"The wound is the place where the light enters you." -- Rumi.

My last chance at sleeping in and here I sit, too early in the morning to even think about looking in the mirror, let alone brushing my teeth.  So yes, the dragon breath is mine.  It seems there is no rest when the words kick up like a mad tornado in my head.  I often wish I had some sort of pensieve so that I could simply draw them out like so many strands and deposit them in a dish for later evaluation and revision.  But alas, they haven't invented that yet, so I just need to type fast and capture as many of the thoughts I can.

These posts, they come on the heels of so much grief that it is even hard for me to find the humor that typically gets me through the rough patches.  Bear with me, I am certain they will get less heavy as time progresses and I will find my voice again.  It may be a little deeper, but surely it won't have completely lost its mirth.  Life's too short not to laugh about it, I think.

Yesterday, when I started to write, I was thinking about the ways in which I have defined myself, and my life.  I got part way there when I found some other path and completely forgot where I was supposed to be going in the first place.  Go figure... it must have been the valium (and yes, it is a valid prescription which I take AS PRESCRIBED by my doctor to make sure that I actually do get out of bed in the mornings.  Just a shame I don't stay there a bit longer).

For the past month, I've found myself defining myself in terms of my mother.  I feel compelled, when I talk to anyone about my career path, to mention that I am going into Alzheimer's research, and, oh, my mom died from it.  Everything I am right now, it is from the perspective of my mother's role in my life.  It is odd - I did not expect this.  I am my mother's avenger, I am my mother's keeper, I am my mother's memory.  The only thing I could not be for her was her angel of mercy.  But that is another story entirely.

I did not know that grief could effect one like this.  I have lost people I loved and I have certainly been challenged in ways I think is really slightly unfair for just one person, if I do say so myself.  But at the end of the night, I close my eyes and I just pray for the strength to get through this - all of these things that seemed to culminate in my life in a single moment.  I will bear it, like I will bear anything I need to, because I can and that is who I am.  I am my mother's daughter afterall.  But I am simply ready for the light to enter this wound, and begin filling it with something other than this heaviness I feel.

Ann and Carrie Ann, Christmas 1971

Ann and Carrie Ann, Graduation 6/1988

I know I am not the first person to feel this, and work through this, and I will certainly not be the last.  It happens that I lost my heart's closest friend the same week I lost my mother and those two things together have dropped me to my knees.  The pain of Kellen's struggles culminating almost in unison almost seem to much to bear.  And these tears, and these words, they make me feel weak, but they are the only way I know how to find my strength again.  Even if there isn't a soul that reads them, when I write, therefore I AM.  And right now I need that reassurance.