Mother's Day and Other Things

I hope you have enjoyed my return to blogging. For so long it was just too hard to stop and put thoughts together in any kind of articulate flow. I've always just blogged off the top of my head, whatever I was thinking and that became difficult for so many reasons. I'm finding it helpful to use a few writing prompts like... Reasons To Love Monday... and Throwback Thursday but I know that ultimately, who I am as a blogger is the girl who just types out a stream of consciousness for the world to see. I thought I might give that method a shot today.

The past nine months have been a very weird mix of highs and lows for me. Highs, from the standpoint of being in a loving relationship for the first time in a long time and honestly, being in a relationship where I can be myself for the first time ever. It's an amazing gift and it's made the lows not so low for me. I miss my mom so much. We always had a complicated relationship but she was the one person in the world who I could always turn to and losing that... leaves me emptier than I ever dreamed possible.

I'm finding myself processing grief in a whole different way as Mother's Day approaches. I feel the same sort of frustration toward the holiday as I did toward Valentines Day for all those years as a single woman. Despite the fact that I am a mother, I don't feel the same connection to Mother's Day that I have for the first 49 years of my life. I'm as disconnected from Mother's Day as I am to Ramadan. Or Passover. It's just not for me. And it's the first time I've ever been angry about a holiday. We got through Thanksgiving and Christmas just fine but this one... it's killing me. It's a manufactured, random consumer holiday that seems really unnecessary to me at the moment.

My fella and I have been lucky enough to have each other to get through the rough spots of grieving. Planning the trip to New Orleans for New Year's really got me through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Any time the holidays were just too sad to face, I could focus on the excitement of the upcoming trip. Last week he faced his son's birthday - the first one since Nick has been gone. It's also my brother David's birthday so it's a day of grieving in my heart too, as my brother is completely estranged from our family. A grown brother making a choice to abandon his family is completely different from a nine year old son who dies tragically... I don't mean to compare, just to say that it's a hard day for me, too. While Marvin and I are deeply tenderhearted toward each other's pain, we do tend to grieve separately. There have been only a handful of times that we have cried together, it generally is a matter of mentioning the storm once it has passed. It's like... "I had a hard day..." and then we move on to whatever thing is coming up next for us or we share a laugh over an inside joke or share a song that means something special... we just move on.

Last night though, he called as he was driving to work and he caught me in the middle of a really tearful moment, almost to the point of not being able to speak. I blew my nose and told him to keep talking because I wanted to move on from the emotion. It's ok to feel... I just don't want to linger in those moments too long because it's too easy to let it overcome you. I want to keep moving forward and reaching toward happier days ahead.

I have a precious, dear friend who is recovering from a really sad time in her own life. She attempted suicide and came dangerously close to succeeding. As I've talked with her as she recovers, I keep reminding her that there are so many days ahead that she's going to be glad she's alive to see. That's the thing... you have to keep putting yourself in the path of life, giving yourself opportunities for joy and happiness and ... living... even when you're not sure how you could possibly be happy again. Every single day with my grandkids makes me grateful that I managed to stick around. It's worth every sad day I ever had to live through. And Marvin too... every adventure with him makes me glad that I found the strength to take a chance on love again.

I feel so lucky that Marvin came into my life again the day before my mom died. I hate the reason he came into my life again, (to let me know his son had died) but to have that something else - someone else to focus on in the darkest season of life was literally the light at the end of the tunnel for me. And while it's sometimes tricky to navigate the emotions of a romantic relationship (especially with as much baggage as I have) in the midst of the deep, brand new emotions of grief that we are both walking through, it's been such a beautiful gift for me. His own grief is raw enough that he doesn't think I'm nuts for breaking down to snotty tears on a random Thursday. It also helps that his grief and my grief are not for the same person... I can grieve my mama without dragging him down. He's sad for me because he cares about me... just as I'm sad for him when Nick is heavy on his heart. But it has given me a safe place to feel whatever I'm feeling... and I'm grateful.

I had a hard time deciding to return to blogging because of the depth of my feelings, good and bad. I wanted to be in a healthy and happy enough place that every blog entry wasn't gloom and despair... nobody wants to read that. And I wanted to have a good enough handle on my feelings for my fella to be able to talk about him without feeling like I'm oversharing... and without making him uncomfortable. It took me a good long while to be able to even tell HIM how I felt about him, much less share it with the internet! Relationships are so much more complicated when you're older. They're more complicated when you're recovering from a loss. Obviously, he could never take the place of my mom... and although I bring a lot of family to the table, nobody is ever going to replace Nick for him. When people would ask me about our relationship, I would always just say, "we're having a lot of fun together"... because although it is a generic answer, it's the foundation of who we are together. I mentioned that to him the other night... and he very sweetly responded, "but it's so much more than that..." and my heart melted. Of course it is... so much more than fun.

I spent so long protecting myself from feeling anything and for awhile, empty felt good. I loved where it was safe to love, my grandbabies and my family... and there are definitely times I feel vulnerable for allowing myself to care about a guy... loving has cost me a lot in the past. If this ended tomorrow, I would be devastated, there is no doubt, but I would still be grateful for the strength he has given me over the past nine months. Sure, I could have done it without him but I'm glad I didn't have to.

Whew. I'm exhausted from sharing all of these emotions. I'll leave it here for now. I'm not sure if I'm going to post over the weekend but I like the idea of blogging every day. It's easier if it's a part of my every day routine. Thanks for stopping by and letting me get all this out. Love and hugs, y'all!