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#349 - stuck in the past
12.02.03 @ 1:02 pm

I've been focusing too much on the past lately. It's getting me down.

Last night on the drive home, I was listening to the radio station that plays Christmas music 24/7 this time of year. They called someone up to grant their "Christmas wish". I should have turned it off then, because I was already feeling bitter - they didn't grant my wish for my mother last year.

They called a woman who wanted to do something for a family that recently moved into her neighborhood. A single mom and her two kids, the mom having recently left her abusive husband and unable to find a job. The way she described this woman reminded me so much of my mother. She said that the woman had tried to leave many times, but always went back. But this time it was for real and they were divorced.

So they got $400 and a $100 gift certificate to Safeway. And all I could think about was, what about my mother?

I told myself for the millionth time I couldn't fix her. But then, what are we supposed to do with broken people if we can't fix them? Do we really stop trying? Do we throw them out? I thought, well, we could at least try to be there for them, make them happier.

And then I just shut it all down. Because I don't know what to do for my mother. I never really have, and thinking about it when I was feeling like that wasn't helping.

I didn't see my mother on Thanksgiving, nor did I call her. Because I forgot to look up her # before I left town. But why didn't she call me? I get so bitter about stuff like that.

I've been thinking about the time that she left me alone with my father and brother in Hawaii. It was such a horrible time. The beginning of my abandonment fears. I remember this woman called one night, and she whispered over the phone "I love your father." Now, I was at just the right age, and just depressed enough, that I knew it wasn't my mother, but I convinced myself she was. She kept calling, whispering things about my dad, and then hanging up. About a dozen times over two hours.

She was obviously some psycho stalker woman. But a few calls into it and I was convinced she was my mother, on her way home to us. Convinced my brother too.

Why do I think about this? I don't know.

But I dream about my husband leaving me all the time. Actually, usually it's more like he does something cruel like go out/make out with another woman right in front of me, and then act all flippant about it. I usually wake myself up screaming at him about how can he be so mean?

I had one last night. And when I woke up, I had a fat lip. I had been sucking and biting on my upper lip for some time during the dream, I guess because it was so intense. I woke up this morning and it was worse. Kind of numb, kind of tingly. Enormous. Ugh. I feel like a mutant, here at work where anyone can see me.

I don't know what it is about my past, that I can't just put it behind me and leave it there. I was thinking a few weeks ago, that I think it's kind of odd, that my past completely surrounds my present.

Because I'm obsessed with toys and books that I had/experienced as a child. My house is filled with them. Since I moved out on my own, a large majority of the items I buy for myself have been toys or books that I remember from my childhood.

It only recently occurred to me that this might be more harmful than helpful. To be surrounding myself with so many things that trigger past memories.

But I love these things. I adore them. My Hello Kitty collection. My Disney movies. My Narnia books. They don't trigger bad memories.

I think it's possible that having them around may make it more difficult to sever ties to the past. But I kind of don't care. Obviously, my childhood wasn't a complete horror, if I had Hello Kitty in my life back then, right?

I smile when I see these things. I love re-reading the old books. No way am I putting or throwing them away. Even if it would be better for my sanity.

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