The house that life built.

The last few months have been intense in general because of work and work stressors.

The last few weeks have just been a whirlwind of decisions and luck.

I've been looking at condos and small mini-houses for years. In hopes that I'd learn about the housing market, and you know, also just look at what is out there.

In the last year because of my finally getting a liveable-wage I started looking more seriously, and when a duplex came onto the market I visited with my mother and she started considering that joint venture - something that would benefit us both.

Two weeks ago, on a Tuesday a duplex went on sale in the "old town" of our town. Water-front, historical, and adorable. I was the first to call, it had not yet gone live on all platforms. My mother and I were the first to visit, Wednesday. Of that evening, we were the first of 6 to visit. We made an offer on Friday. Another couple was making an offer on Monday. She presented the offers that Tuesday (one week after the duplex went live) but the other couple pulled out last minute, so our offer was the only one, and it was accepted.

The following Monday we had an inspection. And now next Friday we are having an electrician come in per the suggestions of the inspector. Things are aligning.

Lots of stuff can happen. Financing can fall through, we could find that the place is made entirely of asbestos and batshit - it's just early days.

The first night after making the offer I had a nightmare-induced panic attack that was semi-conscious.

This brings up a lot for me. Financial stability. My ability to "take care of myself," dependence on my mother, fears of my mother passing away and me being solely responsible, my getting sick and not being able to hold-up my side of the bargain. Lots of stuff.

It's also a dream realized. Old town is a childhood dream. A duplex is a sound investment. I'd finally be getting my own living space.

During this time, one of my oldest friends is also visiting from out of province. So it's been socially busy.

Add to all of this, the timing of my contract coming up for renewal, and a job interview for another job that would be closer to home.

All of this in about a 2.5 week period.

Needless to say I'm pooped.

Things are happening.

I'm not overly excited or stressed because so many things are dependent on other things.

I have a "wait and see" mentality on it all.

I  miss writing here, and I look forward to taking the time to write again soon.

Right now it's one day at a time, but for the first time in a long time, it's not a depression-based mantra.

Also, I took out my Mirena, so we'll see if removing my IUD lessens my depression.

Thanksgiving.

This past weekend was a long one, thanks to thanksgiving. I needed the break, and it was appreciated. I went for dinner at a friends place Friday night, and the rest of the weekend I spent at home, running errands, cooking and doing chores. I slept in until 10 or 11 am all three days. It was really nice.

The days flew by nonetheless, with Monday being spent cooking all day. I made a lasagna, chicken bone broth, leak soup, pizzas and cut up some salad and strawberries. We also took some time to drop off clothes and books at Renaissance. Sunday I made a french onion soup from scratch, as a treat for my mom and I, since it was just us two for thanksgiving. For lunch we had fresh tomato sandwiches, with bread from the bakery and farm-fresh tomatoes. They were exquisite. Saturday we went for breakfast and ran errands.

This week will be a short one, yesterday was off due to the holiday, and I took Friday off since C is down from Victoria. She's only down for a few days, so we'll spend the day together.

This upcoming weekend is the last weekend for our farmer's markets. Prices should be reduced as they try and liquidate their stock, so I'll try and buy a bunch of tomatoes to A) eat a bunch of tomato sandwiches and B) make a bunch of spaghetti sauce for freezing.

It was so nice to have the time to do things but without the rush. I knew I had a list of things I wanted to do, but I also knew I had three days to do those things. Usually with socialising on Saturdays and volunteering on Sundays I really have to be productive with my time, or else I pay for it during the week. Meal-prep and cooking makes a huge difference on my budget. Buying lunches downtown is 15-25$. Cheapest is around 10-12 - but that's horseshit white bread sammies sold by a money laundering sandwich counter owned and operated by the massage/sex-shop on top of it. Tastes sketchy!

Sunday I also watched the second presidential debate, which was horrifying. I can't even go into that. I just cannot even.

It was a nice weekend between my mother and I. We did some things together, some apart. We both had chores. She encouraged and enjoyed all of my cooking (lol) and we both slept in. It was nice. It was the perfect way to spend thanksgiving. I'm thankful for my mother and our relationship.

♥

That's not even close to right.

My mother has the ability to attempt to name an actor and consistently be incorrect through the oddest of twists and swapped letters.

