Confusion & Addiction
(Excerpted from Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother)
By Betsy Robinson
Dear Mom,
It’s Saturday, my taxes are paid, and I think my unemployment insurance runs out this week. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow when I attempt to certify my claim. If the claim is closed, it’s over. Free fall. No net. The unknown.
I thought, when I got all those freelance assignments last year, I had broken through, that being an independent contractor might be my new way of life, but there’s been nothing for more than two months and nothing seems to be working. I’ve applied for clerical work at stores and they don’t even respond.
Numbness is the best thing that I feel. If I stop feeling numb, I get overwhelmed by confused urgency—an urgent impulse to do something, but I don’t know what that something is. The situation is real, but my response feels compulsive. Confused urgency is very familiar. Do you think I’m addicted to it?
Love, B
∞
Dear B,
You are making me cry. You are asking me, an alcoholic who shook with terror at the prospect of getting lost if I ventured out of my familiar neighborhood, to know more than I knew when I was in a body. Why do you expect this? Just because I’m dead?
Let me tell you about my last days. I have never been so terrified in my life. You were worried when you heard that Dr. H had put me on morphine. You asked if he knew my history, and he told you, “Yes, I know everything.” I trembled so uncontrollably the night they tried to put the respirator in that they couldn’t do it. When Dr. H asked if I wanted the morphine, I gave him a thumbs-up. Can you imagine what it feels like to have a pipe shoved down your throat?
On one hand, I knew I was going to die, on the other, I hoped I could beat it. It makes no sense, but I am ferocious. The only bearable time was when I was out. I don’t remember that. It’s just a heavy, limbo feeling, and then nothing. How many days passed? I have no idea. But I remember your visits. How my heart raced like a marathoner in the final stretch whenever you came, how I wanted to be there for you, how I dreaded failing—by leaving you. How I fought to stay. And the relief I felt when you told me you would be all right if I didn’t.
Even with the morphine, I was so scared, so confused, so addicted to the terror and the fight. And finally my body just had enough.
That free fall you dread, it’s the lightest, most wonderful feeling in the world. It’s when you learn you can fly. It’s when you meet in the unknown everything you’ve ever longed for.
Yes, you are addicted to your confused urgency. And you have a choice. Stay addicted, or enjoy flight.
I love you,
Mom
It’s Saturday, my taxes are paid, and I think my unemployment insurance runs out this week. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow when I attempt to certify my claim. If the claim is closed, it’s over. Free fall. No net. The unknown.
I thought, when I got all those freelance assignments last year, I had broken through, that being an independent contractor might be my new way of life, but there’s been nothing for more than two months and nothing seems to be working. I’ve applied for clerical work at stores and they don’t even respond.
Numbness is the best thing that I feel. If I stop feeling numb, I get overwhelmed by confused urgency—an urgent impulse to do something, but I don’t know what that something is. The situation is real, but my response feels compulsive. Confused urgency is very familiar. Do you think I’m addicted to it?
Love, B
∞
Dear B,
You are making me cry. You are asking me, an alcoholic who shook with terror at the prospect of getting lost if I ventured out of my familiar neighborhood, to know more than I knew when I was in a body. Why do you expect this? Just because I’m dead?
Let me tell you about my last days. I have never been so terrified in my life. You were worried when you heard that Dr. H had put me on morphine. You asked if he knew my history, and he told you, “Yes, I know everything.” I trembled so uncontrollably the night they tried to put the respirator in that they couldn’t do it. When Dr. H asked if I wanted the morphine, I gave him a thumbs-up. Can you imagine what it feels like to have a pipe shoved down your throat?
On one hand, I knew I was going to die, on the other, I hoped I could beat it. It makes no sense, but I am ferocious. The only bearable time was when I was out. I don’t remember that. It’s just a heavy, limbo feeling, and then nothing. How many days passed? I have no idea. But I remember your visits. How my heart raced like a marathoner in the final stretch whenever you came, how I wanted to be there for you, how I dreaded failing—by leaving you. How I fought to stay. And the relief I felt when you told me you would be all right if I didn’t.
Even with the morphine, I was so scared, so confused, so addicted to the terror and the fight. And finally my body just had enough.
That free fall you dread, it’s the lightest, most wonderful feeling in the world. It’s when you learn you can fly. It’s when you meet in the unknown everything you’ve ever longed for.
Yes, you are addicted to your confused urgency. And you have a choice. Stay addicted, or enjoy flight.
I love you,
Mom
_________________________________________
Read "Worthiness & the Law of Attraction" posted last week here.
About the Author
At the age of sixty, editor and writer Betsy Robinson craved an elder to advise her about her unemployment, her fears, and her shame. Who better to call on than her dead mother . . . who had once before made her spirit presence known.
In her new book, Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother, Robinson and her dead mother continue the writing partnership and collaboration that forged their unique friendship.Contact the writer at BetsyRobinson-writer.com.
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