasonably compos mentis in Littleton Hospital today. Thank Goddesses. God, The Light of the Universe, Allah, and anything else out there with positive powers. And thanks to all who prayed or send thoughts and energy or whatever spiritual practice anyone does. Today was also long and difficult, but so much better than yesterday that I am not complaining at all.

 

She actually looked worse when I got there around noon, eyes blacker, bruises running down her left cheek, occasional bloody "tears" running down her face from her swollen shut eye and neck and a "turban" of gauze which has all sorts of fluids leaking through. But she was propped up in bed complaining about all of this, sounding very much herself.

 

Dad had been there in the morning, Luke and Mary were there when I arrived, trying to "cheer her up" with lame jokes (Luke) and optimistic chatter (Mary.) I know how much Mom hates both kinds of attempted diversions, because she told me so yesterday morning after the possibility of surgery came up. She said it took too much energy to be polite to them, even though she loves them dearly. They finally left about 12:45 PM, and Mom slept.

 

It was clear she'd had a bad night, for she had long gauze strips tied to her hand and feet, and a wrap around her chest securing her gently to the bed. Luckily Allison (my father) didn't notice, and I learned later from her nurse she had been very agitated during the night, trying to yank out her catheter, and climb out of bed. After she kicked a nurse in the face, they had to restrain her. She would be so horrified by her actions that I'll never tell her this.

 

I spent the afternoon getting her off to sleep, so that as soon as she started snoring, some nurse or tech could arrive bedside to do something to wake her up again. Sometimes hospitals make no sense to me at all. Actually most of the time. She has the added burden of being profoundly deaf, and was unable to use her hearing aides. For her to understand people they had to lean close to her left cheek (the one blood was trickling down from the smashed, sutured eye) and speak slowly and clearly into her (still bloody) left ear. Nobody really did that except her nurse and I.

 

So I spent my afternoon hanging over her bed, translating what the doctors and nurses and dietitians were asking or telling her. At one quiet moment she asked me why she was so tired, and I leaned down to reminder her that she had just had major emergency brain surgery last night and was entitled to feel a bit spacey. It came like a revelation to both of us. She had not taken in all the explanations about surgery during the day, and I couldn't figure out why she had seemed so confused about it all afternoon.

Her co\mment? Gee, I am so glad to know it's over, I've been worrying when it was going to be done! She asked pertinent questions-who did the surgery, what was done, why didn't she remember (I told her it was because she was so heavily medicated, not that she disintegrated in front of my eyes over a terrifying 40 minutes), and no wonder her head and eye hurt so much last night. No wonder indeed!

 

So for most of the day her personality and sense of humor was intact, though she did have trouble understanding what other were saying to her, mostly because of her hearing, or lack there of, I think. Around 5:00 PM, however, she began to go down hill again, getting agitated and trying to climb out of bed. I began to experience the anxiety and fear of déjà vu. Luckily the neurosurgeon (who we all like a lot) arrived and said this happened to many elderly surgical patients. As the day ends they seem to recede or lose ground, just like Mom was doing, Then perk up again in the morning, with no memories of having had a bad evening or night. They sometimes refer to it as Sundowner's Syndrome.

 

After a shockingly brief debate with myself about staying to make sure she ate dinner, I decided to spare myself a second ordeal (though I could tell she was less confused than the night before) and bugged out. I do believe I am finally living out the recognition that taking care of me take precedence over taking care of others now and then. It's a healthy step which I took with no second guessing myself, and I am pleased.

 

Tomorrow still unknown. We seem to be living hour by hour at this point; at some point we'll move to day by day. She is still in critical condition, and quite unaware of the struggles which may lie ahead. But we had her for several hours today, loving us as we do her, and I am grateful.

 

Blessing on all of us, Margo 

 

 

Brain Surgery, Unexpectedly

 

It's 1:00 AM Denver time, and I am just back from the hospital, where my mother had emergency brain surgery to remove a blood clot six inches wide and a third of an inch thick. She also had major eye reconstruction surgery. She fell at 5:30 AM, on her way to the bathroom, hitting her left eye on something hard-we can't figure out what. It was clear it was bad immediately, but we were more worried about her losing the eye than anything else.

 

We were wrong. I followed the ambulance to the hospital, and after some tests, she was bitching about her pain, and saying only the money must keep the Denver Nuggets endure such misery, and indeed, she did look rather like a stitched up goalie. Magnificent black eyes and ragged line of stitches and all.

