Damn, damn, damn

Apr 22, 2012

That's how I feel today. Poor little old me. Dammit. I hate that feeling! 

I am not a big fan of what I consider whinyness and today I feel whiny.

I've been experiencing insomnia and I'm tired.

My car got hit by some idiot who wasn't looking when backing up.

I have less than two weeks until my move and the motivation to pack is just not there.

My kids argue with me.

It's cold and rainy.

And I miss my mommy.

So here I am...at work...trying. I really am trying. I work for a wonderful organization that brings hope and help to impoverished people around the world. It is my job to convey that message through my writing. 

But today I don't feel very hopeful.

Damn. 
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All packed up and nowhere to go

Apr 11, 2012

Aside from my mom passing away, I've been dealing with the process of letting go of my home of the last 12 years.

This has been such an interesting process. In the past instead of making big decisions, I'd let them make me. I'd wait until I had few options left and then make an emergency decision (which USUALLY meant a bad decision). This time I was proactive.

It's also funny to me how sometimes in life you have to let yourself free fall into an inferno to avoid the worst kind of burns. This time last year I was trapped. Suffocated by a mortgage I couldn't afford. My house was in extreme disrepair. I had no money for anything but paying the damn mortgage. Some weeks I wondered where my grocery money would come from.

My mortgage company wouldn't help me. They said, "well you're paying on time every month so it can't be that bad, right?"

And when the idea first came along to stop paying them I was vehemently against it. I, after all, am a responsible person. I pay my taxes. I go to church. I keep my word. This is not something an honest person does, is it?

So I did what I do most of the time when I am conflicted. I sat on it and did nothing. But I could tell fast that that wasn't going to work. Then I prayed. And sought the counsel of...just about everybody. And after a lot of soul searching I finally felt ok about what I was doing. I am not justifying here. It was what I had to do to get out of this situation. And I needed out badly.

I laugh when I think about that first month I did not send in my payment. I thought I'd be kicked out the next month. Here it is a year later and I am still here. After a few months a funny thing happened. The company that did not want to help me before all of a sudden presented options! Exit options, mind you, but I didn't care. This house is sort of like a container of old self. Anthony (my ex) and I moved here together 12 years ago with our then only child. And our relationship died in this house. I had a nervous breakdown in this house. I had another child and I struggled and I triumphed. But this house very much represents who I WAS: a person who hadn't started her journey yet. I'm now well on my way.

We are set to close on the house on April 30th. So I know the next natural question. "Where are you moving?" I HAVE NO CLUE! I am all packed up and yet have not yet secured a new house yet. Last week was supposed to be about doing that but instead I spent the week fulfilling THE most important duty a child can do for their parent: I was burying my mother.

Am I scared? Ohhhhh yes. Excited? Definitely. I feel like I am entering a new chapter in my life. And I feel like my mom is in an even better position to see it now than she was before. She is watching over me and if she has anything to do with it, her baby will never go without.

So thank you, friends, for your advice, your wisdom, your experiences, your PMs explaining how you went through the same things. I appreciate that so much. I definitely do NOT feel like I am alone. And even though I am fricking bawling right now (my youngest calls it "having a moment") I am actually very comforted inside.
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In the still of the night

Apr 06, 2012

Today was the first full day after my mother's death that I did not have somewhere I HAD to be: someone to pay, arrangements to make, someone to call or console. It was actually very nice to have some autonomy.

I suppose this is the first day of the rest of my life without my mother.

It's strange. I feel...unanchored. I have 2nd and 3rd cousins and whatnot in the area but my brother lives in Indiana and my mom was an only child so there are no aunts, uncles or first cousins. I sort of feel alone. I know I am not. I've built up quite the extended family. But there is something about that blood connection.

You know she and I had the same blood type, which happens to be THE rarest blood type of all of them: AB negative. That fact always sort of made me feel connected to her. We both went through having that God-awful shot during our pregnancies to keep our bodies from building up anti-bodies to the RH factors our babies may or may not have carried (as it turns out I had negative blood my brother is positive. Both my children are positive so that shot actually made it possible for #2 to be born. Left untreated, antibodies to RH factor will attack an RH positive fetus in utero). She often joked that she was glad we had the same blood type because who else was there to give US blood?

Isn't it strange the thoughts you think about a person when they are gone?

I named this post in the still of the night because that's been the hardest time for me. Last night I had a dream that I saw her. She was in her wedding dress and a beautiful head wrap. Her "butt-length" dread locks (she'd admonish me for using the word "dread") were flowing beautifully down her back. her face was full and she was standing upright with her Afro-centric jewelry on. I ran to her and embraced her tightly. She took my head in her hands and caressed my cheek. She took both my hands in hers and squeezed them, but then let them go. She took a step backward and she was as she was in her early 40's, before the locks, with shoulder-length brown permed hair. Another step back and she was as she was in her 30's. And another step back and she was in her 20's wit her big Afro and tiny body. One more step back and she was the little girl I'd seen a million times in my grandfather's photo album and she was flanked on either side by my grandfather, as his younger self and my grandmother, as her younger self. They each took one hand and led her away. As she left she looked back at me over her shoulder and smiled.

It was a nice dream. I woke up crying happy tears. But then as fast as the happiness came, there came the vacant space. The selfish part of me that just wants my mommy back. I just want her to nag me to chop veggies for dinner or to vacuum the carpet correctly like when I was little. I long for her to call and bug me about something one more time or tell a story she's told me two million times. If only she could "hold me hostage" on the phone one last time.

These are the thoughts I have at night. When it is quiet, after the children have gone to sleep.

I don't think she wanted to die. I think she wanted to live but did not want to live the way she was living: in pain, in turmoil, disconnected from the people, places and things she loved. I can feel the feelings that are down below the surface bubbling. I found a grief support group and I intend to go because I know what these feelings can do. And for the life of me I will NOT regress over this. She was so proud of what I'd accomplished. And I am too. I feel like it would be the utmost dishonor to go back to who I was before, what I was before. So I need to figure out how to deal with this place in my life that used to belong to her. I need to figure out how to get through the night and back into the light of day.

1 comment

Arrangements

Apr 01, 2012

It's 7:30 a.m. I am sleepy and tired (and today I get the distinction). Technically I am off work this week. I want to go back to bed. But my to do list is long. I have to:

1. Go with my stepdad to see cemeteries because the one the funeral home recommended has terrible reviews.
2. Take mom's clothes and jewelry that we want her buried in to the funeral home.
3. Call my financial planner and see what heavily protected funds I can rob to pay for this whole thing.
4. Link up the people who expressed that they want to help with something with something they can help do

I know they say take it one step at a time, but damn. There are a lot of steps. I will do them for my mother because I love her and I want her homegoing to be a loving event. But if I am being completely honest, I don't think my closure will even begin to come until I can just lie down in quiet, stare at my blue wall and process.
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About Me
Baltimore, MD
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26.2
BMI
RNY
Surgery
01/08/2008
Surgery Date
Jan 21, 2008
Member Since

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