grieving

Letters to Mom 021: Please Be There

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Hey mom,

It’s the 11th. Only nine days until my birthday. Only nine days until the day I became your daughter.

Only eight days until whatever birthday celebration happens at my clinic since my FA found out the 20th is my birthday and we’re closed that day.

Only eight days until the bombardment of “happy birthday!” starts.

I’m sorry, but I still don’t want it to be my birthday. I don’t want to go to class tonight and take my test and pass. I don’t want to not be able to call you. I don’t want to go through another birthday where I don’t hear your voice. And I’m sorry that these wants infect the rest of my day.

I’m sorry I came home last night after a mildly good day at work and wanted to give up. A patient infiltrated his arm trying to cover his cough. The acid I was mixing for the clinic was testing really low for its temperature so I had to call Biomed. When I was leaving the clinic I couldn’t get the front door to lock properly and had to call my boss.

None of those things were earthshattering. None of them really affected the day. All of them got figured out. But after coming home and cooking dinner, I was done. I didn’t want to do anything else. I wanted to give up on the day and have it be over, so that’s what I did. I went to bed. I didn’t wake up any better and I don’t have a legitimate reason for feeling this way, at least it doesn’t feel like it.

There wasn’t some recent awful event to justify what I guess is depression.

I’ve been back home for over a week so I can’t say that it’s stress from the trip anymore. At least I don’t think I can. I made it through Thanksgiving, so I can’t say it’s that…

There’s not something I can point to and say, “This. This right here. This is why I’m sad and depressed and apathetic. This is why nothing matters right now. This is why I hurt. This is why I’m tired.” I don’t have a reason and so I’m struggling right now, mom.

I’m sad and I don’t have a reason for it. I hurt. I’m tired, of everything and nothing is really making me feel better or helping me cope.

I guess I need to let you know that I miss you. Still. Always. I guess I need to let you know that I haven’t cried in a while because I don’t give myself a chance to. I instead pick up over time and take classes and go on work trips. I keep myself busy to the point where I get to here and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I liked my trip. I wanted to take this class. I’m happy to help the other clinics out.

I still miss you and underneath all of my busy-ness, I’m still hurting. I’m still wounded and not really all that ok. More ok than I was but not ok enough to not dread the 19th or the 20th. I’m going to have to force smiles onto my face over and over again as my heart contracts, knowing that I can’t explain why those words hurt so deeply because it’s no one’s intention to hurt me but that doesn’t change the fact that they will, that they do.

I wish I could hear you wish me luck on my test. I wish it was you telling me that I will do fine instead of Jon. I wish it was you I was brainstorming ideas with for my leadership essay.

I wish so many things and it all just sort of sucks today, for no reason other than I had today off and finally had a chance to realize that some things still just suck because they suck. It’s no one’s fault. Some facts are just sort of lame like that.

I wish we could talk. I wish I could know how you’re doing. I wish you could tell me about your day. I wish I knew you were ok and that death isn’t all that bad. That once you’re dead there’s this other side, whatever it is, and that it’s different but there are positive things about it. Sort of like taking a new job. “I miss my old team and there’s this one annoying chick in human resources, but everyone is super nice and friendly, and the company has a good benefits package. The commute to work is pretty nice and I’m working on this nifty project,” type of a thing.

I wish I knew if you missed being alive. I wish I had known to ask more questions. I wished I had known to listen to your stories more.

I wish I was better at grieving and being depressed rather than letting it eat away at my days like it does. I wish I had had it in me to make myself go to the gym today. I wish I had it in me to care about how many carbs I eat. I wish I had it in me to actually stop smoking like I keep thinking about. But I don’t think I can right now, mom, and I don’t think I need to be sorry over that. I don’t feel sorry and part of me wonders if that’s from the grief/depression/whateverthisis. Being sorry means you feel something, and right now I mostly don’t.

I feel mostly frustration with myself for feeling this way, but that’s about it. The only emotion I really feel is in response to my lack of feeling anything… Oh, and more frustration because it’s frustrating to feel frustrated. Gah. Talk about a vicious cycle of lameness. : /

I feel bad for not having more to talk about but I can’t really think much past the words, “I miss you.” My mind just kind of gets stuck there. I miss you. I wish you were here. I wish we could talk. I wish I could give you a hug. I feel like it’s the same things I always write when I write to you. It’s like maybe I’m stuck or stagnating in my grief. I’ll be fine until I’m not and then all of a sudden I feel like I’m regressing or not doing well enough. Things I’m normally fine with will bother me or be amplified.

I’m going to go to class today, mom. Mostly because I have to, but I wanted you to know that even though today sort of sucks for no reason that I’m still going to go. I’m not going to fail my class even though I can’t call you and tell you I passed. I’m not going to not take my state skills test just because we can’t celebrate together. I’m sorry all of these stupid, small, silly things are so hard sometimes, mom. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want me to be but I have to say those stupid words so they can hopefully stop eating away at the inside of my brain. I’m sorry and I’m sorry I’m sorry.

Please help me get through this. Please tell me that you’re still here and that everything will be ok. Please tell me I’ll do fine on my test and that I worry too much. Please tell me tomorrow will be better and worth it. I know most of those are unfair of me to ask, but right now I really just want to be an eight-year-old kid and cry and have you tell me that everything will be ok. The monsters aren’t really real. The bad things will go away and can’t hurt me.

But these monsters are real and no matter how much I wish them away the 20th will still come without your voice. Another year will pass. Another scar to mark my survival. I’m just so… tired, mom. I’m tired. I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired of being sad.

I wouldn’t change anything, though. I don’t want to miss you less. I’m not tired of missing you, of loving you, of caring that you died and that you meant something to me; that you still mean something to me. So I guess I really don’t know what I’m tired of because I feel like saying I’m tired of hurting means I’m tired of loving you and that’s not true. It will never be true. I will always love you and it will always be worth the pain I feel.

