Best You've Ever Seen

Closing time

2012-01-26T22:07:00.000-05:00

I'm bringing this blog to a close in a sense. Given the faculty position I've accepted, I probably should not have such personal things floating around for students to find. So I've decided to make this blog private. Should you want to continue to read this blog, shoot me an email or comment and let me know so that I may add you as a reader. Otherwise, the blog becomes private on Groundhog Day February 2nd.

Encore

2012-01-18T19:25:00.002-05:00

Another colleague's father died suddenly today.

I knew it would happen

2012-01-18T10:21:00.001-05:00

I was out most of Monday for the MLK holiday. I was on one of the planning committees for some of the day's events, and so I was helping to run that show into the wee evening hours. Yesterday morning, I was attending a teaching workshop. During the time, my fellow fellow approached our mentor with the argument that she is not being supported and that I am getting preferential treatment, which is why I'm successful and she is not. This all came to head during a discussion about leave. I wasn't present, obviously, which makes one wonder (albeit briefly) about the timing. I've seen this coming for some time. She's always been guarded around me from the beginning, which also has one pondering the intel she was given about me before we met. Intuitively, I knew the deal. I'm not new to this rodeo.

I'm not saying the best ever at everything. I'm usually the first person to point out my faults and flaws, and often the last person to sing my praises. But I am good at a lot of things and excel at several. For example, I've being doing this research gig for about 13 years now, as a technician, manager, grad student and fellow. This does not include my research experience as an undergrad. Thus, I've had the time and experience to hone my skills -- skills and muscles that I continue to flex and improve upon. I seek out help when needed, but I'm not afraid to start something on my own and to use my initiative. To chalk up my success in the past two and half years solely to my interaction with my mentor or being given preferential treatment is not only untrue but, to me, insulting. I'm came to this university with a track record, a higher level of training and an entirely different knowledge base and area(s) of expertise. It's apples and oranges really.

WTF?!

2012-01-17T22:39:00.002-05:00

My grandfather's 92 year old sister was found dead in her driveway today.

Weekend update

2012-01-16T10:18:00.001-05:00

I did not mention in my previous post some of the happenings of the weekend.

My dad traveled with my grandparents to visit my grandmother's sister in Alabama. Thanks to one of my stupid cousins running over the gas line, they had to evacuate the house until the emergency services could get everything settled. In the fray, my grandfather fell on the pavement and scratched himself up pretty badly. He's in good spirits, but my dad says he looks "awful." I was restless all of Friday night and evening, just waiting for them to call that something had happened. Now I know why.

My youngest brother woke yesterday morning to find that the family dog had died in her sleep. Though she was a gift to my other brother by a college girlfriend, she became the family dog quickly, coming to my parents' for the weekend once and never leaving. She was a Rottweiler who thought of herself as a lap dog -- a 90 pound lap dog. She had the sweetest disposition, until one of us was threatened. Then she was force to be reckoned with. Because my dad wasn't there, my brother buried her. In 2010 the other dog died and my brother took it very hard. Our lives are tempered now by my mother's death, so this time it's different. Still, both dogs were a part of life with Mama, a life that is forever changed. And in my mind, the image is that of a little boy burying his dog, for my brothers are still little boys to me at times. Yet that image is juxtaposed with that of a stoic young man so very much like my dad, someone who has sadly dug many a grave in his time for man and beast.

Change has always been the one thing I have railed against. I never liked it as a child and I like it much less as an adult. For many years now, I've searched for a stability, a place, groundedness. I need a place to come home to, a place where I belong. Right now, it's very hard to pinpoint such a place, to know where home is. They say it's where the heart is, another thing I'm unsure of these days.

Whose life is it anyway

2012-01-15T22:08:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from a University dinner party. It is most likely the first of many in the years to come. I can't help but wonder whose life this is sometimes. I still feel like a kid. I was the youngest person there and still have to remind myself that I am no longer a student, that I'm faculty. At the moment I'm only single course faculty technically. I do not assume my new position until August. Still, the mindset is going to have to change at some point. Yet it's weird to sit next to a dean and across the table from one of the VPs, even if I do know them. It's that inner child, that Appalachian mountain boy, who just can't fathom all of this sometimes. My life is not grand by everyone's standards. But for someone who spent several years of his youth essentially in poverty, it's hard to get my head around some of this.

At the most basic level is working at the University itself, being paid to think (paid well by Hamlet standards). Living in a "city" despite the fact it's just a college/university town, that's second. The whole doctor thing is still weird in a good way. I have to stop myself from turning my head to see who's behind me when people call me doctor. But faculty? At this University? Really?!

I've spent all of my life (that I can remember) wanting to fit in -- to be good enough to fit in. And if I could be the best at something, then I really knew that everyone "liked me." I've spent years in therapy trying to work that out, to figure out why so much of my validation is and must be external. I've yet to figure it out completely, or to get over that mindset.

Tonight I was certain I would be the odd person out at dinner. I didn't feel that I would be dressed appropriately, that my dinner conversation wouldn't be good enough, that...that I wouldn't be good enough. I felt like a kid, a student, an underling. Granted, I'm not a tenured professor with years of experience. But I'm no less than the other dinner guests. Rather than asking why me, perhaps I should asking why not me. I wouldn't have been appointed if they didn't think I could do it.

This is all kind of a rambling post that isn't ending up where I thought it would. I will end with this, though. Given this upcoming position in the late summer, I have to decide what to do about this blog, whether I should keep it, privatize it or quit it. It probably would not be in my best interest professionally for it to continue as it is, what with students and administrators and all that. Yet, I like the outlet (though I've not be using it recently). I've some time to figure it out.

In the meantime, there are more University events to attend and things to get done before the new position, professionally. And there is a great deal more healing to do personally.

Granny Snow

2012-01-10T09:26:00.001-05:00

When I was a child, the country store in my mountain community was in operation. I know it sounds like something out of The Waltons, and it was. There were many such stores around the area -- places where people still gathered just to swap stories and "visit". Such behavior still happens in various retail locations in the area today, mostly without the local country ambiance in most cases. But I digress.

At my country store, the woman behind the counter was Granny Snow. My inner child and mind's eye remembers her as lean, with a head of snow white hair, hence the moniker. I'm not sure whose grandmother she happened to be in reality, but to all of the kids -- and most of the adults -- in the community she was Granny Snow. As a child, you imagine someone with white hair who is called "Granny" to be, well, old. In reality, she was only in her forties at the time, something I only realized until this morning.

Going to the store was a treat at all times then, but particularly if you were going to see Granny Snow because you knew you weren't going to leave without a treat of some sort. Whether it was candy, a fried pie or a soda pop, Granny Snow made sure you were spoiled. I couldn't tell you what the place might have actually sold other than what was down the sweets aisle. And I certainly couldn't tell you who else worked there other than Granny Snow.

The store closed before I graduated from high school, but Granny Snow found her way into many and various retail locations. Working with the public was what she knew. And keeping up with her "kids" has always been on her list.

When I talked to my grandmother last night, she told me that Granny Snow had a heart attack on Friday. For the past several years, she and my grandmother have worked at the same thrift store. She has been there for all of us over the past six months since my mother died. Now, she's in a hospital in the Twin City and the prognosis is grim at best. I found out last night that she's only four years older than my grandmother, allowing me to calculate her age when I was young.

Now more than ever, I'm keenly aware of the brevity and fragility of life. It's difficult when the aspects of one's childhood no longer hold true, especially when so many of them have been around into one's adulthood. In that respect, I'm very lucky. It's not common and I know that I come from a very uncommon place -- a place that has somehow managed to keep the outside world from intruding too much, a place where family and community truly mean something still.

Arbitrary

2012-01-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

It is the beginning of a new year. Well, it is the beginning of a new calendar year. Though I understand the customs and the history, as well as the perceived need for some sort of celebration, it really is some arbitrary contrivance. For me, the new year and this new era in my life began on July 12th. And it still continues. In the past several days since returning to C'ville I've found myself expecting, waiting for Mama to call me. And then I remember. Sometimes it feels as though it's death by a thousand cuts. And most of the time it feels as if everything in this new era is arbitrary. I'm told to press onward, that I have keep going. But I still find it very difficult to care really. All I want to do is eat and sleep like some overly lethargic panda. When asked yesterday what my resolution for the year was to be, I stated that it was simply to survive. I wonder how long I will find myself simply in survival mode. I wonder if I will ever thrive. I don't say thrive again because I know now that I never really did. I know that I sound maudlin, melancholy and depressed. I am.

When one's childhood has timed out

2011-12-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

I feel as though I am watching the beginning of the end of so many things. The holidays have become irrevocably altered, and sooner rather later all Christmas traditions may be abolished. How can one go home for the holidays when one no longer has a sense of where that is? Perhaps time has been the enemy all along, consistently winning out in the end.

By the way

2011-12-20T16:04:00.001-05:00

I have accepted a tenure-track faculty position at the University where I currently hold my fellowship. The position will begin next August after my fellowship ends.

Also, I am gargantuanlly fat. Thus, a wellness plan truly begins a week from tomorrow. Why truly now? Because (a) life is too fucking short; (b) I relish being like my mother is so many ways, but not taking care of myself is not one of them; (c) to honor her memory my brother(s), friends and I will be running a 5K the first weekend in May 2012 in the Twin City; (d) I'm not going to invest money in an academic professional wardrobe tailored by Georgia Tent and Awning; and (e) a young faculty member needs to look hot if he's gonna awesomely rock this motherfucker.

Consolation

2011-12-20T14:58:00.001-05:00

Given that we're within spitting distance of Christmas, a few people have come out of the woodwork in the past day or so to let me know that they're thinking of me because they're certain this time of year is difficult. You know, it is. And you'd know a bit more about how I'm feeling and have been feeling if you had bothered to check in with me in past five months. I suppose it is some consolation that you state you've been thinking about me "a lot" or "everyday." Oh, wait, it's not any consolation because I'm still bitter and miffed. And I'm becoming that hermity type of person that I never wanted to be.

Sometimes, humanity blows. But in the so-called spirit of the season, I just thank them for their emails, messages or whatevers and keeping going.

Rant

2011-12-13T13:55:00.001-05:00

You know, most everyone is telling me that stuff about dealing with it my way and in no certain amount of time. Then they turn around and freak out or flee when I do. The world keeps on spinning and I'm expected to spin with it. People say this time of year is "going to be hard" and their "thinking about me." And that's okay. But any expression of how hard it really is for me...well, that's just uncalled for. It's mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausting, but very few people see or get that.

I don't get it. I know that not everyone has a good relationship with their parents; it's all different. Not everyone is going to give a damn when their mother dies. But if you know me and you know how central my mother is to my life, how central she's always been, how can you not expect me to be in the state that I'm in? And not only that, there's the trauma of the whole experience alone. 36 hours. Thirty. Six. Hours. Are you serious? And even if you put all of that aside, it's only been five months since she arrested and died, right in front of me. And even if you forget all of that, it's the first year without her, the first holiday season without her. What are people really expecting of me? And why the festering fuck are they surprised when their not getting the response they want?

Night watch

2011-12-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

I'm not really sleeping well, again.

Today was spent mostly in a wailing, sobbing heap. I've bawled my eyes out most of the day. I've cried so much that my eyes hurt, my face hurts. Of course, I'm crying because my heart hurts, my guts hurt.

I cried until I threw up. I cried until I thought my chest was going to rip open. I cried until the numbness began to set in again.

And now, emotionally, mentally and physically drained, I cannot fall asleep.

Trying very hard today...

2011-12-11T13:25:00.001-05:00

Frozen breath

2011-12-09T16:11:00.001-05:00

I'm finding December to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I guess the numbness of Thanksgiving lulled me into the belief that such a state would bleed into December and the rest of the year. It hasn't. To be fair, I felt a lot worse before arriving in Hamlet for Thanksgiving. That is when the numbness set in. It was the contemplation of the impending holiday and the days following that did me in. That is what I'm experiencing now, only at a higher level. While I'm forever grateful for the wealth of holiday memories floating around in my head, at present it feels as though these serve to rend the stitches with which I feverishly try to keep in place so that my heart does not burst apart again. In an hour, I'm meant to be attending the School's holiday soiree. After spending most of the day tearful in my office, I'm trying to brace myself, not knowing how I feel once I'm there--my mind racing with so many family- and holiday-related thoughts. Again, I find it hard to breath.

Going forward

2011-12-09T10:14:00.001-05:00

I will be relieved to see the back of this year. Indeed it has been the hardest, most difficult year of my life, on every level. I remain unable to adequately express how mindbendingly, heart wrenchingly, life altering and earth shattering it truly has been, especially when I feel as though I remain in the crucible. At least that offers some protection from being directly in the fire.

After the exchange last night with yet another former Mavis, I realize that absolutely nothing can continue as it once did before this year and Mama's death. Whilst I knew nothing would ever be the same, I didn't not grasp fully the magnitude of that change. It has cast some things into a very stark relief--carefully delineating into black and white. Other things seem to be lost in a sea of gray.

