April 17th, 2021
I’ve been checking in here and there during this process of loss (generating a mutual field of reflection), and I guess I was wondering if it’s okay to check in right now.
Cool?
Cool.
On my way to work today, I realized that yesterday marked six months since my mom exited stage left. I can’t believe I missed it, but I can. The entirety of time is just two push-pins stuck in the wall, and I am wobbling across the piece of yarn stretched between them.
Thus far, I’ve been able to transcribe what I’m feeling through carefully chosen words, which I feel like I do more for your sake than mine. I feel like if I make what I say sound pretty, I won’t burden you with what I say.
I’m not going to do that today.
The last six months have been the loneliest I have ever felt in my entire life.
That isn’t so pretty.
I know this isn’t anyone’s fault. People who assign cold, clinical words to very messy human emotions would call this “part of the process.” Those people are awful at parties and would do better to call it as it is: it just sucks.
I’ve lost things in the last year — a job, a car, my other livelihoods — that in any other year would have been devastating and terribly difficult for me. They haven’t even been able to register in a meaningful way, because I’m not able to feel their significance in such stark relation to real loss.
Six months in, I haven’t been able to grieve in any way that feels like progress. People move fast, the world moves fast, life moves fast. I’m afraid of being left behind, so I hammer in these posts on the side of the road and I keep moving, too.
I know there are days coming soon that will give me time to reflect and absorb and expell. I’m looking forward to them like one looks forward to the dentist.
Which is appropriate. The last six months have felt like a waiting room.
The Den 