I don’t know, mom. I really don’t know right now but I’m sort of glad I wrote. I’m glad I had that realization; that if given the choice I wouldn’t want to hurt less because that would compromise or diminish my love for you and the Universe can go fuck itself if it thinks I’m going to let that happen. I would fight to keep my pain. To the bitter end.

I really wish I wasn’t so confusing sometimes. I wish things were easy and straightforward. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t an INFJ full of contradictions but then I wouldn’t be me and I sort of like me most of the time.

Thanks for listening to me ramble, mom. I think it helped a little. I need to shower for class. Please wish me luck. Please be there when I pass. Please let me feel you so I don’t feel alone. I know that’s not fair to ask but please don’t let me feel alone tonight. I really don’t want to be alone right now, mom. I really just want to feel like you’re still with me and that even though it’s different now that it’s still ok. That we’re still ok. That we still love each other and that we’ll figure it out somehow.

I love you, mom. Forever and for always I will love you.

Daily Post 127: Bridging the Gap

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Written yesterday. Posted today. 

Hello Keyboard, my dearly missed companion. And to you, too, Computer. Though I have sat at you for hours watching lecture videos and bitching about how fellow student discussion posts hold no content worth replying to, I feel I haven’t had a chance to really sit in front of you and enjoy our time together.

Class has been going well. I got checked off on all of my remaining skills tonight. I technically do not have to go to class this coming Tuesday. Thursday will be Thanksgiving and the week after that I begin the clinical portion of the class. The first week of December I go to Denver to participate in Academy for the company. I’m not looking forward to it. I’ll have to share a room with a person I don’t know. I’ll have to participate in all sorts of “fun” team building exercises. I feel I won’t be respected as an introvert and that I’m going to suffer through the two and a half days I’ll be there but it’s a stepping stone. By going to Academy I’ll be able to then turn around and go to Perceptor training which will allow me to be a trainer for the clinic; something that is desperately needed.

I had a meeting for the clinic today as well. That was earlier in the day; before class. At the end of the meeting, my FA gave me a “Core Value” award. It was the award for the “Team” core value. She said that being in such a small clinic, it’s just her and me making things run. She said not once has she ever asked me to do something that I didn’t do without complaining and she has never had to worry about it being done correctly or completely. She said I help make her job easier and she appreciates that. She said that I’m compassionate and caring to not only my fellow team members but also to my patients. She mentioned something about my positivity and kindness, though to be honest, I can’t recall exactly what she said because I was too busy blushing and trying to not break down into tears in front of all of my coworkers. She said that I help not only my clinic but our region as a whole with how often I step up to help cover short shifts, mentioning the fact that I have picked up 9 out of 10 shifts this upcoming month.

I don’t feel like I deserve an award. I don’t feel like I do anything exceptional. I do my job. I do my job as correctly as I can. I’m compensated for the time I work. I’m not doing it for free and I have even said no a few times. I like knowing that my FA values my time and effort and that it means something to her, and on some level, I know that I do a better job than others. I don’t know. It’s confusing. I like being praised. I don’t think I deserved anything special or congratulations. I don’t think some people were happy that I was the only one to receive something. No one else got an award, but with how bitchy the team, as a whole, has been with each other I don’t think anyone really deserved anything.

I guess I feel honored and there’s a shy part of me who finds the recognition painful. I accepted my award graciously and I will cherish it alongside the Core Value awards I was given while I worked at my Orlando clinic.

Ox and I had lunch today. He recently started a new job and so we’ve had more time together. He’s also getting steadier paychecks and so we have the ability to go out together again. I found a sports bar in Beatrice that I really enjoy and it just so happens they have a location in Lincoln as well. We went there to have lunch together and it was nice. It was a change from the constant work, school, not enough sleep, routine that I’ve found myself caught in recently.

I made a hair appointment for Sunday. I found out the eye place I want to get seen at has shitty hours and I won’t be able to talk to anyone until Saturday. I went to Walmart and got shirts and shorts to go under my white scrubs since white might as well be called “see-through”. I went to the main campus and got my ID made so I can have the badge I need for clinicals. I tried going to the srub store to look at compression socks, but their selection sucked so I walked away from that empty handed. I also talked to Jon for a while this morning.

Overall it’s been a good day off.

I’ve been going to the dojo semi-regularly.

This past Saturday was the first day that I’ve ever spared Muay Thai. I got punched pretty good in the face a couple of times, but that’s ok. I kicked the shit out of my opponent’s legs. Totally worth it.

Muay Thai sparring is a much different adrenalin rush than what I’m used to with jiujitsu. I almost landed a spinning elbow strike. That would have been brutal. It felt good. Solid. It was blocked, but oh man. It would have been an amazing hit if it had made it through.

At the moment I’m aiming for one dojo class at least on Wednesdays and Fridays and hopefully both classes on Saturdays. So far I’ve been doing pretty good with maintaining that. Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m not able to go to the dojo because of my CNA class, but that may change in the New Year. If it does I’ll begin training hapkido.

At the moment I can feel my body getting back into a groove and the depression I’ve been struggling with isn’t as pervasive. I feel better about myself and what I’m doing with my life after I spend time at the dojo. Sensei is talking about going to tournaments next year. I’m not sure if I will be ready to do something like that, but it’s a thought in the mid-section of my mind. What if I get good enough, confident enough, to compete?

I’m doing alright with my eating. Not awesome since my meals have potatoes in them this week, but I could definitely be doing way worse. I’m doing alright with water. I drink more on dojo days, but overall I’m sticking to at least a liter and a half if not two per day.