But today I'm thinking of the black and white. I know that there have been times when I have failed my friends and family. For that, I am truly sorry. No one is perfect, no matter how much one might strive to be so or think one should be. I know that I have walked away from friendships in the past, but only after careful consideration and really after it had become unretrievably damaged. I suppose it all comes with the territory of having one's heart on one's sleeve and taking people at their word after being raised to understand the importance and value of one's words, and actions.

With the back of this year coming and the gaping expanse of the year(s) ahead, I have to figure out how I am to navigate. I realize this is a life-long process; however, life has become irrevocably altered for me at this point. Thus, new policies must be put into place for the future. While at present I cringe at the thought of so many years ahead without my mother's physical presence, I am equally aware of how quickly those years will pass in the grand scheme of things. Time is irrelevant only in that the most should be made of it.

During the last few days of this year, I will give a great deal of thought about how I will proceed into the new year. I know that a times the heat of the moment is not the best place in which to make a decision. And while I no longer wish to put up walls to protect my heart, I also do not want it damaged and I don't want to waste my time.

Left by the house of fun

2011-12-08T22:50:00.000-05:00

There was a time on this blog when I felt as though I needed to post a guidebook to delineate the Mavises referred to within the posts. Not so anymore. I have discovered in the last five months a lot about the people in my life, or the people who used to be in my life. I have to admit that I'm disappointed and fucking pissed in some instances. I'm not so naïve to think that people do not come and go from our lives over time. Moving, marriages, babies and jobs bring people together and move them apart. It's not as though I've not had very good friends come and go before. But as they have come and gone, and the inner circles have become more distilled, there were those who I imagined would always be there. I was wrong.

Today is Coastal Mavis' birthday. For years, I would travel down to the Port City for her birthday weekend and we would decorate her house for the holidays. I've done that through numerous boyfriends and fiancés, the holiday right before and after her father died, and last year I drove the extra distance from C'ville to make a surprise appearance at her 40th birthday party. I have been there for her in person and via phone through so many of her trials and tribulations (including the loss of her father), gladly and willingly, supporting her when most of her other so-called friends turned away. She often introduces me to others as one of her best friends.

Despite the fact that I've not heard from her since attending her wedding in September, save for one prayer-laden text two months ago, I wanted to acknowledge her birthday and wish her well. So I sent a brief text message. Her response was "who is this?" What followed was a the very tired and cliché "I got a new phone and lost some of my contacts" routine. Then it was the whole "I didn't have your new number" routine. Not only do I find it hard to believe that she would try pulling that bullshit period, but am flabbergasted that she would try to pull it with me. I'm no dummy.

So, I called her on it. I "reminded" her that the number from which I was sending her a message is the same number I've had since moving to C'ville in 2009. It is the same number to which she sent me a text two months ago, at the time of her wedding and for the past two and half years. It is the same number at which she has called me when she needed me to talk her down from some drama over the last two and half years. I told her that it really didn't matter what the reason was that she mysteriously lost my contact information. I just hoped she enjoyed her day. She then responded that she was "confused" but all that mattered was that now she had my phone number and was glad to hear from me. Whatever.

I am really flabbergasted by this whole exchange. On the one hand I realize this kind of thing happens. I get that. On the other, I cannot believe that she would do that to me, given our history and the friendship I thought we had. Unfortunately, she's not the only person to do this in the past five months. Knowing me and the way that my mind works, you might not be surprised that part of me thinks that it's my fault--that I've really not been a good enough friend to these people and that I've slacked off on the contact front, reaping what I have sown.

But I don't really buy that. I'm not perfect, but I truly believe that I have been a damn good friend to a lot of people in my life. For whatever reason, I don't always get that in return. In fact, often (especially lately) I feel as though I'm used and dropped like a bad habit. I mean, you have to do a lot (a LOT) for me to drop you as a friend.

All of this just adds to the disbelief I've been feeling for the past five months. I cannot get my head around the response, or lack thereof, of some of my friends to my grief and state of bereavement. I really don't know where to go from here--to operate in this world in which I feel as though I can't truly invest in people and wonder about the return on the investments I've already made.

And at this point, I don't know when or if I'll be returning to the Port City.

When the glitter is gone

2011-12-08T17:36:00.001-05:00

I feel kinda of lost these days. Lost in the crowd, the shuffle and all of the kerfuffle that seems to be requisite in Western society this time of year. There is a distinct lack of holiday cheer on my part, more so than ever before. Thinking about all of the holiday memories I have that involve my mother remains more bitter than sweet, almost salt into the wound. When jaunty Christmas tunes do find there way into the internal jukebox, there are still pangs of guilt--that I can't be normal or pretend to be normal when I should be so bereft and sad. It's a catch-22 and a difficult way to navigate the day.

Navigation is hard these days, too. How to respond to well-meaning folk. How to respond to the things people say that unintentionally bite and sting. Just breathing some days is a challenge.

I feel the absence in the mundane. Winter weather threatens to show up in the area and I think about how Mama would stay abreast of all local things better than me, calling to be sure I was prepared, and getting to and from work safely. If I dwell too long in the thoughts, for more than few seconds, and contemplate the reality that she won't be calling me...well, it just rips me apart all over again.

Tonight I'm meant to be going to some highfalutin, muckety-muck community philanthropic holiday event at a grand estate, just the kind of thing I would call and tell Mama about it. Nothing sparkles like it once did, nothing.

These people are assholes

2011-12-07T01:00:00.092-05:00

For the most part, I've stayed out of the political fray over the past year because of my genuine distaste for the direction, or lack thereof, of the political/Congressional machine, and because I continue in a state of disbelieving bereavement. But when I read the quoted information below, I had to sound off.

Rick Santorum is, in my opinion, a disgustingly despicable and wretched human being. It seems that so many so-called public servants teeter or fall into this category these days. And it is becoming patently obvious that most are conservative. Mind you, the liberals are not without blame. Where the conservatives push forth an agenda and manifesto of blind hatred, the liberals cower and kowtow. I realize that I am painting with a very broad brush here, but I really don't give a damn. I'm tired, on all levels and for various reasons, and it's late (thank you, insomnia). And it's my fucking blog. I get write what I want here. If you don't like it or disagree, get your own blog. Now back to Santorum.

Before reading this latest bit of bullshit, I was already of the opinion that he is an asshole and someone with whom no thinking, intelligent person could have any sort of real conversation, let alone a debate. But the latest sludge to spill forth from his lips has me completely and totally irate.

Whilst in Iowa at a Christian college during an event for his presidential campaign, Santorum was asked some questions that led to him demonstrating why he has absolutely no business in any public office or in dealing with humanity in any meaningful way.

First an alum of the school asked the former senator about his incomprehensible fascination with same-sex marriage, questioning his stance by stating that he, the student, couldn't understand how allowing equal marriage rights would "be a hit to faith and family in America," citing the comparison to interracial marriage.

Clearly agitated, Santorum [asked] “You can’t think of any consequence?”

Kornelis answered that he did not.

Santorum then said that if same sex marriage was legalized then “their sexual activity” would be seen as “equal” to heterosexual relationships and it would be taught in schools.

“Really- wow- um okay, well let’s see if we can have a discussion. We can flesh out some, well, let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity,” Santorum said.

“So what is going to be taught to our people in health class in our schools? What is going to be taught to our children about who in our stories, even to little children — what are married couples? What families look like in America? So, you are going to have in our curriculum spread throughout our curriculum worldview that is fundamentally different than what is taught in schools today? Is that not a consequence of gay marriage?” he GOP hopeful asked.

Kornelis said he still did not agree, to which the candidate responded, “I think you’re wrong — okay, in fact you have to know you’re wrong, because if we say legally if this type of relationship is identical to other type relationships than of course more of it will be taught because this is what the law says.”

What the festering fuck is his deal?!

First of all, he starts with "let's see if we can have a discussion," then proceeds to tell the guy that he's wrong and has to know that he's wrong after spewing some cockamamie, convoluted bullshit that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Taught in health class? Unless things have changed since I was in health class, which has been almost 20 years, they don't teach anything. Republitrons have already seen to that. Can't be teaching the Beav about sex, you know. He's gotta hear that from Ward and June. ps. The Beav probably heard it from Wally or, more likely, Eddie Haskell during a circle jerk in their tree house. But I digress.

The fact that this guy who thinks he is capable of being the president cannot form a coherent sentence, let alone an argument for his personal stance, which by the way should not necessarily equal his political stance, illustrates in the best way possible why his political aspirations are ludicrous.

Am I surprised by any of this? No. Has been talking smack about the gays for years? Yes. Is that what really has got on my tits? No way. It was the next bit.

Santorum also had a tense moment when a student asked him about health care and the Christian responsibility of caring for the poor.

The student said he didn’t “think God appreciates the fact that we have 50 to 100,000 uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of health care every year,” citing a 2009 study out of Harvard University.

“Dying?” Santorum answered before going back and forth about the validity of the study.

“The answer is not what can we do to prevent deaths because of a lack of health insurance. There’s — I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance,” Santorum said to a crowd of 100.

“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their health care. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to,” he said. “And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit."

Okay, now the man really needs to shut the fuck up and go sit down somewhere, never to be heard from again.

Again, despite the fact that what he is saying makes no fucking sense, at all--I mean, hello, if someone is terminally sick and they do not receive care then they will die--he obviously does not give a damn about his fellow man, gay, straight or otherwise.

Yes, Mr. Santorum, there are people who make poor decisions regarding their health and health care, otherwise we wouldn't be one of the fattest countries on the planet. Yes, there are those in this country with health care coverage who never use it for preventive care. But, fortunately for them, it is there in a time of crisis. But how very well dare you assert that no one in this country dies from a lack of health care when it happens every fucking day. Don't believe me? Try this one.

Woman discovers lump in her breast. She does nothing and says nothing, even though at the time she has health care coverage. Why she does this is anyone's guess. Maybe, because of a lack of previous health care due to long, intermittent periods without health insurance, she knows very little about women's health, preventive care and the improvements in cancer treatments. Maybe, again owing to a previous lack of care, she has mental and emotional health needs that are not being met. Who knows. Years later, when she is laid off and loses her health insurance, her health rapidly deteriorates to the point at which she barely has the physical strength to get to the ER and can't even sign the papers stating that she'll be responsible for the costs of her care. Her husband has to do that for her. Thirty-six hours later, she's dead. Why? Because of a lack of fucking health care. Whether or not she could afford it or had it available, she died because of a lack of health care. She died because she felt the economic pressure on her family because of this lack. If there were a universal benefit in this country--the supposed greatest country on the face of the planet--she might still be alive today because there would be less fear and more options. She was my mother and now she is gone. And hers, however tragic and shocking to the system, is not the only story. I know many, many more.

When people like you stand in front of us--Americans, humans, whatever you want to call us--and spout such hatred and vitriol, I can't help but become unabashedly irate and incensed. Any person in their right mind would be so. For you to believe that what you are saying is okay is inane and unconscionable. It is incomprehensible to me how someone can be so vile, malicious and ignorant, that someone could have such a poor view of humanity.

You've absolutely no right to hold public office by virtue of the fact that you are indeed without any redeeming virtue. You and those like you are the reason why there are so many continued struggles and hardships in this country and across the planet. You cannot conceive of a world in which your caring from the rest of the planet does not diminish your personal power. You are too ignorant to understand how providing such compassion only strengthens your power. How anyone could ever vote for or support you at this point is beyond me. You have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt how insignificant and small you truly are.

Magenta

2011-12-04T16:07:00.000-05:00

Things I'm thinking about today...

2011-12-01T09:11:00.001-05:00

...how some of the folk who stepped out after Mama died (when others stepped up) are trying to find their way back into my day-to-day. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

...wondering what the job situation has in store. You know me and uncertainity.

...about where I was this time last year: having a bagel and coffee with Mama in our hotel near Times Square before heading out to the King Tut exhibit. I miss her terribly.

...the portrait of Mama that is ready to be picked up from the frame shop.

...how distant my dad seems.

...the train ride to NYC with Mama.

...standing in the middle of the street with Mama for hours waiting for the tree to be lit in Rockefeller Plaza.

...the look on her face and the tears in her eyes when the tree came to life.

...how much my heart hurts.

She's the sheriff

2011-11-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Dr. Mavis has a new blog. It is not, however, a sing-along blog. Do show her some blogolian love.

ps. To my knowledge, I have just coined the term blogolian. You heard it here first.

When the tears came

2011-11-26T21:57:00.000-05:00

The aunt upon whose shoulder I wept the moments after my mother died, called this afternoon to check in. During the course of our conversation, the tears began to silently flow. After the call ended, I spent a good fifteen minutes wailing and sobbing alone in the house. I wondered if I would do any crying before leaving tomorrow for C'ville, or if the numbness would allow any tears at all. Believe me, it did.

