Is it A Cycle or A Spiral?

I know something about myself that I haven't always known.  I have a rough time with transitions. Any transition, no matter how small, throws me for a loop, or into a loop as it were.  I knew this week would be tough. The Little One and I are on or own for the second time ever, and this time for much longer than two days.  Added to this, she has begun her lessons this week.  One would think this was cause for a celebration, but instead her increasingly familiar mood shifts, coupled with my own withdrawal into quiet has left us both in a funk that seems to feed off each other. I know what's going on with me, but am at loss to see why it should result in such exacting expression from someone else.

         For me, what I've come to call it is Cycling.  I have this theory I'm working on about my biorhythms-my physical, emotional, and mental states of being. I wrote about it last month, in a post I never posted, because then the cycle continued and it didn't seem so relevant anymore-life went on; things were fun, crazy, but mostly manageable.  And now when I know I'm just coming out of yet another of my...introversions, I still don't have much to say, I'm just remembering I have words. But I do want to write about it at some point-maybe a lot-until I get it right.  I think it's an amazing thing to witness about myself, though harassing to go through.  The threat to slip into psychobabble and very really psych-fears is... restraining, but who gives a shit.

          For the past few years I've witnessed an increasingly palpable wave my moods shift through, a cycle that begins say at the end of the month. I love the start of the month; I am always so ON IT, so AWARE, so high with connection and comprehension.  No matter what is going on in my life, these first two or three weeks (if you count from the last week of the previous month) find me in my most creative and initiating mood.  Even if I'm not doing anything new, I am usually remembering what I'd thought to do before but just never got around to it.

          Then it all goes to pot around the middle of the month-I say around because if I am being very careful and aware I can note a few days of.....frantic feeling where I'm still doing, still being thoroughly extroverted and functional, but it's like I'm Wile E. Coyote just after he dashes over the ledge, just after he realizes he is over a ledge, just before that realization leads to his downfall...literally.  Those are those few days-say the 13th to the 15th; it's where I'm already over the ledge, but now it's dawned on me, and peeeewww, splat, there it is.  

http://www.louisville.com/tags/wile-e-coyote 

              I stay in an introverted funk, having nothing to say, no thoughts come to mind that I can lucidly follow let alone share.  [This is where we bring up interesting little words like depression and seek help. Yeah, you would say that, I would too unless I was me-which I am.]

           The thing about these cycles is they are not pathological though they are organic and natural; I don't feel bad at these times, I just go still and quiet, which only feels bad when I feel like I'm supposed to be the extroverted doer-maker-organizer I am at the other side of the cycle (like when it's the Little One's first week alone with me, and she's got lessons and tutors, and outings Oh My!)

            Without fail, no matter what is going on around the 23 of the month, I snap out of it-well NO-I slip back into the other side of the cycle.  Suddenly words, thoughts, and connections are alive in my brain again-like WOW (ha! can you tell I'm not quite there yet?) And that's it; the cycle starts all over again.

            There's another thing I've noted about this cycle thing but with less definition, it is that I think it happens throughout the year as well, but that may just be residual effects of living in a cold climate.  I am high as hell in February, my life just feels tremendously filled with activity even when it's just in my mind; in March things are okay, but in April and May I get that funky over the ledge feeling again-I'm usually working out like crazy, working, seeing someone new, but it's all starting to slip away for some reason. New guy disappears or turns into a sociopath in human clothing; working out hits a standstill, usually related to some such illness; and so on, and so forth.

         There, I've written it all out for once, not that it makes me sound at all normal or healthy, and worse, not that I have even begun to explain the nuances of this revolution-like those time-lapse photography videos of a carcass being devoured by insects in the forest-this is a messy, but beautiful thing. I just don't really know what it is yet.

          I began this post discussing transitions-this is a whole new layer of dealing with my tiresome self. You would never know it to look at me, unless you really knew me, and even then only if you were especially brave and curious.  Life continues as before-food is made, jobs are done, people are called. There may be only like 3 days of the 10 day downturn where I seem off or tired, but I know when it is there with some inexplicably exact timing.

           This last time it happened on...Friday, the day I went to the gym at 6am, the day I came back and did 3 loads of wash (by HAND-ahem-Africa), the day I took the Little One to the eye doctor, and sat there waiting to be called on a lovely, sunny afternoon, scratching at the crease in my arm, even though it didn't itch.  And my Logic mind thought-ah shit-what IS that itch?

            And Saturday we made a morning trip to the market and continued on to a lovely day at the beach-except that I was exhausted from too much gym time and I was expecting some-ka-guy (that's Ugandan for bloke, or mic, or homie) to maybe show up, though I didn't really want him too, and night came and all had gone well-it had been lovely, lovely, lovely...and I thought-fuck me, what IS that itch?

            Sunday I let myself read in bed thinking, let me just breathe and take my vitamins.

            And Monday she began her lessons but missed one because the driver forgot to show up and I thought-fuck me-I can't FIX this (nor do I even want to care)!

