"...I'm with everyone and yet not
just wanted to be myself
here you said you would love to try some
here you said you would love to die some..."
I guess you may be wondering why I've been gone so long. But I'm not writing to answer any of those questions you may have. I'm here to tell you that I'm finishing my book. When it's done you'll know, and then I will try to write regularly again. In the meantime, continue to amuse yourself by reading old blog posts or rare new posts on tumblr and you can even follow me on twitter.
When I was in high school I bought a TV with my very first paycheck from a job outside working for Mom and Dad. I hooked up a VCR and my stereo to my new TV. (Yes, I said VCR!) and one of the first movies I ever had was the high-school-graduation-flick Can't Hardly Wait, on VHS, of course. I remember watching it with Mom and her being just as entertained as I was by the film. I think I even had to start it over from the beginning so that she could watch the whole thing with me. It's funny how you remember things, because I also remember that she had been doing something, and that it was the middle of the afternoon, and she just stopped and sat down to watch the movie with me.
Sometimes, when Mom's desk was just inside the doorway of their small home office, and she could watch what I was watching on TV in the living room, she would--at least you'd think--be endlessly clicking the keys on the keyboard or calculator and doing her work, and suddenly stop to ask, "What the hell are you watching?"
"Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," I'd said one day when Mom looked at me particularly incredulously. Even years after it had originally aired, I had still not seen every episode, and it was back-to-back Buffy on FX. I hadn't really expected that Mom was paying attention to what I was watching, and I was surprised that she, indeed, was actually watching what was on from the other room.
One day, a weird indy Brendan Frasier movie was on, and I happened to be watching it's awesomeness, when Mom suddenly plopped down on the couch beside me and said, "What's this called? It's good!"
To this day I can't remember the name of that movie, but we watched the rest of it together, and both agreed that it was a great movie, and wished we could get our hands on our own copy.
Sometimes when you try to hold on so hard to all the great memories you had with someone who's gone now, it's difficult to remember how the smallest things were great too. We used to watch Mama's Family after I got home from school. It wasn't something that we were trying to plan to do together, but it just happened. Mom would be popping the popcorn when I came in the door, and then we'd sit together in the living room and watch TV and eat popcorn.
One of the best gifts Mom ever bought for Anna-Lee was the Hello Kitty popcorn popper. We still use it today. And I cook popcorn and watch TV and movies with the girls. I don't really think about it when I'm doing it, but the things that I still cherish about the time I had with my mother are things that I try to do with my children. Without realizing it, I am creating lasting memories with my daughters just by watching a movie and eating popcorn with them. One day they're going to look back and say, "You remember when we watched Brave a million times with Mom? I think it was her favorite Disney movie!"
I read an article this week from Scientific American Mind, I think, about sleep being key to helping sever the links to painful, traumatizing memories; and that people with PTSD have problems with those links being severed during REM sleep. Makes sense, I guess. You should totally Google it and read the article. Considering everything, I guess I'm just lucky to have the memories at all, good and traumatizing. For all the bad shit that we had to deal with, that I saw, heard, and experienced as our Mother's life came to a close, I still have so many good memories with my Mother. I can't be fixed. I know that now. I'm super sad about my Mom dying, and I probably always will be, but I refuse to wallow in it anymore.
There will be days when I will be upset, of course, but I'm choosing to let go. Now we will just have to wait and see if I actually can.