Cocooning

2011-11-25T23:57:00.000-05:00

Folks don't seem to get the act of cocooning, or drawing inward for defense, protection and sustainability.

Given that the calendar indicated that yesterday was Thanksgiving, I half expected to receive messages of support from some of the folks who have gone missing from my life since Mama died. I thought that surely those who had once been easily considered members of the inner circle would make some effort. No joy. So in addition to my overall disappointment, I've the added layer of whatever you want to call it.

Recently I was told by one those long lost that I was "too busy" to call her, and that if I would just pick up the phone she would be there to listen. Firstly, I've always found it to be very difficult for people simply to listen. And that has never been her strong suit. Secondly, when I know that the conversation is inevitably going to turn to the other party, I must now be doubly sure I'm up for it. I've no issue with being there for a friend in need, and hope that I have indeed been such a person. But my mother's death has left me emotionally exhausted, with little to spare and often in need of support and fortification.

Finally, and back to the title of the post, I am busy, but not in the way she or others may think. Yes, you've not heard from me. Yes, I've not reached out a lot. I am cocooning--going inward out of protection because of the enormity of the pain and trauma. I half expected for those in that inner circle to be checking up on me at regular intervals, especially given the fact that so many said that they would. And to be fair, some have. But of that former circle that numbered close to a dozen, the majority have not. And there appears to be a new circle forming. In fact, all of the circles in my life are reforming and shifting.

I realize that we all have full lives. I know that my tragedy is not everyone's. I, too, have been guilty of the same charges I now levy at others, despite doing my best, and feel more guilty about my past behavior in that arena than some may imagine. But I can't help but feel disappointed by people's actions and the contradiction of their words.

In the past four months, there have been several occasions when I have felt that I should be checking in with my friends. I've felt lax, that I have been the bad friend. Perhaps I have been. For the most part, though, when I have thought of someone, I've let them know. And in some instances--well, to be honest, most--my attempts have been met with silence.

Maybe I do suck as friend. Maybe I always have done and what has gone around is now coming back around. Maybe, as Original Mavis has put it, people just genuinely suck. I've sort of gotten tired of hearing that folks have been thinking about me a lot only after I've contacted them. That's really not consolation.

I don't want to complain. I don't. But I really am sorely disappointed. I wonder if it is me, because in some ways it feels as though I've been dumped.

I do have to say that there are a core group of individuals who have made their thoughts of my family and me known, and without whose support I would not be keeping it together. Original Mavis knows after twenty years how precious she is to me. Dr. Mavis has been a lifeline as well. Soul Sistah Kellie has been available for hugs at odd hours and Biltmore Mavis has kept a thread of emails going all of these months. Sunshine Mavis checks in at regular intervals and several friends from the blogosphere do the same. My lesbian wife who herself is going through her own tragic loss sends support and understanding.

But my new vision of the world has me questioning so many things. Not only do I wonder how and where I fit into the big picture, I also wonder how others now fit into mine and vice versa.

The world seems much less friendly these days.

And the result?

2011-11-25T12:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday really didn't feel like anything. It certainly didn't feel like a holiday. One would only have guessed it was Thanksgiving by the menu. It all just sort of fell flat.

I've felt...well, nothing since I got here on Wednesday. Maybe I'm numb. Driving down, there were points when I thought about Mama and got tearful, as I have done for the past four months and quite often in the past week. Now that I'm here, nothing. We're all going through the motions, not really talking about it. I suppose we're acting that way so as not to upset each other. I don't know. At first, to me, it smacks of no one caring. I know that isn't the case, but that's how it comes off at first glance.

So that all leaves me feeling guilty and disingenuous. But it gives even more evidence about how fucked up and less than normal my life is now...well, my old normal.

Today...

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

...hold those you love more tightly, warmly and carefully than you ever have before. One never knows what life has is store, so love as much as you can.

One more rant

2011-11-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

Also this week, people who are well aware of my mother's death have asked me whether or not I'm spending Thanksgiving with my family. Really? My mom died four months ago and my family is still in a state of numb bereavement and disbelief. Where the fuck else would I be? For people with PhDs, y'all act like a bunch of extreme fuckwits sometimes. Like I'm going to not spend Thanksgiving with my family months after my mom dies. No, I think I'll go to Bermuda. Did y'all have a great big helping of dumbass for breakfast or what?

Let me explain

2011-11-21T23:03:00.001-05:00

People at work couldn't understand why I was upset today. "It's only Monday. Thanksgiving isn't until Thursday." They don't get it.

For the past twenty years, Mama and I prepared the Thanksgiving meal together. We've cooked for seven and seventy-five. We had it down to an art and a science. So despite the so-called normal holiday-related grief, I'm facing the prospect of working in that kitchen alone this year.

Last year right after Thanksgiving, I took Mama to NYC to see the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center -- something she had always wanted to see. She described it then as the trip of a lifetime. She knew more than I what that truly meant. So there's that anniversary.

It hasn't been that long ago that I officially came out to my mother. This happened the Friday after Thanksgiving two years ago. So there's also that anniversary and the guilt that still lingers from not doing it sooner and "wasting all of that time" we could have truly spent together.

So, you see, it's just not that simple. It never is. And as I said earlier today, I feel as though my insides are being ripped open again, despite the two hours of energy work from yesterday.

Why don't people get that?

Animal farm

2011-11-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

It's been on my mind for some time to write a bit about the Healing Touch practice group that supports me here in the Commonwealth. Over in the valley from C'ville, this group of healers have been a blessing and a refuge during my time here -- this time of transition. During a Healing Touch class last November in which I was a helper, my ability to see spirit and totem animals came into its own. I was able to see each persons animal work with them, almost in the way daemons are portrayed in Phillip Pullman's books. I think that is how I'll write about the group this evening.

My Healing Touch mentor is the coordinator of the group. She has a Crow with her, and sometimes a mouse and turtle. Most often I see the Crow with her. She has the most amazing and healing home, nurtured and cared for over many years to bring it to what it is today. An expert herbalist, nurse, homeopath and light worker, this healing and nurturing presence came into my life at just the right time, as did all of the rest. She reminds me of my mother in several ways. She is now a Healing Touch instructor in training.

There is the Elk, a kind and gentle man with a quiet strength. He has studied qigong for several years and provided me with a two hour session this past Sunday. He is a remarkable, compassionate healer.

The Deer is the gentle, huggable massage therapist who is surrounded by a bevy of spirits and guides who like to talk a lot. Her text messages and emails seem to come at just the right time. No other massage therapist has made me feel so relaxed and cared for.

The founder of the group, the Cat, previously given the appellation of Grandmother Oak, is feisty and caring, always taking care of others it seems.

The diminutive powerhouse with her Whale totem and spirit dog Rex is one of the most powerful people with whom I have worked, and was described as such by Grandmother Willow. I have gotten cards from her almost every other week since Mama died.

The Woodpecker is a joy and so very maternal -- straightforward and unflinchingly compassionate.

The Goose is new to the group, having just completed Level One. She's asked to work with me, which is humbling.

The Raccoon is the youngest member of the group with an as yet untamed, eager energy.

The Snake is a tall elder, having trained in Healing Touch with Grandmother Willow at the beginning of the program. Often times I will see her as her former Masai warrior self.

Her husband, the Badger, I believe to be a Druid from a previous life.

The Sea Gull is ever eager and full of energy.

The Lynx is the shaman I was looking for, the person with whom I've been working since ending my sessions with Vincenza. She is a truly remarkable medicine woman who I am beginning to know better.

The Mouse who will become the Lion is also new and a great source of incoherent energy, for the moment.

The Otter has no boundaries and is loving playfulness.

There are others whose presence comes and goes from month to month, but these are the core individuals at present. Many I've known in previous lives -- lives that I continue to discover more about. I know that these people have been holding my family and me in the light for several months now. I believe it has made all the difference.

Monday

2011-11-21T15:39:00.001-05:00

I'm finding it difficult not to be in a melancholy state today, especially this afternoon. As Thanksgiving rapidly approaches, the prospect of going home and my mother not being in that kitchen...well, it just rips and tears at my insides. The disbelief is still ever present. How is this even real? In the last few days, I've found myself thinking more and more about calling her. The prospect of the coming weeks with Thanksgiving and Christmas just looms before me. I've no idea how I'm going to survive this. All of a sudden, everything is freshly reopened and more painful. While I am so very grateful for all of the wonderful holiday memories I have, including our trip to NYC last year at this time, they all sting now, and I'm finding it very difficult to keep it together.

Words I'm trying to remember this week

2011-11-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

Grief is the way that loss heals.

Sometimes the very things that threaten our life may strengthen the life within us.

...often we discover the place in us that carries the light only after it has become dark. Sometimes it is only in the dark that we know the value of this place. But there is a place in everyone that can carry the light.

In the depths of every wound we have survived is the strenth we need to live. The wisdom our wounds can offer us is a place of refuge. Finding this is not for the faint of heart. But then, neither is life.

Taking refuge does not mean hiding from life. It means finding a place of strength, the capacity to live the life we have been given with greater courage and sometimes even with gratitude.

Sometimes a wound is the place where we encounter life for the first time, where we come to know its power and its ways. Wounded, we may find a wisdom that will enable us to live better than any knowledge and glimpse a view of ourselves and of life that is both true and unexpected.

I always knew what mattered. I just never felt entitled to live by it before.

~Rachel Naomi Remen

Walking wounded

2011-11-19T21:23:00.000-05:00

Just when you think the visceral pain of your grief shan't rear its ugly head again, you find yourself spending most of the day clutching your chest and choking out tears. It starts with the nightly dreams of Mama, waking up to realize that, yes, this is the new reality -- she's not here. You go to collect the ingredients for the upcoming holiday meal, finding that you're walking more and more slowly. You can't remember what is on your list; your focus is split between your memories of her and the ghost of Thanksgiving past and trying to maintain your composure long enough to finish the task and get out of the store with completely losing it. You wail in the car driving back to a place that is not home, not even sure where that destination, home, is anymore. There are intermittent crying spells throughout the course of the day, in between binge-eating -- trying to fill that empty shell so that it won't hurt so much. You realize that you spend the week pretending during your day-to-day and saving up the sorrow for the weekends and privacy. You wonder if you'll survive the coming weeks, desperate to get through yet wanting to avoid the holidays and the new year at all costs. How can you possibly endure these without your mother? How do people do it? How do they go on after something like this? How are there so many walking wounded?

A rant

2011-11-15T11:15:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm really getting tired of the stupid shit people say regarding my mother's death, particularly when they compare to what they have experienced in their life and especially when their mother is still alive. I'm sorry, but it's not the same. It's not even the same for my brothers and I, so how do figure it's the same between the two of us. And, okay, you were close to your step-mother, I get that. But only for the half a dozen years she was married to your father, not your entire life. You really don't know what the connection I had with my mother felt like to me or still feels like. You just can't compare these things. You were seeing my relationship with her from the outside. AND considering the death of your stepmother is the one and only loss you've experienced thus far and I, unfortunately, have more funereal experience than most my age, certainly you...just don't make comparisons. Please, just shut up. Don't try to normalize this. You're not helping. Just let it be. THIS is the reason I'm cocooning these days and only reaching to people who I feel might better understand and, also, who do just let it be.

Stepping off soapbox now; going to find a cookie.

Maternal magic

2011-11-13T18:14:00.000-05:00

Right now, I feel very heavy and terribly miss my mother. As the hours tick away before my interview tomorrow, I wish that I could call her up and hear her say those magic words, "everything's gonna work out."

Mother's have magic over us, whether we admit to it or not. The simplest of phrases from them can change so very much. One would think that the woo would allow me to connect to her, but I fear that I am too anxious -- the extra perceptions are down.

I've been bawling my eyes out for most of the evening and feel quite helpless and childlike. Mothers hold so much sway and power of presence. When that presence is physically gone, you are adrift.

A list

2011-11-13T14:48:00.000-05:00

My blogging has waned as of late. To be fair, it's always been kind of cyclical. As I've said before, I always seem to have fabulous posts bopping around in my head and have the best of intentions in getting them into the blogosphere. If there was an app for making that happen.

Anyway, here's a stream-of-conscious list of my bopping brain at present.

~My interview tomorrow has me nervous and a little queasy. I don't want to fuck it up. But four months out from my mother's death, it's very hard for me to get hyped up about anything really.

~It's unfathomable to me that my mom died four months ago. First, I still cannot get my head around her death period. Second, it feels like yesterday, today, four months ago and four years ago all at the same time. Finally, as instanced by the last statement, time itself is now also foreign, as is the world.

~And as we rapidly approach the holiday season, it feels even more so.

~Made a one-pot meal sauté of beans and greens for lunch, which was yummy.

~I really, really miss Mama.

~My brain has kinda stopped bopping now, other than the nagging thoughts of prepping for tomorrow: going over my presentation a few more times, reviewing the list of people I'm meeting, thinking up questions to ask them and answers for their questions, and mentally and emotionally putting my grief aside for twelve hours. That last one is harder than some might think.