 

Then the CAT scan results came back-subdural hemaetoma, and a big one at that. Scary stuff a brain bleed.

 

The neurosurgeon said that since she was lucid and joking though excruciating pain, he wanted to take a wait and see approach. A second scan was essentially the same and she was lucid (though drugged and by then very unhappy. But still dictating lists of things for Dad and me to accomplish. All seemed okay. I came home for a couple of hours while Dad spelled me then went back about the time the second scan came back. The neurosurgeon said if it was his mother, he'd wait until after a morning CAT scan, and we'd see how she was doing then. Dad went home.

 

Mom was restless and uncomfortable in the bed but still talking to the nurse and me for another hour or so, then things began to slide downhill. Within an hour she was talking gibberish, trying to climb out of bed or yank the foley catheter out, reaching out for something or someone across the room, deteriorating so quickly in front of my eyes that, as I talked to her calmly and gently held her(only) hand down, in a small spare corner of my mind I was panicking more than ever before. I am good in a medical crisis, so I sounded calm and reasonable, reminding her over and over again where she was, what had happened, and why she could not get out of bed.

 

The nurse was very helpful as we tried to restrain Mom, but clearly it was time to call the doctor who arrived quickly and took one look and listen to the woman who had been joking with him about ice hockey at 4:00 PM, who was incoherent at 7:00 PM, and said he needed to operate. I called Dad, my brother Luke who lives in the Denver area, then Meg and my (emotionally fragile, bipolar) sister in Michigan, and a friend or two. The eye surgeon arrived and after looking at her eyes, announced he would be piggybacking on the brain surgery because there was a lot wrong with the eye. I am unclear about her eye problems, because I was too busy alerting the troops and praying to the Goddess that Dad and Luke would arrive before they wheeled her away.

 

Luckily they both did, along with Mary, Luke's wife. The surgeon pulled no punches-there were (and still are) no guarantees about her even living through the surgery, let alone what might happen if she did. We watched her get wheeled away, then retired to the waiting room Then I cried, despite the family taboo on emoting over anything. Dad got annoyed, Luke walked off, and Mary began to talk about how similar Dad and Luke's responses were-I cried until I was ready to stop, and we waited in a suspended animation of misery, for three and a half hours, until the surgeon reappeared.

 

Yes, she was alive, and breathing on her own, and still restless (now a good thing, because she was moving all extremities, and even almost semi-coherent in flashes. But, he added there are still no guarantees and he expects her to be very confused and more restless for several more days, then she'd need to go to a rehab place for a bit. If "nothing else happens"-a stroke, heart attack, thrombosis, and the list goes on.

 

But she's alive and fighting to get out of bed and we got to see her briefly after nearly two more hours in Recovery. She looked terrible, but she was telling the nurse where her chapstick was here at the house, and to go get it while she got up out of bed. We all had to give each other exhausted smiles, because, despite her confusion of place, she knew what she wanted and where it was-and she wanted it now, please.

 

Dad takes the first watch in the morning, and I'll go back about noon-it's almost 2:00 AM now, and I must go to bed. I just needed to write it down, share the fear and pain and struggle and hope and love today brought.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

Tags: Brain Bleed, Brain Surgery, Scary, Scary Day

Made It to Colorado!

Well, I arrived at my parents' house outside Denver at 1:30 AM, which is 3:30 CT time, then sat up for another hour talking with my mother who (naturally) was up and waiting for me. Just like old times! I finally fell into bed at 2:30(3:30AM CT time), and read for about 30 seconds before I passed out.

This morning I was willing to take under consideration that I might not have been up to the journey I took yesterday. I could barely get out of bed! Everything hurts, legs, arms, back shoulders, and head. But I feel triumphant! I made it! I ordered wheelchairs to go from one place or another, I sat in first class for the longer of the two flights (one of the people helping me board stuck me there, and there I stayed, even though I confessed to the first class flight attendant that I was a second class ticket holder). The food was good-I've never flown in first class before. It is nice, I will say!

