More Hot

Phoenix and it's surrounding cities have broken heat records twice in the last 20 days. One at 117 and yesterday at 116.

Yes, its hot. And the heat takes a toll.  You can't just run around town, or maybe its just that you shouldn't.  We run our errands in the cooler morning temps. Same with chores. Getting up to do laundry, cooking, cleaning at 5am makes for a very long day.

It doesn't cool off at night, which compromises sleep.  If this keeps up .... well, its just not easy to get through. 

Tired and cranky isn't good.

When the heat of the day peaks, my chores are done in 15 min increments. Takes a while to accomplish things, but we persevere! 

Yes, we have AC. But your indoor temp can't be 50 degrees cooler than outside heat -- or maybe you can if you have the right circumstances. My thermostat is set at 83.

Arizonans aren't wimps!!!

Let It Go & Create Again

A line from an Alex Cross book:  "trauma gets passed along from generation to generation".

Is there truth in that statement??

I'm trying to mentally deal with things that are surfacing.  And at this point in life, it feels a little late to make major fixes.  So be it.  But that doesn’t stop my mind from wanting to know. I started realizing there was a problem when my mom started demanding hugs and my body rebelled. Makes the mind wonder wtf was that about? 

My mom had trauma in her life. Her mother died when she was 3. Her father remarried when she was 5. And somehow she believed in her young mind that her stepmother was going to kill her in her sleep.  I don't know what prompted the thought, or how her belief influenced her.  But I believe this period of trauma in her life affected her profoundly. 

Which in turn affected how she related to her own children.  

I know I was raised in a stable home, meaning Dad worked, mom raised us kids, there was dinner on the table each night, family vacations, etc.  We didn't have a lot of money, but we didn't do without basics.

So what triggers my body's revulsion at giving her the hugs she craves/demands? 

It's my nervous system signaling me I am not safe. If you're a reader of thrillers, that statement hits way different.  I'm 5'7" and I'm not a tiny woman. Mom is tiny and sits in a wheelchair.  My physical safety isn't the issue. It is the mental safety.  

I have found that I spend much of my mental capacity on all the coordinating that needs to be done for her.  I need to look at automating some of that. Its also time to stop trying to research and figure out WHY I feel the way I do.  I cant go back in time, I can't compare notes with my sister,  so why am I doing this? 

I have come to realize that when I am not around her, I have a capacity to do so many other things.  I have started two novels, I used to write poetry, take photographs, go on nature hikes. My creative side isn't just sleeping, it feels buried. And maybe that's a part of the frustration or anger.

Never showed my writings to my mother, except one. I wrote it in second grade when I wrote about hearing the sound of my Dad driving off to work in the Rambler. 

I need to start signalling my self that I'm ok to start being creative again.  So I'm going to sit down with pen and paper, and a timer, and try to let those free thoughts slide into my mind and onto the paper.  

Will this be a positive, helpful experiment?? I certainly hope so!!