2 years later...

Wow.

It has been over two years since I even looked at this blog.  I received some harsh criticism from my dad and step-mother about it, and, naively listening to what they had to say, abandoned it.  But, revisiting and re-reading it, I love this blog, and I don't agree with what they had to say, and should have told them that the beauty of a personal blog is getting to say pretty much whatever you like, however you would like.

I have since started another blog (http://mostofeveryday.wordpress.com/), but wouldn't mind using this one as an outlet still.

I am happy to report that I am in an amazing place in my life.  As a wise, old man described it to me just this week, "I am in the summer of my life".  I love that image :).

As badly as I wanted to move two years ago (and still do, by the way), I found the reason I had yet to do that on July 20th, 2011.  That day, I met the man that I am going to marry.  Note, we are not engaged yet, but some things you just know, and I am the luckiest girl in the world. 

Along with that, I found a job that is challenging, inspiring, has helped me focus on the career I would like to have, I get to write, and it is a spring-board to greater things.

I have run countless half-marathons, completed a full-marathon, become a certified personal trainer, gained even more amazing friends, and gotten to know myself so much better in the past two years.  I am finally realizing that this is my life.  I have the power to keep negativity away and create the world that I want to live in.  So that has begun, and I am happier than ever.

If anyone follows this, or reads this, I apologize for my absence.  I can't promise consistent updates, but I will be checking in :)

This marks the half way point....

Today is the 13 year anniversary of my mom's death. She has been gone for half of my life. From here on out, I will have lived longer without her than I got to live with her.

The anniversary is usually a great day for me. I go out of my way to do fun things, see great friends and just appreciate life. As of last night and this morning, I was not feeling that awesome spirit. For some reason the whole thought of her being gone for longer than she was here in my life really put me in a tail spin. But it was thanks to life just moving on around me, and my amazing friends, that I pulled out of it.

I have a close friend dealing with the loss of someone who was very important to her, and it has been through watching her grief and trying to help her that I was able to get a grip on my day.

I would like to rename the stage of grief know as "Acceptance" to "Moving Forward: An Adaptation". While talking to my friend, she mentioned that people expect her to move on, but I think that is the wrong term for it. To me, it is not moving on it is moving forward, which are two extremely different concepts in my mind. When you lose someone that important in your life, you don't bandage it up and pray it doesn't leave a scar, you adapt to a new dynamic and learn to live with your battle wounds.

"You'll heal, but you'll be changed."

My mom died 13 years ago and I am still adjusting and adapting to that. What I thought I had a grip on 2 days ago came crashing down yesterday. There are always new ideas and new thoughts to keep adapting to. I will have many more in my lifetime.

Everybody's grief is different, but I will put here what I wrote to her: Life moves us in weird directions, hurts us in unexpected ways and never really seems to make sense, but you can't lose hope that tomorrow could bring something new your way.

There will always be moments to be angry, sad and confused, and at a total loss for an answer to "why?". We are allowed those. What we are not allowed to do is let them dominate and overshadow the positives.

As someone who has been grieving for 13 years, I am still learning and still have my moments where all I want to do is cry. But, like today, I focus on what I have gained since my loss, and I keep the faith that one day something will make sense... I hope you all have that same faith for yourselves.

From Dec. 6th... my timeliness is amazing, I know

I am catching the "New Year's Bug" early this year. Maybe it's just the morning, or the fact that I have plans to go Christmas shopping later, but I am in a great mood. Which is kind of funny seeing as less than 12 hours ago I was in a terrible mood! It was one of those nights where I was just tired, and everything wrong in life just seemed to be glaring me in the face.

But today is a whole new day. There is really something to be said for sleeping on it...or the power of bipolar disorder...either way, here I am, welcoming Monday morning with open arms (at 4a.m. by the way, thank you new job at a gym).

I'm just feeling that "it's a new year, time for things to get better" twinge. I can restart my job search fresh, try to relocate in the New Year, and continue my chase for all that I want out of life. I have sort of given myself the holidays off to enjoy my new, albeit temporary, job, be thankful for my health, my family and my amazing friends. I have spent the last 5 months stressing day in and day out, but the resolutions have to start early this time. I'm going to stop wasting my days and enjoy them!

Here I introduce another original stage of grief: the "fuck it" stage. It is the holidays, and I am going to miss my mother and my former family situation terribly. But, it is what it is and my life is where it is at for a reason. So fuck it! I am going to enjoy what I have been given and the time that I had with her and continue to enjoy the gifts that she gave me. I may not feel this way tomorrow, or in the next 12 hours for that matter, but I'm grabbing it while i can.

