Normal Is Just a Setting on a Dryer

This morning Daughter was able to tell me more about the voices. She was able to separate them out. She is supposed to hang her friends from the workshop—from a tree with everybody watching. That’s not a very realistic plan, so I wasn’t too concerned. Then she told me what she’s supposed to do to me—she’s supposed to wait until I’m in a deep sleep and then slit my throat. Now that’s a realistic and deadly plan. I called the emergency number for her psychiatrist and took her in for an assessment. We arrived at 10:30. When I left at 2:40, she had been admitted the psych unit. Her psychiatrist wants to “tweak” the medication. With a realistic plan to murder me, it has to be done on as an inpatient.

I had orders from Daughter to call the workshop as soon as I left the hospital and tell them she was in the hospital. I called the workshop, and her therapist, Sister, Dad, and Brother. I’m trying to convince Sister or Brother to make the soup I was going to make for Dad. I’ll still make it and stick it in the freezer. At some point I will get to his apartment and deliver my low sodium culinary creations.

Before we left for the assessment, I had grabbed the book and CD I had promised to the nursing home couple. On my way back into town, I stopped (very briefly) at the nursing home and dropped them off. I didn’t get to the other nursing home today.

I’ve moved my worship planning workshop from a retreat center to my house. Tomorrow I’ll call and cancel the respite I had scheduled for my time away. I need it, but I can’t leave Daughter that soon after she gets out of the hospital. I don’t know who it would be harder on: Daughter, or me.

I talked to my sister a little while ago. “Is it normal to be so calm about Daughter’s plan to kill me?”

“According to my pastor, normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

I like that. I’m not going worry about how abnormal my life is. I’m not a dryer. I don’t have to be normal.