I had a lovely weekend. It isn�t that we did anything special, quite the opposite, I did laundry and we grocery shopped on Saturday and Sunday we took a hike in Elfin Forest (I love the name). Elfin Forest is neither a forest nor populated with tiny little people. It is a steep switchback trail that takes you up to a beautiful reservoir and overlook from which you can see all the way to the ocean some 50+ miles away.

It was hot and strenuous and it felt wonderful. I always feel so alive when I am physically challenging myself. I know this (I also know that it is good for my illness) but it is so hard sometimes to just do it. Nike is so very flippant, as though you could �just do it�. Of course the reality is you can just do it so if you aren�t doing it you are responsible. Look Ma another way to blame myself for my awful self. Little by little one step at a time I will get back to my physical self. Patience, said the wise one.

My Father is in the hospital, nothing serious (a little arrhythmia) but admitted just the same and my Mother didn�t call to tell me. I called her for the recipe for pigs-in-a-blanket (Hungarian cabbage rolls) and after a few minutes argument (rice vs. minute rice) and one accidental hang up (you could hang up the phone and then pick it up again back when I was a kid and as long as the person who called you didn�t hang up they would still be there-welcome to the cell phone age Marme) she finally mentioned it

�Oh by the way your father had some trouble during his stress test this morning and they took him to emergency and admitted him.� (AND?) �You father isn�t worried and neither am I� (confidence or denial?).

�Why didn�t you call me?�

�Well I was waiting for it to be late enough to call, I called your brother.�

�Great Marme, but you need to call me too, call my work and leave a message, that way I can call you when I get in.�

She then follows this bombshell with the news that my young niece has had an �episode� (which means she had a Bipolar mixed state event) and that she is starting to become physical with my mother. The therapist notes that my mother obtained for the new psychiatrist show that they suspected bipolar when she was five but as in a mental health diagnosis involving a child psychiatry prefers to wait and see so as not to misdiagnose or over medicate (sorry Mr. Cruise there really isn�t a conspiracy to drug children quite the opposite, children are often allowed to suffer for fear of pigeon holing or misdiagnosis and improper medication.)

So Dads in the hospital, Marme (72) is home alone with my niece (12) and my nephew (13) while my idiot brother (36) has taken a new job which will keep him away from home (and away from any responsibility for his kids) Monday through Friday. So here I sit more than 2000 miles away. I can�t help (other than to lend moral support. I don�t want to go back home but I feel bad about my parents getting older and older with no one but the idiot boy to take care of them. They are still taking care of him for God�s sake. I don�t think a month goes by that they don�t have to give him money. I hate being far away but I hate my hometown more.

So I sit between a rock and a hard place feeling helpless to help the ones I love. I can�t help my father�s heart to beat, or help my mother take care of the kids. I can�t help my niece understand her illness. I can�t find my Beau a job. I just have to sit here and watch everyone suffer, and they expect me to be happy?

Help me think happy thoughts for those I love.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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