Not Quitting

Wednesday was another brilliant day, but it was cold in the morning. I took the car in for new brakes at 8:00 and took a taxi home. I’m glad I don’t use the taxi often because it cost $24 to come home. We weren’t home long before Regina arrived to pick us up so that we could walk with our friends.

When we finished walking, Regina took me to Gabe Auto to fetch my car, and she had a wee cry over being lonely. She left her husband several months back and is struggling, so I asked her to join Eoin, François and me for dinner here on Saturday. I wanted a fourth person, and I was very happy to have her accept.

I started reading Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene. It’s a start. I’d love to find myself devouring books again. Other than that, I had a lovely afternoon spa and a long Zoom call with Steve. And I got a message on my computer that my friend, Leslie, had called. She’s been ghosting me for eight months, so this was good news. I’ve called back a few times to no avail.

Just past three, Her Highness and I went to Elder Cedar to walk the circuit. It was bright and sunny and quite warm (15°). We’re in for another lovely day today, apparently. I’m thrilled for my clover; tomorrow, the rains returns and that’ll be good for the clover too. On the way to Elder Cedar, I stopped to see if I’d received any mail, and I had. My lifts arrived, so I put them in my shoes, and they really work. I had much less pain walking.

I was very happy to be back in control of my caloric intake after two days of excessive eating while Dianne and Beverly were here. I have another big meal coming up on Saturday and I’m looking forward to it. But then, I’m going to spend at least two weeks eating ‘mindful’ portions.

When it was time to feed the pets their dinner, I was thrilled to arrive at chaise and television time. I loved the visit of my friends, but I also love being alone. Oh, my goodness, I enjoyed last night!

•

About a month ago, I noticed something happening in the highest branches of my Paulownia tree. The tips of these branches had a seeming explosion of little branches at their highest end. Through my binoculars I could see ‘lumps’ on the little abundance of little branches. It all made me think that maybe there would be blossoms next Spring, and now, my best guess is that I am seeing buds that will open in the Spring, just as I can see all the buds on my big Rodo in the front yard.

If you know Horse Chestnut trees, you know that they bloom in conical towers of little blossoms. Around Vancouver, they are either towers of white or pink little blooms. Paulownia trees flower in a similar way, only their towers of flowers—don’t you love the sound of that: towers of flowers—are blue. They are a beautiful shade of blue, and I can hardly wait to see them in the Spring.

I’m truly excited because I bought a wee seedling from a guy in our Farmers’ Market on Saturday six years ago. Little seedlings grow up into the fellow’s yard, and so he sells them. I’ve watched it grow, I’ve watered it, I’ve fertilized it, and I gave it a protective covering on its trunk when it was young, to protect it from deer rubbing their antlers on it. This coming Spring I will feel very generously rewarded. It will flower every year from now on.

•

I see Dr. S. next week, so of course, I’ve been pondering and collecting an agenda. I thought about if I should be quitting her because she asked me if I wanted to stop seeing her last month. She asked me because I was so happy about a having a sense of cohesion in my understanding of my life story. 

This is all about one word: Neglect. Just typing that makes me cry. I keep saying to myself: I do not want to be a neglected child. I kept thinking about that for a long time, and then one day I said to myself: But you knew that. All your stories are about their absence. So, I wondered: Why does it hurt so much to hear Dr. S. use the word, ‘neglect?’

It's a good question. 

Is it because it feels unfair that Connie and Don—Clyde was busy—get a second kick at the can. Is it because it’s punishment of the innocent?

Is it because hearing Dr. S. say that word out loud makes it all real?

It just keeps coming back to the same old thing: I don’t want to be a neglected child. I really, really, really don’t want to be what she says I am.

And last month I was so happy that I felt I’d emotionally accepted everything. I’m up, I’m down. And then I had a very relevant thought: Last month, I was high on prednisone.

I don’t know if one can get high on prednisone, but I am changed by the drug. And I crash when I come off it, all day, two or three days after I stop taking the drug. I’ve had three cycles of prednisone. Every time I feel high. I’ve wondered if it was because I was breathing so incredibly much better and getting more oxygen. The improvement in my breathing is truly miraculous. But I feel kind of speedy, and very enthusiastic when I’m taking prednisone.

The story of becoming psycho-neurologically damaged begins with me getting into the bath one early evening in the late 80s and it was as though someone turned on a projector and aimed it at the wall at the end of the bathtub. I saw all these scenes, and I wondered what the hell I was seeing. And then I realized that I was seeing scenes of my life and that Connie and Don were in none of them.

When I wanted to talk about what had happened to me, I told people my brain regurgitated memories because I felt that my conscious brain did not call them forth. 

As I said, this was back in the 1980s. My psycho-neurological problem came on thirty years later in 2016. And I am aching about the N word in 2025, and it worries me that I will ache forever because I live with a brain that keeps regurgitating the N word now.

And that makes me not want to quit Dr. S.