When my Mom got sick–I mean really sick– I sort of checked out. Checked out of my online “life.” Checked out of my personal relationships. Checked out on being a person, really. When she died, it got worse. I was not living. I was existing. Every now and then I would throw myself into something with a passion in hopes that something would ignite, but rarely did it. And when it did, I didn’t last for long. I was moving through life underwater and holding my breath. Hoping I would emerge on my own and soon.
Now, here I sit, over a year later and when I start to feel like I am emerging, I realize that I don’t recognize much around me. In fact, who the hell is this person and what has she done with my life?
I look around my house and wonder if I just woke up as the house-mom to a fraternity after a kegger. Chaos and a smell no one really wants to identify. Where is my clean house? My friends? My social life? What happened to my job? My goals? My dreams? While I am at it, where is the person my husband married and the mother these kids deserve? Hell if I know.
I feel like I have been in a coma all this time and as I emerge, nothing is like it was. Nothing stays the same. Nothing can. But how in the hell do you not become overwhelmed when you are just emerging and not one damn thing in your life is as it was? Not one person is as familiar as you remember. Not one routine feels right. The passion you used to have for something isn’t there anymore. The friends you counted on had to go on with their lives. They couldn’t stay in the same place with you.
And now, as you look around you wish you never emerged. When you were under water or in that mental coma, it didn’t matter. You were untouchable because “fuck you, my mom died and this shit just does not matter!!”
How do you regain your life? How do you recover friendships? Can you? Or do you just replace them? How do you make up for a year–a whole friggin’damn year– of lost time?? Can you? Do you? How do you fix it?
Well, I can tell you that posing those question to an addict will give you far different results than if you place them in front of a normie. A Normie will find a constructive way to fix this. An addict? Well, she will look at you as if you have gone 7 different kinds of crazy and then find a way to numb it. Or at least try to find a way to numb it. When she can’t, she will be bouncing off of the fucking walls trying to make it better. And you know what? You want to know the horrific fun truth in it all? She will NEVER find a way to make it better or right or normal and that will just make her all the more crazy trying to find a way to do so. Amazing fucked up reality, isn’t it? My world and welcome to it, my friend.
I know I have been going through the motions in a lot of ways. In a lot of areas. With a lot of people. And god help me, I don’t know how to reach through the haze, the depths of this drowning water and grab onto someone I can trust to pull me out. Without lectures. Without telling me how to fix things. Without the “I told you so’s” that make it harder than it has to be. How? I swear I don’t know how to do that. How do people get through shit like this and not leave behind them an inordinate amount of destruction? Lord help me there must be way, but hell if I know what it is.
You want to know the truth? I almost wish to have the drowning back. The coma that left me unable to move forward. At least then I was existing and not feeling so overwhelmed with all I need to do to make life right again. Because overwhelmed does not begin to cover it. At all.
For some reason, as I was surfing in the middle of the night rather than sleeping–as I am known to do– I came across Rosie’s blog. Now, there are not a lot of times I really get her, but this time (though she is referring to Britney Spears) it made me laugh and then hit me in the gut.
many moms –
of kids in ur sons class
want to shave their hair off
and get a tattoothey dont because they cant
noone is there 2 watch the kids
what would the neighbors sayplus
the pta meeting
would be humiliating
on many levelsreal life
can save u
sometimes
u have to – no choice
Real life can save you. Hmmmm….I suppose that is truer than I realized. Real life kept me from sinking under the water. Real life kept me from letting go. Real life kept me from giving into the numb I know is there.
Real life has changed. But it has waited for me. I will admit to not really recognizing it and being scared shitless of it, but it is there nevertheless. And, seeing as it pretty much saved me, I owe it to find a way to get to know it again. For real this time. No going through the motions.
It’s like having to get sober all over again. And trust me when I say the first time sucked enough for a lifetime!
Trust me on that one.
[Update: I got an email asking if I turned comments off because I wanted to be left alone. No. I turned comments off because the last thing I want is anyone feeling like they need to make a comment when they really don’t. This is the kind of post where I certainly don’t want anyone to feel the need to “make me feel better.” With comments on, I know some friends will think they should. And really, you don’t have to! That’s all. No leave me alone sign hanging on this door. Just to be clear.]
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