I found out yesterday that Mr. Non-Compliance died. I’m saddened knowing that his family is grieving. Having lost mom, I have an understanding of what it’s like to lose someone. At the same time, I hope that his pain has ended and that he was able to find peace finally because I know that living life sucked for him. I know he was unhappy and I feel he kept going as long as he did for the people around him more so than for himself.

I hope he’s with his husband and feels whole. I hope he’s ok and I hope he knows that even though he will be missed he’s still loved and that I’m glad I got to know him for the little bit of time that I did.

I dressed up as Hawkgirl for Halloween at my clinic. My patients loved the costume. I made a helmet out of cardboard which I painted and Ox made a mace for me out of styrofoam. It turned out really good even though I had less than 24 hours to pull everything together. Goodwill had clothing that ended up working out well for the outfit. It just all seemed to fall into place.

I went to a pumpkin patch before Halloween with Ox and his kids. It turned out better than I had originally thought. Ornery Ox and I tried our luck at the high striker games that were there. We both didn’t get very high, but I feel like he and I have a better understanding of each other. We had fun together, just him and me, doing something. It’s the first time in the eight or so months since I’ve been here that something like that has happened. It made me happy.

Lil’ Ox and I have cross-stitched a bit more together.

I think Ox and I are doing ok. We still have some things to work on. Mostly issues with my need for solitude though my higher than his sex drive causes friction still, too. We both want us to work out. We’re not ready to give up or let go and so we get through the rough patches.

This past Sunday was a really hard day. I was missing mom and trying to not grieve while the kids were here which didn’t help anything. Trying not to do something only makes it worse. I ended up going out to my car and crying. Papa Ox came outside to make sure I was ok. I told him that I was missing mom and I didn’t know how to grieve without infringing on other people’s days. I’m used to being alone and I didn’t know how to handle my sadness around others.

He said sometimes you just have to infringe and that’s not a bad thing. We talked for a while, sharing in past and present feelings. He shared with me about his parents and their passing. I feel like we connected and it made me feel less alone. I’m grateful that he came outside and listened to me and didn’t make me feel bad for feeling bad. He said there are no words but that he understood my feelings and that my feelings were ok to feel.

It made me feel accepted.

He’s asked me a few times since then how I’m doing, to which I’ve been able to honestly reply with, “Better.”

A lot of other things have happened since I last wrote. It’s been almost a month, but I think that’s a good start for now. I’m starting at the start of today, and today was a pretty good day.

I can’t promise to write much in the coming weeks. With trips out of state and working eight days in a row, and state testing, I know my time is going to be limited.

I promise I’m still here and that things should, ideally, settle down soon-ish. I promise I’m not ignoring you or giving up on writing. I still need it and I’m sure it would have made handling some of the situations and days between now and my last writing easier. But I made the choices I made and so here I am, once again trying to bridge the gap from one writing to the next; condensing an avalanche of life into a handful of paragraphs. The only thing to do is keep moving forward I guess.

And forward for tonight is going to bed, so off I go, beloved Keyboard. Until we find ourselves together again with solitude and time, know that I’m grateful to you for the outlet you provide me with and that I cherish you and our quiet moments together.

Letters to Mom 013: Jiu Jitsu White Belt – First Stripe

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I received my first stripe in Jiu Jitsu tonight at my dojo.

This is the post I wrote on Facebook . 

This is me being an INFJ and writing an emotional post and giving absolutely zero fucks about writing it.

This is for you, mom.

This is my grief in its entirety.

This is my rage, my pain, and my weakness. This is my anguish, my fear, and my abandonment. This is my strength, my honor, and my pride. This is my humility, my gratitude, and my forgiveness.

And in the end, after everything else is spent and has had its time, pouring from my fingertips into the keyboard in front of me, this will be my acceptance and peace.

This is for the past year, mom. This is for everything that has happened since March 23rd, 2016.

This is for the first phone call with Jason where I heard him say the doctors didn’t think you would make it. This is for the four hours of sitting on the plane silently begging the Universe to let you still be there when I landed. This is for holding your hand for two weeks and being your “water fairy”. This is for every night I had the best worst sleep in my life while I stayed at the hospital with you.

This is for the last time I held your hand as I called the funeral home and told them I didn’t know what to do.

This is for flying back to South Carolina with your urn in my backpack. This is for the TSA guy who handed it back to me with his solum, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

This is for dad because he didn’t have to come to your service. He didn’t have to be there for me and Jon, but he was.

This is for dealing with Zane’s betrayal.

This is for telling Full Sail to go fuck itself and resigning.

This is to society’s oppressive mentality of thinking I wasn’t good enough whenever I said I was unemployed.

This is for the past year of learning how to live without you, mom.

This is for every phone conversation I haven’t been able to have with you. For every hug I wish I could give you. For every night I cried myself to sleep. For every morning I didn’t understand how to get out of bed.

This. This night. This single stripe of tape wrapped around a sweat soaked piece of cloth. This is for you.

This is my proof to you that I’ve survived. This is my way to show that I have honored the promise I made to you while I held your cold hand that final time and told you I would be strong. That I would keep going even though I didn’t know how.

This is for every time I screamed in my car. This is for every time I questioned why or how or what’s the point. This is for every time I wanted to give up and didn’t.

It seems so silly to the logical side of my brain. It’s just a piece of tape. But it’s so much more than that, mom.

I know you’re proud of me. I know you would be overjoyed that I achieved this. I know there are two sides to everything. It’s so minor and yet it’s so major. Simple and yet complex. It’s seemingly nothing, and yet, at the same time, it’s everything.

It’s the blood, sweat, and tears. It’s the fractured rib I fought to breathe around. It’s the bruises and the mat burn. It’s me drop kicking that voice of Self Doubt that I still struggle with sometimes in the face.

