I’ll Tell You Exactly Why I’m Crying
I’ve gone thorough round 2 of saying goodbye to my Mom. (Round 3 to come in June.)
I thought I could be present, truly present, for the most recent experience of saying good-bye to her, but here I am, feeling sorry for myself.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the past.
People, including family, I knew once but no more, and feeling guilty for my ignorance and my absence.
The past that haunts me and taunts me. I was gone for a long time, from them and from my self.
My Mom and I became pen pals for years. I cannot not say (double-negative, you figure it out) she answered all of my questions, my doubt of her pride in me, my fear that I let her down. For my 20 years away, she never let go and we had a mother and daughter conversation by written letter and I came to believe that she believed in me.
And now I’m back and she is gone and I feel like I’m supposed to be the person I believed in when I left: the person that I was trying to be, the one I was looking for. But the person that I was when I left is not the person who returned. Let me say that another way: the person who returned was the not the person who left. So, yet, still, no lack of trying and yearning or stone peeked beneath, I remain unchanged. But that cannot possibly be true.
There was a change maker in there somewhere, somewhere in between.
I suppose it was God.
Did I ignore Him, or am I (probably still) not listening? Or hearing? Or asking the right questions?
But, being present for anything , lately, for me is a daily challenge, met with equal parts coffee, and a minimal (but consequential) morning exercise routine, and then a day at work, (my work is my salvation only because it requires me to leave my house and there are so many problems with that statement, which is why I choose to state it here and now), and then the end-of-work day followed by my at-home-by-myself evening (the two separated only by a semi-meditative walk home (a mere 11-minutes of self-care) and ending, always, in self-indulgence or self-inducement of some sorts. This could be wine, it could be pizza, it could be popcorn or, it could be toast or a salad and almost always a TV show, but never music, which is painfully telling. It mostly depends on the days, dictated by practicality and work. If it depended on my mood and my need (and lack of desire) to leave my house, I would wither and die. Honesty. Truth. I am writng my feelings on my arm and my heart.
I need a compass.
My Mom was not my compass, but without her I feel more lost than ever.
If that’s even possible.
Hi, Mom.
o edit.