This weekend while driving down to visit my brother, she said, "What's his name, Kevin Spacek?"

"Do you mean Kevin Spacey?"

It's constant. It's been for as long as I remember. My favourite, and the time that really sticks to my memory is the time she said something along the lines of, "He reminds me of Ganadoo."

"Gan-a-doo? Who's that?" I asked.

"Oh you know, the wizard guy in the Hobbit movies."

"You mean Gandalf?!" I exclaimed, horrified.

"Yeah yeah, Gandalf."

You have to understand, for several years my family and I re-re-watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy every Christmas break. She has seen hours and hours of LOTR and The Hobbit, it makes no sense that she can't name Gandalf.

I think the only popular culture figures she's never gotten wrong are Oprah and Ellen.

I'm trying to think of other names she's butchered, they're all great. I don't think anything will ever top "Ganadoo" but there's still time.

Looking back, a little.

I haven't taken the time to write much since the traumatizing amnesia-based hospital visit. It's been updates here and there, and some minor posts, but I've found approaching the subject daunting.

In truth, it's also writing I'm finding difficult. Namely, translating the way my thoughts wander and wonder to narrative that's structured. On any given day I have these flashes of a place I can explore through writing but I'm often unable to take the time-out needed to write it down, or I'm quickly distracted by something else.

Over the holidays I often thought of taking out my laptop and taking the time to write something, but I was just so exhausted. Most of the holiday vacation was spent with family, cooking and partaking in Christmas parties. Then I went home around the 28th and just slept a lot and did my best to re-cooperate from the stress and exhaustion of the amnesia scare which was compacted by then going back to work.

Before I knew it, I was back to work on January 4th. My birthday was yesterday (the 7th), so focus quickly turned to my birthday. And now, in a month's time, I'll be visiting my friend out in Victoria, so my mind is occupied with planning and research. I'm also just looking forward to being away.

Last night I had dinner with my mother and my friend J. She came by the restaurant after work, and we had a drink and some good food. We were able to talk about my mom and catch up. She travels a lot for work, so it can be difficult to see one another. She's also a social butterfly and has a very active social life, so we don't hang out in the same circles anymore. She and I went to high school together. She's still friends with a lot of the guys who trigger some stuff in me that I'm still working on. We stayed friends even though I don't see the other guys.

I'm now 32. I don't really care that much about the number. I did find entering my 30's difficult, because all of a sudden the expectations of maturity and success seem increasingly important. This feeling was well described in an article I recently read in The Atlantic:

Being a Millennial and trying to adult is wildly disorienting. I can't figure out if I'm supposed to start a non-profit, get another degree, develop a wildly profitable entrepreneurial venture, or somehow travel the world and make it look effortless online. Mostly it just looks like taking a job that won't ever pay off my student debt in a field that is not the one that I studied. Then, if I hold myself to the traditional ideal of what it means to be an adult, I'm also not nailing it. I am unmarried, and not settled into a long term, financially stable career. Recognizing that I'm holding myself to an unrealistic standard considering the economic climate and the fact that dating as a Millennial is exhausting, it's unfair to judge myself, but I confess I fall into the trap of comparison often enough. Sometimes because I simply desire those things for myself, and sometimes because Instagram.

On most days I am resolute in knowing the things I don't want so I'm able to stand in my choices. I think the major difficulty for me is the guilt and shame I have of "losing my 20's" - that comes with a kind of mourning. I woke up 30, with little to show for myself in terms of social life, career or romance. My body was a mess. My heart and mind were traumatized, and I had to learn how to manage myself and live in my life. Even though I don't want what some want, and I don't value what some value, it can be difficult to feel zero judgement from self or other.

My birthday has been secondary to the amnesia scare. Seeing my mother disoriented, and initially fearing a stroke or alzheimer's really put me on my ass. My initial fear-reaction was that she was going to die, and that I was now "officially" alone. What if I would have had to be her caregiver? Would I have been able to cope? 

I know this is a normal fear. I feel though, that for me, and for folks who are socially withdrawn or struggling with mental/health issues it's just, more. The well-adjusted people in my life have partners. They have friends. They have plans. They have careers. Savings. I'm not quite there yet. My living at home has kept me in this child-like, dependent space. This experience highlighted my desire to have my own space, so that when my mother passes, my home doesn't fall apart. But, it also got she and I talking about what she wants, and what her fears are. Would she be more comfortable in a duplex with me? Separate but close? We both need to assess what we want, and talk about it.