This is for every person who has supported me, both knowing and unknowing, through the hardest year of my life.

This is for my pseudo-family at the dojo. This is for every single person on my Facebook. For every person on my blog.

This single white piece of tape is my symbol of survival through all of it. Through everything mentioned and unmentioned.

This is my way of telling Life it can go fuck itself if it thinks I’m going to go down without a fight.

I WILL keep going. This IS NOT my end.

This, all of this, is for you mom.

I’m me because you lived. I’m me because you died. I’m your daughter, now and forever, and I will ALWAYS do my best to bring you honor.

You were the best person in my life. My best friend, my confidant, my mentor, my supporter. You were my mother and your death taught me just how much that word meant to me. You ARE my mother and not even death can change that.

Your final words to me, “I’ll love you forever and for always.”

I love you too, mom. I will love you forever and for always, too.

This is for you. This is for everything you ever did for me, and for everything you continue to do.

Thank you for raising me. Thank you for teaching me to believe in myself. Thank you for being you. But above all of that, beneath every action and goal and dream, at the foundation of who I am, thank you for being my mother.

This is for you, mom. This is for us.

Photo Mar 08, 9 51 25 PM

Letters to Mom 012: The Pain of Success

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Hey, mom.

I passed my test. I’m smiling as I type that even as tears burn my eyes.

I feel like I should have written to you first, now that I’m actually sitting here and doing it. I feel like you still should have been the first person I told.

I messaged a bunch of people on my phone instead as I sat in class, waiting for the rest of my classmates to finish.

None of the questions I missed were lethal, so in theory, none of my patients died. Hooray for not killing anyone, right? I know you would laugh and agree with me if we were talking. I guess I have to make due with the feeling of you smiling at me.

I need to let you know that it hurts.

Doing well on my test hurts, and at first I didn’t understand why.

It didn’t hurt while I was in class. It didn’t hurt while I was at my sports bar trying to study more. It was something that slowly built throughout the day. It was something I became aware of as I told people about doing well. I told them and they said congratulations, and that they were happy for me, and more and more it felt empty.

I felt empty.

I felt incomplete.

This thing, this accomplishment, felt unfinished.

It felt like I was extending my hand to touch something, reaching for something, and my fingertips would touch nothingness. Emptiness. There was a lack of something, a missing, when in the past there had been warmth and “something”.

A connection.

A completion.

I did well, and I told you, so it was 100% done. It was real. It was over.

Finishing the test and having it graded wasn’t really the end. Walking across the stage at graduation wasn’t the final act. Every accomplishment I ever achieved ended with telling you. It ended with a phone call, or a text message, or a hug, or a celebration trip to Moe’s.

I didn’t have that feeling of “done-ness” before I sat down to write to you. There wasn’t that sense of closure that I’m used to, and so passing my test felt undone.

I had “succeed” but it didn’t feel real.

I hadn’t told you so it wasn’t real.

I can’t call anymore. After almost a year I think I’m finally starting to find peace with that. I’m starting to understand that just because I can’t call doesn’t mean I can’t talk to you. It doesn’t mean I can’t tell you.

I can write, and even though it’s different, I think it will, and is, helping me.

I know you are proud of me. I know that you’re happy for me.

Thank you for making me who I am. You’re part of the reason I did so well. You’re part of the reason I went online and looked up information and studied as much as I did. You’re part of the reason I got a 92 when everyone else got the 80s and 40s.

You’re part of the reason I’m successful and without telling you thank you, without telling you “Look at what you helped me achieve” it feels incomplete because it wasn’t just me.

It’s never been “just me”.

It will never be “just me”.

Thank you.

At first, I was worried about the pain I felt. The pain of my success.

I sat alone at the park again and felt this feeling of incompletion and wondered if this was what every success would feel like from now on.

Is this what my first job is going to feel like? Is this what my first board test is going to feel like? Is this what the rest of every achievement is going to feel like?

What’s the point if it is? What’s the point in achieving if all I feel from it is pain in the end? Why be that much of a masochist to myself?

But sitting here, writing to you and telling you that I did it, that I did well, that all of the worry was worth it because it made me push myself and resulted in what I wanted, it makes it feel complete. It makes it feel real and worth it.

I did it, Mom. I did well on a test I was really worried about and because I did I’m so much more calm about my board test on Friday.

I guess it helps that while I was sitting outside, once again smoking, that I got a call from the hospital. It was about the patient transporter position that I applied for.

I had a really open, honest, and real conversation with the recruitment manager. We talked about what I want and what I’m hoping for. She was very honest about the other positions I’ve applied for and gave me numbers to work with.

She’s going to move my application forward so I can be set up for an interview.

I may have a part-time job soon, mom.

All of the applications I have sent in so far have been moved to “initial review” actually. I’m being considered. My contact at the hospital allowed me to use him as one of my manager references as well, so that’s even better. All of the jobs I’ve had count as customer service, so that’s an added boost that I can edit my resume with in the future. And part of the conversation was the lady admitting that once I’m in the hospital, especially as a transporter where I’ll get exposure to literally every area of the hospital, that it’s easy to move to other positions if I wanted to.

It’s like you’re looking over me and giving me those boosts I need when I start questioning why.

Why do it?

Because it’s worth it. Because I did it and I’m moving forward in the direction I want and that phone call is proof that I’m actually moving forward.

I really do wonder if you didn’t have something to do with me getting that phone call when I did. It came today, now, while I was feeling lost. It didn’t come yesterday when I was mostly ok. It didn’t come tomorrow. It came today. Now. When I needed it.

I don’t know if it really was you or just happenstance, and I honestly don’t care how the universe works or doesn’t work. I want to think that it was you and that this is your way of celebrating with me.

