more (time)

 

Today is (would have been? I never know how to phrase that..) my mom's birthday. And I'm giving myself permission to be sad, or nostalgic, or whatever it is that I need to feel. Do me a favor, if you're reading this, do something good for yourself today? Anything. Just something you really enjoy.

birthday wishes

When you somehow manage to write things that you aren't really ready to say...

I cried so hard writing this that it's a wonder I didn't short out my tablet. That's like, cathartic, or something, right? I don't know, it just made my head stuff up and my face hurt.  But, I'm pretending really hard, I am, that I still somehow, somewhere have the capacity for hope.  And that maybe someday it'll be something other than just a trigger. So, somebody remind me to update this next year, okay?

(Un)comfortably numb

 

First of all, at this point, my entire page is probably a trigger warning.  But.  In case you hadn't noticed that... I write a lot about mental illness, mine, specifically. My current diagnosis is dysthymia (a lovely word, meaning I am not crazy when say that I don't ever remember not being depressed), with a heaping side of generalized anxiety, and a smattering of ptsd. To say that I am not enjoying myself, is a pretty severe understatement. So anyway, y'know, beware? Herein lie monsters? Run away while you can?

I wanna say "inspired by", but I think maybe "confronted into being" would be a tad more accurate. In any case, this was written because I both very much did and absolutely did not want to write for the prompt "comfortably numb" from @antipoetic.revolution & @marierosepoetry

things i didn't intend to write today

 just got the news/that my uncle died last night/and i don't know how to feel/i want to feel shocked/because the/circumstances/are/weird/i want to feel sad/but the relationship was/largely/nonexistent/i want to worry about my aunt/my only aunt left/on my mother's side/but we don't see/eye to eye to eye to eye/and i don't know/if i care/because i'm supposed to/because i remember her from/before/religion and trumpism/ate her brain like a starving zombie/i don't know/if i care/because the blood in my veins/and the roots of my tree/and the echoes of my maternal line/says that to be a good granddaughter/a good daughter/a good niece/a good woman/a good person/that i SHOULD care/but i have lived my life with the knowledge/that 'should'/is/a curse word/and i don't know i don't know i don't know/how i'm supposed to FEEL/because the depression makes me numb/and the anxiety says/that it/doesn't/and/DOES/matter/and i don't know which voice/to/LISTEN/to

–and i don't think this is a poem, but i don't know wtf it *is*

my body knows?

what

if i said your name three times would you stay

truths and consequences

funerals

please reply

Dear Mom,

I know you thought it was stupid how people wrote happy birthday posts to dead loved ones on social media.  "People don't care about birthdays when they're dead.  And they're surely not checking facebook!"

Yeah, I know.  It's the new version of talking to gravestones (Yes, I know you thought that was stupid, too.  That's why I phrased it that way).  But, the thing is, I finally kind of get the mentality.  Maybe those people are alone, and not sitting well with it.  Maybe they don't have anyone they feel they can grieve with.  Maybe their loss is still too big to be contained.

I don't want to tell you happy birthday. 

I wanna tell you how hard this year has been.  And all the stupid shit that's happened.  I want to tell you that I feel stuck, and I don't know how to get out.  I wanna tell you that I'm scared, nearly every day, waiting for the next catastrophe, and they seem to always come.  I wanna ask you where the fuck your keys and and my damn birth certificate are.  I wanna tell you that I haven't managed to burn the house down (yet), but it came close a couple times. I want to ask you to hug Mamma for me, to tell Nothing and Elwood how much I miss them.  I want to tell you to ask Dad what the hell that weird noise is that the car is making.

Only...really, I don't want to tell you anything.  I just want you to hug me and tell me everything is gonna be okay, even if it's not. 

Fight Fire With Words, day 2

Day two of the #fightfirewithwords symposium.  Full disclosure, I almost skipped this one because I've written about grief so much in the past year.  I'd like this to be more hopeful...but I'm just not there yet.

Please consider donating to either of these very worthy charities:
www.wires.org.au
hhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/help-thirsty-koalas-devastated-by-recent-fires

Check out the event page:

https://m.facebook.com/events/2198352437140522

You can still join the symposium here:
https://coursecraft.net/courses/z9ZMb

how long

        if every loss
        leaves a hole
        how long before
        there's not enough
              left
        to hold together?

Lighthouse

sign, signs, signing

I'd written it probably 800 times.  The name she gave me and my designation, daughter.  On every form, on every paper.  Verbally to every nurse and doctor, aide and chaplain.

But that last night something was different

One of the handful of things from that whole day that I remember with absolute clarity......sitting there only half listening to the hospice nurse telling me what was in front of me, what I was signing away, and how everything froze for a moment at that line for relationship.  I remember that it hurt, remember thinking this would be the last time.  I wrote the word daughter and it felt like a severing, an ending, the last.

It still does

Even though it wasn't

Since then, I've signed countless mortuary papers, and insurance papers, and bank account closure papers.  Every one of them with the requirement of who and what I am.  And every one has felt false.  I talk to bill collectors skirting the line between polite condolences and annoyance at wanting their money (yeah? me too. so sorry, there is none), and they all need to know who I am.

So do I

I know they question because I hesitate each time.  I can't not.  It doesn't feel right.  There are no grandparents, no parents, there is no one before me anymore.  There is no one to call me daughter but fucking bureaucracy, and they don't count, they never will.

I don't know what else I can say.  I know what people expect.  Even though it feels wrong.

In this instance, I don't know who I am.  I don't know my place in this world.

Can you still be a daughter when there is no one left to claim you?

