With Love, time doesn’t exist

I’d be remiss if I didn’t be frank with myself and you… who took energy and time from their day to read my thoughts and musings. So I’ll start by saying this: time doesn’t exist to me… until suddenly it does.

Today marks 13 years since my mother died. And also 13 years of grief.

It’s bizarre even to type that because I’ve gone back and forth with how I present my grief to the public, but in the last four years — I’ve noticed that despite how much I grieve in the open, so many people feel like I’ve made so much progress when inside myself I feel like I haven’t.

I want to be brief, but I also want to be complete with my thought and feeling. I feel many things today– shame, embarrassment, pride, happy, sad, angry, annoyed, and other adjectives that have just decided to escape me now that I’ve decided to tap these keys.

I feel ashamed that:

• 13 years after she died, it still, at times, feels like day 1.
• I’ve reached a point in my grief journey that even visiting her gravesite makes it feel too real to the point that I have crippling anxiety.
• I get pissed when friends and family send me photos of them at her gravesite because I feel like they are better at accepting the reality than I am.
• It feels like everyone else is okay without thinking about her every single day.
• I still live my life as if one wrong move would disappoint her and make her turn in her grave, despite never feeling that kind of pressure from her.

I feel embarrassed that:

• After all these years I still have flashbacks of her dying.
• I feel like people around me want me to let go and move on, even if they don’t say it or explicitly make me feel that way.
• Seeing other people enjoy their mother makes me feel intensely jealous.
• Sometimes I still feel like a grieving 19 year old trying to find her way through life.
• I subjected my friends at the time to life’s mortality at such a young age.

I feel proud that:

• I’ve reached milestones with my emotional health and comfort.
• I can finally talk about her dying without bursting into tears.
• I can maintain my day to day without catastrophic anxiety and depression.
• I no longer spend every day mulling over the relationship I no longer have with her.
• I am able to be vulnerable with myself and others again.
• I no longer hide that I’m not always “okay”.
• She is no longer in pain and is at peace & comfort.
• She fought cancer so long, and that kind of strength is instilled in me.

I feel sad that:

• My mother won’t be there to approve of my future husband.
• She won’t see me birth my first child or support me through my pregnancy.
• She didn’t get to see me graduate college or get my first big girl salary.
• I’m afraid to truly connect and feel close to someone because I don’t want to experience this level of grief and sadness again.
• I no longer remember what her voice, or touch feels like.
• I never got to experience parental disappointment and unsolicited advice.
• I won’t experience motherly guidance and teachings of how to overcome life’s experiences and tribulations.
• People still say “But she’s here with you in spirit” or that “She’s so incredibly proud of you” to make me feel comforted.

I feel angry that:

• People see me as a person of influence and support when someone close to them’s mother passes on.
• People reach out to me for the right things to say to people grieving the loss of a parent.
• I can relate to others who have lost a parent.
• I want to be a support to people who are lost in their grief journey after losing a parent, because I know that painful feeling, but I also wish I didn’t.

I feel annoyed that:

• Although time doesn’t exist to me, the weight of this loss always reminds me that time exists.

I never imagined there would come a time that I’m measuring years. That in that measurement that, the number of years lived without her would eventually be more than the number of years lived with her.

I never imagined:

• There would come a day where I don’t remember her voice.
• That I would dream consistently that she too, doesn’t remember me.

Could you imagine living 13 years without the person who meant the most to you? The one who ushered you into this world and guided you the best way they could?

I honestly could not imagine it. And I still, to this day, don’t know how I am. Hell, I don’t even know how to end this because this level of vulnerability is just so damn sad. So as the tears begin to leave my eyes, I’ll just leave it here.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

Xo.