In other news

2011-11-10T15:31:00.001-05:00

Had my first of two phone interviews this afternoon, with the big all-day interview this coming Monday. Today I talked about my work with students, what I could teach and my potential international research interests. Onward!

The bear went over the mountain

2011-11-10T13:18:00.001-05:00

Healing Touch has formally been a part of my life since 2006 when I first stepped into the Level One classroom. What started out as simple curiousity became more of a way of being and a set of tools and philosophy in a conscious journey toward wholeness. Much has changed in my during the past five years since beginning this journey -- the most profound and life-altering change being the death of my mother this past July.

While she was in the hospital, I offered Healing Touch to her as supportive care. My thought at the time was to simply provide comfort, despite the terminal nature of her diagnosis. There is a specific technique in Healing Touch, and learned in Level One, for life transitions, specifically end of life. Though my thoughts were on comfort, my unintentional intention kept repeating this technique in my head. Within minutes of finishing and her thanking me, she went into cardiac arrest. As the crash team worked on her and stood trembling and crying in the corridor, I felt her leave and the world changed. Though they got her body restarted and "alive" for another 12 hours, I knew in that instance that she had made her transition, no matter what the monitors read.

For weeks and months afterward, I felt guilty and responsible -- that I had done something wrong. My Healing Touch skills and abilities left me. The woo was gone, too. And for a time, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. It had let me down; it had betrayed me. And the process I had lost the most important person in my life. It took time for me allow that part of my life to come back -- reconnect with my mother in a new way. I fought it tooth and nail because I didn't want to accept the reality; I couldn't. Acknowledging my mother as spirit made it all real. It wasn't until I left my work with Vincenza and began working with my friend and healer that I was willing to allow that part of my life back in.

Still, my hands wouldn't hold energy and the woo was hit and miss. I continued to worry about the place for all of this in my life and my place in that realm of things. I cancelled my Level Five registration, postponing my certification process indefinitely, perhaps even completely. I had felt for so long that this healing journey and what it brought was part of my purpose in this life, my calling. My mother had felt that way, too. But as with everything else in my life -- every single thing -- after her death I knew nothing but uncertainty. Would it come back? Had I done all that I was meant to do? Had I misused it? I didn't have the answer. Those in my Healing Touch circle kept talking about the blessing of what I did. I couldn't see that way. How was the work that I had done a blessing for me? I decided, finally, to repeat Level One. Surrounded by my instructor, my mentor and many from my Healing Touch circle, I felt that going back to the basics in a heart-centered, healing space would allow me to know what to do next. That took place this past weekend.

The weekend went better than I thought it would, though it was not easy. And there is still much to process. The good news is that my hands are back and my extra sense are revving back up. Whilst in the space over the weekend, those senses were all systems go. As that state has waned over the past few days, these have become a little less active. But that is okay. Something that one of the participants said during the class really struck me: all care starts with self-care. So simple. Not a revelation. But somehow, I heard it differently this time. To maintain all of that extra, and the essential, I must care for me. That is why the weekends leading up to my interview this coming Monday and Thanksgiving intentionally have been left open on my schedule for some me time. Over the past weekend and since, I have done some work for myself and some extra self-care beyond the daily routine. It's a restart and a new start.

Since this weekend I've an image of pieces to a three-dimensional puzzle. Well, not so much a puzzle as a sphere, a glass sphere. I feel like the heat of change and transition alters the sphere -- sometimes expanding it and sometimes contracting it. Only that true heat can do that. When things get too hot, it breaks. When life really gets messy, it shatters. When that happens, you can't put it back together the way that it was before -- the shapes of the pieces are foreign, different. That's how it's felt since Mama died -- I'm left with this broken thing to put back together again. And some of the pieces that I trusted, that were so essential and relied upon, seemed almost too challenging to reintegrate, like Healing Touch. I was so afraid that this way of being that so resonates with me -- that could continue to help me to heal, move through the transition and toward wholeness -- would be taken from me, too. Now I truly know that this piece is not lost and will provide me with some structure before the heat of the next transition changes the glass again. I don't know if that makes any sense; it's just how I see it.

And the title of the post? In the past year, I've developed the ability to see spirit and totem animals associated with people. During the class this past weekend, I shared the information I received with the others. The instructor told me that she sees me as a bear. At first I thought of bears in the gay community, but then remembered the representative qualities of bears as totems. The strength of Bear medicine is introspection and about using that introspection to achieve one's dreams and goals. And traveling to the workshop required me to travel over the Blue Ridge Mountains that separate C'ville from the Shennadoah Valley.

There is more to share about this past weekend as I continue to process. In the meantime I am taking the me time to do so.

The polls

2011-11-08T15:44:00.001-05:00

This morning I thought about going to the polls with Mama on Election Day when I was a child. The antiquated, double phone booth-sized voting machines that were always covered and lined up at the front door of my elementary school would be rolled into the library, awaiting the voters. School was closed on Election Day then and Mama would take me with her to vote early in the morning on her way to work and before dropping me off at my grandmother's.

I clearly can visualize the school library, even from before I was student there. Walking down the block-walled corridor of the school, holding her hand. Waiting patiently by the over sized gazetteer as a neighbor who served as a poll worker signed her in, and then waiting again as she voted. Watching as she stepped into the machine, pulling the lever that shrouded her decision in secrecy with a dark curtain. Emerging again flashing her signature smile and good-natured humor. Bidding farewell to the poll workers inside and the electioneers outside, off to my grandmother's and safe with my young mother.

I can't recall her ever missing an Election Day. Even on year like this year when only local decisions were being made, Mama voted. I so admired her for that, even as a child. Your civic duty and responsibility, I was told. I looked forward to the day when I could finally step into that machine, pull that lever and find out what it was all about.

Mama always called to make sure I voted as an adult. I know that in any other year, we would have been talking on the phone this evening, talking about the local elections in Hamlet and how so-and-so was a horse's ass and she'd never vote 'em. But not this year. I'll call my dad this evening -- not necessarily because it is Election Day but because I've not spoken with him since Friday. Without your mother, even something banal like a local election is never the same.

Wednesday

2011-10-26T19:26:00.002-04:00

Dr. Mavis is on her way to her mother who is in hospital.

My sister-in-law's great-grandmother is in hospital.

Still so many questions

2011-10-25T20:06:00.000-04:00

I just got off the phone with my dad. He told me how last night, at Denephew's football game, the Little Master reached for my sister-in-law's stepfather instead of my dad after the game. It really hurt his feelings. He said that once they were all together, it felt like he and my youngest brother weren't even there anymore, that they just faded into the background. So they left. He and my youngest brother have been going to almost all of my nephew's sporting events since my mom died. She always went. And when she was there, both nephew's gravitated to her, especially the Little Master. And he has always been my dad's "boy." But now it's all different.

I know that he is a little kid, just three years old. I know that we all have our off nights and that assumptions are made. And I know that we're all still so raw these days that even the slightest of things are magnified. But you know me and the way my mind works. It's all or nothing. And so I now worry that my family is slowly and steadily falling apart. I know, from one incident, right? And I feel like it is up to me to keep it all together. It must all be perfect, despite the fact that it never was or was going to be. And it sure as hell can't be now with my mom.

I don't know how to navigate this world. I just don't. I don't want to. No one wants to. I still have so much anger and it is still directed at her. I don't want that either.

I don't know what to do. And I keep forgetting that it's not up to me, that I can't fix this or make it better.

Running on empty

2011-10-24T16:21:00.002-04:00

It's strange when we hold to things that hurt us -- relationships, addictions, emotions. In some instances, letting go means leaving behind something so very familiar and real. If it is gone, what takes its place? As long as it's there -- let's say an emotion -- you feel something. If it's not, you're numb and blank, feeling nothing at all. That's where I find myself these days: clinging to grief and pain so that I can at least feel something. When it's not ever-present in my mind, when I'm not consumed by despair or melancholy at the loss of my mother, then I'm left with space, vastness. And not in a room-to-breathe kind of way; there's a void. It makes it all the more real and surreal simultaneously. You wonder at the progression of things. You still can't get your head around it. Surely she's going to call me any minute now. I still keep waiting for her call. It makes feeling good about simple things -- like crossing tasks off a list -- seem strange. Every little thing, you want to tell her about it. Even the simple stuff like answering all of your work-related emails. You're more aware of how strange life really is in the first person, how odd it seems to be watching this dramatic dream in front of you. More and more, you feel like everything is just an illusion, fleeting. You function most days. Sometimes you actually have a so-called "good day." But no matter how the day goes -- what you eat, what you say, who you see or spend time with -- you realize, several times during the course of that 24 hour period, that you're really just running on empty -- in a way that you never understand before and shall never forget now. It sounds maudlin, but it's the truth. You've a new lens through which you view the world, bending the light in a different, unexpected way. And you feel like you're waiting for something.

Curses

2011-10-20T11:00:00.001-04:00

At noon I'm meant to be giving a guest lecture about stress reduction using mind-body therapies, specifically Healing Touch. In practice group this week my hands didn't work. I felt nothing with them and felt no energy coming out of them. I couldn't even hold space for more than a minute or two. I've no clue what I will be talking about today, which makes no sense given that I've already given lectures on such before, including a three-hour lecture a couple of weeks ago. This is only for two hours. Of course, doing well today would be good for my upcoming interview. Meanwhile, I feel that I look all chubby and schlubby. And, naturally, fat. Let's not forget fat. This is going to be just great.

Whatevs

2011-10-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

Today Twitter suggested I follow the Actor. He describes himself in his profile as "always genuine" and "a great plus one." Right.

Update

2011-10-18T13:36:00.001-04:00

Just got off the phone with the director of the integrative medicine center in the Twin City about the one-year research position. They definitely want someone to start in January, which just isn't feasible given my current position. But she is keeping my information on file because she does want to collaborate with me in the future and support my research career.

I'm tired...

2011-10-18T12:06:00.001-04:00

Of being made to feel like a leper.

Of being met with platitudes and cliches every single day.

Of being physically and emotionally exhausted.

Of pretending I'm okay so that those around me don't look at me like I'm a freak.

Of being made to feel that I should be okay.

Of not understanding how people don't get it.

Of trying to do the math in my head and solve the inequality of my life now that my mother is gone.

Of being expected to take care of everyone else, to do everything right and not getting back a modicum of the same in return.

Of having to set an example.

Of having to be productive and play the game.

Of not knowing who am I or who I'm supposed to be now and in the years to come.

Of feeling utterly alone at times.

Of trying to express myself and failing to get across the severity of the trauma that still has me reeling.

Of remembering the images in my head of my mother's last hours.

Of watching a world go by that doesn't care that the most important person in my life -- the best part of me -- is gone.

Monday

2011-10-17T11:53:00.001-04:00

~As of last week, I have been approved for the rank of Assistant Professor (non-tenure) as single course faculty. I've an interview for a tenure-track position here next month. Those two words change things, if only slightly. When working on a letter of application for the one-year research position in the Twin City, I feel stupid putting that rank under my signature for a one year position. It just seems odd.

~My brother got his promotion. He and my sister-in-law are talking about going out of town the weekend after Thanksgiving as they have done the past two years. It upsets me that they would thing about such this year, given that it will be the first Thanksgiving without Mama. But trying to guilt them into not going isn't right. And it's not as if I would really see them that much over that weekend anyway. I feel so passive-aggressive and lame.

~I overheard my grandmother telling the same brother that he and I need to lose weight. Then when I walk into the room, she offers me something to eat, all while she stood by the patio door smoking. I already felt porcine enough. This just made it all stick.

~I need to go clothes shopping because (a) I feel that I should dress a bit more snappy with the new rank--see how those two words change things--and (b) because my trousers don't fit. Lovely.

~When I think about Thanksgiving, I almost lose my shit. I don't know what it means to the rest of my family, but to me, it's has been my mom and me in the kitchen together. We had a flow about the way we prepared the meal and it was quality time. It was exhausting and all of that, but it was ours. I don't know that I want to do it without her. The so-called holidays are going suck big time this year.

~I don't want anything for Christmas.

~And take it as fair warning that my birthday is not to be acknowledged at all until further notice. And I mean AT ALL. No cards. No presents. No mention of it full stop.

A thousand words

2011-10-13T19:32:00.000-04:00

Peeing in my pants

2011-10-13T13:54:00.001-04:00

Despite the day starting out in a way that might have had it ending as a total cock up, the dynamic of the day has completely changed.

This morning the engine light came on in my car. I hate car trouble, of any kind. This stems from driving the Keeping-It-Real Mobile in undergrad and all of the various and sundry issues with that auto. So I am loathe to have any issues with cars. But I just got off the phone with the Toyota place and it's only a minor repair that's only $150. Phew.

