A Motherless Child

Although I'm told I'm making progress, and I feel like I'm better in some ways, there are so many ways that I'm not better, I'm not healed, I'm not even approaching the target. I think about suicide a lot less, and when I do think about it I don't dwell on it as deeply. I don't think I'm as routinely angry as I used to be, but there are still days and things/stimuli that push me to anger.

There are days when I am bereft:

• deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something
• lacking something needed, wanted, or expected
• suffering the death of a loved one, in this case, childhood me.

I still have depression, anxiety, and PTSD. When I go low, when my WOTD is bereft, morose, I often don't know what to do or where to go or how to start. This is the music I sometimes play on those days. It touches my soul, which is not a phrase I often use.

Paul Robeson, 1926

I can sit and sing this song and let it wash over me; it does not diminish my poverty but it feels better to give voice to it.

The song has a tremendous historical reach. Richie Havens played it at Woodstock. This is Barbara Hendricks in 2000.

I have no place to turn, no source or expectation of solace. I feel cold, exhausted and used up, spent and my energy wasted on dealing with things that should have never happened. I don't know where to go with that. There is no one to help with that and it's a hard thing. The song helps.