My older sister has MS, and she fell down two weeks ago and broke her ankle.  She is non-weight bearing for six weeks, as she is not a good candidate for surgery.  So I have a reprieve from my homelessness and scary journey. 

I can do something worthwhile, now.  I can cook, clean, do laundry, run errands, grocery shop.  I can help her get into her wheelchair so that she does not have to lie in bed all day.  My being here now, at her house, allows everyone to keep their jobs.  Son and daughter no longer live at home and both work.  Husband also works and has quite a long commute.  My sister works from home as a nurse case manager.  Except for the first week after her fall, she has also been able to continue working.

So, while I do not have a job and am having trouble interacting with the outside world, I can do this.  I am helping my sister and her family.  That feels very good to me.  It is also very distracting, and I am focusing on someone besides myself.  I mentioned before that I feel my depression and isolation is a selfish and self-centered way to go about life.  I may believe I have no choice, and when I struggle to make a phone call or to venture outside it seems the anxiety and panic is all too real.  But I can do these things as a third party. 

I love the third person, the observer and not the participant.  I have shoveled snow and talked to someone in the next driveway over.  I went to the grocery store and bought my sister’s favorite comfort food, interacting with the folks in the deli and bakery and at the check-out.   I called Verizon when the power outage disabled the internet.   I was not there, if you know what I mean from all I have written before.  It is very safe.  I cannot be hurt or frightened, because I am simply an agent of someone else.

Why do I do this and does it matter right now?  I am doing something useful.  I am not stranded in my tent or a less-than-savory flop house room.  I am warm and cozy as I type this.  There is something, however, that keeps tugging at me and telling me to move on before it is too late.  Too late for what?  I once believed that I was trying to find myself.  It is more like creating myself….I never existed before. 

Think of all the analogies around us – the caterpillar breaking out of its cocoon; the sun rising over and over again; the waves lapping the shore in an unceasing rhythm; the baby born in a vernix  caseosa; the skin we must peel off the onion to get to the flavorful vegetable , crying as we peel the layers.  The ideas in religious dogmas around the globe talk about rebirth, resurrection, the fruit of knowledge.  What if that is what it is all about?  What if we have to suffer and “die” to be able to see what is real?

Okay, getting off on a tangent and I must reel myself back in.  Other realities seem to bleed into mine at times like these.  I can really go way out there.  It is an attractive idea, though.  All of us here at this website, all of us struggling with our environment, our emotions, our bodies, our minds….What if we have all begun the journey to get better?

Some people would say I am delusional.  Then again, what would that be saying about some people?