Of course, after dealing with the engine light this morning, I arrived at the office late and in a foul mood. The weather isn't helping and this week just hasn't been as good as last week. There has been increased melancholy and grief stuff. So I figured that my session with my healer this afternoon wasn't going to be good. But I've also been on the phone with one of the Healing Touch folks in the Twin City about the research position there, letting me know that my name is in the mix. And I've not even applied yet. Then I get an email that my rank here as single course faculty has been promoted to Assistant Professor. It's a non-tenure position, but still. To me it's weird in the way that being called doctor is weird. For a little boy who grew up in Appalachia, it's just mind-boggling and hard to explain.

It's also bittersweet, as so many things for the rest of my days will be.

Praying

2011-10-10T14:05:00.001-04:00

I spoke with my dad about an hour ago. My grandfather is back in his room in the hospital after having the endoscopy but is still unconscious. The nurses said that he did okay but my dad said that he sounded awful. My dad didn't sound as optimistic as he has the past few days. Now I'm in a mild state of panic, wondering what is going to happen and kicking myself (already) for not going down there this past weekend. If anything bad happens, I'll never forgive myself.

Notes on a Monday

2011-10-10T11:00:00.001-04:00

1. Original Mavis was here this past weekend. We spent the day in DC on Saturday and about town yesterday. Despite all of the kidding and off-color humor, I do hope she enjoyed herself and that it was a brief respite from the stresses of her daily life.

2. It's one of those days. I don't want to be in the office. In fact, I wouldn't mind being back in my bed with the covers over my head. After a week and a half of feeling relatively okay, for something it all just arrived again this morning. I'm melancholy, verging on magenta. Seems the old spectres were just waiting around for the grief to become more manageable. Great.

3. I feel exceedingly plump today and must go purchase some trousers this evening. I am not looking forward to that, at all.

4. You know, it's just one of those days when I want to be left alone and just go sit somewhere -- the side of a mountain, the beach -- somewhere outside alone.

5. I feel as though I've not been a very good friend to a lot of people in the past three months, my lesbian wife and her lesbian wife in particular.

6. Writing number 5 made me realize that Mama went into the hospital three months ago today. Maybe that's what some of this is all about.

7. My grandfather is still in the hospital. He could have gone home on Saturday but that wanted to do endoscopy today to check for any bleeding. So rather than leave and come back, he made the decision to stay.

8. I just want to run off to the top of a mountain.

9. Or take a nap.

10. I really miss my mom today.

A bit more wiseness

2011-10-07T15:12:00.001-04:00

Several posts ago, I put forth three things that I have discovered in this transition period following my mother's death. Here I offer three more that have coalesced in the past week. Again, take them for what you wish. All of it is easy to say. It isn't always easy to do. My intent in putting these words out into the ether of the interwebs is that someone might find them useful.

~Accept and be. People gonna talk shit. There is always going to be someone who doesn't like you. Just don't let that shit-talking hater be you. It doesn't matter what others say to you or about. What is important is what you say about you and to yourself. It sounds so cliche. Some things do.

~Be in a space of allow. Healing happens when you allow it. Life happens when you allow it. If you keep the curtains drawn 24/7, you're making sure that the light can't get in.

~Awareness will only get you so far. For something to happen, you gotta move. A lot of times -- perhaps most times -- we don't move until we're pushed, sometimes completely out of our comfort zone, our nest. But at some point, we must fledge.

Thursday

2011-10-06T11:14:00.001-04:00

My grandfather is in hospital with pneumonia. It appears to have been caught pretty quickly. He had no other symptoms than a cough, which precipitated my grandmother taking him to the ER because the cough was producing blood. This isn't surprising because he is on anti-coagulants. My last update was last night, and at that point he was in relatively good spirits, getting fluids, not running a fever or anything, and complaining that they hadn't brought him any salt with his dinner. I'm hoping that he will be treated and out of the hospital soon.

I'm debating about whether I should go down there this weekend. I had already planned to go next weekend and all I could do while he is in the hospital is be present. That might be a comfort to him and grandmother, and it might not. I say debating because Original Mavis has been planning a trip to visit me here in C'ville for while, and she too deserves a respite from family illness and strife. Selfishly I want to wait to visit my family next weekend as planned, but I don't want to appear selfish. I need to make a decision today. I know that Mavis will understand either way. I don't want to be an alarmist either and I've spent so much time away from work in the past three months already.

This is all very frustrating.

Blue jays

2011-10-05T13:26:00.001-04:00

Okay, so the week that Mama died we all spent a lot of time on the back deck at my grandparents. From the day she died, through the present, I've been surrounded by blue jays. In fact, that week the trees in the backyard were FULL of jays. The trees almost looked blue. I figured it was a good animal rep for Mama because they're blue (her favorite color), loud (enough said) and jays (the names of my dad, brothers, grandmother and I begin with that letter). I've been reading about blue jay totems given that they are still around me. Here are a few tidbits.

"...For those to whom the jay comes as a toem, it can relfect lessons in using your own power properly...The word "jay" come from the Latin "gaia"...which has associations with Mother Earth...the ability to link the heavens and earth, to access each for greater power. The black and white markings found on it blue wings also reflect this same ability...This is a totem that can move between [Heaven and earth] and tap the primal energies at either level...Those with a jay as a totem usually have a tremendous amount of ability...especially in the psychic and metaphysical field...The bright blue crest of the jay should always be a reminder that to wear the crown of true mastership requires dedication, responsbility, and committed development in all things in the physical and the spiritual...The blue jay reflects that a time of greater resourcefulness and adaptability is about to unfold. You are going to have ample opportunities to develop and use your abilities...The jay...can help you to connect with the deepest mysteries of the earth and the greatest of the heavens...If a jay has flown into your life, it indicates that you are moving into a time where you can begin to develop the innate royalty that is within you..."

ps. There's a loud blue jay outside my office window as I write this.

Wednesday

2011-10-05T10:42:00.001-04:00

This evening I meant to lecture on energy healing therapies for a course in complementary and integrative medicine. I given this lecture for the past two years in this course, as well as an abbreviated version for another course in resiliency. But today I'm nervous.

As part of lecture, I lead the class through some very basic Healing Touch techniques and make it more discussion-based from the viewpoint of scientist and practitioner. Given my current relationship with the woo, I wonder how this evening's session is going to go.

Will I still be engaging? This is the one lecture the students seem to really dig and I'm sure my enthusiasm and ease with the subject matter facilitates some of that.

Will I become tearful? I don't know if I should preface the lecture with a brief explanation of my bereaved state, or just see what happens. Right now, I'm okay. But I don't know what will happen if and when the woo starts flowing.

Will it work? Will I wield woo? I think I'm most worried about that. I'm kinda scared to do my preparatory meditations because I don't know what is going to happen, if anything.

I've got six hours to figure it out.

Not bad for a Monday

2011-10-04T09:26:00.001-04:00

Found out yesterday that:

(a) Mama was approved for retroactive full Medicaid coverage, which is a huge burden lifted from my family and me; and

(b) I've been invited for to interview for a full-time faculty position here.

Skinny, svelte, fluffy and fat

2011-10-03T10:15:00.001-04:00

Those are the clothing categories I usually have in my closet -- a range of sizes, mostly in trousers, for my ever-changing shape. I say that I usually have these categories because at present, I only have the first three. Last year's weightloss prompted the ceremonial tossing of the largest sizes in my fat category. My thinking was that I would not need them any longer. I was working on me, emotionally and mentally, and that would make room for work on me physically and, yadda yadda yadda, I would be skinny and svelte again, with a preference toward svelte.

Well, that was all bollocks.

Now I'm teetering on the verge of not fitting into the fluffy category, which leaves me with few pairs of trousers to wear. Sigh. And so one must go shopping, and not for the sizes one would want. In other words, I've got to restock the fat category, for now.

ps. And why is it that I cling to items in the skinny category that are, at this point, three to four sizes too small? And that I've not worn in ten years? Ack. Just writing that makes me want to raid the cafe downstairs for a cookie. Damn you, comfort food.

99%

2011-10-02T15:53:00.001-04:00

Mama's at work

2011-09-30T10:15:00.001-04:00

Seems as though I'm not the only for whom Mama might be pulling strings. My youngest brother has been at his new job now for several weeks, successfully integrating himself. And I received a text from my other brother yesterday afternoon letting me know that he has an interview for a new position in Hamlet, which would decrease his commute and stress considerably, and might increase his income a bit. Whilst walking through the lobby this morning, after talking to a colleague on the bus about faculty positions here, the song playing in the cafe gave me pause in the elevator and made me think of Mama -- Monica's For You I Will.

Eloquence from Alan

2011-09-29T19:51:00.000-04:00

So very true.

Rant

2011-09-29T12:10:00.001-04:00

Okay, so in the last 15 months:

My dad was in an out of the ICU twice with life-threatening conditions.

The Actor dumped me in between these two hospital stays, breaking my heart.

Several extended relatives and friends died.

I began to experience a major episode of depression precipitated by the preceding, though it was a long time coming and I had 30 years of shit to really start working through.

All of this was just in time for a health scare for both my grandfather and grandmother, as well as a job search in a shit economy because my funding was running out in a few months time.

Then tack on the increased stress of yet another health scare for my grandfather.

Follow up that with a third and even more distressing health scare for my grandfather, coupled with my mother losing her job and both of my parents losing their health insurance.

Keep piling on the stress of trying to find myself a job, working through my depression and worrying about my parents physically and financially, with an increasing concern for my mother.

Add in even more stress and anxiety about my mother's health when she began exhibiting more distressing physical and emotional symptoms, not forgetting the work on the depression that, to be perfectly frank, pushed me into suicidal territory more than once during the same 15 month time period.

Now, cap all of this off with the most distressing 36 hours of my life when my mother was hospitalized and suddenly and unexpectedly died, in front of me, and compound that with all of the normal stress following any loss, plus the stress, pain and grief of such a tragic loss AND all of the seemingly endless financial issues that continue to arise for my family when, again, I need to be looking for another job, while more relatives and friends die, experience loss or lay on their deathbed.

So, I'm sorry if I'm not happy enough for you or if you don't feel like I'm getting the help that I need, if I'm too sad or depressed or withdrawn. Forgive me if my loss and grief don't measure up to the gold standard you've set based on your own personal experience, which apparently was far worse than mine is, was or ever will be. Excuse me if my mind wanders, I can't remember shit and I'm tired all of the time. So sorry that I'm not up to my previous level of production around here, even though I still run circles around most.

Maybe I should just go get a happy pill, though it would make you happier than me. Or maybe I should just be old fashioned and drink.

2011-09-29T10:55:00.001-04:00

Yep, pretty much everyone in my daily life just wants me to take a pill and be happy. Nice.

The list is getting much shorter

2011-09-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

You know what is worse than friends who can't be bothered during a time of bereavement? Relatives. Specifically I'm talking about some of my dad's siblings (one in particular) who can't be bothered to call or email to check on him, let alone the rest of us, after an initial card reading "do not hesitate to call if you need anything," and who don't have the decency to respond to calls and emails when their brother needs them the most. How fucking pathetic.

Oh and the list in the post title refers to those who (a) really give a damn about my family and (b) will receive similar courtesy from me in the future. Everyone else will be on the receiving end of a big dose of real and instructed as to exactly where they can fucking put it.

SNAFU

2011-09-28T15:28:00.001-04:00

Why is that people who should get it -- it being the impact of my mother's death -- just don't?

A co-worker was just by my office talking about the fast-approaching holidays and how that should be something to look forward to? Are you kidding me? This same person is older and has lost both parents and a sibling. Granted, all different circumstances from mine. But really? I'm closing in on the three month mark on Mama's death, still not believing that such words can come out of my mouth, but the holidays are meant to cheer me up? Right.

I know that my nephews expect the holidays. All little kids do. They may not get why all or most of the grown-ups will be weepy. Damn, some of the grown-ups don't get that. When I asked what we were going to do about Thanksgiving this past weekend, my grandmother looked at me like I was crazy. "What do you mean? Ain't we havin' Thanksgivin'?" She wants everything to be same, though "the same" at Thanksgiving has been different every year since my paternal grandmother died eight years ago. I'm sure my grandmother will expect her sister and extended relatives to be there. I know that my dad, my brothers and I would rather they not. My dad says my grandmother "just doesn't get it." But we've no idea what her grief is like, having lost her only child.

My dad doesn't want the tree put out at Christmas and told me he wants no gifts for himself at all because he can't afford to buy anything for anyone else. Mama did all of that. And where and how she came up with the money will remain a mystery. I'm not sure what my brothers want. I'm not even sure what I want. Since the Death and Destruction Tour, the holidays have not been the same at all. Now they've been completely obliterated. But I'm supposed to be looking forward to them, apparently.

I guess I should talk to my brothers and sister-in-law about all of this, though I'm sure they don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to talk about it.

It really is a SNAFU: situation normal -- all fucked up.