I feel like 2016 is going to be a big year. There will be a lot of movement. For now I'm still tired and trying to take care of myself as best I can. Being in the emergency room with my mother for nearly 24 hours violently shook the importance of health into me. I'm trying to take things one day at a time, and am really trying to focus on taking care of myself from a kinder, more loving space.

"There's something wrong with your mother."

On Thursday of this week I received an Amazon notification about the delivery of one of my christmas gifts. The notice mentioned it was delivered Wednesday. I called my mother to ask if it had arrived, and she said yes, and that she wrapped it and I can't have it until Christmas. I reminded her that people often steal Amazon boxes so that in the future she should confirm with me that we got what we ordered.

Around 2:30 pm I see that I missed a call on my cell phone, from the house (our house) and that my mother had left a message. I took the message and it was my mother's friend Linda. She said to call her at the house, and she was with my mother and something was wrong. I immediately called her, my mother answered and sounded fine, and I asked what was going on, and she said she didn't know. Linda took the phone and she said my mother was repeating herself, confused, and that she thought something was wrong. I left work immediately.

I got home about 45 minutes later. Taking public transport while crying is always a joy. But when you're crying in public the reality that you're crying in public is usually the least of your worries.

My initial reaction was devastation, and the immediate assumption was that she had had a stroke. So, my initial conclusion was that my mother, as I knew her, was gone. I tried to stay calm, to avoid having a panic attack, but it was work. My mind would race to worst-case-scenarios and possible ways things would change. Will she recognize me? Will she be frightened? Is my mother gone? Will I have to sell her house? I don't want this responsibility... All of this while staring out the window of a city bus.

I would be omitting the most primal reaction I had if I didn't mention the initial gasp and sob, while thinking "I don't want to be alone." It's difficult to touch back on now - since it's passed - but I felt like a child. I felt helpless and afraid and could barely think.

I got home and Linda explained to me that my mother didn't remember plans they had made for lunch, and then when Linda called her to make new plans, she forgot those as well. When they spoke on the phone, Linda said something was wrong and came over. That's when she called me. When I walked in, I was distraught and trying my best not to cry.

I told her I was going to take her to the hospital, she seemed slightly worried, and almost childlike, but she recognized me and trusted me. She went upstairs to get a sweater, I got her purse, and as we left the house she noticed a sold sign and asked which of our neighbours had sold their house, and where he was moving. It was my first experience with seeing her amnesia / memory loss. Our neighbour had sold months ago and was moving in with his girlfriend. She knew this, and it has been months in the making, so this pointed me to thinking she had lost months of short-term memory.

The drive was traumatizing. It was around 4 pm, traffic hour and I just wanted to get to a hospital as fast as I could.  The nearly 30-minute drive was spend answering my mother's questions on loop:

"Where are we going?"
"The hospital."
"Who called you?"
"Linda."
"Linda called you? How did she get your number?"
"You gave have it to her, she called from the house."
"Linda was at the house?"
"Yes."
"How did she know to call you?"
"You guys had lunch plans you didn't go to."
"We did?"
"Yes."
"And I didn't show up?" "No, and she called you, and you forgot a second time."
"I did?" "Yes, so she came over."
"I don't remember any of that." "I know, that's why we're going to the hospital."
"I must have scared the shit out of Linda."
"Well, she was worried."
"Oh okay, good for her then."
"We just want to make sure everything is okay."
"The last thing you need is a loopy mother."
"You're not loopy - you're fine, you just don't remember."

I was just focused on answering her questions, that seemed to be on a minute-or-so loop. I was trying not to sob, and trying to be as present as possible since I was also driving.We got into a patterned dialogue, where my answers soothed her and being able to comfort my mother helped me calm down.

Once we got to the hospital, I parked, and we waked into the emergency room. Triage asked a list of questions directly to my mother, she was unable to name the month or year, she said November, and "the 1990's." She wasn't able to tell us what she had done that day, or the night before (dinner with friends) or earlier in that week (she was at my brother's house, babysitting). Triage gave us a priority 3, on 5. Once passed through triage, I texted my brother.