We can’t go out to Moe’s together, but we can move forward together because you’re one of the reasons I’m able to move forward.

Success is painful right now. It might always be painful. A bittersweet feeling. I think it’s going to be something else I have to adjust to.

I don’t feel I have achieved much as far as career milestones since you died.

I’ve made it through a lot of really hard times. I’ve tackled a lot of really hard things. I’ve “done” stuff, and have “achieved” but this success, this achievement, is different. This is something new to adjust to.

This is a new sensation that I have to experience, process, analyze, and ultimately accept.

I think a big part of accepting success is finding a new ritual to signify the completion of my goals.

My ritual used to be calling you. Telling you. Sharing with you.

I can’t do that the way I used to anymore.

I can, however, write to you. I can still tell you. I can still share with you the feelings of relief, confidence, gratitude, and pride.

I can still communicate all of it, just through a different medium. I can still reach out and touch that warm intangible thing that was always there in the past because it’s still there.

I can still reach out and touch you. I can still feel you. I can allow myself to know and accept that you’re still with me and that you really will love me for forever and for always and that not even death will keep us apart.

Death CAN’T keep us apart.

I won’t let it, and maybe writing that for the Internet to read makes me sound mentally unstable but fuck it, I’m going to write it because this is my letter to you, not to the Internet.

I love you, mom. Thank you, so much, for being here for me still. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for being my mom.

You taught me that the pain of failure isn’t bad. It’s a learning experience. It helps make me better.

I guess I never thought there would ever be a point where there would be pain in success, but now there is, and this pain, too, is a learning experience.

All of these experiences I’ve had, the ones while you were in the hospital and the ones I’ve had since you died, they aren’t experiences I ever expected or wanted to go through. If the choice were “learn these things or have your mom” I would always choose to have you.

But it wasn’t a choice. At least, it wasn’t MY choice.

This is my life, and in my life I have to learn these lessons.

I understand now that success can and will be painful. But that’s ok. Pain isn’t inherently bad.

Today is still a good day even though my grief is doing its thing. I don’t know what to call it. “Flaring up” sounds overly dramatic and reminiscent of high school. It makes me feel like I’m over reacting.

My grief is at the forefront of my mind at the moment, though. It’s filling my chest and it’s hard to see people walking down the sidewalk, driving in their cars, talking on their phones, while this overwhelming hurt is inside me.

How can the rest of the world keep going while I feel all of this in this single moment? How is the rest of the world not sharing in my pain? How can they not know what this feels like and function and breathe as if everything is normal when it’s not?

Compassion means to co-suffer.

How is the world not co-suffering with me when this is the only thing my mind can focus on, the only thing my whole being can feel?

I still don’t understand it. Not fully. Grief and grieving. There was a wave of it in my chest earlier, but now, sitting here, tears drying on my cheeks, I feel calmer and as if the biggest part of the wave has passed. It’s not gripping me anymore. It’s not threatening to consume me anymore.

It’s there, my grief. I can feel it. I know it’s still in me and that it always will be, but it’s calmer in this moment and a lot of that has to do with writing to you.

I’m about to go to the dojo to train. I had thought about skipping, something I promised myself I wouldn’t do, but right now it seems easier to go.

I want to go.

It’s not another overwhelming thing where I question “What’s the point?”

The point is because it’s worth.

The point is I train because you died.

I’m still not completely sure what the sentence means to me, but I know it’s the truth and I know it’s a new cornerstone to who I am.

I’m me because you lived. I’m me because you died.

I’m your daughter and that’s why I do the things I do. That’s why I feel the way I feel. That’s why I want the things I want.

Thank you, mom. Thank you for still being with me.

I love you. For forever and for always.

Musing Moment 105: Today’s Goal

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I’m awake but I don’t feel alive. I knew I wouldn’t. I went to sleep knowing this is how I would feel when I woke up and that this is something I would have to struggle through before I could do anything with the day.

Today is a day where I want to stay on the couch all day. Today is a day where I wonder if this is depression rather than sadness.

It’s been over a week since I’ve had a cigarette. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I wonder if through all this time of starting and stopping. Getting better and then getting stressed and buying a pack to get me through the hard times finally created an addiction and that part of the struggle I feel now is due to withdrawals.

It makes me think about how all emotional states are chemical changes inside the brain. I feel like I do right now because I don’t have enough dopamine. So I should do things that increase those levels. I can’t think of anything I want to do, though. A cigarette might help, but I don’t want one, which is why I haven’t smoked. I don’t want to drink either though I know that would make the pain less intense.

I want to sleep through this. I wouldn’t mind watching another show but I don’t want to put in the effort to find something else to let my mind be numbed.

It’s like I want to suffer through this, sort of like how I suffered through the cold I’m getting over. The only medications I took were cough drops and NyQuil. No decongestant. No fever reducer. Just good old fashion immune system suffering for four days.

I know this is a low and I know I’ll get through it and that once I do things will seem brighter, warmer. That is not where I am, though. Right now it feels like winter inside. It’s not the same as the darkness I felt before which is why I think it’s depression versus sadness. There’s a level of apathy. Coldness. Detachment. Logical isolation.

I keep thinking of my question from last night. “What’s the point?”

But honestly, what is the point? Why get a job to pay bills for things that we should have? I have to pay for water. Water. A basic need. I have to pay for it. I have to pay for the right to live.

I have to pay for food that’s processed and gives me cancer. I have to pay for food drenched in insecticides and poisons. It’s sad we even have to think about things like that. Our health is less important than a company making a profit.

It’s sick. Fucked up. It makes me wonder why bother? Why is it worth it? What’s the point?

And right now I still don’t have an answer. What’s the point in getting a job I most likely won’t like to buy things I don’t care about? What’s the point of being part of a system I don’t want to be a part of?