Window

2011-09-26T23:08:00.000-04:00

An email was forwarded to me today about a one-year postdoctoral fellowship for conducting Healing Touch research in the Twin City. I was consumed with other work today to really give it a lot of thought. I suppose I should apply, because I would be perfect for such a position. So why am I hesitant? It's Healing Touch. It's in the Twin City. But it's only one year, period. What would happen after that? And I don't know how much I trust the universe these days to take care of me, or my ability to do Healing Touch anymore. But, then again, my lesbian wife told me recently that she was amazed at the number of doors that opened for her professionally following her mother's death. Perhaps Mama is up there tinkering. I guess it can't hurt to apply. If they need someone before next June, it wouldn't work anyway. Who's to say they would even offer it to me? But I can't pass up any opportunities. You never know how things are going to work out. So I guess I'll be putting together a packet tomorrow and sending it out.

In case you were wondering

2011-09-22T14:31:00.001-04:00

I still find it impossible to believe that my mother has died and I find myself breaking down at least a bit almost every day, with some days being much worse than others. For that not to happen, I have to be distracted by something almost constantly. Unfortunately, work doesn't do that, despite all that needs to be or could be done around here.

I just can't get my head around it all. It feels like the most unnatural thing and doesn't compute at all.

And there is still a mountain of guilt and regret. And I want to talk about it all and I don't want to talk about it all.

I still feel as though this all can't be happening and I will wake up from this horrible nightmare any moment now....any moment now.

Quel treat encore

2011-09-22T13:36:00.001-04:00

And now I've been asked to help plan a holiday party/baby shower at work. Where's a bowl full of gin when you need it?

Quel treat

2011-09-22T11:29:00.001-04:00

Guess what I've been doing this morning? Reviewing a manuscript about quality of life following cancer treatment. Thanks, universe. You suck.

A difficult day gets worse

2011-09-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

I just realized that, despite the fact that I was there the whole time and made sure everyone else had the opportunity to do so, I didn't take my chance to say good-bye to Mama before she died.

Notes on a Tuesday

2011-09-20T14:56:00.001-04:00

1. This morning's session with Vincenza was my last session with her. After last week's session and a lot of thinking on my part, I feel that she and I have done all of the work that we can together, at least for the moment. I want to try some new things and new directions. Perhaps now might not be the best time to switch horses, but it feels right. Once I had made the decision on Friday after arriving in the Port City, I had an email from my integrative life coach and friend who was checking in to see how I was doing. So I will now be working with her on a more regular basis.

2. If you're thinking that Vincenza's suggestion of the medication is the reason why I decided to end that working relationship, you're half right, but only in regard to the fact that she and I had had that discussion before, at length. So that fed into feelings that I was no longer being heard and understood. Now, I'm going to be putting my education and research into practice and use a mind-body approach to self-care and wellness. I know, I've said that before. But the world is different now. There truly is no one to take care of me. In guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I've always believed that my mom would step in. That's not going to happen now. If you want to talk swallowing pills, that's a bitter one indeed.

3. Healing Touch practice group starts up again this evening after the summer hiatus. I'm finally at a point of not only being open to receiving body work again, but also wanting to receive body work again. However, I am not ready to give any Healing Touch at present. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get over this in the next couple of weeks because I'm meant to lecture on the topic by that time.

4. I also intend to return to my acupuncturist, support my body and mind nutritionally, return to yoga, and use aromatherapy, homeopathy and music therapy to help me move toward wholeness.

5. I've purchased a language class voucher through Living Social and plan to take a class in January. Not sure if I'm going to brush up my French speaking skills or expand into Italian.

6. And I new pottery place has opened up here in C'ville, finally. So hopefully I will be in a wheel throwing class in November.

7. Mind you, I still feel a bit guilty about trying to have a life again and trying even harder now following my mom's death.

8. The wedding this weekend in the Port City...well, I felt totally out of place and like a leper. And I was already getting upset with myself before I got there, for a variety of reasons including the fact that the suit I bought in April of this year barely fits at this point. That does not make me happy. So I made my apologies, left the wedding, changed my clothes and went to the beach, where I walked in surf, crying, talking to my mom and cussing at God.

Frustration

2011-09-14T21:03:00.000-04:00

For about a week now and definitely since therapy this week, I've been extremely frustrated. As I said, I went into this week's session feeling like people were tired of dealing with me and my grief/sadness/depression/whatever. But who wouldn't be frustrated with all of the mixed signals given by the majority of people in one's life.

Be gentle with yourself, I'm told. So I think, "okay, I'm got some latitude to feel the way that I feel, not beat myself up about it and people are gonna cut me some slack." Uh, no. I should feel this way but not that way. I'm allowed to feel this way for a certain period of time, which I have surpassed. And now it's time for me to move on.

Apparently, my reaction to my mother just up and dying in the 36 hours and going into cardiac arrest in front of me just shouldn't hurt this much or be this sad. I guess what I've gone through and continue to deal with do not justify the way that I feel, and certainly are not cause for depression or guilt. And while what I'm saying or doing is wrong, everyone else has carte blanche to expound upon any bullshit cliché they like, especially when they have absolutely no idea what this loss might feel like.

So, just when the shock and numbness begin to wear off and the reality of life without my mother starts to sink in, revealing a vast amount of sadness and pain, that's when everyone gets bored or on their high horse. I guess two months after a sudden, tragic, life-altering death is just too long in the grief department.

Time for a change?

2011-09-14T13:28:00.001-04:00

I'm thinking of finding a new therapist.

After yesterday's session, I came away feeling like I had been told that I was grieving incorrectly. It pissed me off. Of course, like a good little scientist, I start gathering data and getting people's reactions to the suggestion of medication. Some are all for it and wonder why I've been avoiding it, as I mentioned. Others tell me that I'm doing the work and don't need it.

I also came away with the feeling that I wasn't being heard or understood. I believe grief to be one of the most personal things. How can someone tell you that the way that you feel is not right? Granted, she didn't say that; I heard it that way. Again, it just felt like another person saying, "this is taking too long, you're too sad and I don't know what to do with you." And, again, that's not what she said, but it's what I heard and felt.

It finally dawned on me last night in bed whilst trying to go to sleep. I felt like I was being told, again, that I'm unnatural, that I'm broken. I took what she said as that there is a flaw in me, another one. And when that is your ultimate issue -- feeling unnatural, wrong, broken and flawed -- of course I'm going to react the way that I did, especially when I'm told that certain feelings I'm having are due to my depression and not my grief, or that these should be mutually exclusive.

Does that mean I'm going to take medication? No. I know that it can be a part of the whole process. But most of the people I know use do one or the other -- meds or therapy. And I just don't want to do it. I want to actually try to take care of myself. That means a whole lot of effort of my part. This has been a topic of many posts on this blog since the beginning. But the world is different now in an inexplicable way.

But back to the potential new therapist. There have been a couple of times when I've felt as though I've hit a wall with Vincenza. Maybe we've done all that we can do. I don't know. Before my session next week, I'm coming up with a response to this week's session, to go in with stuff in writing so that I don't forget what I want to say and so that it proves that I'm on task. In the meantime, I'm working on a mind-body, integrative wellness strategy to pull me through this and beyond.

One thing that she said really pissed me off. "You don't want to be like your mother by not taking care of yourself." I guess your therapist thinks they can say whatever he or she wants. It made me angry, but it is true. While I'm saddened and pained by the reality of her absence in the years ahead of me, I'm not ready to curl up and die. We'll see what happens.

The response from Grandmother Willow

2011-09-14T10:42:00.005-04:00

...when you questioned your place in a healing world I can't think of anyone who is more attuned to healing. Just not right now. You have so much to give others, which will help you find yourself as well. Put it on a back burner, accept help if it is offered, maybe go to the [Healing Touch practice] group, those lovely people will be good for your shattered heart. You are wounded. No one would ask you to do healing work if you had had a bad car accident and were undergoing treatment for that. So, get yourself together in your own time. Think of things that brough you joy, music, movies, research, thinking, praying, whatever and fit some of that in as often as possible. So many of us love you and want to help you heal so just ask.

Hold the Light. You are more worthy than most of us and we need you.

The response from the mentor

2011-09-14T10:42:00.003-04:00

I am most grateful for the opportunity to give you feedback....I do absolutely love and respect you as a friend, healer, kindred spirit and wonderful loving presence on this earth. Please hear me when I say that you are a wonderful loving presence on this earth.

...It is not hard to understand your feelings of ambiguity about purpose, path, calling. I feel it must have been such a blow to your vital force to experience your mother's loss so suddenly, to have so many unanswered questions. I think the anger, grief and pain are so to be expected....I know that does not make it any easier. I just is. I have a sense you feel alone in this pain. Please allow others to express their love for you, be open to receiving. Be as kind and gently with yourself as you would want for family, friends, others.

It must not feel like [your mom] had that gentleness in the end but your most loving act of being physically, emotionally and energetically present to her -- I believe in my heart [as] a mother of sons -- was felt by her, must have eased her. I absolutely believe that makes you not responsible for her passing but a loving presence while she passed. What a gift to both of you to love her so and be loved in return.

As I see it there is much reason to allow yourself more time for healing. To not feel the need to make decisions from the place of deep hurt that you are in right now.

I ask of the energetic world this prayer for you...to help you breathe deeply, to feel loved, to feel fully rooted, grounded and present on earth, to heal your heart, to be open to clarity and honor yourself as a loving being.

I absolutely believe you have place in the world of healing. You have many gifts to share...so many gifts to share.

My first Healing Touch teacher...put it so well when she said so often "be in a space of allow."...allow the grief and also allow yourself to feel the love and kindness that is still part of the world.

Out of the woodwork

2011-09-14T10:42:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I got an email from Benjamin. It was in response to a forwarded Living Social deal that I had sent to folks in the Twin City and Gate City, so that didn't necessarily surprise me. He said he wanted to get together soon and catch up. That didn't really surprise me either.

What has surprised me is that he has been put into my path again this year, after months and months, and both times I've been at a breaking/turning point. Granted, the emotional and mental mess I'm dealing with now is completely different than what I was experiencing in March. But before he's popped up, each time I've thought about him periodically for a couple of days beforehand. Even before I sent the initial email, I had thought of him.

I have to admit that the attraction still exists. And I just thought of something wooful that gives me pause at the moment and I'll save for another post.

I've returned his email, informing him of Mama's death but also letting him know that I would like to catch up with him sometime soon, either the next time I'm down there or if he'd like to come up here for a weekend. When I see him, will I tell him how I feel? Yes, I think so. As far as I know, he still identifies as straight, though mutual friends and I believe otherwise, for various reasons.

All I know is how I feel, despite the soup pot of emotions in which I'm simmering currently. I'm still attracted to him and have some amount of amorous feelings toward him. I could tell him and he could respond positively or negatively. But I won't know until I tell him, and life's too short not to tell people how you feel. And to be perfectly honest, I'm not really afraid of rejection anymore, not now. In fact, so many fears are just gone. But that's a topic for another post as well.

The response from the teacher

2011-09-14T10:05:00.001-04:00

You have been a Healer, through many life times.

Beneath the grief, Your LIGHT is so very bright.

Hold on, my Dear One.

I suggest you begin to meditate, and simply observe, your process.

Embrace your tears, despair, and grief.

Listen.

Try to sit in the silence for whatever length of time you can muster up.

Tell any demons which haunt you, to simply go away.

They do not serve your highest good.

You must tell them this.

The dark night of the Soul is a rite of passage, and I know you cannot clearly see your way.

Move back into your heart where your mother has left for you, her wisdom.

Find her knowledge there.

She planted it deep into the chambers...and you must go looking.

You may not be able to consciously know...but your soul will receive her teachings.

Trust this.

She has gone into another dimension, as it was her choice to do so. Bless her journey, forward. Do not look back.

She is bathing you with shimmering salve of a different kind, to teach you different aspects needed for the upcoming changes in our world.

You are an indigenous and androgynous Medicine Being of Light.

Discover and know this truth.

You are loved by me always.

The question

2011-09-13T16:38:00.001-04:00

Last week, I sent the email below to three people: Grandmother Willow, my Healing Touch mentor and my Healing Touch instructor. All three women. All three mothers. All three healers.

I've been thinking a great deal about Healing Touch, healing, energy and such things over the past several weeks. I don't know how or if I fit into that realm of things anymore. It is hard for me to see how I could possibly do anything like that again, feeling the way that I do now. But before I make any hasty decisions, I wanted to get some feedback from the people whom I most trust in such matters.

Right now, it is so hard for me to feel as though I have a true purpose or calling in life in general, and in healing specifically. I think that such a purpose or goal would help to pull me through this overwhelming grief and pain. But so much anger gets in the way, and everything that I believed before has been torn apart.

Do you believe that I have a place in the world of healing? And, if so, what is it? How do I find my way back to a place that doesn't constantly ache from the loss? I ask these questions of you because I can't ask her, and I need some sort of motherly/grandmotherly wisdom to help me through this.

