abiding.

feeling sad for the last couple of days.
it's like there is a membrane that keeps us separate from the sorrow of our lives, and the sorrow of the world, and sometimes it thins and becomes too thin to keep out the emotion. like the normal weight you carry just suddenly seems unmanageable.
there's no new drama, just the same old 'wow, i really miss my mom' drama.
i'm already tired of being so sad, so regularly.
this last year, with all the tragedy and sadness, is totally an aberration. i am really not good at just being with sadness, mostly because i don't tend to be sad for very long.
i don't mean that in a snotty way, like i have everything figured out.
i just mean that i am fortunate in that i don't usually have to deal with that this lifetime.
i guess i have gone through minor depressive phases, but nothing severe enough to label with a capital D. just low phases that last for a few months.
so, long story overly long, i have a hard time being patient with my sadness.
i keep wanting to hurry up.
i spent a large portion of the day over at my dad and linda's, and linda reminded me that it hasn't really been very long since my mom died. it feels like it's been epochs and ages - like so much has passed that we've moved into a totally different class of tool making or something - but in actual human time, it's only been a very short period of time.
i guess especially for something so big.
if i had started a new job that length of time ago, i'd still be getting acclimated to being at the new job. it would still feel new and uncomfortable.
so, similarly, only times one gazillion, i am still uncomfortable with my grief.
and you know, i have probably already mentioned this before, but i am still pretty uncomfortable with everything that happened within the last year.
there are very few chunks of time from the last year that aren't shot through with veins of unpleasantness that i'd rather not look at right now.
i keep looking over my own shoulder, making sure i'm processing everything i need to process, and that i'm not avoiding anything or stuffing it, which is stupid since i tend to err on the side of masochistically OVER processing and OVER addressing painful areas inside myself. it's pretty unlikely that i would leave something untouched inside myself.
but still, i hover over my own shoulder, whispering suggestions to myself.
i am not helping, to be honest.
i spent all day in my pajamas yesterday.
i finished reading 'what is the what,' which was sublime and highly recommended. because i was feeling so raw, i cried for an especially long time over everything that he had to endure, and everything that africa has to endure. it is the understatement of a lifetime for me to say: things in africa are pretty fucked up. i'll save my thoughts on africa for another time. i have many of them.
today, in an effort to discourage more pajama-clad moping, i left the house earlyish. my goal was to make it to the little hippie church in fairfax, where we had mom's party, in time to make their sunday morning services. but i had the time wrong, so i was there pretty late, so i didn't go in. but i was already feeling raw, and not ready for the rest of the world, so i went and sat in the garden (where we ate after mom's service), and cried and talked to mom. i'm not very good at meditating or praying yet, and i always feel like, when praying, that i am just basically having a conversation with myself, and i am not sure that that's really praying because it seems to intellectual. so, for some reason talking to mom out loud felt more meaningful. it's counterintuitive, but there it is. i sat in the yard and talked out loud to mom.
i told her the obvious stuff - i miss her, i'm bummed she's gone, i am not done thinking it sucks, it's not getting easier yet, i am ready for it to get easier, i'm having a hard time, i feel far from her...
i also asked her to help me with the allen thing. i feel like i have done everything i know how to do, and have really done a job that i (overall) feel confident and proud of, and yet i still experience almost nothing but frustration in my emotions about him. i just asked her to soften him up some. she was good at getting him to calm down and open up. that's all i ask.
more crying, more talking out loud.
i was talking to her about feeling so far away from her. i feel so jealous of the people who've said that they feel like she's near by, because i absolutely don't feel that way. i really, really don't feel her near. i mean, i have internalized her voice somewhat, so i can draw on that when i need to, but that's not what i'm talking about. i'm talking an external sense of her being near.
i was thinking, and saying to mom, how i suppose my dreams about her, and about her being alive, could have been interpreted by me as a message from her that she's still near me. now that i'm thinking about it that seems pretty obvious, but that's so NOT how i read them. i just felt so upset at the injustice of having to lose her all over again when i woke up. it's like, i'm not done being pissed off about her being gone from my life in the form that i know, and i'm not that interested in cultivating a new form of her being in my life because what i really want is her, back, the way that i want her back. i don't need her hovering near me being a guardian angel, i need her back as my flesh and blood mom, smelling like her and having her soft skin. fuck the disembodied presence.
not really.
but a little.
sara, the pastor of the church, came out and talked to me after the service.
it was nice to see her.
we talked about me, of course, an how i'm doing. (on many, many levels, i am tired in my soul of thinking about how i'm doing, and having pain i need to be managing. i am so sick of my pain.) she was nice and supportive. she told me that my mom being dead might not ever suck less than it does now. that wasn't encouraging. she didn't mean it in a discouraging way, more like in a 'you're doing fine where you are already' way.
she said the pain will just feel less fresh over time.
i feel like, in some ways, it getting less fresh feeling is upsetting to me, too, because that just drives the point home that mom won't be getting any less dead, and i'll just have to get used to it. like i'll get so tired of being surprised by it that i'll just become resigned to it. i don't like that idea very much.
the only pain i can associate this with is break up pain, where you are so torn up that it seems impossible to imagine it ever fading, but it does.
it really does.
and i know mom didn't stay up at night crying over her mom's death, 40 years after the fact. at some point you just accept it. it takes a lot of work to maintain that initial sense of surprise and injustice. i guess you just exhaust in at some point.
took i took myself to a mediocre lunch. i haven't been having a very good appetite lately, so i think that's why it was so nyeh. it was fine, but not what i'd hoped for.
bought myself books, and some presents.
what presents, you ask?
-a little gold-dipped heart on a chain, that is meant to commemorate someone's bat mitzvah. daddy told me that dealing with mom's illness was my bat mitzvah, and now i am a woman, so it seemed appropriate.
-a hard case for my ipod nano.
-an amazing fancy pen that writes like a dream.
-an unlined sketchbook, for writing about how i'm feeling. i have been blogging to help me process, but there are things that i think about or chew on that i don't want to blog about. (sorry, guys.)
i almost bought about a million other things. i love that store. (fig garden, in san anselmo. LOVE it.)
after that, i drove out to hang with daddy and linda, and it was exactly what i needed.
it's nice having adults (and by 'adults' i mean parental figures, recognizing that i am generally considered an adult) tell you that you're doing a good job. sometimes it's hard to tell yourself that in a way that sticks, or can cut through the self-doubt. they were really happy to have me over. they're always inviting me over to hang out, just to hang, and i haven't done it very many times, so they were stoked that i called. and it was exactly what i needed.
this week i have to go up to redwood valley, to take care of some business.
i'm a little nervous.
this will be the first time i see allen after i told him i wasn't giving him money from the sale of mom's car.
ugh.
again, i'd like to stress how tired i am of thinking the same old stuff, and feeling the same old feelings (grief, discomfort, anger, reget, etc.) i'm really, really tired of myself and my load of crap.
and yet, it's here.
so, i just have to deal with it.