Whoa is not me

Oh see now I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I have a separate notebook with stories just for the blog that never see the light of day. Too personal. Too intimate. They remain hidden in the notebook as do many of the writings in all the other notebooks I have, the current ones and those stacked behind me in the headboard from years past. I haven’t figured out a way to present them so that I won’t feel rejected or ignored, but it does sometimes feel better to just write them down. I can kind of look at myself through my own sympathetic eyes, and then sometimes, more often lately, feel better about “it” and put it out of my memory.

And then my stepmother calls. I haven’t written much about my stepmother, out of respect for her, though I often doubt the feeling is mutual. You did get a glimpse of her after I came home from my visit to see her in Holland in “The Inner Selfie” post last November (I get a lot of use out of that picture, and a lot of laughs). She’ll be 90 soon and is still in her nursing home, trying to get back into her apartment. She has told me that she wants to die in her home, and I can’t blame her, but she can’t go back unless she has 24/7 help. She still thinks that I should be the one to do that for her, but without going into details and history, I will just say that I sometimes consider it, then remind myself how insane that would be, and how insane that would make me. She calls when it is the wee hours of the morning in Holland, which is perfect given the six hour time difference, and she’s awake and lonely. But that’s when she’s at her nuttiest and she’s not always nice, even though she refers to me as her daughter (now) and says that she is coming to New York to look after me so I don’t suffer alone. Don’t worry, she’s not coming.

And here’s the part that I just deleted, or not the part actually, so you’ll have to trust me that she says things, painful things that remind me and haunt me, and then I wake up the next morning with my childhood, and things going into adulthood ruminating through my head and my heart. And frankly, with the cancer thing and those other peevish life occurrences, I really have a lot going on. So I’m even surprised I wrote this evening at all. But I thank you, because I do feel a little better now.

BTW – I was mistaken last week when I mentioned that I was to have a mammogram biopsy in both breasts. The surgeon had actually said that I was to have an MRI biopsy, but I thought he was mistaken, cause how could you use a needle in an MRI, and I was standing on Westside Highway as we spoke, so… But I am indeed having an MRI biopsy on Friday, and of just the currently offending breast. I will say this, I am just relieved not to be having another mammogram, because really, they’re not good for you, and at least I’ll be observing something new for me, and the fascination I have with all this crap helps me get through it.

BBTW – That Fulton Street Transit Center down this way is mighty confusing and I consider my hike that seemed to go on for miles throughout it yesterday, going down stairs then up stairs and up stairs again (no escalators), then down a long passage in search of the 2/3 to Brooklyn Heights, to be a darned good Saturday workout, minus the chanting.