Hey, Miss J!

10:57AM

I feel exposed right now. Lost, alone and weak. I’ve been struggling with my memory all morning, traveling from room to room – only to forget what I was going to the room to begin with.

I suppose this is just par for the course? My new meds are badly affecting my memory.

9:53PM

The old JVC’s speakers aren’t holding up as well as I’d hoped they would. I stood in front of the boombox earlier and frowned. Then… I decided to look online to see if anyone could repair it.

I found a company, but prices start around $60. It’s quite possible that I’ll end up paying $400 or more to fix a machine that costs about $150 to purchase used online.

It’s old, possibly older than me. It’s also massive and heavy.

Most people would get rid of it. There’s plenty of modern boomboxes out there that have CD players. This thing hosts dual tape decks and can’t even hold the memory of radio changes now. As soon as it turns off, it comes back on in the 800s on FM radio.

Knowing all that… why would I choose to keep it?

Well, much like my buffet, the small segments of a remaining journal, a few pictures and a box of ashes… I don’t have much of my mom left behind.

Aside from myself and a few trinkets…

There’s nothing much that she physically used often at all.

But… that boombox.

Maybe I’m being too sentimental. I’m tearing up at the idea of throwing out yet another thing that belonged to my mother.

Every single time I stare at her portrait, I think about all I’ve lost… and it hurts so much. It’s like my heart is being squeezed inside my chest.

Sometimes I burst into tears. I want to give a voice to how much it hurts. I’m also terrified when I start crying hard because emotional turmoil can easily trigger an asthma attack.

Everything I’ve managed to endure. Of it all, I don’t think anything will hurt quite as much as losing my mother.

As I grew up, my mother was just…

Mean.

Hateful.

Angry.

Jealous.

Neglectful.

Abusive…

My saving grace was that my grandparents raised me. Not everyone has the privilege of being raised by people who love you.

Through it all, I so badly wanted my mom to be there and to love me.

Sure, she was awful to me for a long time.

Yet at the end of the day, she was still my mother and she was also very sick.

I am grateful every day that I made amends with her before she died. She apologized so much and after I told her that I forgave her – she sobbed for two weeks straight.

Sometimes, at night, I question if I was a good daughter. I ask myself ‘why didn’t I try harder to connect with her?’ I cannot go back, of course. At the time, I was still struggling to get a handle on my own self-loathing. My mother being mentally ill was just another stain on myself.

I thought that I was sick too, that I was so far down that no one would be able to pull me back. My depression in those days was intense. My moods swung more often than a pendulum, with me spending an awful lot of time hating myself and everyone around me.

Back then… I often wanted to die. Just to get it over with. To stop how much I was hurting.

I thought the same things often… That my working life would be all that I’d have, that I’d never have a family, never have a husband. That I’d always be alone.

I’d just be an old, sad and lonely woman living in my family home with an old, wobbly cat to keep me company.

So yeah… I was stuck on stupefied. For years.

Part of those fears have already realized themselves. I am an often sad, aging and disabled woman who doesn’t have a husband, is 195.55% infertile, living in my family home with an old cat for company.

I joke a lot that “the family line ends with me!” It’s not really a laughing matter though. It’s frustrating and angers me at times that my body has failed me like it has.

I sometimes sit in a ball or curl up in bed – questioning my life decisions. How on earth did I get to this point?

Then, I try to focus on what I do have.

The crushing wave of the stress I endured, along with the traumas though… Oh, it’s terrible.

It’s so good that the police were sent here in 2021… before I was able to do anything to myself.

11:40PM

I’m now sitting here and watching some of those Redditt stories. And Apple Texts.

I feel like I’m becoming just a tiny bit manic, but it doesn’t feel as intense as before. The reason I worry that I am is because I’m running on gradually less and less sleep. Though I also feel intense fatigue and also really awake?

My spending habits are going off the rails just a touch, so I’m going to be stepping back from purchases for a bit. I’m actually afraid to see what my credit card bill is going to be now…

It’s stupid to run up credit card debt when you have 0 income.

I know this. I have discussed this with myself.

I have so much to get done tonight. Nothing on my list was completed. NONE OF IT.

I have a lesson to share in the PM tomorrow. So… I guess I’ll start there, right after I get this blog post up.

Ciao!

~J. Lyst

Man, I really wish I had some ice cream now. Least I have some homemade tortilla chips for lunch tomorrow.

Tajin is tasty!