I had a customer come in at my old job one day, he was a big burly, Harley ridin' mean looking guy. When I smiled and said hello and asked how he was he smiled back and said cheerily "I woke up breathing today, so I am doing great". What a great way to look at your day! It kind of puts the day into a different view for me when I look at it that way.

With the most positive result in mind, take a deep breath, and just say fuck it. Clear some space for great things to happen under the watchful eye of a guardian angel.

In case I'm not back before the new year, Happy Holidays! Life is hard, it can suck, but you just gotta learn to say fuck it. A late friend told me that, and I don't think i utilize this advice enough. Maybe we should all try it a little more often.

The Dance

It has been far too long since my last post. I would like to say that I have been crazy busy after my big move, leading a hectic life, finally finding myself on a path to self-fulfillment. But, this is not the case.

That long job search I referenced last time... still going. Which leads to the fact that I am still at point A in the move, having only budged 12 miles to a new apartment. I haven't been at a complete lack of progress though. I did quit my job that I hated with a passion! Being jobless may not seem like a step in the right direction, I certainly didn't think "unemployed" was on my short term goals list, but getting out of my comfort zone to move forward was. So, I quit. Having enough saved, an amazing boyfriend who pays the rent, and odds and ends jobs to make just enough to keep me afloat, I have hurled myself from the comforts of a full-time, 401k contributing job, into the unknown of a life in transition. I also like to now consider myself a full-time writer. Which comes with a very loose definition (and an even looser paycheck). As soon as you tell people you are a freelance writer they want to know who you write for or what you write about. This is when I like to point out that the beauty of being a writer is that you don't necessarily have to be writing for anyone. As for what I write, most writers will write about what anyone wants to pay them to write about, or whatever comes to their heads. Take this entry as an example. It is past 2 in the morning and here I am updating a blog I haven't touched in 3 months. I suppose I can thank my dog who decided to wake up and play "Pukey the Clown". A comedian I saw once said that a puking dog noise would make the best alarm clock ever, and I have to agree.

But I digress...

Quitting my job did not come as an easy decision. I am a Gemini, so no matter what the decision is, I more times than not have 2 sides of myself arguing which is the better way to go. This particular decision came with much praying to both God and my mom, pleads for signs of which ways to go; a tug on my heart strings in one direction, a change in the force of the wind, anything really I would have accepted.

This is what I believe to be a hidden stage of grief: Indecision. I think it can be there for anyone who has experiences loss. Some greater than others, and some may not even realize it is there. But for me, it is a huge stage in my grief and now my life. Growing up my mom was my biggest decision maker. It goes back to my phone calls. I would love so much to just call her up and ask, "what do I do next?".

In the hospital right after my mom died, I didn't cry. I remember my dad telling me that some people experience a strong sense of peace immediately after someone close to them dies, and I did. After all of the machines were turned off, the lights in the roomed were dimmed, we gathered her stuff, and said our final goodbyes. I had stopped crying by then, clutched her pillow in one arm, grabbed her hand with mine, squeezed and said "bye, mom". I remember waiting for the elevator, still clutching the pillow, and I was overcome with that sense of peace. I wasn't worried about school the next week, or what was going to happen the next day, how I was going to sleep that night, or anything. I was just at peace. The ride home was silent and when we got there I made a few phone calls to my closest friends letting them know, spreading the news in a "it was better this way" sort of fashion.

The next morning was grey and rainy. It is the day that most movies skip right over; the details day. My dad, aunt and myself set out to run some errands, one being getting me something to wear to the visitation and funeral. As we walked through the department stores I was completely overwhelmed. I had always loved shopping... but with my mom. She had always had final say and what we bought and what I wore. I didn't know what I liked or what I was looking for. I had no idea what she would have wanted or what she would have said. With an arm load full of dresses, I was led back into a huge dressing room complete with a bench and terrible lighting, where once alone I finally cried. I curled up into the corner and sobbed. It was the first pain of wanting my mom and knowing that she could never be there again. Indecision had cracked the flood gates.

This also started a habit of crying alone, but that was a personal stage of my grief that we can come back to.

So here I am, dancing with indecision. I could have taken any random job just to get me going, but I am sick of terrible jobs. But it is more the indecision of what am I going to be when I grow up, or what is my first step into the next chapter of my life?

Who am I going to be?

