Doesn't Remind Me -- Audioslave

You know that sick feeling inside--the "sinking in the pit of your stomach" one? It's like that.

It's the same feeling you get when your parents go out and drop you off at your Grandparent's house. Your child mind struggles to understand how they can go out and have fun without you. A stirring of unease, wondering if they'll come back. Something is different from normal procedure. The dining table where you've had a thousand dinners with your parents and grandparents feels empty without those two extra place settings. Popcorn in wooden bowls and cute little monkey bed time slippers. It gets a little easier with each passing moment because you know that you're one minute closer to Mom and Dad coming back to pick you up. Despite that sinking feeling that tugs at you when you're reminded, you know you'll be all right.

"It only hurts when you think about it," My Grandpa Bill said, sharing his feelings about the passing of his own mother.

I have used these words to comfort myself for years. 

How can I not think about it?

We make new routines and go on living without the people that we miss. Missing them becomes part of the routine. Being without them becomes a part of life. The terrible sinking feeling deep down inside fades a little with the acceptance. I reflect. I survived all the other losses. I know that grief can consume me. It can sneak up on me when I think everything is going so well and try to drag me back under. But I've come too far to let that happen.

Right now Grandpa Bill is in the hospital and everything I felt when Mom died has come crashing back. The diagnosis given before all the test results come in is multiple myeloma. Dad and Billie told me everything the doctors have said so that I can send a report to the rest of the family. A yawning, gaping hole opened inside me again. It is the same voice telling me, taunting me as I clutched my lipstick kiss in my hand on my very first day of school--that my Mother is never coming back. Now it's telling me that everyone I've ever known and loved is going to die. And I will have to watch it happen until it's my turn. 

Many hours and memories later and here we are, again, bracing for the storm. I don't know why I got comfortable--so comfortable in this happiness I've created. I thought I was about to close a book when another chapter appeared! The sinking, sick, something's-not-quite-right feeling hasn't left me since I began to consider the possibility of losing my Grandpa. It eases a little when I remember that it is our resistance to change that causes our distress.

It is our attachment that causes our suffering. 

I railed against these words when I first began to study mindfulness. It was a long time before the words came to mean something to me. Even now, I still have moments in which I am not comforted by them. 

I go Ice Princess numb when overwhelmed by stressful and emotional situations. I realize that I still do it and tell myself that it's okay to feel the feelings. But it doesn't happen just because I tell myself to feel it. I let it all come rushing out when I write, though.

   

Hurricane -- Panic! At The Disco

Two years ago I had mastered the skills necessary to carry out one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make. Leave my husband. Start my life over and make a better future for my daughters.

Earlier this year I decided that I wasn't really depressed anymore and that I would like to come off the antidepressants. There was a slow process of weaning off the medicine and then a whole new process of learning began. Something the medicine helped me to do was utilize the skills that I had gained in behavior therapy and when the medicine was out of my system I had to start all over again. The knowledge is still there, of course, but now I just have to learn to adjust my use of the skills that I had mastered before coming off the medication. This isn't a bad thing. Not at all. I was on antidepressants since the year that Mom passed away and now that I'm not taking them anymore it's not just my body that has to adjust. It's also my mind.

The best description I can come up with is that it is like antidepressants numbed just enough of my emotions to get me where I needed to be in my life to fully take charge of it. And when I got here, and I realized that I didn't need the numbness anymore, I released emotions that had been locked in there for over seven years. That's not easy for anyone to deal with, but it's been especially difficult for me because my life has changed so much from what it was before the separation.

Some days I feel like I have gone backwards in my recovery from depression. I cry, I rage, I dwell on things that I cannot change. However, there are moments of clarity hidden in those whirlwinds of emotion. I drag out a pen and paper or pull out my laptop and start writing. I write the emotions and you can feel it when you read those stories. I decided to channel all of that into the book--I would fill in all the missing stories that I never got around to sharing for whatever reason and at the end I would have it. I would have this book.

In my mind, the book I thought I would write and the book that I've actually written are completely different. There is no cohesive story between what my intentions were when I dreamed up a memoir and the story I ended up telling. The book I intended to write doesn't yet exist. It might not ever.

I always thought, since Mom passed and I started this blog, that the end result would be a memoir about the tragedy of my Mom dying and coping with life without her in the immediate aftermath. That's not what it is, though. I have only just now begun to realize that the story that I have been trying to tell for so long is the story of my own transformation.

People often assume that I have some idea what it is that I'm writing. The truth is this: I don't decide. It just flows easily. And the things that don't--those are the things that I don't feel when I write. I can write anything. I can try to do any job you want me to do. The feelings I share, the stories I write when my fingertips dance across the keyboard--those feelings flow through my words into you as you read. That's what makes this such a gift. I can do things with words on a page that make me feel like I reach a dark corner of the world and spread a little light. And if I don't pursue that, then what's the point?

Wish I Knew You -- The Revivalists

I'm finished. The work is done and the reward is that I am healing. Don't be discouraged, though, because I'm turning this old wound into a memoir. It will feature all of your favorite stories originally found here on this blog in addition to more detail and adventures as yet unrelated. I hope to fill in the gaps that seem so apparent to me as I review all the past posts about life after the death of my Mother. I have quite a lot of material to work with and, as I am sure that all my faithful followers will soon learn, I will be starting a whole new series of posts that will be an online journal, much like it was before, but primarily focused on processing daily events in a healthy, productive manner. I hope to simply share the tumultuous and comical happenings of my everyday life without dwelling so much on the past. I have come so far in my recovery that it is no longer necessary for me to dwell on the death of Mom and the repercussions it has had in my life. I will never stop sharing the memories I have of Mom, as they resurface, but I must move forward. I have grown so much in every way in the past two years that it is really quite impossible for the woman I was even five years ago to conceive of being where I am at this very moment. Thank you for taking this journey with me, as I don't think it would have continued without the feedback of those whom I share these tales...



I'm happy, here and now. And I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Weak and Powerless -- a perfect circle

Oh how I wish I could tell you that this story has a happy ending. But I really don't think it does.

"Now I know why people have problems with you."

Oh.

Ouch.

I ran. No matter how hard I tried to pace myself, to stretch my stride, slow the rhythm of my feet pounding the sidewalk, my legs had their own agenda. A fast jog. Not quite a sprint. I ran until my legs felt like jello, as if they would collapse beneath me at any moment.

I love it. Hurtling myself forward through space.

Now I know why people have problems with you.

Yoga in the sunlight, bare feet in the grass. Why is it so difficult to move from one position to the next on one foot without falling over? I stare at the grass, trying to find the perfect stretch of my arms forward and one leg straight back. I haven't found a four leaf clover in quite some time.

"Now I know why people have problems with you."

Pounding footsteps. It's dark. The forest at night. Steady rain. Someone is following me, trying to be stealthy, cursing quietly as their feet slip in the wet leaves. I try not to make a sound. My heartbeat is all that I can hear as I hold my breath. A twig snaps behind me and I gasp awake, my body slick with sweat and alive with fear.

Now I know why people have problems with you.

The world moves around me. I sit motionless, staring. Thinking...

"Now I know why people have problems with you."

Bonedriven -- Bush

So I found this.