He showed up about an hour later. Things changed a little when he got there. He doesn't like hospitals. He spent the first month of my nephew Nathan's life in the hospital due to some type of intestinal necrosis. And he was with my mother in the hospital when my father died - so he had trouble being in the E.R and would often go outside or go take a walk. 

My mom was often distracted by her worry for him. She often said, "poor Nick" and would fidget around. 

I also felt a weird type of comfort by just answering her questions. She was nervous and when I answered her questions, it reassured her. We got into an almost song-like loop. Repetition. She'd loop around every minute or so, and start asking the same questions. Concerned E.R. neighbours would give me knowing looks, and my brother would often get irritated and leave. I think he found it difficult.

After answering the same questions a few times, I came to know which answers reassured her the most, and so I stuck to those ones. 

We eventually made it to a doctor, who was surprisingly an anglophone, and who ordered a scan and an x-ray, and who did some blood and urine tests. 

We got to the E.R around 4 or 4:30, and my brother showed up around 6. Progressively, around 8 or 9 she started remembering bits and pieces she didn't remember earlier in the night. It was encouraging, and it dulled some of the panic my brother and I were feeling.

We saw the attending doctor around 11:30 pm, and he said all of her tests looked good, and that it seemed, to him, like Transient Global Amnesia, and that we'd need to confirm with the neurologist the following morning. He said to go home, and get some sleep, and that, in all likelihood my mother would wake up with additional memories the next morning. 

We got home around 12:30 am and my brother and I were totally bushed. My brother looked like a zombie and I had lost my voice from talking on loop / repeating all the answers to the questions my mother had been asking. 

We kept asking her to go to bed, and she kept saying, "I want to watch TV!" and then "Holy shit it's 12:30!" so after a few rounds of that she made her way to bed. My brother said his head hit the pillow and he passed out. I did the same. 

The following morning I could hear pitter-patter feet and came upstairs (I'm a basement dweller) to my brother sitting in the living room. He said he woke up my mom and she remembered his being here. She made her way downstairs and we all sat around and asked her questions to see what she remembered. She remembered being in the hospital, and had fuzzy bits, with a large whole of about 6 to 8 hours. BUT, she did remember the hospital, and driving home, and did have bits of memory she did not have the previous day. It was an encouraging start to the day. She said she only fell asleep around 4 am, and was significantly more nervous, now that she was fully aware of her memory loss and of her need for medical care. 

We made our way to the hospital for a 9 am appointment with the neurologist. We were called in around 11 and met with a junior resident (maybe?), I'm not sure what his medical standing was, but he wasn't the guy. He was the student guy. He did a slew of visual tests, muscle tests, tested her reflexes and her ability to snap her fingers and stuff like that. He told us he'd call us in 30 minutes with the other doctor to go over their assessment, so we made our way to the cafeteria to eat a grilled cheese (my mother couldn't tell us what she'd eaten or drank for the last 24 hours so we wanted to make sure she ate something) and my brother and I weren't eating due to nerves. 

We went back up to the E.R and waited for 2 hours. So I made my way to the nurse's station and said the doctor said it would be 30 minutes. The nurses thought this was funny/infuriating and asked what ass of a doctor said that (I added the ass part, but it was implied). Turns out the doctor called us in the 20 minutes we were in the cafeteria. 

My brother, mother and I met with the junior doctor and the head of neurology and the doctor did his own little testing and poking and then asked us our accounts of the last 24 hours. We then talked about Transient Global Amnesia as a group - and my brother said that nearly everything mentioned in the Wikipedia article is spot-on to my mother's experience.

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a neurological disorder whose key defining characteristic is a temporary but almost total disruption of short-term memory with a range of problems accessing older memories. A person in a state of TGA exhibits no other signs of impaired cognitive functioning but recalls only the last few moments of consciousness, as well as deeply encoded facts of the individual’s past, such as his or her own name. 

A person having an attack of TGA has almost no capacity to establish new memories, but generally appears otherwise mentally alert and lucid, possessing full knowledge of self-identity and identity of close family, and maintaining intact perceptual skills and a wide repertoire of complex learned behaviour. The individual simply cannot recall anything that happened outside the last few minutes, while memory for more temporally distant events may or may not be largely intact. The degree of amnesia is profound, and, in the interval during which the individual is aware of his or her condition, is often accompanied by anxiety. 

