I am not entirely sure that starting a blog at midnight is the best decision I've ever made. I guess it came down to something like "all the cool kids are doing it", and really, some very boring people as well, so why not me?
I'm not particularly technologically savvy, but I can write.
At least, I fancy myself a writer.Does composing the occasional overly verbose one act play make me a writer? My work gets produced every once in a while, so I suppose I could be lumped into the category of 'working writer'. Maybe I am deluding myself because I want my loquaciousness to be good for something besides boring my friends and colleagues to death.People do tend to say that I'm funny, and I do like making people laugh....but I am snarky and that often gets miscast as negative....so I guess I could be interpreted as the worst kind of writer-one that thinks I am funny when I am just dark and spiteful, confusing verbosity for eloquence. I'm probably sounding terribly pretentious,too. I'm not. On purpose, anyway.
But I digress.
I am bothered. A great playwriting teacher once told me that we write to figure out what bothers us. I should be happy. Not like adequately satisfied or fairly pleased, but HAPPY. Like end of a chick flick-won the lottery-the town is saved happy. I have a wonderful, close-knit family complete with squishy-faced wonders known as Pekingese I'm going to start my dream job of teaching theatre to 'at risk' high school students; which means I get to use my love and knowledge of the theatre to actually do something in this world and not just produce another production of "Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Forever Plaid Footloose Dreamcoat". I'm pursuing my M.A. in Education and I currently have a 4.0 G.PA. I have an amazing boyfriend who loves me no matter what and, trust me, I put the poor guy through the ringer. I have great friends who make me laugh and who also laugh with and at me, including a best friend who just got married and I got dance with him at his Big Gay Wedding. The people around me are incredible. They have so much love for me and such kindness in their hearts. JoshBob,Mama H, Miss A, Monsieur J, Empress Bu, Ro and even Ms.V show me how to be a friend and a better person everyday. They also appreciate when I am a friend.....and you'd be surprised how few friends you have when something catastrophic happens in your world. I have been fortunate to have these people save me so many times I have lost count, especially J-M, the aforementioned awesome boyfriend.
But I am not happy.
I could be very easy to blame it on stress or bad body image or terror of messing up good things like jobs and relationships, all of which I have in spades, but its not just one of these.
The sad fact is that I'm broken on the inside,.
I had a new friend accuse me of being dead on the inside because I don't like "The Sound of Music", and another call me broken because I've never seen the "Toy Story" trilogy. They were both joking, but neither knew how close the latter was to being right.
The sad fact is: my mom died. Seven months ago tomorrow. Sometimes it feels like seven years. Sometimes it feels like a few weeks. Most times it feels like mere minutes ago. Except for when I forget that she's gone and I almost buy her something or text her a question.
I know that lots of people die everyday. That people are experiencing loss fresher than mine as I write. I am not the first to lose my mom, and I will not be the last. But she was MY mom. She was 61. She left behind her partner of almost forty years in my dad. I honestly don't know how he gets up in the morning sometimes. I can't imagine loss like he is experiencing and that is another reason I am terrified of marriage.
I miss my mom everyday, every hour-I've gotten pretty good at distracting myself for minutes at a time so it doesn't hurt like it did in the beginning. I was so mad that the world got to keep turning while my world lay on a hospital gurney. My soul was eviscerated and bleached. My heart was shattered. How can there be a God if he takes away people who love and give so much? Who fight and endure excruciating pain and still give of themselves? How can this woman with a larger than life energy and being fit into a ten inch urn? How can my mom be here in the morning and gone at night? I have no answers to these questions, just a still-broken heart.
I can hide this and function in ordinary society. I may even seem normal. But I am numb. I don't have emotions like I used to. Things are muted and muffled, like I am under water. I laugh, but it makes me feel guilty. I love, but it makes me angry that she won't be there to make fun of me or maybe even someday cry at my wedding. Yet, even though I have love in my life, it is not the full-hearted feeling of a whole person. I am not the same as I was. Fear is not the constraint it was. Nothing gets to sink too deep before it is washed away by grief and the thought that she didn't know how much I loved and still love her. I don't sleep. When I do, I hope I don't dream because she is there and I feel like a big disappointment to her. I feel like I am cheating her memory by acting 'normal' when all I want to do in any group of people is scream. I want to howl and wail and make people understand that I am not okay, I am broken. Nor should they feel okay because they could break too at any minute. I have to stop myself from breaking down every time I see a mother and daughter interact because I no longer have that. I never will again and sears my eyes to the point of tears. I am no longer a whole person. I don't even know if I want to be whole anymore or what that even means. All I know is that I owe it to her to be the best person I can be; to feel what I can and love when it's possible. She would have loved me unconditionally, broken and numb as I am, and that is all I have left of her: that certainty that broken me would still be okay by her.
I miss you, Mama. More and more everyday.
I wish I know what to say to help you feel better, but I don't think anything really can be said. What you feel or don't feel inside wont be changed by words.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could tell you that you'll heal, that things will feel better soon, that the numbness will go away-but there really can be no promise of that. It might. It might get easier. It might feel better soon. All you can do is hope it does, and work towards feeling better and loving as hard and fully as you can. I think it's that love that will eventually help you break through it.
I never met your mom, but from everything I heard from everyone who did-she was an amazing person. She had so much love, no matter who you were, what you looked like, or how you were feeling. I can't help but feel that if she were here she'd just hug you and tell you that it's alright to feel like that for a time-a time that cannot be measured. You can't put yourself on a schedule for when you should start feeling better, or a deadline for when you should be healed. You just have to feel your way through the darkness and grief with the hope that someday you find the light again.
You are beautiful and amazing Meggy, and we all have so much love for you. I hope you really understand just how much I care for you and consider you one of my very dearest friends, and that I'll be there if you need anything at all-just you name it.
*Big hugs*