             And suddenly it just seemed all so tiresome. Meals were cooked, lessons were had, laundry was folded-but all the while, I was just so tired, each thought seemed to way down on me with its emptiness; like I just had nothing to say, nothing to give; like I just wanted to crawl into a simple grey space (not black, not dark, but the white was a bit too bright for me) and sit and lose myself.  This time around it was in SAG Award clips on youtube which led to any and all interviews of Ricky Gervais (who is beyond brilliant-I didn't know); followed by Adele songs on repeat (who is soooo talented-I didn't know) all things I never do and were utterly unimportant.

          Normally this is all okay for my life, not doing, not thinking, not being so damn...out there for a few days, can make me feel reborn (and yes, even in the biblical sense). But now I have this child who is perplexing to us-my mother and I-in her refusal to initiate anything with her imagination.  No matter how much attention I give her, she starves for more; like she can only participate in her life when I am right there next to her participating in the exact same thing-and It. Is. Never. Enough.  Her startling slip into apathy just because I have nothing to say to her in the 20 times a morning she comes and sits with me on my few days of introversion (I mean, feel free to watch the SAG Awards with me dear, but I am SORRY, I have no comments-especially not based on what an 8 year old, who has no idea what an awards show is, would notice or think about.) disturbs me as it strikes a very different cord than my own reclusion: I am not apathetic when I am quiet; I am biding my time, like a butterfly in a cocoon; I am doing what I gotsta to do, before I can fly free again. 

              

           Now she has storybooks, but won't so much as read them without me there; we've done calendars and paintings and shell decorations-even fucking papier-mâché- but when I leave my computer (where I admit I've thoroughly lost myself this week) to check on her in the 3 hours since she woke up to a prepared breakfast as usual, I find her lying on her bed sucking a finger and looking like some traumatized individual. I wake up at 6am to give her eye drops (she is not a morning person and this latest ritual may be contributing to her listlessness) then lie back in bed in an anxious panic trying to think of what in the world I'm going to say to her when she wakes up; literally willing the morning not to come. Not because I don't want to talk to her but because, just now, I can't think of a word to say to anybody; I just want to absorb and let my mind rest a bit.  

             My continued anemia may only exacerbate this situation, but that's why I mentioned the cycles; this is how my mind does; this is my cycle. I once read that though Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible; Bean Trees) one of my all time favorite authors is happily married with two daughters, when she is ready to write she actually moves out of her home and lives in a one room shack.  The PoisionWood Bible this is NOT, and perhaps will never be, but I've always had an affinity for that ritual of withdrawal.  

           It's times like this I wish we still kept to the ritual of oral tradition; I have a strong feeling that not too far back in my ancestral history, there is a woman who could tell me exactly what this was all about, and she would have a name for it, and a reason about it and it would NOT include the words depression and seek help (it's amazing how much conditioning can be blamed for our individual suffering; believing something is that when all along it is this, and instinctively knowing that difference exists but having no proof is enough to drive a person mad)

            The thing about transitions is they tend to make an already daunting task of inner harmony a bit...ungraceful for me; I get there, I almost always get there; but it's not always so pretty.  Well the Little One and I do share the same blood. Perhaps that's why her behavior frightens me so; I used to watch her mother do the same thing when she would visit us-she would lie under the dining table and mumble to herself-but again, she wasn't actually pathological, she had just shut off somehow because of a lack of stimulus.

          But how much can I stimulate another person, when I myself am watching award show clips just to give my head something to think about?  If I take her to the pool, she looks longingly at me waiting for me to come and play, ignoring all the other children around her. If I take her to the beach and after playing around for awhile, I try and just drift off in watching the light fall on the waves, she loses interest in her singing and dancing and sits next to me, not enjoying the view, just depressed that I don't want to sing and dance all the time.  I can barely find the words to articulate my own journey, how can I be expected to change all of who I am in order to keep this person happy? Is that an expectation-did I just make that up?  Is it okay for me to cycle down and just read quietly, is it ALLOWED? Is a mother really expected to lose herself in her child's needs just because that mother’s needs don't seem so especially critical? (meals are made, floors are swept, medicine and home remedies are given with sincere care and love)  I just don't know what to do with this little girl who has some of my weaknesses but very different strengths; how do I get her to snap out it, so I can be left in peace to snap in?

     

Awww-k-Word

         The last few days have been a marathon of bonding, blog reading, and stifled panicking-fine then, we'll call it a triathlon.  When last we spoke things seemed to be coming to a head-

[ugh I know writing this will feel good, it will stretch out my voice muscles, get me all warmed up again, but I've just spent the last few hours reading other peoples blogs.  I don't know if this happens to everyone, but when I read a certain kind of voice, Victorian, Australian, any kind of unique accent or writing style, all my thoughts take on that voice.  So now I'm trying to write my blog with like 50 different mom voices floating in my head-it's pissing me off-disclaimer]

        As I was saying, things were getting pretty ugly there for a bit.  Actually the beach thing was only the eye of the storm, a relative calm before more energetic chaos in the house.  No matter what I tried to do, I couldn't seem to hit the right note to end the nasty, putrid, thoughts whirling in my head and heart.  I couldn't help whining, demanding; taking everything the wrong way and feeling like it was them against me.  Ooff, I shudder at the memory of how ampt up I felt, how tired and tiresome.  