This onset of TGA is generally fairly rapid, and its duration varies but generally lasts between 2 to 8 hours. A person experiencing TGA typically has memory only of the past few minutes or less, and cannot retain new information beyond that period of time. One of its bizarre features is perseveration, in which the victim of an attack faithfully and methodically repeats statements or questions, complete with profoundly identical intonation and gestures "as if a fragment of a sound track is being repeatedly rerun."

The prognosis of "pure" TGA is very good. It does not affect mortality or morbidity and unlike earlier understanding of the condition, TGA is not a risk factor for stroke or ischemic disease. Rates of recurrence are variously reported, with one systematic calculation suggesting the rate is under 6% per year. TGA “is universally felt to be a benign condition which requires no further treatment other than reassurance to the patient and his or her family.” 

The doctor said that in most cases, the biggest "issue" is accepting that it's a freak, temporary condition, and that we can just go on "living our lives." We headed home, around 2:30 pm on Friday. It has been roughly 24 hours of total upset. 

My brother stayed with my mom while I did some groceries, and then he had to go back to his family since my nephews and sister-in-law were freaking out themselves. I stayed with my mom, and we were both exhausted and in shock. I made my mother a big dinner, and we ate and showered and went to bed. We both slept for 10-11 hours.

Saturday when I woke up I made my way to her room and crawled into her bed. I hugged her and took a selfie of us, with her hiding her face under her sheet, and me looking like a toddler who'd aged a million years. I sent the photo to my brother, who facetimed us with the grand-kids. We stayed in bed for a while. 

Once we got up, we went for breakfast and ran some errands, she asked me a few questions here and there, trying to fill in certain blanks, bit she was 90% normal. I had a dinner party with some of my best friends that night, so the plan was I'd go and update everyone, all at once. My mom and I were both still exhausted, so we took it easy and watched a movie. My dinner was only at 5pm, so we were able to rest most of the day. 

At one point when we were in her room, laying in her bed, I just kept saying how exhausted I was, but how weird I felt. I felt traumatized and unsure. It just doesn't make any sense to me, that she's back to normal. It was a 6-8 hour period where she didn't know the year, or what was going on, and it just scared the shit out of us, and now everything is fine. It just doesn't compute.

As mentioned in the Wikipedia article:

"The most important part of management after diagnosis is looking after the psychological needs of the patient and his or her relatives. Seeing a once competent and healthy partner, sibling or parent become incapable of remembering what was said only a minute ago is very distressing, and hence it is often the relatives who will require reassurance."

Yes.  

It's an absurd, fake-sounding happening. In the long trek back home (via public transit) I just felt like my life, as I knew it, was over, and that everything was about to get awful. 

The car ride was me internally catatonic, outwardly sobbing and answering questions, and just void of myself. I was doing the best to reassure my mother, and I was just doing my best to keep breathing. To keep my head straight. To try and make the right decisions in something that would no doubt come to define me life, and the life of mother and family. 

It's now Sunday. I'm exhausted. I spent most of the day sleeping and lazing around. At one point my

mother and I watched YouTube videos of baby orangutans for about 45 minutes. I fell sleep in her bed, and she came downstairs to watch television and eat the leftovers I brought her from the dinner party.

There were many moments of absurd levity throughout the 24 hour period. But those came when we were out of the woods. My mother often said "The last thing you need is a loopy Nan," and "If I'm a loopy Nan, I hope I'm a nice one and not a mean one." 

My father's mother has Alzheimer's, and lived with us when I was a child. My memories of her are sweet. I would go down into her room in my nightgown and sit on her in the rocking chair and she'd rock me. My mom tells me she'd steal my halloween candy and I'd get pissed. My brother remembers the darker, more traumatic side of Alzheimer's, as does my mother, so both of them had strong fears in that regard. My brother at one point said if it was Alzheimer's, to "shoot him in the head." 

At one point I jabbed that she was doing this "so I wouldn't move out," and she laughed. And a little bit later she made that joke back to me. Her recycling of my joke was one of the first examples of her remembering little bits and pieces. 

When we went for breakfast yesterday I said I still had Christmas gifts to get, and she asked for whom. 

