New Plans

First, I read this poem the other day: Passage by Marilyn Donnelly He who took the steps by two now pauses on each tread and I who love him so am filled with dread. Which of course made me squall, as the last time I went fishing with Daddy, he had a hard time  making it up the steps to the van again. He has since then started working out 90 minutes a day!  He can walk a treadmill and ride a bike 2 miles on each and he's doing some weight training.  : )  I am SO happy about that, and proud. Thinking about my own impeding demise (the 14th, keep your calendars open) made me realize I DO have something I would really regret.  I have not told either of my parents how I really feel about being who I am.  I know it sounds crazy, I see Daddy all of the time and barely have contact with my mother at all.  What difference would it make? I don't know.  But it means something to me to make the effort.  To say the things NOW that I would easily say at a funeral.  That's too late for the person it really matters to and at best serves only to make the ones left behind feel soothed over the loss and also the guilt of not being the one in the box and being a little glad about that.  At least that's how I feel, even if it's not my proudest moment. Daddy's will be easiest, my feelings for him and for his influence in my life are right on top, they well up when I look at my own kids, when I read a good book, when I have worries.  I can recall so much with my father somewhere in the background, his voice a cadence to my life, reading to me, always reading, even when I could read on my own.  Counseling, talking things through, being steady during the years I careened around bouncing off everything and changing my mind daily. Mother's...I have tried to reconcile my thoughts and feelings on that before.  Maybe I will have better luck within this distance we have nurtured.  Me on my end ignoring the roots, her sending out hopeful tendrils.  Me, oblivious of the effort.  Or wanting to be.  You can't BE a mother and not have some insight into why they go crazy.  I just wish I had been worth the effort to keep her shit together.  I think that's the bottom line to everything negative I feel about myself.  How can anyone love me if my own mother failed so miserably?  I must really be worthless. But, I wake up and get up and make the effort each day.  Sometimes I feel like pushing everyone I know into a hole so I don't have to spend any energy on relationships, it's not natural to me.   I try, though.