kindness.

i had therapy today.
in recapping my last couple of weeks, i explained how i felt like last week i had kicked ass, from a productivity stand point, and i totally blew it this week.
i barely got anything done.
i didn't work out at all. (except for today. i had training today.)
the house is looking barfy/embarrassing.
i haven't finished my xmas cards.
barbara was a little bit firm with me about backing off myself.
she reminded me that the holidays are a stressful time anyway, and then to add in my mom's still resent death - it's just unfair for me to expect myself to be setting records in productivity.
i hadn't really thought about that.
i just thought i was a lazy sack of shit who couldn't manage to be consistent with anything if her life depended on it.
and, admittedly, that's not a very nice thing to think about oneself. (onesself? one's self?)
that's a crappy message to be sending myself.
i am so scared of taking advantage of my mom's death, and so worried about other people thinking that i am taking advantage of it, that i perhaps rush myself.
also, in my minute to minute experience, it feels like it's been a really long time since my mom died.
but really, 4 months ago today, she was alive, and recognized me and was able to carry on a conversation of some sort.
one year ago today she was recuperating from her first brain surgery. we had only known she had cancer for about a week. if she was home from the hospital, it was only just barely.
maybe it's okay if i just kind of inch my way through the holidays this year.
maybe i could just focus on my dinner party xmas eve and getting married and going to the gym and give myself permission to go back to reading more and taking myself out to breakfast.
i might have been hasty in deciding it was time to let that go.
i don't think i'm done.
last night, in the midst of bickering with shannon about something totally unrelated to my mom, i mentally hopscotched to my mom and her being dead and i just melted down. still in my peacoat and hat and gloves from outside, i curled up on my bed, on top of a pile of clean laundry, and cried until i was hoarse. it was that ragged, choking, ugly crying, not the delicate quiet, lady-like tears. the way it does sometimes, it just became unbearable again that my mom is dead and i'll never see her again.
no wonder every culture everywhere comes up with ideas and belief about what happens to us after we die.
the idea that death is absolutely final and irrevocable and that that person is gone to us forever is not really acceptable.
of course we want to believe in a heaven where people look the way we remember them looking and we can spend time together just like we did when we were alive together. that's way more appealing than the alternative - that your time with that loved one is over forever and there's nothing to be done but accept it. who the hell wants to accept that? that totally sucks.
okay, shannon just got home from work.
i'm going to go into the kitchen with him and the pooch and discuss our plans for date night.