"For you, mainly. And little things for my friends."
"Oh, you don't have to get me anything."
"For crying-out-loud Karen, you were just hospitalized. You think this is a good time to be cheap?"
"Well you don't have to."
"Well you like when I take you out on day-trips. So the E.R. counts then."

We laughed at that. She and I were able to laugh more so than my brother was. He'd get upset. 

Now it's 9:13 pm Sunday. It took two days to write this since I'm just so tired. I need to shower and get to bed so I can get through this week at work. 

I feel uneasy. I feel unsettled. I feel hazy. It feels too fucking lucky that my mom is fine. It feels like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop - a weird fucking expression to use to describe how I feel this is too good a resolution for something I thought would leave me alone and devastated. 

I am grateful for the luck of it. I'm still in shock. I'm just confused by it. I feel like an orangutan 

who just watched a magic trick. I keep trying to make sense of it, but there is no sense to be made. No matter the illusion I'm still just a fucking ape trying to get the basics. 

This whole experience has thrown me. 

I've been thinking about my own health. Nothing stokes that more than visiting an Emergency Room. 

I've been thinking about the power of kindness. I was in such an empathetic space with my mother I was as kind and as helpful as I could be with the people in the hospital, and I felt it just changed the entire experience for my family and I. The energy changed. The people changed. 

I will try and be as healthy as I can, and as kind as I can, and then, it's fucking luck. 

Yes, it's fucking luck. But kindness matters. It matters in the in between. 

I'm totally disoriented, but I know kindness helps. 

And I know I'm very, very lucky.

Oh, Mother.

This past weekend I drove out to the Eastern Townships with my mother. We often drive out to see my brother and his family. We get to see the kids and get some fresh air, and then get the fuck out of there when we've had enough. I’d been dog-sitting for him for the last three weeks or so while they were on holiday down in South Carolina. I’d gotten into the habit of furry cuddles and dog-park visits, so it’s not without a twinge of sadness that I returned their dog to them.

The weekend was nice. We arrived Saturday while the family was out visiting friends, so we were able to enjoy the calm before the storm. I napped. We sat outside. We went for dinner at a nearby place my brother recommended. During dinner, my mother commented on how my new medication seems to be making a significant difference in my mood. We talked about my mental health, and my understanding of my struggles, and how things are going now. While we began making our way back to my brother’s house, I asked about whether or not she knew if either of my grandparents had any issues with mental illness.

I was driving (I'm always the one driving) and sitting comfortably. It was the end of a nice evening, and the conversation seemed to be flowing well. “Well,” she said plainly, “there was the nervous breakdown I had when I was 14.”

And just like that, the world shifted into something else.

This is new information to me. I asked my mother about her experience, and she explained that after her father died when she was 13, her mother decided to move them out to British-Columbia to be closer to the family she had out there. It didn't go well for my mother. Already distraught over the sudden loss of her father, her vulnerability was exacerbated by her being away from the friends and comforts she had left. According to my mom, she suffered from anxiety attacks and hallucinations.

When I asked if this is something that continued on throughout her adulthood, she said it was. The anxiety and panic didn't last, but her visions and loose hallucinations occurred occasionally.

This is where things get, muddy. My mom represents these things through a spiritual lens. She said she’s highly sensitive, and she’s always viewed these visions or hallucinations as being the product of a thin veil between her and something else. Another universe? Another plane? Whatever separates the living from the dead? She's vague on that point.

She does not identify these as hallucinations. When I asked her if she’d experienced any of this recently, she said yes. In the past few years she’s had experiences, mainly at night, where she feels someone sitting on her bed, or moving her sheets. She said that through conversations with her best friend (who recently died) she was able to make sense of all of this over the years. Again, through a spiritual reading of the happenings, they would discuss possible symbolism or meaning behind what was happening. She felt these things were not negative, or threatening.

I mentioned my readings on what it is to be a highly sensitive person, and how studies have found that sometimes night-terrors or waking-dreams can be associated with all sorts of pseudo-psychological phenomena. They’re the most likely explanation for alien abduction experiences and other night-time, sleep-based “unexplainable” events.

My mom seemed to stick to the metaphysical.

As we got close to my brother’s house, I asked her why she never thought to mention all of this to me. Her having a nervous breakdown as a teenager is important information for me, since I've been living in a state of mental health crisis for years. Now, granted, I feel the crisis since I live it constantly, and she might not perceive the level of pain I've been in, but this is relevant information to someone like me.

