Studio time- 11/9-11/11

This week I have been working on trying to finish my second locket, the brick locket, and have begun making my third one, based on the memory from the indian restaurant. I am almost completely done with the brick locket except for the patina and setting the hinge permanently. I have been experimenting with developing the right smell for it and have come up with something close, but it needs to be stronger. I discovered when making the wax for the smell that I can use grass blades and the wax seals them so that I may be able to just fill the locket with the concoction and hopefully have the smell last for a longer amount of time. The 3rd locket that I am doing- the Indian spices is going to be in the shape of 4 bowls each containing a separate spice with one "opening up" and containing the smell of curry powder. I am making this locket into a ring. I am excited to see the end product for this one because of the bright colors that will be obtained through setting spices in the bowls with epoxy.

I have discovered that people are responding to the idea of containing smells inside the lockets much more than previous ideas and am very excited. I am having so much fun mixing them, although if I make too many at once I start to get a headache from the melting wax. I can't wait to see if this idea will play out the way that I want it to.

A complete picture?

I've realized that my blog is supposed to allow people to get to know me, but so far I have only been posting about positive memories and good times in my life. Yet, no one's life is perfect and in order to really get to know someone you have to be shown all sides, right? It is really hard for me to make some of my memories public, but that is what I am trying to explore in my project so I mine as well go for it and share some of the darker memories that shape who I am, as well as some of the good ones. I am not sure if I will be able to make pieces out of some of the darker memories, but at least writing about them is a start. This next post is going to be quite lengthy and is much about me venting my issues out on paper, so don't feel like you have to read. It is a hard post for me to publish because I am scared of who might read this and be affected or hurt by it, but I am hoping that those people will understand. So here it goes:

Have you ever felt so consumed by fear for someone that it makes it hard to breathe? You can’t think about anything else except that person and their issues. You feel guilty for not spending every waking moment with them, trying to make them better, but at the same time wanting to live your life. You feel guilty for wanting to live your life instead of taking care of them. Especially when they have given so much to you, dedicated most of their life you making yours better.

Almost a year ago, my mother slipped into a severe depression and has still not come out of it. I am not sure what exactly triggered it, but she began slipping right after Thanksgiving 2008. It was the first year that we attempted to celebrate a holiday with the entire family since my parents divorce. All of us kids, my mom, dad, and his girlfriend at the time who is now his wife. The holiday seemed to be going well, everyone was getting along, dinner was fantastic, Kathy and mom were talking, being civil with one another, and best of all, we were able to spend the holiday with the whole family, not feeling bad about leaving one of our parents out. Everything was great until Saturday night when Dad and Kathy gave us kids our Christmas presents. They were living in Singapore at the time and we were not sure when or if we were all going to be together before Christmas, so we did presents then. Since the divorce, my mother has been worried about money. Being a nurse she doesn’t make that much and it was hard for her to go from living off of my father’s salary as a pilot and getting to travel freely around the world to living primarily off of a nurses salary although she was getting some compensation from my dad. Dad and Kathy on the other hand took a turn in the opposite direction financially, as Kathy working all her life for IBM was a head executive. Our presents that year were fairly extravagant and mom just seemed to break, becoming with consumed with the idea that she could no longer provide for us in the way in which my father and Kathy could. Of course we tried to console her, telling her that money and material things are not what is important to us but she just couldn’t get the idea out of her head. She seemed to be doing better the next day and I didn’t think too much of it when we all left my sister’s house after the holiday weekend.

It wasn’t until Christmas break, driving back to Atlanta from Ann Arbor, Michigan, that the reality of the situation really came into clear view for me. As I was driving home, Luke called me and asked if there was anyway that I could fly mom out to Arizona in the next 2 days. Apparently our mother was having thoughts of suicide and her therapist had recommended taking her to a rehabilitation center. After doing some research, Michelle, Luke, and I decided that the place in Arizona was the way to go. So in two days I had to make plans to take mom to Phoenix Arizona, pack everything she would need as she was unable to function, make plans to stay in a hotel myself while putting up the front that the place I was taking her to had accommodations for me, and get her to the airport and on a plane with me. It was one of the hardest moments of my life, seeing my mother like a young child, unable to function correctly and take care of herself. She was so scared, always crying and shaking and it took everything I had to put on a brave face and tell her that this place was the best thing for her. It would only be a few weeks, and they would help her get back to her old functioning self. Leaving her at that place was awful and heart wrenching. It was night, a terrible time to leave her since she was scared to be alone at night, but the place thought that it would be too dangerous to waste anymore time getting her situated. Leaving her was like trying to leave a little kid on the first day of preschool, the first time they have ever been apart from you in a public setting. I wanted to cry so badly, but I knew that I had to be strong for her. Finally she left and entered the facility and the driver took me to my hotel. I think I slept for about three hours last night while I thought about my mom and how scared she must be, wondering if we did the right thing and feeling guilty for pressuring her into going. I also began to feel guilty about Thanksgiving, thinking that she could handle being around my father and Kathy and be ok. Of course it is silly to think that it is my fault; I didn’t know about her history with depression, but I felt responsible anyway. I couldn’t help feeling guilty and mad at myself for not knowing and not taking the time to really think it through. I was just thinking about how much easier it would be for me to have both of my parents there and how nice it would be for us kids for our parents to get along. There would be no more split holidays, missing the other parent during Christmas or Thanksgiving even though we knew that the holidays were split equally. I felt so selfish, lying there in that hotel room, but the worst part was that I was also thinking of how her depression was going to affect me and our plans for the holidays and near future. I felt sick about that fact that I felt sorry for myself, but I couldn’t help it.