        The Little One showed me no mercy. Yes, I have confessed, for the most part, it was I who had hit an emotional whirlpool, but I still cooked, cleaned and played housewife, and she would sit staring off into space-going completely mute the minute Mukaka was not in the room-like I just didn't exist.  And all I could remember is how many times I pulled the same shit with my mother; I distinctly remember the purposefulness of it, the cold, empowered feeling of knowing how much I could hurt her just by voiding her existence.  She was getting off on watching my nerves get all the more raw-but only when she knew I wasn't looking.

        So Thursday evening I sit in my room and contemplate walking away.  It was a breaking point.  I had done what I said I would come to do; the transition was over and now it was as if my role had played itself out...

        Vannesa is one of the most adept survivors I have ever known.  My mother had to leave the city for the weekend, and just like that Vannesa was suddenly in love with me again, knowing very well she had no one else to interact with.  I didn't know what was more astounding, how ruthless she was in her cruelty, or how endearing she was in her need.  But whatever the rhetorical conclusion, this did not stop my hurt from soaking up that affection and need, a slave on my raw nerves. So we went swimming and she clung to me like a brand new baby, even though the pool was full of her age mates.  I took a chance and told her that I liked her so much better when she wasn't being mean to me like when Mukaka was around, she was so quick to agree-even though I'd known her behavior had been somehow conscious-I was still surprised how readily she understood exactly what I was talking about. And she vowed to stop.

          That night we sat down to dinner, just the two of us, and I don't know how it all came up. It was all very casual, like she mentioned my sister having volunteered to adopt her, so I ask her, I says, "well, what if I told you that I wanted to be your mother?"  It's weird to even bring all this up, since I'm in such a crabby mood and all, and since I have never been more desperate to get away from her as I am today...haha.  Well, but that's the point, that's how I know it's real. Anyway she was so quick to agree, but with the disclaimer that we would all have to have a family meeting with Jaja, and Mukaka, and my sister, and everyone to make the announcement (where does she learn to be so formal and proper?!?)  And I let her know that she could take her time before calling me mother-ugh-weiiirrrd.  

         Like I said, I hadn't expected this conversation to happen for a few months at least, though it's helped that my mother has already known and she thought the sooner the announcement the better.  The next morning, the last two days, in fact, of unabridged, uninterrupted bonding time has been overwhelming to say the least.  She sits across for me with the exact same intensity as when she ignored me, but she now watches my every move-my EVERY breath, her big eyes pouring "need" into me and soaking up all the thoughts and wants and desires I used to have as my own, my. very. own. MINE.  

          I wish this post flowed better, but I gotta just get it out, editing be damned.  The thing is, this is all double sided. I mean...I was already freaking out when all this happened, remember?  Like there's other shit that's being taken into consideration-for one, I have not had a single conversation with someone my age in I don't know how long, 28 days, that's how long. And I've never had a conversation with someone going through anything like this.  So it's like I'm starving, yeah, and then all this with Vannesa was like a thirst on top of the hunger.  So now I'm quenched, well at least for now, but other needs, other fears are still gnawing in my gut.  And then there is this little girl with her big, big eyes, demanding ME to fulfill HER?!?  I've seen other mothers get that look on their faces (did I just say "other"??) that quiet panic.  And you always think, c'mon what's the big idea? babies are soooo cute. Yes they are. And so is the Little One; she is absolutely gorgeous; It is just kinda crazy to go from zero to sixty with no seat belt on.  And it doesn't help that my baby is too old for naps, cannot be comforted by nursing, and is not yet in school (urgggh) and-continuing the analogy-just became MINE point two seconds ago.  

              Maybe all this is obvious to anyone reading this, but honestly the fact that I would yearn for parenting help did NOT occur to me.  Ha! Seriously, the only people I know who have kids have them by default and as a matter of fact.  I've never known anyone to have to "date" their child; to go through the very same ups and downs that happen when embarking on any other new and serious relationship.  And anyone who does know me knows, I don't know shit about relationships.  My point is there must be a method to this madness, no? There must be a way to navigate through my own life's turmoil while still managing the Little One's passing storms with minimal damage to us both.  OMG, I sound typically naive don't I?  Like a 400 lbs person saying their New Year's Resolution is to lose weight. No really, best of luck, but REALLY. By "typically naive" I mean, typical for me: the grandest adventures always strike me as no-brainers; it's the everyday that fills me with panic.  So what to do?  Does anyone want to judge me for taking hold of this little girl's life when I don't have a very good grasp on my own? Would it have been any better if I'd gotten knocked up by some Indian dude cheating with me on his German girlfriend? (wonder who would have the prettier baby, but I digress)  

           Are we only supposed to be courageous when the risks are pre-designed?  Did I just stumble into this life or did I create it?  Would I change it if I could?  The other day, at the beach, as the sun set on yet another of our bachelorette weekend outings, my mother said, "ughhh, I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow!", and I replied, "I wish I had a job. We can't always get what we want when we want it."  

           I was thirsty and now she loves me, and it's awkward and it's good.  Can I be happy with what I have even though this isn't what I had in mind, when I asked for it? 

...Can you?