Frustration

I started writing this last night (Friday) at about eleven thirty after a telephone call from my mother. She phoned at about ten forty five. She copes brilliantly with chronic and quite serious ill health. I keep an eye on my parents and our relationships are ok. But the thing that drives me crazy is (what seems to me to be) the inane waffle that my mother talks at me. I understand that her world is shrinking as she is almost house bound and I try to be spacious, understanding and compassionate but I just run out of energy. What makes the waffle worse is that I never know if there is some important piece of information in there. Often news of an important test result is awaited and she has phoned to give important news but it is packed in waffle. The calls can go on for almost an hour and by the end of it I have maybe 2 minutes of information and a boat load of discharge. I understand that she needs to do this discharging but I find it a burden. There was important news this time and when the phone rang I initially had that bad feeling. However, the news was good; her replacement knee is not infected, the urine sample now shows no blood so the concern for her one remaining kidney and potential bladder problems can be set to rest. Also she has refused more surgery this time to her thumb to ease the arthritic damage. (Surgery involves anesthetic and this causes problems with her neuropathy.) The experimental treatment she has been undergoing is working well though the benefits are not lasting as long as with some other people so she is to get more regular treatments. Her brother who has learning difficulties is to be rehoused as the building he is in is to be demolished. They have not accepted the proposed alternative and have asked for more information as I recommended. All is well but to get there I have to pick through the waffle and by the end of the call I felt a deep anger over this. I clearly need to get in touch with how my mothers ill health and my relationships with my mother, farther and brother relate to this anger. I try to be as supportive and understanding as possible, it isn't that I am being selfish, but some boundary has been crossed at some point and I can't quite find it. Could it be that I feel used. I don't resent giving support, the points listed are but a fraction of her health problems and I do what I can including just being there so what is it? Why used? Is it because this managed decline has been going on since my early teens and I am drained in some way? I see that everyone is doing their best. It's just that my best doesn't include endless energy or the skills to limit energy expenditure without feeling I am being unfair. After all it's only an hour on the phone. But I guess it's the cumulative effects that can be grinding.

I thought about giving this post the title Bodhisattva or bust which sort of seemed to capture the efforts and frustrations felt in trying to be skillful and compassionate but the frustration came through with more honesty. Finding the attachments is not simple. I find I am in the middle of it all feeling the emotion and trying to work out just how to be mindful and compassionate. But it is not always clear how and of what to let go; where to move to. I need to remember to be compassionate with me too. Unpicking it all and remaining cool can turn into more ways of keeping control. And there is a relationship I think between control and acceptance, between responsibility and play.


I think that if my brother did some growth work we could talk about the things that make us what we are and for me this might help empty the cup. But he is a long way from that. And so it remains in many ways like my recollection of being a primary school kid with me feeling disconnected. It's a communication thing. But I guess to get that sorted one needs to get in touch with what is going on in one's head. Which points to an interesting link between head and heart. It's not the heart bit I feel I lack it's just I don't cope well with what can seem to be undue muddle. And that is probably about control.