sometimes it just hits you.

while i was getting my mani/pedi, i was reading a magazine.

they had a rundown on spas that were great, around the world.

one of the spas catered to women only, and the magazine said that that made it perfect for mother-daughter getaways.

and i thought, i'm not going to get to do that with my mom. the 40 year old me won't be able to take the almost 70 year old mom to a spa weekend. because my mom is dying right now.

i know that, but sometimes the details of what it means are easy to overlook.

my mom isn't going to be there to be at my wedding, or to hold my hand when i'm giving birth, or to send a card to on mother's day.

my mom is dying.

she wasn't at my surprise party on saturday, and she won't be there on my actual birthday. and she isn't even alert enough to know anything about those things.

she'd love the new show starring holly hunter. she doesn't know how harry potter ended. she can't see how well me and allen are getting along. she can't read the cards and letters people are sending her.

because she's dying. right now, she's dying.

and so are we all, dying right now, getting closer to our deaths.

it makes living more difficult, spending time thinking about our deaths, but that doesn't make it any less true.

i'm really chewing on spirituality right now.

i know it would make mom really sad if her death was the reason i stopped believing in god, but that isn't helping much.

it seems like every religion or spiritual path is a way to help us deal with the unknown. (this is obviously not a revolutionary idea.) even without all the trappings that the modern world allows us to place between us and our most basic existence, being a human is overwhelming and frightening. bad things happen to people who don't deserve them. people we love die and we miss them so much we feel like we can't go on. it's only natural that people want something they can cling to, something to make them feel like they aren't alone. i can understand that. i want that, too.

but we don't really know the truth. gina's religion section on her myspace says she's a militant agnostic - she says 'i don't know and you don't either.' as much as i have been raised on the idea of a benevolent force that wants me to succeed, i have no idea if that's true. while it makes some people feel a lot better to believe that there is a nanny-type figure, holding their hands as they toddle along, it is a game we play with ourselves, in our heads. if you're looking very hard for confirmation of your beliefs, certainly you'll find them, and be able to explain anything that seems to deviate from your expectations. but that isn't the same as proof.

i don't think people should let go of the beliefs that allow them to make it through life. yes, organized religion has some serious blood on its hands, but i think it's the 'organized' part that's to blame, not the 'religion' part. the second you take the religious practice out of the hands of individual believers, and start making rules for everyone to follow, you're stepping away from the core of what i feel religion is about - one person coming to terms with existence. what the hell does cutting your hair, or eating pork, have to do with the greater matters of life and death? nothing. it's like a bureaucracy that's allowed to grow unwieldy.

it's funny. cutting the rope that lashed me to a babysitter god hasn't made me feel hopeless. well, it did at first. but the more i think about it, the more i feel like it doesn't actually change anything. okay, so there isn't anything or anyone bigger than myself moving people or events around to suit me. so the weight of everything rests largely on me. but that doesn't seem like too much to handle. i believe that, whether there is a heaven or not, or we have to worry about reincarnation, there is ample reason to do the best we can right now. if you want to end up in heaven, or you don't want to have to re-do the lessons you missed this lifetime, or even if there is nothing after death but Nothing...regardless, there is ample reason to live a life you feel proud of Right Now. if this is all there is, all the more reason to make the absolute most of it. it actually makes me feel more calm and peaceful to let go of the idea of The Universe or God.

looking at what happened to my mom, i kept asking again and again, why did this happen? how can we deserve this? and it made sense to just get - it's not about us. things just happen and we are here to do the best we possibly can with them. maybe my higher power is just the best possible version of me, and all i need to pray for is to get out of my own way. get out of my head, stop being afraid, stop being embarrassed, stop being shy and just live the shit out of this chance.

i was reading a book by marianne williamson to my mom, and it was talking about coming from a place of love, all the time. it said that there is no neutral place. you're either coming from a place of love or you're coming from a place of fear. i think clinging to a nanny-god's hand, asking something/one else to make something happen for me, is more fear based than love based. when i am coming from a place of love (for myself, for you, for the world) i am strong enough to just be with the world, however it is. when i am coming from a place of love, i can forgive us for fucking up the climate, or letting africa die of aids, or mistreating dogs. we're all born to die, and we're all doing the best we can, and that's enough. i don't support those things, or think they are good, but i stop being so smad (sad+mad=smad) that i feel like we're all fucked.

okay, i have to go. daddy just got here, and so did the delivery guy with mom's hospital bed.