Need

I’ve felt so loved and taken care of throughout this latest, stupid health dust up. I am a very lucky woman.

Unfailingly, what follows my warm, happy, secure, I'M LOVED state is a hurricane of insecurity.


• Why are they all so damn good to me? What's the hitch?
• I don’t deserve this wonderful care.
• I’m wearing my friends out.
• I can’t continue to be such a colossal burden.
• No one will want to know me if I’m continuously sick or in need!


Honest to Bast – quelle drag and shit. Just FYI:


A) I’m not ALWAYS sick or in need.
B) I’ve been known to give as good as I get

Having said that, my mother’s instructions for life can be neatly summed up in two sentences:


1) Don’t be a burden and if you need anything you ARE, perforce, a burden.
2) Don’t impose and if you’ve asked anyone for anything you HAVE imposed.

Getting past mia madre’s perennial mantras has always been a viciously up-Denali climb. She wanted me to be utterly self sufficient AND mega low maintenance – more self-cleaning oven or pet rock than human.



Paraphrasing Roy Batty:

         Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be human.

I fear asking for help and being refused out of hand (I’ve asked for too much! I’ve committed the WORST offense – I've become a burden!). I fear being made to feel like I’m less – less able. less evolved, less independent , just LESS – because I need assistance.



While I’m abundantly aware that mother’s expectations of me (and others), were unrealistic and ultra mega harsh, in times like these they’re triggered. It’s a funny/not funny, challenging thing to need. Courage is required for even the smallest of requests.



This, as I’ll bet you figured out, makes it difficult for me to ask.



I’m now in, basically, the final stretch of this year of surgery. Thursday I’m having what’s been billed as a very simple laser procedure on my wonky left eye. This should cap off the eye crap for the foreseeable future. (HOPE!)

Thursday holds a lot of weight.

This business, what with travel time to and from the good doc’s alt location (way out on Huntington Ave versus the relatively easy, Red Line accessible MEEI), in office prep time, lasering, post surgical wait and see (is she gonna be OK or is she gonna transform into a giant paisley sea urchin!), should take just half a day. Not bad. I can jump through this, hopefully, final eye hoop.



Meanwhile, I start rehab for my back later today. I’m thrilled to bits that my insurance is covering this. I don’t have to ask for help – it’s scheduled and the folks providing assistance are being paid. This is a MUCH easier emotional business for me to navigate.