Notas...

-I need to stop thinking about the prior issues with M.I., put that aside, and concentrate on the matter at hand. Maybe a bit of the past slips in sometimes...unavoidable. It’s been more than 20 years since I last saw her. We quickly started talking like old times, and with that, some of the old habits appeared again. That’s only natural.

-Talking to Lydia, we realized that we both share the same habit of projecting the worst. I told her that every time she called me after the first incident, I would assume it was bad news. She confessed she had similar thoughts. We also both feel somehow responsible for what just happened, which is ridiculous. It’s only our minds playing games with us.

-I told her that I used to think it was us Salvadorans who had the habit of expecting the worst because, back in the day in our country, there was often a real chance that the worst had happened. But then she told me her mother had the same habit. That made me remember other women I’ve met who think this way. I wonder if it happens to men as well, or if we are simply the ones more willing to admit it.

-In any case, it’s part of the brain’s entertainment. The mind is constantly hungry for drama, hungry for stimulation, and it will project all kinds of movies and little storylines to keep itself entertained.

I also keep reminding them and myself that we are seriously sleep-deprived. I’m over-caffeinated, we are under a lot of stress, and we haven’t been able to pay attention to anything else. It’s a tense situation, and we can’t fully trust our tired brains right now.

-Tonight I will make an effort to meditate, do some mindful yoga, and perhaps take a walking meditation through the building—picturing the labyrinth, the rite of passage.

-Another thing we need to be fully aware of: when he gets through this and becomes fully conscious, he may not be the same person we knew before this event. He will likely be confused and traumatized. A whole series of emotions may hit him. I reminded Lydia of this because we need to help him through that process by staying strong. He might become depressed, and we can’t fall into that with him. We can’t expect him to remember us or remember everything right away. We need to take it slowly, see where he is, and let him ask the questions. He may be like a baby, remembering things little by little. We need to be patient.