“I never thought about it,” she said innocently. “It’s not something I think about anymore.”

Within that 15 minute car-ride I talked at length about some of my symptoms and experiences, she seemed to relate to my descriptions of feeling dissociated or uprooted.

As I pulled the car into the driveway she began telling me about her more recent experiences with visions, but the kids jumped out of the house. Ready for bed, they were looking for pre-bed hugs. I asked that we continue the conversation during our one-hour drive home.

The weekend passed, as they usually do. My brother’s house is a cacophony of ipad sound effects, French television and snarky comments. In between all of that, there are laughs and moments of sweetness.

Eager to avoid Labour Day traffic and escape the irritability of the children, Monday morning we headed home. As soon as we hit the highway I returned our conversation to my mother’s experiences.

She described her anxiety attacks as fits of crying. She would cry until she slept, like a voiding of stress until the respite of sleep came about. She would see people, hear conversations, like a viewer. She’d be passive, an observer. She was medicated for a short time. She moved back to Quebec with her mother. Her visions become increasingly rare, and were attributed to the metaphysical by she and her friends.

This has been an odd divulgence. It doesn't seem to have been a secret, just an omission that’s nonsensical to me considering the last decade of my life.

I asked my mother why she didn't think to tell me this while I was having panic attacks, in front of her. She said it just never really occurred to her to make that link, and that instead, she rubbed my back to sooth me, knowing that it had helped her once, like a loose memory of another life.

I'm a little stunned by it all. By the story, and by the omission.

As my mother told the story of her experience, I couldn't help but think poor little bird. My mom was a little child, and she was lonely. She gravitated towards the family of her best friend, who came from a family of seven children, and later to my father, who came from a family of six kids. Her brother left home at 17, when she was 9. Her mother, she describes as a woman who “didn't want to be a mother.” And though she speaks fondly of my Nana, there is a missing tenderness there, maybe a little bit of longing in my mother’s voice. I can’t help but see her, small, with tiny wrists and knobby knees, a little bird of a girl.

All of this also reminded me of how little we ever know about the experiences of others. Even those we came out of. I am close with my mother. I live with her. I've lived with her for 31 years. Granted, roughly a decade of the time I was barely sentient, but she and I are not strangers. We've grown closer as I've gotten a hold of myself, and as I wake up, I'm reminded of the importance of learning who she is. Yes, she’s been my mother for 31 years, but she was something else for the 32 years before that. Next year, in 2016, I’ll be the age she was when she had me. Haven’t I been dragged through the coals? Don’t I have stories to tell? If I had children wouldn't I spare them the stories of my trauma? Wouldn't I focus my energy on their new life, and the innocence and positivity that comes with their ignorance?

I don't want children. I never have. So I can also relate to my mother saying that my grandmother seemed to not want to be a mother. And that intrinsic, deep-rooted loneliness that my mother has in her, is something my grandmother gave her. I've never felt that from my mother, I've felt nothing but love and never doubted how much she wanted me and my brother. She tried to get pregnant with me for four years, and I always felt I had all of her attention, support and pride, warranted or not. Unconditional, as the mouths of mothers often state.

It often pains me that I never got to have a conversation with my father as an adult. The memories I have of him are those of a child. My brother was 21 when he died. I was 13. The feelings I have when I think of him are those of a paternal energy, of being protected, of supreme trust for him. The feeling of being asleep in the back-seat while he drives through deep wilderness. I'm always safe. My dad is here. I would like to ask him so much. To really learn about him. To challenge him. To learn from him. He likes playing chess with me. Once I beat him and he got a real kick out of that. Would he be as delighted by my challenging his bias, his fears, his prejudice? Would I continued to have been a daddy's girl? I didn't feel the need to rebel as a teenager, would that have changed had I someone to rebel against?

And what of my grandparents? My Nana was born in 1919. She lived through the second world war, for fucks sake. She lived through desegregation and the women’s movement. What would she think of the world now? How would she no-doubt offend me? How would I offend her?

I'm still letting everything I learned about my mother sink-in, but I wanted to record it here. First, because of it’s importance in relation to my mental health, but maybe more importantly because of the importance of story, and of shared history. I want this to be recorded.