I wanted mom to be healthy and happy, the mom I always remembered before the divorce. She was always the strong one when I was in pain. She was my crutch when I was having problems with my arthritis, my comforter, the one I could go to just to cry or when I needed to be taken care of and to feel loved. She always knew how to make things better for me. Always knew when to let me figure things out on my own, push me to be better, encourage my goals and dreams, and be there to catch me when I failed at something or was having a hard time. She gave me so much, was the best mom anyone could ever ask for and now she was falling apart, breaking down because I failed to see the signs of any distress in her life that would cause her real pain. Our family had been her whole life for so long and then my dad left, Bud went of to boarding school and then to live with my dad in Singapore before going off to college, I had left for college, Michelle and Luke were already living their own lives as a lawyer in DC and a pilot and husband in Virginia and then Florida, her sister was diagnosed with cancer, my granddaddy, and her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and it was just all piling up until it just buried her and none of us could stop it.

What do you do when something like that happens? Do you stop everything and go to her aid? Yeah you can and we did, but we can only stop the tracks in our own lives for so long and be devoted to her constantly for only so long. Eventually we have to continue living our lives. Yes, you try to do everything you can to help her and get her back on her feet, but there is only so much you can do. Isn’t there? I wanted to be with her, I took control and brought her to the rehabilitation center, I spent time with her, wrote her letters, but I had been planning to study abroad in Florence for the semester and I had a plan ticket and had paid to start school in Italy at the beginning of January. I want to say that I contemplated for a long time about not going and staying to help my mom, but I really didn’t. I toyed with the idea, but I don’t think I was ever really going to not go to Italy. In the long run, I am glad that I went. It was a great experience and I think mom did well enough on her own and then with my sister and brother. She was always in the back of my mind though. Every night I would wonder about what she was thinking, what she was doing, if she was able to get out of bed and take a shower by herself. I worried if she ate at all, if she was doing healthy activities. I began to think that we had switched roles; that I had turned into the worrying mother and her, the child that needed taking care of, but I still needed her as my mother and it was hard for me to be that role for so long.

Florence was a blast and it was easy for me to get sidetrack, being so far away from home, and not think so much about the problems going on at home. There was so much to do, from going to art museums to traveling the countryside, to exploring the nightlife and devouring all the delicious food. I began getting excited about my little nephew Cooper coming into the world, and my worries about my mom, although still there, started to dissipate for a little while. When I finally came home in April though, I realized how little my mom had progressed since the last time I had seen her. Yes she was getting out of bed, getting in the shower, eating meals, cleaning; doing everything that is customary and basic to living life, but she wasn’t living, not really. I noticed that no matter what we did, mom never seemed to get much enjoyment out of it. We would go out to eat, but she would worry about the money. We would make dinner at home and she would feel inadequate about making a meal that was delicious or worry too much about the clean up afterwards. She did seem to do much better when she was around Cooper, but it wasn’t the same mom, the same enjoyment she would have gotten out of holding him or watching him sleep that she would have without the depression. She had always been so engrossed in babies and so excited to see one just be, and although she did perk up a little when she was around her grandson, she still wasn’t herself. It was very hard to see her like this. Her depression stated to wear me down. I felt that I always had to be perky around her and try to engage her and get her excited about doing little every day things, but it became such a chore to be happy all the time just because I felt like I would make her worse if I showed any sign of being unhappy or stressed. I felt bad because sometimes that was all I wanted, to feel sad and have her comfort me instead of the other way around. I know that she had been that comforter for me all my life and it was only fair that I be that person for her, but I wanted my old mommy back. I would never tell her this, but it makes me so sad and upset to think about her in this stage. I get angry with her when she gets upset about little things and when she feels like she isn’t worth anything. I want to scream at her sometimes just to make her realize how much she means to me and to all of the people that know her; to make her really listen to how valuable she it to so many people, but she won’t listen. I know it is part of the disease to feel worthless and unworthy but it makes me so made when she says things like “I don’t deserve to be your mother,” or “I am worthless and should just die.” “NOOOOO!!!!!” How can you say that! How can you be little yourself so much when we are trying so so hard to make you feel worthwhile again? How can you say that you don’t deserve to be our mother when all we want is you to be our mother? I think I get so mad because I am such a strong willed person and have pushed myself to accomplish more than I should have been able to according to doctors. I get so angry at her when I think of how hard I have had to work to get to where I am and how much she contributed to me making it and how little she thinks of herself and what she can accomplish. She was the one who made me believe that anything was possible and to not settle for anything less because other people are putting limits on you. Yet, she is the one putting limits on herself! She has so many opportunities, so many good things going for her, but she can’t seem to find the will to accomplish or want to do anything. I know it is not her, but her disease, yet I still just wish that one day I will wake up and it would all have disappeared. That somehow the doctor will find some miracle pill and my mom will be back again. I don’t think that I am naïve in wishing and hoping that she will one day get better, but it is taking so long that it is starting to wear down my hopes. I will not give up though. I know she will recover whether it is five weeks from now, five months, or five years. One day she will get there and I will be so ecstatic when she does.