Looped....

You aren't the only one who thinks all I've been writing about lately is grief. I'm right there with you. Totally ready to move on and write something, anything else.

But grief is really demanding. It takes your time. It's so needy. Like as soon as you think, oh I'll do this cool thing, or you laugh at a really funny joke, or you realize you've gone hours without being sad the little whiny voice in the back of your head pipes up..."Your mother just died, it hasn't even been a month, do you really think this is appropriate?" And so you shut back down again.

Even when I wrote the last piece where I talked about how it's different, Mom dying vs. Dad dying, the voice in my head was like, "Yeah, but don't act like you're too okay with it, you can't be TOO okay with it, I mean your MOTHER just died."

Grief will get you coming and going.

When you are wrecked because of the loss it's one thing but when you are doing okay in spite of the loss the guilt will get you.

And as most of you know, I don't do guilt. Guilt is an actionable emotion. If you feel guilty about something that's your cue to do something else. To change what it is you are doing.

But what if what you are doing is moving forward even though your mother just died?

Then the guilt is much harder to deal with. Because, of course, you have to move forward, that's what happens when someone dies. They died. You didn't die. You have to move forward. Big or small losses it's the same. You have to keep moving forward. It's just easier or harder depending on the loss. But if it's your mother? Well, it shouldn't be easy right?

And it's not. It's really not. I mean, obviously, or I wouldn't have so much to deal with. So much I'm trying to deal with. Including the fact that I'm, in no small part, happy for her that she was finally able to let go. I wouldn't be waking up at 2 AM every night and having my brain switch on to not let me get back to sleep. Because I'm having crazy dreams when I'm asleep. The nightmares that are more dread than pure scare? Because my mother just died and my head is trying to wrap around everything that means. Including the fact that I'm happy for her that she did.

Because that can't be fucking normal can it?

But that's grief. Grief is not normal. Grief is a loop. We deal with the same things over and over again until it's done with us. And then it comes back and hits us again at surprise times. And in surprising ways.

When Dad died I wrote about how surprised I was by how much it hit me. I left home at 18. It's not like I had daily contact with Dad. At all. He wasn't a phone chatter and neither am I so we literally spoke once every few years when we would visit. I heard from Mom about Dad, not from Dad directly. So I honestly expected when he died to just acknowledge it and move on. But that's not what happened. My world rocked. Even though I wasn't in daily contact with him, I knew he was there. If I ever needed him he was there.

Now with Mom dying I'm surprised again by how okay I am with the idea of her being gone. I am sad for my brother and sister who were daily in her life. I am really worried about how lonely my brother is going to be without her. I am pretty sure her funeral could be the last time my siblings and I are in the same place at the same time. All of this should be and is really sad. But...my mother was so deeply lonely without my dad. My mother was ill. The cancer had come back and she was so tired of fighting it. My mother was starting to lose her mental sharpness, and my mother was one of the quickest wits I knew. She was so smart. So to lose her memory and her connectedness to the present? That had to be miserable. She also was really dependent on everyone around her, and it was making her a little frightened of the world in a way she had never been before.

I'm sure you are all shocked to hear that my mother was smart, independent, stubborn and more than a little willful... and that she was half of a whole.

My mother and I clashed on a lot of things, but like I said before, I think I could make a really solid argument for being the most like her. She left home when she married Dad. She believed that her marriage and her kids were her primary family. We visited Iowa, and after Grandpa died and they sold the farm Grandma came to visit us. But we weren't especially close to that side of the family other than that. She didn't like a lot of the ways her parents raised her so she actively changed them when she raised us. She had a really strong "do it myself" streak. And there are other things.

Now, I'm sure she would have rather I acted like her how she ended up, in keeping in New Mexico, keeping her faith, keeping her politics, but instead I acted like her how she was, I did the leave home, change everything, visit but don't get involved in the family back home drama. I learned it from watching her.

And don't ever get me wrong, I know she loved me anyway. And during the last political cycle she even said she would vote for me if I ran for office. Trust me, that's a big deal, because she knew full well I would never run as an R.

And these are the thoughts that keep looping through my head on repeat. Grieve more! Be sadder! Okay, now you're sad enough. Stop crying, we have things to do! No stay sad! Now you've gone too far into the 'fine' zone! Here think about that time when...and you'll never ever get closure on that, even though you THOUGHT you had dealt with it all years ago. Now we will revisit! Are you sad again? Good! You should be, your mother just died! Oh my god...get something done besides sitting around whining!

And loop...

I'm fine. Really I am.
Except when I'm not.
And then it's a toss up on if I'm not fine because I'm fine or I'm not fine because I'm not fine.

Loop....