Mothers of Homeless, Addicts, and Estranged

The landscape she’s created for herself doesn’t match the one I carried for her all her days in my womb, as a toddler, a teen, a young woman.

It was a good day the last time she stopped by.

I don’t know why.

Was she high or taking antidepressants instead of one of those maintenance drugs, Suboxone or methadone? 

I don’t know.

In fact it’s clear,

I don’t know much anymore

and I’m not in charge. I listen. 

If I debate her and she’s not in a good place, coming down, maybe, or from no sleep. Hungry.

I don’t know,

but that’s when I will get put in my place and I  tell her it’s time to leave, find different scenery.  I need my own landscape where the presence of her turmoil doesn’t press upon my chest,  leaving me anxious. 

****

Last night Larry and I watched The Morning Show. There was the exact scene, only it was a sister and brother. Everything the sister said to her brother, I’ve said to my daughter. And in the show, when the brother didn’t like what he heard, he yelled at his sister.  Larry and I looked at each other. “This is way too close,” Larry said. 

Larry and I think we are the only ones having this experience. 

We’re not.

We’re all worried. 

I will be teaching a class on Mothers of Homeless, Addicts, and Estranged, Writng for Healing, at the Carnegie Center in Lexington this winter. This is not therapy or a support group. This is writing, digging deep into old bones to tell our story. This is not easy.