Where I am

2011-09-13T13:50:00.001-04:00

This morning in therapy, Vincenza brought up the subject of medication. We've not discussed this since we began working together a little over a year ago. Apparently, my grief and depression are synergistically pulling my down. Good times. Of course, her suggestion to think about the possibility of being evaluated for anti-depressants made me very defensive and angry. I already was going into the session feeling as though "the world" was expecting me to snap out of my grief/sadness/whatever and "be happy." Some friends have just dropped off the face of the planet. Of course, I figure it's because they don't know what to say to me or how to be around me when I'm a tsunami of sadness. Or they don't want to be around me or they just don't care. Either way, I feel rejected. And her suggestion this morning made me feel even more rejected and loony. It felt like she was saying, "It's not right for you to feel this way." And by right, I mean natural. It made me feel like the way that I feel is wrong, unnatural and crazy. I snapped back with, "how am I supposed to feel?! My mother just died!" I doubt it was a productive session. At least I didn't walk out. Basically we left it with the ball in my court. I can (a) get an evaluation; (b) come up with some other plan to help my body in addition to my mind (a mind-body approach); or (c) leave things the way that they are. We didn't have time, because of my anger, to go into how I feel betrayed by the woo and such therapies, how they didn't help to prevent my mother's death. But with the ball in my court, it's either woo and active self-care, meds or the status quo. Of those three, the status quo is the hardest row to hoe and may not work. But it requires the least effort on my part. Meds require more effort, but the potential side effects unnerve me and I've such a mental block there. So, I'm left with having to care for myself, to take care of me. Right now, I don't want to do that and, apparently, that's the depression talking. To be honest and fair, I've not wanted to do that for a while, a long while.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do. While I was writing this, one of my colleagues came into my office to check on me. I told her what happened in therapy and she turned around and closed my office door. Then she told me about how she's been on anti-depressants for years and all of the stuff she's been through and how no one here wants to see me go through this and blah blah blah. That I have a life and the real me isn't coming through. But I don't know who the real me is. I'm not a cheerleader. I'm an Eeyore. And I've felt depressed off and on for so long that it has become natural. I don't know who I am if I don't feel this way, which is where I was before Mama died. I felt like therapy finally was allowing me to blast away the old, dilapidated house that represented me and was getting me to a space where I could rebuild it the way I wanted. Then she died and the foundation was gone and it was just this bottomless hole. I feel guilty thinking about being happy and wanting to move forward, like I'm forgetting her or disrespecting her. And I feel like no one understands that. That everyone just wants me to move on. But then I feel like if I show up feeling better, people are going to ridicule me for not being sad enough. I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. And her coming in here to tell me that people around here are concerned makes me more paranoid and makes me think that they think I'm nuts. And it feels like more of that "snap out of it/do something about it" attitude everyone seems to have, making me feel like I'm not normal.

Filling a void

2011-09-12T16:29:00.000-04:00

So, for the past two months, I've been eating like they're sending me to the electric chair. Most evenings you will find me working my way through one and half times my weight in food. And it's not like I've been eating mounds of broccoli and grains. No, we're talking eggrolls, nachos, pizza and the like. None of this is improving the way that I feel physically or mentally, especially now that my clothes are all ill-fitting. I suppose I've been gorging myself to fill a void, the emptiness inside. Mind you, I was mindlessly overeating before my mother died. When she stopped eating, I started. It is one of the ways I cope with stress. ps. Right now, I'm thinking about what I'm going to eat during my evening pig fest.

Meanwhile, apparently I also cope with stress and want to fill voids in other ways. I'm randy. I'm horny. I'm libidinous. Despite the fact that I feel like Godzilla and Jabba the Hutt's lovechild, my hormones are raging. Take this morning's conversation snippet below.

Me: You have a cute TA.

Cool Colleague*: Which one? I have a bunch of TAs.

Me: The cute boy TA. Why would I care about the girls?

Cool Colleague: Right, right, right. Oh, that's So-and-So. Ugh, married with a kid.

Me: Married? To a woman?

Cool Colleague: Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing.

Me: Well, that would explain the looks he gives me.

Cool Colleague (intrigued): He's been giving you looks? You think he's questioning?

Me: Are you kidding? I've bedded enough married men to know that...I mean, I've read about stuff like that.

Cool Colleague: You crack me up!

Me: Hey, anything to fill the void.

So, despite the fact that I'm in mourning and should probably be more respectful, I'm still basically a slut.

*This would be the colleague that set me up with the VP.

The buzz

2011-09-12T15:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently, I'm the latest buzz around these corridors, but in a good way. Will it bear fruit? Only time will tell.

Notes on a Monday

2011-09-12T12:08:00.001-04:00

1. Weekend didn't go as planned, per usual. There is still housework to be done, hoovering and the like. I can't be arsed.

2. Can't be arsed in the office today either. Finished up one assignment this morning. Meeting with a student soon. Wish I could dip out after that. Can't.

3. Really feeling the need to call some people out on their shit. For now all's I'll say is this. When something like this goes down (ie. a great loss), people get ghost. Original Mavis was right.

4. Original Mavis is almost always right and she deserves a better friend than me.

5. Worrying about my dad today as he goes to apply for benefits that might pay my mom's medical bills.

6. Pissed at the system that she has medical bills in the first place.

7. Remembering where I was two months ago today. I can't believe it's been two months and at the same time it all feels like a lifetime ago.

8. That was a different lifetime and timeline.

9. It was in my lifeline all along.

10. I hate Mondays.

Three things

2011-09-10T18:11:00.000-04:00

It has been described to me as the sensation of wearing the glasses of someone else. It's the way the world looks now, how different it is.

It not only looks differently; it feels differently. It has changed, permanently.

And in this changed world, there has been a lot of disappointment, anger and other negative emotions. But because of these, I've been able to distill some things into the three points below. I hesitate to call these life lessons, because life is so very fragile and dynamic, not allowing one to trap it in a bottle. But they sum up a bit of this world using a new kind of math that not all are privy to using. Unfortunately, for us humans, it often takes tragedy to learn how to use this new math, though even then some refuse.

In any event, take these for what they are or not at all.

~Be particular, about everything, especially with what or whom you invest your time and energy. Regret, guilt and shame are difficult mistresses. To avoid them, be particular. Don't think that you can live without ever meeting them, for they are also ubiquitous. But in a world that no longer looks or feels the same, one becomes aware of how important being particular actually is, as well as how difficult it is to get rid of those three specters.

~Sometimes there really is nothing you can do or say. Don't try. I used to pride myself on always knowing the right thing to do or to say. I was silly to think that. I hope that I now truly know better. The only thing more silly is to say or do something you don't mean.

~Love is the most important thing in the universe. As such, do not be afraid to love the people you care about. Do not hide your love from them. And never, ever be afraid to tell someone that you love them, no matter what. I don't believe you will regret loving someone, but I do believe you will regret not allowing yourself to love or be loved.

The sleep cycle

2011-09-10T12:19:00.000-04:00

My exhaustion has caught up with me.

By the end of a day, I'm mostly wiped out, not realizing how much energy I'm using just to function. In fact, as soon as I walk out of my building and head for the bus, I start to flag and energy levels drop. Whatever it is that I'm subconciously doing to maintain some modicum of keeping it all together ends. And I shuffle slowly to the bus stop and begin to truly wear my grief.

By the time I'm home, I can't be arsed to do anything, other than eat. I've usually made a stop for some prepared or very easy to prepare food by now, and lots of it. I wait to get sleepy. Sometimes this happens relatively quickly, around 8pm. Sometimes it takes longer. Last night/this morning, I went to bed after 2am.

But I think all of my fucked up sleeping -- which consists of waking up numerous times for varying periods as well as weird, vivid and upsetting dreams -- caught up with me, given that I just got out of bed twenty minutes ago, just before noon.

But while I don't feel physically tired at the moment, emotionally I'm still drained and just can't be arsed. However, this is the first weekend I've been in C'ville in weeks and need to get a major amount of domestic chores done because it's the maid's year off.

A handy graphic

2011-09-08T12:34:00.000-04:00

I've developed a handy graphic to try to illustrate part of what I'm feeling day-to-day. People look at me quizzically when I cannot tell them how I'm feeling, what I'm feeling, or how I'll be feeling in x amount of days.

Death by a thousand cuts

2011-09-07T13:47:00.001-04:00

I feel as though some of the numbness is wearing away. It's all starting to hurt more; I'm increasingly aware of the pain. Yesterday morning in therapy, I felt as though I might implode. For the past several weeks since Mama died, I've felt like the Tin Man -- empty inside. And that emptiness ached. Yesterday morning, all of that began to fold in on itself, to knot up. It got tighter and tighter. I was crying and couldn't breathe or speak. I thought I might have a heart attack, but then remembered I no longer have a heart. Eventually I had to step away from the grief again, to pull back. It is just too overwhelming and painful. The rest of the day was a dull, aching blur.

And despite this omnipresent grief and pain, I don't remember sometimes. My brain still cannot compute this loss. And then I remember, and it cuts again.

When will I learn

2011-09-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

Returned from Hamlet to check my email and discover that one of the companies for which I freelance edit no longer requires my services because of changes in the assignments and blah, blah, blah. Nice. This is usually what happens when I count chickens before they hatch.

The only one

2011-09-02T23:36:00.000-04:00

In the past six or seven weeks since my mother's death, I've thought often about the only way I believe that I could endure this new, unwanted reality. Indeed, the answer is the only answer there has ever been -- the only way I've ever endured something so visceral. There is only one thing, one person that can help me and get me through. But now, that one person -- the person who could take away pain with a word or a hug -- is also the one person not here. My mother is the one person who could do that, but her loss is the reason I find myself in this state.

Vincenza asked me Tuesday what I miss most about her. While I miss everything, right now I miss that power she had to ease my pain, to reassure me and to right the world again. And all it took was a hug. To think that I will never have that hug again fills the hollow left inside me with more pain than I have ever experienced or possibly could have imagined. And I wail. I bawl. I cry so hard my head hurts and I lose my breath.

It takes every ounce of energy I have every day to get through the daytime hours. I don't realize it until I arrive back at chez-moi. Then I am aware of how truly exhausted I am. And then the interminable night begins. Yet I know that with a simple touch, she could allow me to rest peacefully, to begin to regenerate. No one ever embraces you quite like your mother. I just can't bear to think, to accept that embrace is beyond my reach now. But it is. And that cold reality sucks everything out of the world. It leaves a cold vacuum.

Now more than ever I'm aware of how very much alike we are -- were. I think it is because of this that I both believe that one day I might be okay yet know that I never shall be okay again.

In my head

2011-09-01T21:43:00.000-04:00

She was the only one
Of my flesh and blood
Now I have no calling
I can do no worldly good

I sit silent
I sit mourning
I sit listless all the day
I've mostly lost the voice to speak
And any words to say except
Does heaven have enough angels yet?

I've gone hard
And I've gone cold
I can't make the pieces of this cracked life fit
Please forgive me for wanting to know
Does heaven have enough angels yet?

She was the only one
Of my flesh and blood
Sometimes I hear her calling
Straight from the house of God

~Tracy Chapman

ps.

2011-08-30T14:40:00.001-04:00

I called the hospital to find out the status of things with the bill. It remains up in the air pending the review of the charges that I requested on Friday. Hopefully I will know tomorrow. Hopefully it will be something I can afford.

Notes on a Tuesday

2011-08-30T13:04:00.002-04:00

1. I just submitted application materials for a position at the CDC that would be located in DC. Hedging all my bets given the fact that my fellowship will end next June.

2. I cried so hard in therapy this morning that I've given myself a headache. Not sure if I'm going to continue with therapy for a variety of reasons, including monetary.

3. Monetary because I'm the one who will be paying my mother's hospital bill for the foreseeable future. Still waiting to hear from customer service about what payment arrangements they've worked out with their third-party biller.

4. I really can't be arsed to do anything today.

5. My jeans are tight as a result of all of the mindless, binge-style eating I do every evening. This has been going on since before my mother died. Mama stopped eating and I started. Since she died, it's only gotten worse. The rest of my family is losing weight, but not me.

6. Yesterday was my brother's 29th birthday. I can clearly remember leaving the hospital with him, my mother holding him swaddled in a yellow blanket whilst being pushed out the front doors of the hospital in a wheelchair by my dad. How is it that my little brother is almost 30? How is it that Mama is not here?

7. Everything reminds me of her, instantly -- everything I see or hear. I don't even have to think about it; the memory or thought is there in an instant.

8. I've no idea how I am to bear this grief and loss, how I shall endure.

9. My only thoughts now for the future involve making sure my family are taken care of. My needs and wants have become superfluous. I don't care about me.

10. My body is so sore and stiff today from being so tense all of the time and from a lack of restful sleep.

Today

2011-08-24T08:54:00.001-04:00

I don't have a good feeling about the future of things today.

Notes on a Monday

2011-08-22T10:07:00.001-04:00

1. I need a girdle or some Spanx, else we may have a wardrobe malfunction. I feel as though I'm busting out all over. Whilst the rest of my family is losing weight in their grief, I'm finding every pound of it and then some. When Mama stopped eating, I started. And so, in the past five months or so, I've regained any and everything that was lost last year, which makes me feel even more miserable. But the idea of working out or even being outdoors and moving around -- just a walk around the neighborhood -- is repugnant.

