Disclaimer: The chronology of the page would suggest that I haven't written since August. I have, actually, written a lot since then. I just struggle to press "post."
I know it's been over a year since Mom left us. I know that I can't write sad things forever. I know that nobody needs or wants to hear all about how much I miss my mom, and it seems like lately that's about the only thing that I can pull from my fingertips. So I write for myself, and I leave everything in unpublished drafts
in the folder. Some are angry, some are nostalgic...and all of them are sad.
I battle this out in my head...is this blog a real record or not? Does it accurately tell our stories, or do I selectively write to preserve the parts of life we all like to think about? I have no answer. So I write anyway and promise myself I will decide later. I have six unpublished pieces...I do not know what I will do with them. Today I just want to say this: grief is hard. It is SO freaking hard, people.
I knew this, on an intellectual level. Of course we all know it, but until you live it, you just REALLY don't KNOW.
It is different for everyone, this is also true. I am fiercely private about my grief...I reserve my breakdowns for late nights alone in the kitchen or for car rides alone when I can afford to sob without reserve. I don't want to share this feeling with anyone because even the most empathetic person looks at you with this pitying face. They murmur words of comfort that are intended to heal and help, yet they are meaningless to you because you KNOW they don't really know. And I am jealous of people who don't get it because they don't know yet and then I feel guilty for being jealous which just compounds the misery and it's a vicious cycle. So I do this alone. And it's okay, I like it this way, I do.
Today is Thanksgiving. I thought the first one without Mom would be hard. It was nothing compared to this one. In this one, I cried over the gravy on the stove and could barely swallow when Dad said I made the dressing just exactly right. And my brother is a million miles away instead of here. And I left my Dad alone again in that big house that is filled to the brim with my mother and she is everywhere and nowhere and I just WANT her right this minute. Right now.
Last week I was trying to download Ed Sheeran's song "Don't" into my player on my phone. For whatever reason, every time I pushed the download button, a different song loaded...it was called Supermarket Flowers. I was irritated and tried about three times. Every single time it was that flowers title and I finally decided it was a glitch and quit trying. Tonight I left my Dad's with a huge ache in my chest and as I turned on some music to lift my mood, guess what song came up? Supermarket freaking Flowers. So I figured, what the heck, I guess I need to listen to the song.
And you maybe already know where this is headed, if you're familiar with the song. I didn't know. I wasn't prepared for a lyrical account of the day he said goodbye to his mom. Not prepared.
So I got another good cry in tonight. And I called my Dad from the road somewhere around Guckeen and told him the whole story and then I texted my brother because for once I didn't want to cry alone.
I am not sure if that's growth, or if it was just mean of me to take him down with me.
And there is no point at all to this one, no tidy little nugget to wrap up the story. I am just sad. And thankful, yes, for a mom who loved me as hard as she did. It's such a struggle...it hurts so much, and you just want it to soften, the edges of it at least. You want so badly to feel it less. But you know feeling it less would have meant she had loved me less, and of course you would never trade that. So you just endure. And hope that somewhere, someday, it won't hurt quite this much.
Curse you, Ed Sheeran, and your beautiful, beautiful music.
Supermarket Flowers
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mk0F6mLKik
