WELL, I CAVED....

So, after about 3 weeks of really not sleeping, folks....I caved...two nights ago, at 1:45 am, I took the low end prescribed 15 mg of Restoril, from which I had received benefit 2 years ago. After several months, moved on to 30 mg, the highest prescribed amount. That worked for about a year, and that brought me to the beginning of SLEEPLESSNESS!!! It brought me to the sleep clininc, it brought me to every nighttime routine, every holistic, over-the-counter-natural freakin' remedy I could get my hands on. TO...NO...AVAIL! So, last night at 11:00, I took 15 mg, Restoril. by 1:45, still not sleeping. Took another 15 mg bringing me to the recommended highest dose. Did get sporadic sleep. Tonight......30 mg at bedtime!!! I know it will work. And it will work until it doesn't work....and we'll "jump off that bridge when we get there!" (Someone I've known for a long time and recenlty deceased was fond of that saying...I've never used it before....but, somehow, it fits, right here, right now!)

Here's what I'm drawn to share with you today. You know, I've had many a year of an uneasy relationship with Danny. Danny is the name of my father. He has "moved ahead". In Februrary, it will be seven years (phew, that went fast!!)..Anyway, in a heated argument, I sort of "disowned" him as a father, and began calling him Danny when I was 16, I told him I wanted a blood test to "prove I came from his loins". I clearly believed I could not possibly have sprung from him! Today, I would have asked for DNA testing! I found Danny to be "difficult", inasmuch as he really didn't make life easy. Everything you asked of him seemed to be a problem for him. He was verrrrrry set in his ways and was not generous with money (big understatment here), nor was he generous with his time. I inherited his addiction to television.....I realize now it was his "anti-depressant", as it is probably mine. For sure an escape from the daily grind. Come to think of it....guess why it is probably the "drug of choice" for most of America! Television!....So, come to find out that not only do Danny and I share a "passion for TV....but, many attributes I distained about him seem not to be "Danny Things", but rather "Old People Things"! I tell you this because it is becomining more and more apparent as I get old, the things that perpetually annoyed Danny, and which I thought made him "intorlerant", are now beginning to bother me! He simply had "too much on his plate". Just getting through a normal day was a huge challenge and addition one more request of him was...well...simply not an option!

Lack of patience was a huge "flaw" I found in Danny. And that translated into selfeshness, which I now realize was a survival mechanism he created. I see that, like most of his generation (born in 1918), life WAS HARD!...Familial illness, lots of death, depression (The Great One, and the one in his mind). He lost my mother when she was just 35 (leaving me at 3 months old, a 10 year old son, and another daughter, 11). Danny's father died when Danny was 13, under "mysterious circumstances"....so, as he approached the end of his life, I began to see him as the "flawed" human being that he was, and finally learned that his "failings", like all of our "failings" were the by-products of a life he was not well-equipped to handle. Although, later in his life, his beloved TV did offer solutions to life's problems, first through Phil Donahue and then, most magnificently, through Oprah....when these shows aired, Danny simply chose to watch reruns of Matlock!

So, the point of all this is that, I as am becoming impatient, intolerent, even, I am really struggling not to be judgemental, to be compassionate, kinder, less self-absosrbed.....in essence, I am battling what some might call the inevitable....becoming Danny....and if I should....I hope my kids will be kinder to me than I was to him...