Moving On, Part 2.

For the first time I am tempted to completely remove something I have published here.  I won't though, since I do read over these for my own benefit.

This writing is a way for me to organize my thoughts and hopefully be able to work through some things.  As it turned out, the post I made earlier this morning was indeed sort of a grand house cleaning, if you will, before going to see the new counselor.  That went well, by the way. 

The earlier entry is a little more raw and chaotic than I'd prefer even for this, but I suppose that's how it goes sometime.

Moving On?

So ... the holidays were a lot more painful that I expected them to be.  (And yes, I will clean up the missing Christmas post and publish it, for my own sake if nothing else.)  I actually cannot tell you precisely how bad things were, because in thinking back, I was somehow managing to wear mental blinders for about five weeks.  Yes, I knew it was Christmastime, and I actually did some holiday type things, but I really just tried to skim by as quickly as humanly possible.  I just don't remember some days.  I don't mean that in some disturbing "I was blacking out some days" way, but more like I somehow figured, quite unconsciously, how not to let the days register too much, how to turn off the mental recording software that makes memories. Perhaps that should still be disturbing, but right now I choose to see it as grace coming in very unexpected ways.  It's been a rough enough trip as it is; it would only have been worse if I had to have been more cognizant of things.

The last portion of December and the first few days of January comprised the time period that I was most dreading.  Mom's birthday, Christmas, and my birthday come in a rapid succession.  My maternal grandmother's birthday was just over a week before my mom's as well - at one point, you had all three generations of us within three weeks of each other.  Now, I'm the only one left.  In the same vein, I can remember when we had five generations of the women in the family in one picture.  My great-grandmother and grandmother are gone for us all, but both my mother's siblings have grandchildren now.  In my weak and spindly little branch of the family, it's just me.  I feel somehow like I'm the failed end of something.

This brings up a segue that keeps occurring to me.  Basically it comes to this:  I don't have any grandparents, parents, or siblings.  Granted, marriage and children are not yet off the table for me as far as close family, should I ever be so lucky, but what in the world do I have to offer them?  There are no grandparents or aunts or uncles for my own children.  I feel like I would be robbing them.

And speaking of having children, I wish I had given my mother a grandchild.  It was always a future possibility, but now it's an impossibility.  I know that wish would not have been nearly sufficient enough of a reason to have a child, and I had never been in a position when it would have been a good choice.  There's also that whole pesky needing a father thing that was problematic.  Nonetheless, I still failed her.  I failed her, and in being too scared and too cautious after getting hurt a few times years ago, I am failing myself.  For a person who usually prides herself on her intelligence, I can be phenomenally and unbelievably stupid in some areas.

You know, I think from now on, I'll avoid segues.

So back to the holidays.  I spent Christmas with my aunt and uncle (Mom's brother).  I think that being there was certainly the best place I could have gone short of fleeing family contact as I did over Thanksgiving, and I don't believe that would have been so good in itself.  I'd find myself seeking a quiet corner to cry periodically during the day, but my aunt was supremely understanding and comforting.  There's more in the Christmas writing, so I'll leave that for now.

I had expected the minefields to be around Mom's birthday and Christmas, and while both had their perils, neither produced the meltdown I feared.  That turned up on my birthday, where I didn't expect it.  On that particular weekend, I knew I didn't want to be alone, so I traveled to my other aunt and uncle's house the day before my birthday in order to spend the night. There's a comforting sense of continuity there that I just realized I take for granted, since they have lived in the same house on my uncle's farm for my entire life, or at least certainly for as long as I can remember.  My uncle is very much the patriarch of that part of the family, and they can be a little insular, which used to upset my mom when she tried to reach out.to her sister.  But still, they are family, and my aunt was there when I needed her.  

They went to bed early by my standards, and I stayed up watching television for a couple of hours.  When I finally got to the point where I could try to go to sleep, my mind started racing the instant my head hit the pillow.  And for reasons that I cannot even begin to try and explain, the thought of having a birthday without sharing it with my mom upset me horribly.  For the very first time since she passed away, I quite literally cried myself to sleep that night.  I'd cry, then sob, all while trying to not wake up my aunt and uncle.  Once I got myself calmed down again, I'd lie down and it'd start all over again.  And again.  After a little more than two hours of this, I finally was too exhausted to keep it up. 

When I awoke the next morning, my aunt was in the kitchen having tea.  She later told me she knew it was a bad night when she saw the handful of crumpled tissues I had in my hand to throw away.  Seeing how swollen my eyes were was probably another clue (and until she mentioned it, I had no idea they looked that bad).  We ended up talking for a couple of hours, with me crying a lot again.  I think maybe some of it was useful, but it certainly wasn't fun. 

And so ... that was a couple of weeks ago.  I know from reading about the grieving process that there are certain stages most people pass through and they can reoccur, although it's different for everyone.  I seem to have gotten thrown back to some lovely stage of depression.  Before the holidays, I had gotten to where things were a little better.  I was making plans to do new things, and get out a little.  I had the house under better control, though certainly not perfect.  All of that was completely blown.  During the past two weeks, I've known that I was depressed again; I could see it, and I most definitely could feel it, but I couldn't stop it and I feared going through it again.  Now ... now I don't know where I am.  Somewhere in-between, I guess.  Or maybe I still have things to deal with I haven't acknowledged, but if so, it's not conscious.  That doesn't seem fair, but then again, nothing about this is, least of all for Mom.

At the risk of being self-indulgently whiny, again, I'm tired.  I know I don't have a choice but to slog on, but I'm tired.  I'm lost, I'm scared, and I'm alone.  I don't know how to move on, let alone what I want to move along to.  I'm tired of leaning on friends, especially without being able to ask for specific help, but I don't know what help I need.  They have told me it's okay to lean on them, but I'm still worried I'll do it too much and they'll get tired, or just decide I'm not worth it.  (And that is wholly a comment on my worthiness, not theirs, just to clarify.)

Now I'm trying very hard to appear "normal," perhaps in hope that it'd actually happen.  Short of simply losing it completely, it's the only safe option I have right now.   Some days are more successful than others.  And going back to the idea of being stuck here because I have unacknowledged issues, I have had the thought that moving on now that it's a new year might be harder because that's somehow put an edge on having to accept Mom is dead on more than a functional basis.

I wonder if this is how lab rats feel stuck in certain trap-mazes.

And so.  My sleep schedule is so completely blown it's not funny, though oddly, I'm keeping more "normal" hours than one would expect.  I sleep in chopped bits now.  I can't compress a day and go to sleep early in order to fix things, so at some point I'm just going to have to stay up.  Or something.  

And so, again.  I actually have an appointment in five and a half hours with a new counselor.  I think that is, in part, what has prompted such an unwonted excessive unloading of emotions in this entry.  It's either me trying to arrange my thoughts or trying to clear them, or both.  Sorry about that, too.

What a mess.

I'll sleep a bit before work, and we'll see how this goes, shall we?

And Mom ... I still miss you.  I love you.