Maybe this is all because my grief is flaring again. Swelling. I think a lot of that has to do with the student loans. Thinking about them makes my eyes water. The silent tears. So maybe that is it. It hurts so much that I can’t suppress or alter the chemical reaction inside my brain. No matter how much I will them away, the tears are there, telling the truth even though I try so hard to deny it.

I want mom back. I want to keep my student loans because deep down I want the world to work like that. If I kept my debt I could keep my mom.

But that’s not how it works.

That’s not how any of this works.

I wish it were and wishing does nothing. Dreams do nothing. Dreams without action are meaningless.

Dreams are the start of a goal, though. From dreams, we can figure out action steps, to-do lists and one small action at a time we can reach milestones and eventually the pinnacle of what we had hoped to achieve.

So what is my dream? Or a dream? What’s something that I could turn into a goal?

And I think that’s the hang up in the whole process for me. In the vast emptiness, I feel right now I have no dreams. I have no goals. I have the phrase echoing, reverberating inside of my body like a heartless wind, “Mom is dead.”

Mom is dead. There is no point.

When I was at the seminar the other week, the one at the dojo for the belt testing, there was a question for the visiting sensei.

Student: “What advice would you give white belts to keep them from giving up?”

Sensei: “Suck it up and punch the clock. You’re going to have really shitty days. Suck it up.”

At the time I cringed. It felt callous. Rude. It made me mad.

Me: My mom died.

Sensei: Suck it up.

Me: Go fuck yourself.

That’s what it felt like inside my head. That was my internal reaction to his words.

Irrational Right Brain: Go fuck yourself. I’m not going to suck it up. I’m going to dig my heels in and battle you because every step forward is a step away from her. From that point in my life. From that moment where I hugged her the last time and said I love you for the last time and actually had those words said back to me through cracked lips.

Go fuck yourself if you think I’m going to just suck it up and deal with the fact that she died and that it’s not fair.

It’s true, though. Even then I knew that though I hated the delivery, that I hated him for saying those words, the message was true. It doesn’t matter what’s going on. We all have “hard” and the only way to get past it is to keep going. If you stay where you’re at nothing will change. You have to suck it up. You have to try. You have to put in effort. Blood, sweat, tears.

I’ve put in all of that. Especially tears. I’m so sick of crying right now. It doesn’t help my congestion at all. It’s annoying constantly trying to type through blurry water filled eyes, too.

I guess I need to put in more, though, since I’m not where I feel I should be.

I feel I should be home. Sitting here in front of my computer in the apartment I own until October, I don’t feel home. I’m back to feeling lost. I’m back to thinking that family is home, so why do I feel like I don’t have family.

There was one point in Ohio, we were playing Taboo. I can’t remember the word I was trying to get Jon to guess. The clue I gave was, “We don’t have this anymore,” and his answer was, “family.”

My heart broke. Sitting in my dad’s house surrounded by “family” and Jon’s answer was we don’t have a family anymore. Without mom, there is no family.

I can’t blame him for feeling or thinking that. I feel the same way. Even with him sitting across from me I understood the shattered broken feeling he felt. My own flesh and blood brother sitting three feet from me and we both feel like we don’t have family.

Empty. Lost. Alone.

I don’t think it ever goes away. I think I’m good, or at least getting better, at coping with it, ignoring it, smoothing it over with other things. But I don’t think it will ever go away. I don’t think it’s a weed, either. I don’t think it’s something I should remove. It’s part of who I am now.

This feeling is part of my grief. I feel like it needs acceptance and understanding. A gentle touch to help shape it into something positive or at least neutral, like a fern, rather than ripping it out of my chest, leaving another gaping hole, or allowing it to take over and devour the rest of the flora around it.

I don’t know why but I feel like it’s a plant. I don’t think it will ever have flowers. I don’t think it will ever be the typical “pretty” people think of, but it’s a part of who I am. It has every right to be there. It’s part of my story. You can’t rip out a chapter in a book just because you don’t like it. You can choose not to reread that chapter, but that’s not how my brain works.

This chapter hurts. I want to reread it until I understand it. Maybe it’s because I’m a masochist. Maybe it’s because I feel we find our true selves through pain, through struggle.

A tree can’t reach into heaven if its roots do not reach into hell.

Through all of this writing and meandering through my brain, I still haven’t found a dream, but I do think I have a goal. And it’s the same as it was when I went to sleep last night only now I feel like I have the conviction to actually do it.

I will do my chores.

I will sweep, then vacuum, then mop. I will do laundry, fully, which includes putting the clothes away. I will take out the trash because it will drive me insane for it not to be done. I will wash my sheets, too. I will clean my bathroom and straighten up all of the little things out of place in my space. Maybe I’ll even go through my emails and clean my inbox.

I will have lunch at my sports bar for doing these chores. I know it’s not a lot. I need it to mean something right now. I need it to be worth acknowledgment. I need a reason to go outside and get sunlight because I know that will help combat part of this feeling. I have been inside for four days. I need fresh air and sunlight. Need, not want.

After lunch, I will assess my energy. I want to paint the baseboards in the downstairs bathroom. I want to finish the painting in the apartment.

That will be my larger goal. Finish the painting.

I have a week to finish it. Starting today.

I am accountable. I am responsible. I am ok. Mom was/is proud of me. I will make it through this moment. I have purpose. I have meaning. I have value. It’s ok to feel hurt. It’s ok to grieve. I am not broken.

I don’t want to think of things in terms of productive and unproductive. I want to think in terms of surviving.

So that’s my goal for today. My goal is to survive and those chores are how I will survive. I will make it through today because I told mom I would. I told her I would be strong so I will be.

