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I ran away from home today, which is what I call it when I hop in my old ’78 el Camino and wander into Bisbee, wasting gas just to see some friendly faces, grab a cup of java, see a change of scenery, decompress and make decisions. So. I decided that to plow ahead on the book writing right now would be the emotional equivalent of going over Niagara Falls in a paper cup — so it’s break time.
Because I am spending A LOT of time writing in response to my daughter’s book question #6, which now has four parts and is moving into a fifth, I only get to take my 96-hour down times when I know I need them now rather than being able to pause in between questions. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the other 13 questions my daughter has lined up for me, but #6 seems to fit the bulk of my tell-the-story-like-it-was format. When I reach a tough stumble and fall down time I know it — and it’s time for one of those breaks.
Dissociation exists for a health-promoting reason. Trying to push too hard to make this story I am telling coherent at this point is not healthy for me. There’s too much there!
What I do know is that I did something when I was 10 — right at the point I will write about after my break — that I never had done before and never did afterward: I stood up to my abusive mother the best that I could. With what seems to have been my first truly conscious self-aware thinking I decided ‘on the spot’ that if I stood up to her things couldn’t get any worse than they had always been.
I was wrong. Nearly dead wrong.
This ‘abuse incident’ also led to me running away for home for the first and only time in my 18 year childhood.
To do myself justice, to do this story justice, I have to build into myself what I need in the next four days to hopefully be ready to get back to my task and to do it well.
Meanwhile, I turn 60 on Wednesday — and that earns me a break all by itself!
NOTE – this post is related to this morning’s post: +WHOSE STORY IS THIS ANYWAY?
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Stop the Storm 
Bless you Linda, I’m glad you decided to take a break. Our brains hide these things for a REASON! Please don’t push too hard. When ever I go on one of these spelunking expeditions I get the very specific sensation of sitting upon a huge, stinking garbage pile desperately searching for buried treasure in the depths of the muck……I can practically see the small child me sitting on top, frantically digging for the goose that laid the golden egg in the trash pile. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don’t but it is always painful and dirty.
Please go easy on yourself. And have a Happy Birthday tomorrow!! Do things for yourself that Mom didn’t do for you…..you deserve it.
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Cinderella
Thank you so much! My oldest daughter’s dear friend made a Facebook comment last evening that I so needed to hear. I can get lost in the misery of my childhood. I can get lost, as I did yesterday, in “Why on earth am I DOING this?”
This dear woman simply commented that she enjoys reading about my stories on the blog as things move along — and I again remembered what I am doing is telling a story. A whopper of a story.
It isn’t WHY I am doing this that matters. It is WHAT I am doing that matters: Finding and telling my story!
Yes, tomorrow is a special day for me and friends are gathering in the evening for fantastic pizza and companionship – it will be wonderful! So good to hear from you!! xoxoxox Linda – alchemynow