Title Image: Commons.wikimedia.com “Draw This Birthday Cake” is licensed under Public Domain CC0 1.0 Universal Deed

Yesterday

It was my younger daughter’s 28th birthday yesterday. I sent a “Happy Birthday wherever you are” message to what used to be her email address, the only form of contact (maybe) I have for her. Even that email contact is a low likelihood at this point.

Although I did not expect it to happen, I spent the remainder of the day at work, trying to concentrate but mired in deep sadness. I have not heard from my daughter in two and a half years. I still don’t know why, although I have asked myself “why” hundreds of times. Did she just wake up one day and decide to cut all contact? Did her boyfriend at the time urge her to cut contact? Is she still with this person? Is it me? Is it her? Both? Are we just too different?

I woke up this morning and told myself, “One day; that’s all you get”. I can’t let someone else control my emotions or I will never be happy. It’s not that I don’t care about my daughter or how she is doing. I do care… a lot… but without contact with her, my emotions are unable to separate what are real feelings from what is created in my mind out of anxiety. My thoughts spin in a fruitless, non-functional “circling the drain” repeating pattern.

Black and white clipart of hiker with backpack climbing up what looks like the side of a mountain

Openclipart “Climbing Icon” is licensed under Public Domain PDM 1.0 Deed

It has been such a hard year. My husband’s grandmother (who I adored) died in January. Days later, I found out my older daughter was arrested. A few months later she was sentenced to ten years in prison. She deserves it but still, it is hard to fathom that I have an adult kid in prison. My trans daughter asked me months ago to be the caregiver during her third and last surgery. I was the caregiver for the second surgery but had hoped that I would not be needed for the third. I am needed; there really is no one else who can help, so I said yes. I got permission from work to partly work remotely and partly take sick time and vacation. I will make it work because I don’t want to let her down when she needs me.

Each of the difficult things this year are doable as individual circumstances, but the cumulative effect feels like a lot. It feels like I’m climbing a mountain, and then someone put a rock in my backpack. Ok, I can handle carrying that rock too and I keep going. Then someone else puts another rock in the pack and I say OK, I can still keep going. I try to smile and wave at other hikers on this mountain of life as more and more rocks get put in my backpack. I’m fine, or at least I try to be. Maybe I am just pretending to be fine. After a while, I can’t tell the difference.

Maybe that is why I was so sad yesterday. It felt like one more loss, one more load to carry, thinking about my younger daughter’s estrangement.

Forward

I just keep going. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other up this mountain of life. What else am I going to do? I hope that the path I’m on will get easier someday.