My mommy died a month ago today.
It is hard to imagine as I navigate this kind of devastating experience that anyone would be able to hurt me with the same oomph they could before. It’s hard to imagine life goes on outside of this weird, peaceful longing.
Yet, I know as well as any of us do…
This world is unrelenting. Time marches. Judgments form. People take advantage of opportunity. Grace, as all things, runs dry sooner or later
People can be astoundingly tone deaf. People can say wildly inappropriate things and in some cases be quite heartless. There is no shortage of that kind of thing where humans are concerned.
And the curiosity factor is an interesting one to observe. People who have said horrible things to me in the past and left my life in a hurtful blaze of glory were suddenly silent observers on social media. A man who criticized me from the time I was 11 years old until I, myself was a parent had the audacity to pop up on my notifications. As if I need to relive his part in my life right now. As if he has the right to know.
I understand expression invites viewership. I understand I am a walking dog and pony show.
If you (every one of you) dropped in for an emotional circus you did so because you can fucking bet I am going to deliver.
Lindsay processing out loud is a given.
I think negativity has a way of getting away from me. Negativity is easy. It’s comfortable. Negativity would allow me to dwell in the things I have no control over. If I don’t express myself I’ll lose my mind, that’s also a given. I’ve tried very hard many times to shut the fuck up and it turns out I didn’t get that setting. Lucky us. That’s the reason you’re reading this bullshit at all.
You can bank on authenticity when you read what I write or hear what I say. It’s popcorn worthy if you don’t happen to be directly involved. Negativity can run off with me without me even noticing as it does. The truth for me is the frequency and duration of my spirals have both decreased. My life changed, my nervous system changed, my sleep schedule changed along with my kids’. Each of these changes lifted my shoulders a little bit. As things progress in regulating our bodies and minds I start to find energy can naturally shift towards other things – fulfilling things. I have the ability to work on my reactions. I have the ability to make measurably different decisions. I no longer use every ounce of energy in me to make it through the basics.
Not surviving. Thriving. And I know it.
I miss my mom. I think about her a hundred thousand times in a day.
Did you know I often took the pictures of flowers I took just to show my mom? The growing season in Alberta is shorter and things happen much later.
See, I know what I know about plants because my mom was low-key obsessed with botanicals. So I see the cherries doing their annual blossom extravaganza and I reach for my phone but then I remember.
I remember my mom died a month ago today and she doesn’t get another springtime with us.
I remember the work she tirelessly put into the life she built for us. From the minute I turned from stardust into her baby my mom worked with my future in mind.
I’ve done a lot of work in the last year to create this home I feel safe in. I did things I knew were best for my kids. I threw myself into trusting the process to avoid my childten living the anguish of the mental energy a person emits when they’re surviving instead of thriving.
My mom died a month ago today. She worked her ass off to take care of us, even now and she isn’t here to enjoy these beautiful flowers with us.
At least, not the way I’m used to.
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