Worth It

It’s been two months since my last submission. I’ve contemplated how I would write our latest or even if I should publish intimate matters that will forever be preserved as a tiny binary blip on dedicated obscure hard drive. I also have to wonder why on earth this self-professed recluse wannabe is compelled to have a public journal?! Seriously, I don’t get me.

This blog’s intentions are stated on the welcome page – “An online journal of our experiences restoring our forever home.” Not a journal about our hot mess psychosis induced rages, spiraling depression, and job losses. Our family has been in a tailspin since January 8^th but we’ve pulled out and are optimistic of a safe but delayed landing. In the meantime restoration has continued on the main cottage (albeit extremely slowly), but this submission is about the restoration of self. This may get a bit long, and to make the recall simpler, I’m starting out in present tense but who knows where it will go from there.

January 8, Friday, 4:15pm – the contractors just left. It’s been a rather long day as I was awakened early by my son walking through the cottage with travel mug seeking coffee and a bite for breakfast. Keith left for work early. My son’s casualness of entering the cottage without knocking and helping himself to groceries without asking is presumptuous and overreaching and I woke annoyed.

Our youngest of three, 27yo son, lives in a utility building at the bottom of the property. The building is in great shape and now sports new windows, door, and insulation. Our son’s responsibility is to save his money for a heat source and to finish the interior as he chooses. As he has lived in the forest off and on for several years, the building is a great step up for shelter. Our very bright and personable son also lives with various degrees of mania, diminished cognition, depression, auditory psychosis, and delusions. He was declared disabled 3 years ago at age 24 through a grueling psychological two-year vetting and court procedure.

This week he has been particularly preoccupied and restless for which I am innately attuned. Only caregivers of individuals living with symptoms of diminished mental health can understand the unrelenting guard that is necessary for preservation of self and of the troubled loved one. I am exhausted and every day yonderways is becoming less a sanctuary. I am regretful of our decision to allow our son to live on the property, while simultaneously being racked with guilt. Our caring, thoughtful, loving son is welcome but his symptoms can go to hell where they belong.

I celebrated my 58^th birthday on Monday, so I decide as soon as the contractors leave to fix myself a birthday martini (not that I ever need an excuse 🙂 ). With martini in hand I sit down to my computer to update the journal but I hear a faint, rhythmic…is that…howling? I open the door to the cottage to identify the direction and source of the guttural wails and instantly recognize an intonation and the PTSD takes over. You know the “fight or flight” reaction to fear? Against every rational instinct in my body, my reaction to fear is always FIGHT. Without so much as a sip of my drink I head down the long, steep driveway to confront my son, ignoring my cautionary instincts…a huge mistake.

I’m going to skip the details of the next 20 minutes of that day – it’s too soon, and will probably always be too raw to share publicly. My son’s symptoms of rage, psychosis, the incoherent babble, and the adrenaline strength was unlike anything I have ever witnessed in the 8 years of his illness. There was an attack on me, the cottage, and my car. I suffered more psychological injury than physical, but my car windshield and the front door to the cottage were shattered to pieces. Our son is no longer welcome at yonderways. I literally had to get knocked in the head to finally understand I nor he can be protected from his symptoms unless HE chooses to do something to relieve them and until he does I choose to no longer allow him near me. I can’t stress this enough – my son is not a villain and I am not a victim of anything but MY choices. None the less I pressed charges and we’re due in court next week. It’s a small way of restoring my boundaries. I’ve petitioned the court to remand my son to mandatory counseling for restitution. I don’t know if my son is capable of grasping consequences…but I would be diminishing the horrible crisis and not caring for self if I did nothing.

January 18, Monday, 9:15am – Ten days following my son’s crisis Keith was let go from a job he absolutely abhorred. Keith had accepted a General Manager’s position 18 months earlier with a local family owned and very poorly managed manufacturer of on-demand products that had a nasty reputation for employee and community relations. Keith naively hoped to make a difference, but was denied the responsibilities of his title and was dictated to by a third generation booger eater (color me bitter – I actually never met said booger eater) until Keith was the most miserable I had ever seen him in his 30yrs+ professional career. He had already updated his resume but was waiting to look for a new position after we secured a conventional mortgage on the property. As I stated earlier in this journal, the sellers are carrying the mortgage on the property until April 1^st while we bring the cottages up to code.

Um….

…no J.O.B. = no conventional mortgage, and senior management positions are few and far between in our particular area of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

These two events sent me spiraling into panicked despair and a deep depression and quite honestly, I’ve not fully recovered despite Keith securing a new position with a former employer in less than a month and having pre-qualified for a mortgage with a scheduled close of March 25^th.

The last two months have been too, too much but we’re once again hopeful we’ll be settled sooner than later into the larger cottage. For the exception of the house wrap and many more trees and bushes gone it’s hard to recognize the extensive structural rebuilding that has taken place. Restoration is a process and God knows as the layers are peeled away damage must be addressed and rebuilt. I also stated on the welcome page, “Yonderways is a journey…” and I am reminded of this quote:

No one said it was going to be easy, just worth it.