I cannot control my grief, but I can accept it and understand it, and sometimes surviving is the pinnacle. Really, I suppose it’s the only pinnacle. The only one that really matters. As long as we survive we can try again tomorrow for something more. But surviving in and of itself is the greatest accomplishment any of us can achieve.

I will survive today, and I will acknowledge my survival up to this point because it’s worth acknowledging.

Letters to Mom 011: A Conversation About Nothing

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I need to talk to you mom. I so wish we could talk on the phone like we used to. I miss our hour long conversations about “nothing”. I miss being able to call you randomly when I happened to find free time in my day; time that I was more than willing to spend with you in the small ways we were able to after I moved away.

I really don’t have anything important to talk about, so I don’t know why I feel this pain right now. I don’t know why it keeps welling up like it has been the past week. It’s just random moments of sadness for no reason. At least that’s what it feels like. Maybe there is a reason and I don’t know it.

I keep having dreams. Weird dreams and when I look up the symbology it’s about betrayal. Like a dog biting a little girl and then decaying with maggots wriggling around in its chest, only to come back from the dead to attack other people because the dog didn’t belong in that universe and so by proxy couldn’t die…

Yeah… weird shit.

It sounds like a horrific dream, but when I woke up instead of being disgusted I felt solemn.

There are other dreams, too. None as morbid as that one, but they still leave me feeling weary, and all the psychology behind the representation points to “weariness” and “vigilance” as being the course of action to take. I wish I knew what I was supposed to be looking out for. If only my brain would tell me what it actually thought was wrong rather than possibly giving me “clues” to decipher and pick through.

I mean… maybe it’s all literally inside of my head and they’re just BS dreams that mean nothing.

I feel like if they were really nothing, then I wouldn’t have the feeling of significance when I wake up like I do.

I’ve been applying to more jobs. I might have a babysitting gig this Sunday. I was supposed to go swimming with manatees but it’s a two-hour drive there and I don’t feel up to the trip right now. Doesn’t help that it was supposed to be a fairly large group of people I mostly don’t know. Not really my ideal recovery time.

Big Bad and I had lunch today. He got out of work early since he had to work extra hours earlier in the week.

I went and applied for a job in person since that’s what the posting on Indeed.com said to do. It’s a housekeeping position at a nursing home. I know it’s simple. I know I’m over qualified for it. I wouldn’t mind doing it, though. It’s the perfect hours for still being able to spend all my time at the dojo. The more I think about what I want out of a job the more I want something along those lines. Something that doesn’t interfere with what I actually want to be doing, which is training.

So I guess I need to revise my job requirements.

Something reliably full-time in Orlando within roughly a ten-mile radius from the apartment, preferably using a skill set I already have with set hours that does not interfere with my dojo time.

The patient transport position is another really good job for that. I’m hoping to hear back from something soon.

There was a pretty big event at the dojo today. I almost didn’t go to it, but I had my “come to Freya” discussion with myself not long ago and one of the things was not skipping out of going to the dojo when I feel sad, so I went. I’m glad I went. I learned some really nifty things today. I’m less afraid to perform the moves that require me to put my weight on the other person. It means I’m performing the moves more correctly than what I was. I’m acting with intention and control. It’s a good feeling.

They gave out belts and stripes tonight after training. Jim got another stripe on his brown belt. That’s the rank before black belt. Tommy got his black belt tonight. Akib got his blue belt. That’s the one after white.

Part of me was hoping I would get my first stripe on my white belt, but I didn’t. I’ve only been attending since mid-November. I missed three solid weeks of practice because I traveled. Some days I didn’t go because I have no reason, I just didn’t go.

Part of me wanted to have something on my belt to show I’ve put in effort. Recognition. A pat on the back.

That’s not what jujitsu is about, though, and I know that.

Part of me feels like I’m not ready for the stripe yet. I still haven’t gotten a jujitsu belt. I still wear my aikido gi and I still wear my aikido belt with it. I wonder if that’s me holding onto the past, or if that’s at least part of it. Maybe it’s not all just for the sake of being frugal. I didn’t think about that until they were giving out stripes and belts and I realized if I was called up for a stripe that I didn’t have the proper belt for the stripe to go on.

I sat there wondering if I’m being disrespectful to the dojo and my instructors. If I’m training jujitsu, shouldn’t I have the attire for it? Shouldn’t I have at least gotten the proper belt to show that I respect the skill I’m training? In all of the months I’ve been going there I couldn’t have made “buy a jujitsu belt” a task on my to-do lists? I knew I needed one, so why did I never do it?

I don’t know what I would have done had Paul called my name for a stripe. I don’t know if I would have been able to bow after receiving it. I don’t think I would have felt like I deserved it. Part of it would be because I don’t want to have it, earn it, and not be able to send you pictures or have you there to see it.

I know you will be proud of me when I do get it eventually. I know you want me to keep going to the dojo and training because it fulfills something in me, and I know I’ll make it through the moment when I finally do earn my stripe, but right now I don’t know how.

How do I keep going with you not here? Physically here. How do I keep going when sometimes the only thing I can think about is the pain? Like right now. I hurt. My heart hurts. I ache for you to be here and I don’t know what to do other than embrace the pain.

This feeling, this sensation in my chest… it’s deeper than physical. Deeper than body. It’s in my core. My soul. My chakra.

It’s almost as if I can hold it. Like it’s physically something within me. Like I can cup it in my hands and have them be filled with this sensation and show people, “This is my pain.”

This is my love for you, mom. This is what I have to remind me that what we had, our time, our relationship, was real. That I loved, deeply, wholly, unconditionally the way I have never loved anyone else in my life. Not dad. Not Jon. Not Jason. Not any of my significant others.

I didn’t realize how much you meant to me until I held your hand alone in the hospital saying my final words to your spirit. Your body was already cold, your hand lifeless in mine, but I felt you behind me as I spoke my final words to you, as I promised I would be strong.

