This week we've been on our customary Thanksgiving staycation. We take it as an opportunity to rest, recharge, and spend some long-awaited time doing things we enjoy. If we can spend time with B1 and SIL and/or SIL's family, we do so as well.
This year B1 and SIL decided to stay home for the holiday. We emailed them and our two nieces a Thanksgiving Bitmoji showing us coming out of a cornucopia. B1 responded with a reciprocal greeting (sans Bitmoji), and niece number 2, who's 15, responded with something along the lines of "OMG that's hilarious." Our Bitmoji looks a lot like us.
We accepted an invitation to SIL's cousin's house for the holiday. B2 accepted as well. We said and did all the right things, although it was difficult for us to stay present.
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Monday evening, four days prior: B2 had been having a computer problem that neither we/MDs nor B1 could talk him through over the phone. We agreed that we would come to B2's house when he came home from work.
We arrived at 5:30 pm. We left at 12:30 a.m.
The problem was that at some point during the previous Saturday, either B2 or one of us had accidentally downloaded and installed a well-known antivirus program that ended up disabling Windows Defender. WD is automatically programmed to disable if it detects competing software. We have no idea how the other software got there, and it's not like us to be careless. B2, on the other hand....
We uninstalled the other program, but we still couldn't activate WD. Long story short, we called Geek Squad and were on the phone (and screensharing) with a tech for two hours. She tried. She really tried. But she wasn't able to fix it, and she said that she would have to escalate the problem to a Level 2 technician. The caveat was (1) it would cost $99.99, and (2) we could be waiting in the screenshare queue for a long time, perhaps 45 minutes. We agreed. B2 provided his credit card info, and we promised to reimburse him.
Waiting. Waiting and more waiting. I kept telling the others, "This is temporary."
Two hours (and much bladder restraint) later, the second tech finally got to us. He tried various things with the registry, as well as a couple of proprietary tools, but he couldn't fix the problem either. So he processed a refund on the $99.99 and recommended that we take the computer in for in-person repair.
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We've had to fight not to stay in bed all day, the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that. Every day is a struggle. I don't feel it personally, but I have enough empathy for the others to care that they're suffering.
But this hasn't been just any battle with these feelings. Being with B2 for six hours straight, trying to solve a problem that we couldn't solve, prompted a breakthrough. A very difficult one.
All of these years--decades--we've believed that emily and heidi's existence could be traced back to B2's birth. They're the age that we were when it happened. emily held the sadness, and heidi held the anger. Before we'd found them, Aurora17 had hidden them in a root cellar in their cabin at the far corner of our innerworld.
In recent years, we've noticed a connection, a bond, between Deborah and the Auroras' branch. Aurora17, Aurora13, Nona, Deidra, emily, and heidi. Deborah's relationship is different with each of them, but there's definitely a connection. But it wasn't until this week that we realized that the effect of B2's birth on emily and heidi was only part of the story.
All these years, Deborah had been stuffing anger and sadness and fear, stuffing it so deeply that five others ended up hiding in a distant cabin, with the twins locked in the root cellar. And Deborah had escaped to solitude in her own personal Versailles and an imperious persona that was nothing like the real Deborah.
It makes a lot more sense now.
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Of late, Charity has found that her emotions get tangled up with Deborah's and Rachel's. When one of them is triggered, they all get triggered to one degree or another. All of us have been shoved to the back as Deborah tries to cope with the latest revelation. At our appointment the other day, our T offered a Saturday Skype session, which Deborah readily accepted. "It's so hard getting through the week," Deborah said.
This evening we called B1, just to check in. We taked about our current state, and because of the computer incident factoring into all of this, B1 suggested that we try a System Restore on B2's computer before taking it in for repair. And, he said, we could call him back during the weekend if we needed to do so.
Moment by moment. We need to be kind to ourselves. All of us.
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