Sometimes important things happen, and eventually they seem so far away. I have so little memory left of my father. What I have of my grandparents is small, and faded. I am lucky for having my mother, and I want to do her, and her stories justice. I want to remember her, and record what I know, and what I feel here, so that one day, when I'm without her, I’ll have tokens to call on.

My mother wasn't always my mother, but she will always be my mother.

On having my mother.

I was just reading an article on the amount of 20-30 something's moving back into their family home.

In an era of sky-high tuition and soaring housing costs, they argue the group known as Generation Screwed can help unscrew themselves by moving home to pay off debt.

I pay rent, but significantly less than I would on my own. Instead, I'm able to put large chunks of cash on paying off my debt. I'm 2,000$ away from that goal. Then, I'll be saving up, and be in a position to have a down-payment I could never have saved up while paying 800$+ on rent and living costs.

I'm grateful to my mom for not kicking me out when things were really rough for me. I'm also lucky that she and I get along well enough for this to be possible for me. Sure, sometimes she watches Ancient Alien Secrets Revealed and it drives me nuts, but other times she bring me her iPad so I can see a video of a baby goat playing with a puppy.

It can't be easy being the parent of someone who is suffering from unipolar depression. It's taken over a decade for me to get a handle on myself, and there were periods of my life where I was so despondent and miserable. I can't really imagine what that's like for her.

I've asked my mother about her mother, my Nana, and she's often expressed that she didn't feel especially loved or wanted by her mother. She kind of felt like her mother didn't want to be a mother. I've never felt that with my mom. First, she tried for four years to get pregnant with me. But mainly she was always present and loving and kind. I always felt loved by her.

We've had some tough moments. I remember overhearing her one night when I was in the depths of things, and I had just gained a lot of weight, she was expressing not being able to recognize me, and used the term "disgusted" in my weight gain. It hurt me tremendously. She was drunk, and talking to her best friend.

Maybe that added to the pile of shame I was already feeling.

Another time, while I was unemployed I decided to get my hair done. It ended up being lavender, and a little rock and roll. She freaked out. To her, it was an expression of "not giving a shit" and making it harder on myself to get a job. She has the same reaction when I get tattoos. The hair though, on top of being unemployed, burst a dam, and she screamed at me and cried. I ended up staying with a friend for a few days.

But, those examples are the exception.

I have much more in me about her rubbing my back while I was having a panic attack at 5 in the morning before a radio show interview. Or her presence throughout my childhood, at hot-dog days and bake sales.

I remember her tucking me in, and cuddling with me.

I remember my throw-up bucket when I was sick. lol.

I keep telling her not to do my laundry, but she keeps doing it.

Maybe the opposite of depression is a mother's love. A mother who loves being a mother. A mother cradling you in a warm, loving hug and rocking you back and forth. Real comfort.

You were wanted, and you're here, and they celebrate you.

I sometimes wish I had more siblings, so she could have other children to be proud of, and to gain from. She got kind of a dud with me.

I often feel a lot of guilt for being such a burden on her all these years. It's hard not to carry that with me. I'm going to try and look forward, and hope that the worst is behind me.

If all of this worked my empathy muscles, and my ability to relate and appreciate, maybe it'll make me a better daughter, as well as a better person to be around.

I'll never know what it is to feel that. I've only ever been on the receiving end of it. I've never wanted children, and though I can feel protective and maternal towards my nephews, or towards a baby, I do not have any desire to have one of my own.

When I see my friends going through it, I see the distinction between those having children and those who want them so badly, and get them. My friend C tried for years, and now that she has a newborn, I couldn't be happier for her. And no doubt, she'll live in the vein of motherhood lived in my by mother. Some people fit their vocations and passions so well, and I think for my mother that was motherhood.

She is not perfect. She is not a disciplinarian. There were times as a teenager when that's what I needed. But since my father died when I was 13, both she and I were left on our own. She married my father at 21. That's unimaginable to me. She was completely dependent on him. Also unimaginable to me.

As the fog of my depression lifts, I hope to continue to improve my relationship with her. I hope to remain grateful for her. I plan on spending as much time with her as I can. So much of my history is lost to me. There are so few memories. I want to enjoy my mother. I want to remember her, because she'll eventually leave me.

I'm grateful for her. And I can't even think about where I'd be without her.

I might not always be happy I was born, but I'm always happy she's my mother.