2. What I have been eating -- and, buddy, am I eating -- is just crap. And so that makes me feel like crap physically. So that' crappy on all levels of health: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

3. Don't even get me started on spiritual. I am so angry with the universe/God/the baby Jesus/whomever. They can all suck it.

4. I was in Hamlet this past weekend, making it the first trip home since leaving after my mother's death. Leaving that empty house was one thing. Returning to that empty house was something else. Last night I cried until I puked, again. And then didn't sleep, again.

5. I'll be back in Hamlet this Friday and for the weekend. The hospital is not going to write off the bill and so a repayment plan must be negotiated, especially given the size of the bill. It is twice the maximum of what I thought it would be. Lovely. And because my dad has other bills to pay, my youngest brother is still looking for a job and my other brother has a family of four to look after, I will be paying that bill at present.

6. And that makes me feel like I can't even think about buying myself anything or traveling next year, even though I can work out a repayment plan that's not going to be a tremendous burden. Well, I'm hoping that I can. It has to be paid, and of course I feel like I have to take care of everything and everybody. Just like my mom, I'm last on my own list.

7. My brother's wedding anniversary and birthday are this weekend. And so we start the year long cycle of events without her only a month into the grieving process.

8. My youngest brother is increasingly angry. My other brother seems like himself, which makes me wonder how much he's suppressing. They talk to each other almost everyday. They always have. I remain on the periphery, where I've always been. Who's fault is that? I'm not sure. But one guess as to where I'm currently placing the blame, and the guilt.

9. After looking over the bills that we have so far, I'm beginning to wonder whether the biopsy was actually done. We all thought it was going to take place that afternoon, but then she went into cardiac arrest. We thought it wasn't done. But based on some of physician charges, I'm wondering now if it wasn't done earlier that day, either when no one was there or when they removed the fluid from her lungs. If that's the case, then Mama didn't tell us. Just another thing she kept to herself. But it means that there might be a pathology report that could tell me the cell type of the cancer, potentially allowing me to estimate how long she might have had cancer and how long she might have known about the lump in her breast. I don't know if that is information I want or not.

Money changes everything

2011-08-19T16:28:00.001-04:00

I spoke with my dad last night. The hospital is not going to write off the bill for the 36 hours that my mother was there. That had been our hope given her lack of employment and insurance. But it is not to be. He asked me if I would go with him to set up a payment plan later this month, but didn't tell me how much the bill is. I suppose I will find out when I'm there this weekend. Of course, I've been driving myself crazy since talking to him, trying to work out a reasonable estimate. I didn't sleep much at all last night, but what else is new. Of course, I'm kicking myself for not being more financially successful, for having too much debt of my own. I'm mad at my parents for the same reasons. I'm mad at the government for their inaction on a slew of issues that would make the financial difficulties of medical bills more of a moot point. I'm hoping that the bill is only thousands of dollars and not tens of thousands of dollars. That seems reasonable given the small, rural hospital and her only being there for 36 hours. But there was the 12 hours in the ICU and the one procedure. I feel like I can't even think about traveling next year. Of course, I just want to swoop in and save the day. I'm worried that my dad will even be able to heat this house this winter. I know that I'm blowing everything out of proportion, that we'll find a way. But when your anchor is gone, you find yourself adrift in a dark sea, wondering if you'll ever see calm waters or land again. Fear sets in a blows everything out of proportion.

Bills, bills, bills

2011-08-19T00:10:00.000-04:00

I don't sleep much these days, despite how exhausted I feel. I think tonight added angst is keeping me wake, if you can believe that there is such a thing at a time like this. I spoke with my dad this evening who asked if I could come down there a day early Labor Day weekend. He wants me to go with him to the hospital to set up a payment plan for my mother's bill. Now I'm lying here awake, wondering how much the bill is. He didn't say.

When I was there after her death, I had gone to the hospital to speak to the cashier. When my mother lost her job in February, she lost her health insurance, as did my father. Given her unemployed status and lack of coverage, the cashier requested that I have my dad sign statement explaining the situation. This would be turned in to the business office who in many of these cases writes off these bills. My dad told me tonight that the news from the hospital is that he earns too much. Believe me, he doesn't. All of my adult life, I've earned more than either of my parents individually, except when I was a student.

So now I'm here trying to figure out how much 36 hours in the hospital -- including 12 hours in the ICU -- can cost. It's a small rural hospital, so that's a plus in this instance. And the $600 bill for the CT scan arrived before I left. I don't think it will be tens of thousands of dollars, just thousands of dollars, which is more manageable, if my dad will allow me to help financially. I think that he just wants me to go with him because he doesn't want to go alone, to return to the scene of the crime, as it were. He sounds so lost on the phone. My distance from everything adds a buffer, I think, allowing the grief only to seep in.

In any event, in addition to the angst, there is more anger, that such a system -- or lack of a system -- exists in this country. I realize that national health systems are not perfect. But for the so-called most powerful nation on the planet not to have one is utter stupidity.

Carte blanche

2011-08-17T22:46:00.000-04:00

There are those who feel entitled to tell me what it is that I should do with myself and my life. To be fair, there always have been and probably always will be. But in the past month, this advice has come with the uncanny knowledge these same folks have of what it is my mother would want. Mind you, 95% of the time this advice comes from people who never met my mother, ever. While I realize they know something of her through me, they still do not know her. At this point, I still question how well I knew her. But they still insist upon telling me what it is she would want me to do and how I need to be happy, to choose to be happy.

At first, I tried not to let it bother me. I know that people say stupid stuff when folks die and I knew they weren't intentionally trying to piss me off. But now, I'm calling them on it because, you know what, it really fucking pisses me off. Like, really.

First off, how dare you tell me that I need to "get on with my life" and "want to be happy." Do not call me up and ask to hear about "all of the good stuff we were talking about before." You don't seem to grasp that none of that really matters to me right now. It might in the future and it might not. But right now, it sure the fuck doesn't.

Secondly, do not presume to know what my mother would want or might still want. If I don't know the answer to that question, what makes you think that you do?

And finally, do not tell me that it is my choice to be happy. I've never really bought that one anyway. If you know me -- and, sadly, some of the fucks who have been saying these things should -- then you know how hard I've struggled with "being happy" my entire adult life. Bitch, if it was a labor of Hercules before, how in the living fuck do you think I'm gonna pull that shit off now?! Seriously?! Choose to be happy? This isn't as easy as saying, "I'll take a Diet Coke instead of the water." Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Maybe you don't mean for it to sound like one little thought will erase years of depression that are now totally engulfed and eclipsed by grief, but that is how trite it sounds.

And, no, my heart is not broken. My heart is gone. There's a difference. It left with her. Maybe I'll get it back, maybe I won't.

Also, do not presume to tell me what I would be telling you if the situation were reversed, especially if you have been in a similar situation during the time we've known each other. And, by the way, if I've learned one thing in my 34 years it's that grief is personalized; it is your own. Of all of the things in the world, it is one of the most personal. Yes, you may know what it feels like to lose a parent, but you may not know what it feels like to lose your mother. And even if you do, you know what it feels like for you to lose your mother, not what I feel after having lost mine. I don't even pretend to know how my brothers are feeling, even though she was their mother, too. It's all different.

And if one more person tells me that time heals, I'm going to knock their fucking teeth out, especially those who've never experienced this or any loss at all. Again, if I've learned one thing from all of the loss in my life -- and there has been quite a bit -- it's that time may change things but it doesn't erase. And despite the fact that I've endured many deaths since my childhood, this shit right now takes the motherfucking cake.

So please save all of your tired clichés for someone else. If I wanted to hear such drivel, I would camp out in front of the sympathy cards at Hallmark. Maybe I'm being selfish right now. But you know what? I don't give a fuck. My mother died.

This world is fucked up

2011-08-15T22:09:00.003-04:00

I'm at a loss, again. I am here in C'ville, hundreds of miles and hours away from loved ones who need me right now as much as I need them. All in the midst of a sea of crazy, continuously populated by the lost. I haven't a clue as to what to do. And I cannot bear to think what those that I love are enduring at this moment, hoping that they are not alone. This is where Mama would know, instinctively, how to react. Me, I'm just treading water.

The thoughts of an insomniac

2011-08-15T01:15:00.000-04:00

I'm back in C'ville after another week away. As I lay awake here in my bed, I realize that in the past five weeks, I've slept in this bed only a handful of nights. I've been away almost four of those five weeks, in more ways than one.

As I lay here, having this push-pull battle with sleep, my mind is whirring. Sleep -- truly restful sleep -- is something that I would relish right now. However, I have a certain dread toward sleep these days because of its fitful nature and the accompanying dreams. These dreams I'm not prone to remember these days, but they are vivid and disturbing in nature, for they shock me awake at all hours, my heart pounding. Restful sleep it is not.

I'm also thinking of my friends. I believe that some already expect me to be back to me again, expecting me to not only be fun and fabulous but also to be there to listen, help and advise. While on the one hand I could attempt to throw myself back into that role and ignore my grief, I simply can't. I must be selfish, for lack of a better term. Those who don't understand simply don't understand, and I believe that the next year will continue to winnow the chaff from the wheat. Some friendships will survive my mourning period and some will not. It is the way of things, and while I do not relish it, considering my recent, catastrophic loss, I do not fear it.

I wonder in general terms what aspects of my life will survive the mourning period. My relationship with the woo is tenuous, though I did allow it back in to a degree this past weekend whilst with Sunshine Mavis. Healing Touch is bound up in all that woo for me and I don't yet know when that shall re-enter my life or if it will. Mama was the last person for whom I did Healing Touch, right before she arrested. Since that time my hands have only blinked on a couple of times. I feel nothing extra with them and have not consciously used them for energetic purposes since that fateful day. Whilst I know my mother's opinion, then and now, of the place for Healing Touch in my life, I must reconcile its place.

As we barrel ever closer to September, the job hunt is on, for better or worse. I find it difficult to care about such things at this time and wonder how I can possible sell myself for whatever type of position with such apathy. More challenges.

I suppose now after a month, I still find myself in a state of disbelief, forgetting that I can't call her when I get back from a trip or that I can't tell her about a place I had dinner. I forget so easily. It is all still so surreal. I suppose that is why I'm beginning to think about life again to a certain degree, thinking about future things and dreams, only to remember that she is gone. And then they become so unimportant, so unnecessary. I wonder when I will stop feeling guilty for not mourning with every waking moment, when I will stop feeling guilty for hoping that someday I will feel happy again.

Yet, without her here, that seems impossible, too.

The weather

2011-08-12T18:25:00.000-04:00

I've left the stats workshop and I'm now in the home of Sunshine Mavis. To be honest, I arrived hours ago, skipping the afternoon at the workshop all together. I had gotten from it all I was going to get and had endured all that I could. I needed to be around someone that cares for me, and that is where I am. I could finally let go and just be. It allowed me finally to take a brief nap this afternoon -- though I still feel as if I could sleep for 40 days and 40 nights.

Sunshine Mavis is of the woo. Well, we're all of the woo. Sunshine Mavis wields woo, consciously, as I once did. I would say do but I've not consciously finagled any woo since Mama died. I've consciously blocked woo, ignored woo and cussed woo. My friends and Mavises get that. But a month has passed as of today and I cannot run from the woo forever. I could try. It could be like some tragic movie or story where the bereaved goes on a tear of self-destruction and/or rejects everything about life before the fall. And that might still happen. I don't know. Alls I know is, right now I don't think that will happen. I'm acknowledging the woo.

I may not like it. I may not be ready to wield. I may change my mind in five minutes. But I'm glad that I'm not alone this weekend, a month later.

Afternoon slump

2011-08-11T13:32:00.001-04:00

I'm starting to flag. Maybe it's not sleeping in my own bed. Maybe it's anxiety, stress or whatever. I find that I am fatigued and my body just feels sore and tight. I'd like a nap and to not be programming statistics right now.

Lost in a dream

2011-08-11T11:08:00.001-04:00

This week I'm just kinda muddling through with everything. I'm using every last ounce of possible friendly demeanor that I have with all of these unknown people. Yesterday, I couldn't take anymore after lunch and skipped the afternoon session. It wasn't a technique that I was interested in and the instructor was just really grating on my nerves, as were some of the other folks in the classroom. I had to push myself to come this morning, only really showing up because today and tomorrow are the techniques I came here to gain experience using.

But being around people that I don't know all day -- and not feeling like making the effort in establishing a rapport with anyone here -- then returning to a hotel room every evening leaves me feeling very disconnected from everything. I continue to feel very lost in my daily life.

ps.

2011-08-10T11:50:00.001-04:00

One of these skinny bitches in this stats workshop is REALLY getting on my nerves. I mean, all these skinny bitches are getting on my nerves, but this loud-ass heifer is getting periously close to getting cut or having her teeth knocked out.