Weighting

I always cringe when I see people who have staunch determinations of losing weight.  I know this is A Thing in Jan & Feb (all related to that new year's resolution nonsense); this pseudo-health kick that rarely lasts.

Real talk?  I don't like the idea of "getting in shape" either.  We're already shapes.  Maybe you're a square and you'd rather be a rectangle?  I'm pretty sure I'm technically a pear (which is confusing anyway because it's a fruit, not a shape), but I'm here to tell you, I have, and always will, self-identify as a hexagon.

Anyway.

My first thoughts in these scenarios are always "Why losing weight? Why not getting healthier?  Or wanting to become strong?  Why not focusing on self-care?  Or self-love?  Why not work on becoming friends with our bodies instead of resentful enemies?"

I said "always" there, but that's not true.  It's always before today.

Because today my thought was:  Yes.  I would like to lose weight.  The weight of the world's problems.  The weight of my grief and guilt.  The weight of poverty, of stress and fear.  The weight of this depression and anxiety that seem determined to piggyback me into the ground.  The weight of waiting for things I am not certain will ever come to pass.  Those weights?  I would dearly love to lose.

Every year, for at least the last several, by this date I'm done.  I'm just so fucking over the last 364 days that I cannot wait for this shit to be finished.  It's so easy to look back at the year, through the recent magnified lens of holiday angst and see all of the things left fucked up, unfinished, undone, or just not gone right.

The past week social media has been flooded with "fun" posts of the "list one thing you're proud to have accomplished this year" or "what's your happiest memory of 2018" variety.  And every time I scroll across one I sit and think.  And ponder.  And strain.  This year has been so awful, on so many levels, and for so many reasons that I have to truly struggle to think of ANY good things.

So, given my general end of year attitude, right now would normally be the time I am beyond ready to tack a new number onto the date.  The hell with 2018.  Burn it with fire, bury it in a shallow grave, whatever, just get it the fuck away from me.

Only...

Firsts are hard.  So are lasts.  I hate this year.  So much.  There are not words for how much.  But it's the last one I had with my mom.  And that makes me want to cling to this thing that I loathe, like it's a life raft that could, that might, keep my head above water.  Sitting trapped in this too quiet house, feeling the minutes ticking away, I know time does not operate on my whims.  I wish it did.  That it could.  If there was deity who could be swayed, I would beg for a do-over of this year.  Even if the outcome had to be the same.  I'm not ready for it to be 2019.  It's not a first that I want.  But I know, like with so many other painful things, that there is no choice to be made.

I don't know what this is

I've spoken a lot about my grandmother on this (very long neglected) blog.  I think, mainly, because she was so influential to my gardening and crafty sides.  And because, even more than twenty years later, I still miss her all the time.

And while you (assuming there is a you, there might not be, and that's okay, most of this is just words I need to pry out of my head anyway), at this point, might think you have a pretty good idea of who my grandmother was, I don't think you know my mom much at all.  I've only given you snippets of her.  And while I want to clutch every memory of her tightly to me, I also feel the need to share.  To make you, possibly imaginary reader, understand how amazing she was.  And how lost I am right now without her.

She's the one who made me want to write, and she is the editor in my head.  Her obituary was the hardest thing I've ever written.  Because she wasn't there to tell me what she wanted.  Because she wasn't there to be my sounding board.  Because she wasn't there to be my proofreader.  Because she wasn't there.

I was trying to write two different things at once.  My heart and brain were at war.  But I needed to say both.

If you want to see the official copy, that's here.

 This is its other half:

Mother, sister, daughter, friend
Grandma, cousin, aunt, wife
Great grandmother, great aunt
Great

Called mom by more than she raised
Called grandma by more than blood

Both the whirlwind, and the tree that can bend but will not break
It's almost fitting that you left this world during a windstorm

Rest, if you want to.  Raise hell if you don't.   Visit me sometimes if you can.   And if not, I will see you when I see you.   Love you, mom.   Say hi to everybody for me.  Can't wait to hear all of your new stories,  I'll be trying my damndest to acquire more of my own to share.
Until we're together again.

This is not the traditional sort of New Year’s Eve post.

It also serves as a sad sort of finish to a more stressful than average year, and I am sorry for that.  But I can’t deny that in some ways it seems fitting.

As I’ve touched on before, my maternal grandmother was a huge influence in my life.  Be it gardening, crafting, cooking, or anything creative, she had a hand in.  Her aesthetic has shaped many of my interests and much of my life as a whole.

And I miss that.  I miss her.  Whether it’s a new project idea, or just when the first flowers bloom in spring, I want to talk to her about it.  Always.

Grief is a strange thing, and her absence is like a weird ache that I’ve sort of gotten used to, a hole that I carefully skirt around.  I keep wondering, aren’t these the things that are supposed to get better with time?  It’s been bothering me more…I want to say lately, but I think it’s been this whole year and I’m just now realizing it.

I was musing over my birthday the other day, and yeah, I know “age is just a number” blah blah blah.  But for a multitude of reasons this number is not one I am happy with.  Maybe without further explanation that seems shallow.  Maybe explanation wouldn’t help either.  I don’t know, it’s just how I feel.

The point is, I couldn’t figure out why the two things seemed connected.  They’ll always have a bit of a link—with my birthday being yesterday and the anniversary of her death today—but it’s been that way for years now and it was never that significant.  Then it finally dawned on me.  My number?  It isn’t a “special” one this year.  But it is significant when you do the right math.

Because this year?

Today.

She’s been gone more than half my life.

And I can’t even fathom that.  I don’t understand it.  It seems really impossible, and more painful than ever, and I just don’t know what to do with this realization.