My Gemini twins will fight, I will continue to pray... but the waltz of indecision will continue. I just have faith that the answer will come to me at the right time, and life, woven with my crazy cycle of grief, will move forward.

I'd like my phone call, please.....

It's been a hectic few (10) days. Weddings, work, life.... I am planning a major move within the next 30 days and it has me stressed beyond belief. Finding a job, an apartment all of the things that make a life. I will admit that I am doing this the dumb way.. moving just to move, not for a job or school, but just because I need a change in life and I need to make a move. So that is what I'm doing. Going to a city that I love and that has more opportunity.

The job search is much harder than expected, and there is always the question of "am I doing the right thing?". This is when I would love to call my mom. It has been 12 years and I still get the urge to call her; when I'm bored, lonely, have had a terrible day at work, or most importantly now when I have no clue what I am doing in life.

I call these denial days.

Denial: Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned. It's a defence mechanism and perfectly natural. Some people can become locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. Death of course is not particularly easy to avoid or evade indefinitely.

I am not in full denial, as in I am suddenly in belief that she is alive again, more so I feel as if I want it badly enough that if I just pick up that phone and dial she will answer. Some days it feels as if no one else will do. I have a great support system with amazing friends and a great boyfriend, extended family members and even a devoted dog who is always willing to lend an ear, but some days she is the only person that I want to say it all to.

Moms are supposed to be there for that. I could tell my mom anything and she would love me unconditionally no matter what it was. The answers or advice wouldn't have an agenda, or jealousy, or spite, just love and my best interest in the end. I've come across people in my life that don't necessarily come to your side without their own agenda. Life sort of unfolded like a soap opera after my mom died, and some scary sides came out in people, so the safe haven of my mom has been both treasured and missed since the day it went away.

For a few years after she died, and now even, I wish my dad had left her cell phone active. It sounds almost morbid, but just to be able to dial into her voicemail, hear her voice for that brief greeting, and just let her know what's going on. It could be as if, at her earliest convenience, she would check it and get the message. Needless to say her cell phone was shut off sometime after she died so I leave voicemails in the form of prayer I suppose. I also write to her, never tearing the letters out of my journals, but the thoughts are out of my head, and it helps.

No matter how many years pass or how "accepting" I am to the situation, I can't help but think still that I'd like my phone call, please.

Introduction to my thoughts on grief

Grief: a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed.

Thank you wikipedia.org.

In the 1960's Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced her "grief cycle" which consisted of 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

The model was offered up as a way of explaining how and why "time heals" and how "life goes on", in her hopes to help people deal with death and bereavement a little easier.

When my mom died, over 12 years ago now, my dad used these "stages" as a way to cope and move on and prove that he was ready to "face the world again", as if grief was a "to-do" list to neatly check off until you could move on to the next chore. Within six months he had been in denial, felt angry, bargained, was depressed, and then accepted the events and had written himself a clean bill of mental health and kept it moving. After all, that's what his grief book told him he should do. (In retrospect this was a perfect tool for my poor father to cope. It was exactly what he needed to navigate this new hurdle in his life).

At the ripe and mature age of 13, my whole take on these stages...BULLSHIT.

There was no way that a time line existed for how I was going to feel and when. First of all, she died, I accepted it. As far as I was concerned I had to accept it every day I woke up. She wasn't there, how hard was that to accept? I didn't start out angry because what happened happened. People get cancer and die. It was awful that it happened to my mom (or anyone for that matter) but it happened, being angry was going to get me no where fast .

I later learned, though, that I was right about the grief cycle, at least in my understanding of it. I had to give Dr. Kubler-Ross some credit as I read on about her studies. She didn't bring this to the world as a process, but more of a model or framework. A process would have implied something fixed and consistent, whereas a model is more of a guide.

"People's grief is as individual as their fingerprint".

As with anyone who has lost someone so close, my mom's death has never left me. It is with me every day and affects me every day. My 20's have been harder than my teens in this respect. So being a writer, here I am. I have taken to a blog. This will be my almost day-to-day accounts of what stage of grief I am in according to my theory which is: grief is a cycle. It is a random, never-ending, some days good some days feel-like-shit, acceptance cycle that changes every single day. Today I was angry, tomorrow I could be in denial. Who knows?

It wont always be serious, sometimes funny, sometimes just ramblings of what goes through my mind. But here it is, My 5 Stage of Grief.

Kubler-Ross info taken from wikipedia and http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_kubler_ross_five_stages_of_grief.htm