I want to say that you were everything to me, and maybe at the time that was true. With how hard it was during my time at the extended stay maybe you truly were everything, and during those six months I was learning how to adjust to that change.

My Everything was gone.

The flatlined stillness inside of my head. The emptiness. The silence I felt within myself. The lack of broken pieces to pick up. There was nothing because my Everything was gone.

I remember how I slowly started to find reasons to do things. I remember telling Warren that I didn’t know how to keep going because you were my blue crayon and without you I didn’t know how to color my skys anymore. I remember talking with Chrys on your birthday and how that night was so empty and cold and yet at the same time full of laughing at stupid werewolf drama shows.

I remember how I told Nicole that I’ve been grateful for every time I’ve made it through a hard time because there’s always something on the other side that makes me happy I’m still here to experience it. If it ends, there is no more. No more next time. No more new inside jokes. No more warm hug, or good training session, or caring smile.

I want all those things, and that’s how slowly the nothingness became something. I started seeing the good things still worth experiencing. I started enjoying things again. Simple things. Having coffee in my red coffee cup which I’ve had for I don’t remember how long. My cup, warm in my hands while sitting outside watching the day start. Most of the time I would go back to sleep shortly after because just the actions of getting up and making coffee took all of the energy I had, but for a brief moment, I enjoyed something.

I don’t know where I’m at with my grief. I know it’s not a linear process. I know there’s not a destination and that this is something I will experience for the rest of my life. I want to know that I’m ok. That I’m normal and that it’s still ok to be sad sometimes. That it’s still ok to miss you.

When you first died I researched how to grieve. I researched INFJs and what we do and how we deal with things, and everything I found said there’s no answer, so I gave up on it.

I don’t remember what I was doing the other day but I looked up stuff on grief for some reason and I found posts from other people explaining how they grieved. It was the first time that I really read into other people’s experiences. I read about a mother who lost her infant son in their home and how sometimes she lays on the floor where he died so she can feel closer to him. I read about how she never wanted to tell people that, but when she went to a support group she felt accepted because other people understood. I read another story about a mother and father who always bake a cake to celebrate their child’s birthday even though he died extremely young. I read how to them it is a way of honoring and acknowledging the life that existed even if it was brief.

It makes me feel more ok about wearing your ring and the urn pendant. It makes me more ok with my choice to write to you. I’m allowed to do things that other people may not agree with or think are “right” or seems silly because it doesn’t have to be right for them. It needs to be right for me. For us.

It’s my expression. Not theirs. And these are some of the ways I choose to express.

Sometimes I feel like you’re so terribly, horribly far away. Sometimes I feel like what I do isn’t enough. That it will never be enough. That’s how it feels right now.

But I know these feelings are temporary. I know tomorrow I’m going to wake up and go to the jujitsu class and the Muay Thai class. I know I’m going to keep waking up. I know I’m going to keep breathing. I know my heart is going to keep pumping and that as long as it does I have a purpose.

I know I have a purpose, mom. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so obsessed with it. I wish sometimes I wasn’t this fantastically rare personality type and that I could just be ok with existing and not need some deep, driving reason for things.

How much easier would life be if I could just simply be? If I could accept that I’m here and the reason didn’t really matter? How much calmer would my mind be if I could just accept that I’m here and the why didn’t factor into anything?

But that’s not my mind. I need to know why. Why am I here? Just like when Jim asked, “Why are you doing this?”

I still don’t know.

My answer is still, “Because you died.”

I’m here because you died and I told you I would be strong and keep living. I’m here because I said I would honor you by living a full life. That seems so fragile and hollow, though. I need to live my life for me, not for you. But right now I’m back to not knowing how to do that. I hurt and all I can think about, focus on, is the pain. I’m back to reminding myself that it’s worth enduring, that it’s ok for my accomplishment for the day to simply be making it until night. Surviving is an accomplishment.

I don’t know where I am with my grief, but right now it feels like a very low moment. A very sad and isolated valley where I can’t see anything except the forest that surrounds me. It’s dark, and the internal me, the me in the depths of this wood, is scared of what’s lurking in the darkness, but my higher self knows things will be ok.

My higher self is aware that, yes, it’s dark, but it’s not cold. It’s like a warm summer’s night. Yes, I’m alone, but it’s not the same alone as when my forest was held in the grips of my teenage depression, icy and covered in snow while I wrapped my arms around my knees and hid in my ice cave, unwilling to move because staying still hurt less.

It’s dark and scary, but I know daylight will come, I just have to breathe and wait for it. If I breathe my chest will hurt less. If I relax my muscles won’t ache as much. If I listen I’ll be able to hear the night life around me, the crickets, the owls, the rustling of raccoons and other nocturnal animals.

Darkness doesn’t have to be bad. It’s my yearning for daylight that makes me almost ungrateful and negligent of the moment I’m in.

Even in the moments where I hurt and I miss you there can still be good things. I still have my connection with you, mom. I still have my love for you. I still have everything you taught me. I still have the life you gave me that I can keep living. I have all of these wonderful, priceless things in this moment of darkness and so it’s not the horrible thing my brain keeps trying to convince me it is.

It’s still good in its own way, and I’m grateful that part of me can see that. I’m grateful that even through the tears I’ve been crying while I write this that I can say with confidence that I will wake up tomorrow and that I will train, and I will train hard, even if I don’t have an answer for why.

Or maybe I can accept the fact that my reason IS because you died and that’s not a bad thing. That’s not a fake reason or something to be ashamed of.

I don’t know. I feel I need to meditate more on that. It feels right, but now I need to figure out why it’s right.

I train because you died. I live because you died. I understand how deeply I loved you because you died.

I love you, mom. Forever and for always.