Yesterday, I read an e-mail via the SCA Barony's mailing list from the former Dance Mistress here. Let me start from the beginning. She is the same age than I am. I got to know her in the Fall of 2002. After many years of searching for true love, she got engaged some time in 2004 to a guy that she was madly in love with. The wedding was supposed to be some time in 2005, I think. She was supposed to move from Indy to Washington DC to be with him. The only hurdle to her plans was the difficulty in finding a job.
Then, suddenly, her fiancé had a car accident that was really prompted by him passing out due to his diabetic problems. After a few weeks of struggle, the fiancé gave his last breath.
Sophia, the squirrel on cocaine as she calls herself, died at the same time... or maybe went dormant... only time will tell. After a few months, she decided to stick with her plans of moving to Washington DC. Some of her friends thought that it was a bad idea. I think that, somehow, she needed to be close to all the things that surrounded her late fiancé.
Time passed and I hadn't heard from her in many months. The e-mail that she sent yesterday was about how she is going to hold a memorial service for her late fiancé while at Pennsic. She is going to do some ritualistic things that are important for her, like there will be singing, poetry, etc. At the bottom of her e-mail, there was a link to her blog.
I have to admit that she was in my thoughts regularly so I had hoped that she had found peace and was happy again. When I went to her blog, figuring out that I would know how she's doing from there, I found a world of hurt and depression and darkness. She's not doing well at all. She is seeing a therapist so that's a good thing and will help her get through it all... but, boy, is that not the lady that I know! It gave me a pang of sadness to read her entries.
I guess that, for her, her world came to an end rather quickly. She had finally found THE one; one who understood her, one who understood her passions (boy, was she passionate; she probably still is in her grief), one who would let her be her without changing her, without demanding that she tone it down, one who made her happy.
I had foolishly thought that, after close to a year, she would be in a better situation than she is now.
In different news, my mom is in the hospital due to a relapse in her agoraphobia. :( That is such an uncool thing to have. I wouldn't wish that on anybody! Acutally, besides a cold, there are not that many things that I would wish on anybody. My mom had her first bouts of agoraphobia about 12 or 13 years ago. For those who don't know what agoraphobia is, in short, it's the fear of fear... that's what one brochure about it said... but, in the medical dictionary, they say that it's "an unexplained fear of open spaces." That's not a bad way to describe it. It started out with my mom not being able to go to the mall anymore. Anyone who knows my mom knows that that's a big sign that something is wrong. Then, she was confined to our street, then to our lawn, then to the inside of our house, then to the second floor, then to her bedroom, then to her bed. When I say "confined", it really means that she wouldn't get outside of that area; she would actually feel faint whenever she would leave that area.
I learned relatively recently that, when my father admitted my mom to the hospital all those years ago was because my mom had suicidal ideation: she wanted to jump off the bridge. After, I think it was 2 weeks, she was doing much better and was released from the hospital. Ever since then, she's been great. Okay, there was some progression in the beginning but, after a while, she was just a blast! She would have days when she would feel the agoraphobia creeping in on her but she would brush them off for what they are. She was actually more fun afterwards than before the whole thing.
Now, my parents are trying to sell their house and it's not going to their liking because it's a funky situation. I will spare the details but my father's reaction to it all is to work-work-work. He's retired but everyone says that he works even more now that he's retired... and now he was working even more. And that was worrying my mom beyond reason. Mind you, I can't blame her to worry about that. So, everything combined, plus the heat that was uncharacteristically high this summer, well, she had a relapse. At least, this time, they didn't wait too long before admitting her to the hospital.
It was kind of hard being far from her but, at the same time, I know fully well that, whether I had been there or not would not have made that much of a difference. I was a bit disappointed that my father didn't call me to let me know about the situation. I mean, I had talked to my mom in the past weeks so I knew that she was not doing well but dad didn't bother to call me to let me know that mom was at the hospital. I called him that Thursday to let him know that I had arrived safe and sound in Philly and that's when he told me the news.
My mom is doing much better and should be released any day now. Obviously, all that they needed to do was raise her doses of medications. And, when my dad called on Monday, he was saying how he misses my mom... that was just so cute. Maybe they were getting on each other's nerves recently because of the stress and all... well, I guess that the break was a good thing. ;o)
In other news, one of Jeff's uncle is really really not doing well. He had a stroke or an emboly, I don't remember exactly, but, anyway, his days are numbered now. He kind of was living on borrowed time because he had been very ill in the past and it was one of those situations where they didn't quite know how come he recovered and was still living... or something like that. But it's still very very sad.
In my recent blog readings, I read an entry from a friend, my former belly dance teacher who is still very much my mentor, though, and it was about her search for that internal peace and for the same feeling that she gets when she danced. She can't dance anymore... at least not for now, not for a while... and maybe she will never be able to again.
I wrote a reply to her blog but it seemed so inadequate. What can I say? I don't know what I would do if, suddenly, I couldn't belly dance anymore. I did go through a phase where I had given up on belly dancing for multiple reasons that were all of my choosing and all of my own volition. But since I have started dancing again, I have found my passion for it again and, while I think that I should do more of it, it's a very big part of my weeks for me... and it's definitely always on my mind... and all of it is a blast.
So, there are all these darknesses kind of around me, affecting people that I love, yet I feel light. I am happy with my life. I love my husband and we miss each other so much when I'm at work (which is really only a few hours during the day). When I stop to think about it, it kind of feels weird to still feel this light even though so many people around me are not but, really, it's more that I wish that I could share that light, that happiness with all of them so that they could have happiness too.
I used to let those types of events/incidents affect me and I "blamed" it on my strong empathy for people. Well, my empathy hasn't really diminished all that much but it just doesn't affect me anymore. I'm pretty sure that that's how Jeff has been for a great number of years. It's not that he's not affected by what's going on but he can't help but shrug it off as in "Well, that's life." What can you do? That's life. Life has hardships. Life isn't all lovey-dovey. Life can be a bitch. I used to take people's problems on my shoulders but, really, whether I did or not, did not change a damn thing...
Comments I had received
From Haifa:
WOW! Gosh girl... the majority of the blog tore me up. I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes and I can feel my nose turning red as if I'm about to sob. I feel for your SCA friend who lost her finance'. I think that if I ever lost my husband, I would be the same basket case. I truly believe in true love.... and lucky for some of us who have found our soul mate. I feel so bad for those who loose theirs. My mother was the same way when my father died..... she died too. Unfortunately I was still young at the time (12 yrs old) and had to endure her anxiety and depression although she never admited to either. My thoughts are with this friend as well as Jeff's Uncle. *sigh* Things can be really shitty at times. I'm glad to hear that your mother is doing better. I've heard of Agoraphobia (sp?) before and knew that it usually kept people inside their houses but didn't know just how serious it could get. Many thoughts are going your mom's way. It always helps to have someone else there to make you happy, to talk about things and just sometimes share the stress of life. It looks as if the two of you have a great outlook on things.... maybe I should take some tips from you on to how NOT to shoulder the weight of the world. *hugs* take care and good luck with everything.
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