Looking out the window

Closing the year

Here we are, approaching the end of the year. It’s been nearly three years since my mother has reappeared. I’m no longer in full flaming freak-out. I’m no longer in the deepest despair of her situation. There is a low murmuring grief that we are here, another year of my mother on the street. Another year of failing to get her housed. A year of acceptance, that I may not be able to help her the way I want to.

Now I have the understanding that not being able to house her is not world-ending. It feels coarse to say so. It goes on and she goes on as I imagine she did when she disappeared for nearly four years. It goes on as it has for many others who live like my mother.

I know that she is better for having her daughter to relate to. When I was reintroduced to her at the beginning of 2016, I cried to see how badly she was doing. Now, she has a happy respite where we eat and chat. She has a physical refutation of her delusions of bad things happening to me. She can see herself that I’m okay when she’s “heard” in her delusions otherwise. That helps.

I no longer feel guilty for accepting things as they are. I accept what is to know how and what I can improve. So things have improved, for her and for me. They are not where I wish they were. I stopped fighting with “the way things are supposed to be.” They are. And I look for a better future in a realistic way.


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