My mother is full of errands and activities for me, with my father offering to drive. No thanks. Not one of his children or grandchildren, or great-grandchild(Myla) will ride in a car with him, which is the major reason they are moving to a retirement community-so he can give up the car. I want to add that every year he passes his drivers test, because he is concentrating. It is when he is out on the roads of this very busy, confusing area that he has a tendency not to concentrate. Come fall, his license will be suspended by the eldest of his three children-me, alas. My siblings assigned me the job, but promise support. We'll see.

The most exciting thing is that Mom and I will be going to Taos, NM, Goddess willing and her health hold up! It is one of the most beautiful places, and she loves it because she spent summers there in the '30's and 40's. It is also the place that she fell off a horse, had her arm set wrong, got gangrene, and eventually had it amputated. I'll tell the story in it's full, family folkloric version some other time.

In Taos, we drool over everything from paintings to jewelry to pottery to Taos Mountain itself, sacred to the Tiwa Tribe, many of whom are still pueblo dwellers. I can't wait!

I'm going down for a nap now, but will try to keep updating as I can.

Blessings, Margo

Tags: Visiting the parents, Doing too much, Taos, NM

Still Living and Moving

I have neither disappeared into the real world, nor sunk to the depths of depression. I have alternated between being busy and tired. My friend Mark, of http://journals.aol.com/makemarc/SoberGayEx-Con/,put put it best in his comment on my last entry. After I enumerated the ways I am moving outward, he wrote, sardonically,

" What? You're not training for a triathlon?  Gee Margo, some people are so lazy!"

 

As always he has a good point, and I must be very careful about not rushing to add more "interesting" activities to my life, at least when I have so many "have to" ones-physical therapy. doctor's appointments, regular therapy appointments, some of which are an hour's drive away. Of course the problem is that the interesting things-like yoga, and "elder-sitting" a woman at a local nursing home are the ones I want to do! And I can't wait to start doing Gentle Touch/Guided Imagery at the hospital! And I am so grateful to have come this far.

 

Since I mentioned Marc, I may as well plug his Blog. He is a real writer, thoughtful, articulate, humorous, a passionate street warrior with a trash pick, doing daily battle with the trash on the streets of Hollywood, among a number of other things. He has been a clear minded support for me during difficult times because he can cut through my fog, straight to the heart of the matter. I appreciate him a lot, and hope others will add him to their daily reads, too.

 

As for me, I am 268 journal entries behind, and beginning to recognize I'll never catch up if I comment, though commenting is part of the journal experience for me. And I miss what is going on in people's lives! Perhaps I will catch up some in the next couple of weeks at my parent's house.

 

My mother called a while ago to ask me to come "help sort" through stuff for the move into elderly housing they will make this fall. I agreed immediately, of course. The only problem however, as she well knows, is that I can't lift or carry much because of my shoulder, she can't lift or carry anything because her only hand is gnarled and frozen from arthritis and being overworked for over 55 years, and m father can't lift or carry much because his emphysema has worsened a lot this last year. We'll be quite a trio! 

 

Actually, I suspect my mother just wants to look at her stuff with me nearby to listen to stories and decide what will go to who when they move into a smaller place. That I can certainly do, bad shoulder, walker and all. I serve as a kind of permission giver for her, though I'm sad she needs one. I tell her gently that it's okay to send Great Aunt Leila's hand embroidered napkins to Goodwill, and sell some of the silver we kids don't want to polish for the rest of our lives, as she has dutifully (and resentfully) polished for over 60 years now.

 

My life seems so much less encumbered than hers, less to polish, to clean, to insure, to worry about. I also understand she has a lifetime of possessions that she has polished, cleaned, insured and worried about, and letting go will be wrenching. And I must admit I have one or two items myself-mostly artwork-that I plan to posses as long as possible, which somehow also makes them possess me. But nothing I have to polish!  

 

I am taking my computer west with me. I have learned that, while they have steadfastly refused to touch a computer for years, claiming they have no need of one, somehow they always have computer tasks for me when I get there. I see them for two or three weeks a year, but they cheerfully save up their tasks for me to do on dial up!

 

All this means is I will be online some while I'm there, so I'll look for you, gentle readers, and once again return to J-Land a bit more.

 

Blessings Margo

 

Tags: busy with life, makemarcs Blog, sortingmy mother's life, 268 Blogs behind!

Moving out, Into the World

 

Inanna comes to teach about inner strength and inner wisdom. She had descended to the depths and returned, aware of what she had lost-all her outer trappings of Queenship-and aware of what she had gained-inner strength, and the ability to rule her people well. My descent began August 11, 2003, when I fell at work.

