The Never Normal

So I was editing the last post, and “similar posts” came up along the bottom.  Among them I found:

my 100th post mother’s day mystery

in which I bore you all with the same exact story about Sara Crewe and A Little Princess.  Oops.

I rarely read my old blog posts and I’ve never read the whole blog through start to finish.  I wonder how many times I’ve gone on about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Guster, Elfquest, A Little Princess, etc. in the same way, over & over? Am I getting forgetful in my middle age, repeating myself without realizing it?  Or am I autistic and fixated on telling the same stories and references ad infinitum?

At least now I know the first year the magician started coming, which makes this year 7. That’s new information for sure.

I COULD just go back and edit that last post, but that would be a lie of sorts.  This memory thing is part of who I am.  I do often forget that I’ve already told someone something, or I forget to whom I told what.  

Sometimes I forget because I need to forget.  In the process, other things get tossed out in the wash.

I suppose there are worse things that could happen to my mind.

Tomorrow I drive down alone to visit Boo with Andy.  Jonah has had a rough week; yesterday he even bit a caregiver on the stomach and fought with another.  And here I thought I just might start to maaayyybe hope that his aggressions were gone for good.  At least mostly.

But no.  No, again.  No.  Again.

I have to be careful tomorrow.  Follow all the old rules.  No glasses, be vigilant, tuck the sheets under him and not me when we take a nap.  If we take a nap.  I’m nervous about it, and sad, and it makes my PTSD kick in, my heart pounding pounding pounding, teeth clenched, muscles tight, jaw like stone.

Plus it’s been raining and dreary all day, and there was another school shooting yesterday. 10 people dead in Texas.  I read the comments on the articles about it, all the solutions, all the suggestions, the angry finger-pointing name-calling righteous people who blame and lash out, mock and ridicule, troll and flame, everyone saying it has to stop, it has to stop, it has to stop.  We have forgotten how to be kind to one another, even in the wake of a tragedy.  It’s more important that someone else is wrong and you are right.  It’s more important to be heard than to listen.  Ours is a broken country.

I’m exhausted from caring about too many broken things.  I’m exhausted from crying about it and about Boo earlier, and exhausted from rage cleaning – scrubbing and sweeping, vacuuming and doing wash, whirlwind style, vigorous and hard.  I always clean like this when I’m feeling angry and helpless.  It’s a giant metaphor.  I can’t scrub the world of its hate and I can’t wash the aggression from my son, but I can at least do the dishes and make the fucking sink shine.  I can clean my own little corner of the world.

Wish us luck tomorrow, Andy and me.  That last time he hurt me pretty bad.

If he does it again, though, at least I’ll probably forget it.