 

I didn't know then that I was going to lose many precious things. So much went: my career and marriage, which were such a strong part of my identity, and my connection with my partner's family who had become my own, and all but one of those I thought were friends, and financial security, and a reasonably pain free life, and 220 pounds, and all the food I loved, which had protected me from the world, and the list trails on, pathetically.

 

Inanna returned from the underworld to take up her duties again, to be a wise and fair and beloved Queen of her realm od Sumaria. I am called to begin a new life, too, one in which I am useful, but balanced, using what inner strength and wisdom I have garnered over the last few years, and indeed my whole life.

 

And I have actually begun to emerge, feeling naked, blinking my way into spring, like Persephone emerging from Hades, into the delighted arms of her mother, Demeter. Though I seem to have disappeared from J-Land, the truth is more that I have begun to have an outside life, and am finding it rather more exhausting than I'd anticipated. So I am resting or reading or sitting spaced out in front of the boob tube, instead of interacting with my friends on line. Eventually I will grow stronger and have more room for both lives-real and cyber-spaced.(My "computer friends" are very important to me, but Inanna came to push me out of my complacency, making me face outward for a bit.)

 

I finished the training for The Gentle Touch and Guided Imagery Program for the local hospital. My friend Robin (who runs the program) was right. I'm a natural, for two reasons.  I've spent a lot of time alone in hospitals where no one but nurses and aids touched me, and then very briefly with blood pressure cuffs, or holding my arm to draw blood. We all know how short handed the whole system is. I blame the administrations of hospitals for the shortage, not the nurses, who are almost always overworked, tired and cranky. (I apologize to all good nurses out there who really do connect with their patients, especially those patients who are totally alone. I wish I could run across you whenever I am hospitalized.)

 

I see the opportunity to go into a hospital and rub someone's feet or hands or head very gently for 15 minutes, pampering them in a way that is almost unthought of as a patient, to be quite amazing. And leading guided imagery, before or during the gentle touch, is a gift for both me and the patient. When done well, it gives us both sustainance. I've been doing guided imagery for myself and others for nearly 30 years. For those who wonder, guided imagery is a way to help someone slow their breathing, relax deeply, and get away from their pain and sometimes even body, while one guides them to go to some place of their choosing to "escape" the hospital for even a bit.

 

This is a poor description of guided imagery, but I've used it in my spiritual meditations, with Meg when she was hurting in someway, in my various women's groups over the years, and most recently, with the HIV+ inmates in prison. After settling down 18 frustrated, often angry or resentful inmates, felons and murderers and prostitutes. all at various stages of HIV/AIDS, I am not worried about doing it with one patient at a time while I massage his or her feet very, very gently! I won't be able to start, however, until I get back from visiting my parents from April 7 to the 21st.

 

I have also started a Yoga class. It's a small group-two of us-taught by my friend Jayne, who just got her teaching certificate. The second woman has arthritis. Jayne is adapting it to chair yoga, simple moves to start with. I am in serious pain by 20 minutes into the hour, but the movements are good for me, despite the pain. (One thing I learned during my first shoulder rehab is that it doesn't get better if it doesn't hurt. This may not be true for all injuries, but I'm remembering the pain all too well this second time around!) After an hour and a quarter, I am so tired I can barely drive home.

 

And now I have taken on another volunteer job. I am elder-sitting an Alzheimer's patient in a local convalescent home for 3 or 4 hours once a week. She fairly with it, can't talk much, but seems very happy. Unfortunately she wanders a bit, which is where I come in- I'm to help her to wander safely. Eventually, we'll be able to go out in my car for ice cream and visits to not-to-big stores. Apparently she panics in malls and Wal-Marts. (I understand this-neither place appeals much to me either.)

 

And I still have physical therapy twice a week and various doctor's appointments. Phew! Now that I've listed all this, no wonder I am tired all the rest of the time. No wonder I'm exhausted! I know that these activities are for now, for this first stage of moving outward after too many years of withdrawal due to one medical problem after another.

 

Inanna came to me to teach of Inner Strength and Inner Wisdom, to remind me how much I've gained and learned over the years, so that I can make my first moves into new life. I have emerged thin and wobbly but still ready to begin the journey into new life and the realm of the Wise Woman, the Crone.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

 

Tags: Inanna, inner strength, growth from pain, moving outwards, volunteer work.

Inner Journeys

As usual when I have disappeared for a couple of weeks, I have been struggling with a number of issues, and feeling down, being much too hard on myself. I only have to go back a year or two in this journal to remind myself that I do work on my issues in my own inimical way. I  actually am doing quite well these days. Then I have to ask myself why I need such reassurance when sometimes I really do know my worth. I still seem to need a lot of outside reassurance that I have worked hard-perhaps because so little has changed on the outside in the last four years. But I have indeed changed.

 

I am still at home, mostly, still in pain, still recovering from surgery, more alone really than ever before-all on the outside. On the inside, I keep on keeping on, working the issues brought up by the myths of goddesses whose names seem to rise up into my consciousness from somewhere deep inside (or maybe down from heaven), because I need the lesson.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was happily driving along a nice back road, singing along to Mad Agnes (www.madagnes.com), when the name Inanna floated into my consciousness. My immediate response was, "Oh, no, not Inanna," and turn the volume up in the car. I sang louder, too. At home, I cleaned and fixed myself good protein and turned on the TV and the computer, and shut the name Inanna out. Firmly.

 

Unfortunately, I knew I was only putting off the inevitable, for my past experience with Inanna had been depression. Now, in case you are not caught up on you ancient Sumarian Goddess myths, Inanna was Ruler/Queen/Goddess of all of Sumaria, who decided she needed to visit her sister Erishkegal, Queen of the Underworld. She wanted to gain her sister's knowledge. Putting on seven layers of protective garments, she descended to the Underworld. At each gate, she had to take off one layer, until she faced her sister naked. Erishkegal immediately reduced her to a piece of rotting meat, hung on a pole.

 

Inanna first came to me many years ago now, before I was divorced from Meg's Dad, in the form of chronic, long-term Stygian depression. I truly was the meat on that pole, the emotional pain was so bad. Inanna was rescued, finally, to return to rule earth in a much wiser and insightful way, claiming and holding the wisdom she had gained in the underworld to herself, while ruling her country better than before her descent. I found a better antidepressant and went into therapy.

 

When Inannna's name drifted into my mind, all I could think of was that depression would once again move in and shut me down. Surprisingly, the depression which lurks just below my surface didn't deepen. A wise woman I know pointed out that I had already lived the first half of the myth, and needed to look at the second half, after Inanna returned to earth.

 

It was hard at first to imagine me, the me formed by such childhood pain that I surrounded myself by layers and layer of fat, as wise and insightful, holding my hard earned wisdom close to myself. Me, not squandering wisdom on the overly needy, Me, having the discernment to know when to share what I know about life, and when to keep it to myself, as Inanna does.

 

Then I passed a mirror. I am not the Margo I was, guarded by fat, wanting to please, to help everyone, anyone, so I could know I'm good, capable, worthy, valuable, and begging (passively aggressively) for outside assurances. I am at goal weight, I have traveled far without moving, and it will manifest in my life as time goes on. Not that I won't need outside assurance anymore, just less of it, and from the people in my life who I have come to value.

 

If none of this makes sense, it doesn't matter because I get it.

 

And I have begun to move out, open to attracting joy into my life. To manifest this, I asked Judi HeartSong to paint me a Goddess/Woman named Joy. She is the #7 of the latest Light Series (http://judithheartsong.blogspot.com/) At the bottom of the webpage look for "previous posts," and hit Light Series '07 to see the paintings. I asked her to do a Light Painting named Joy in November or December, saying there was no hurry, and She has been worth the wait! Once She is framed, She will join Hope, a Light painting Judi did for me nearly two years ago, when I needed hope was all I had to hold onto as I struggled through one medical problem after another. And I survived, on hope that rose from deep inside surgery after surgery after surgery, most of them alone

 

And so I am moving outwards, slowly,believing this year will be better than last. I am taking a 2 day training so I can volunteer with the Gentle Touch/Guided Imagery program at a local hospital. And I have joined a very small Yoga class run by a newly trained Yoga teacher who is a good friend. She wants to eventually work with yoga and the elderly or disabled, so I'll be her guinea pig, quite happily. And waiting for what comes next.

 

Enough for today, I bid you well.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

 

Tags: Inner journeys, Inanna, depression, hope, joy,