Monday, March 31, 2014

Life, Loss, And Other Things

Time sure does fly!  Last week, on the 25th, my baby girl turned 18.  Just like that, in the blink of an eye, I was now the mom of two young women.  Not babies anymore, 18 and 21.  Where did the time go?

On Friday, Sister #3's boyfriend's brother was killed in a single car accident.  He fell asleep at the wheel and wasn't wearing a seat belt.  This poor family has endured so much in the last year.  They have suffered so many losses.  First last March the eldest brother died, earlier this year the 11 year nephew of the boyfriend lost his battle with cancer, and now this.  1 year and 20 days between the 2 brothers dying, and 27 days since the young boy was buried.  Please keep E and his family (mom, dad, and sister) in your thoughts as they all struggle to deal with so much tragedy. 

It seems the Universe thinks and wants me to really focus on my art.  I won a spot in this years 21 Secrets Live a few months back.  It has been a really fun learning experience which continues through June.  Then I won a spot in a 10 month program called Spectrum.  Yesterday I found out I won a spot in the Spring installment of 21 Secrets!  I am really excited about all of them. 

In about 6 hours or so, Camp NaNoWriMo starts.  I wasn't sure if I was going to do it.  But since I can set my own word count goal, I decided to go ahead and participate.  I set my goal at only 10,000 words or 333 words a day for the month of April.  It's small and doable.  It's something I can work in between other things. 

I just need to figure out my time.  I am being given these amazing classes by the Universe to participate in.  Story ideas still pop into my head.  And yet I let myself become so easily distracted by nonsense.  In the midst of all this, I've decided to try and shed a few pounds.  I'd like to weave a walk into all this to help with my plan.  So far, I haven't done it.  Maybe I should make April all about me month.  Focus on art, writing, eating healthier, and start walking.  Easy to say, harder to do.  Let's see what happens in the next 30 days.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Feelings, Anger Not Grief

Yesterday marked two weeks and I've yet to really shed a tear.  I can't!  I've tried...they just won't come.  It makes me feel like a terrible person, guilty even.  I just can't grieve for her.  The logical part of me says she lost that right to my grief when she chose to cut us out of her life.  What gets me is that no one knows why.  The truth of it is too, even if I had had the opportunity to ask I doubt I would have gotten the truth.

I'll tell you thought what I really am.  I AM PISSED!  I am so fucking angry at her.  Her and fucking gambling addiction.  Anything of value, she sold it.  Gone!  Lost forever! 

She had her mother's (who would have been 108 yesterday) mink stole.  It's gone!  She sold it.  She had a charm from her mother's charm bracelet.  It's gone too!  She sold it!  Thank the gods my aunt had the good sense to send me the other two when their older sister decided to divvy up the charms back to who gifted them.  Otherwise, she'd have sold those too. 

Back in my teens, I/we spent a lot of time at Shea Stadium.  In 1986, I got to go to a lot of the Mets home games.  I was there the night they clinched the pennant race.  OMG it was amazing and crazy.  Earlier in the season I got one of their foul balls and then started having the players sign it.  If memory serves me right, I had the entire team on  that ball.  If you know baseball, you know then that was the year the Mets won the World Series.  For some reason after I got married and moved out, I left the ball behind and in her possession.  I don't know if I forgot or just never got to go back and get it.  Well, she must have sold it too because it's now where to be found. 

She chose gambling over family, over friends.  In the end, she had burned so many bridges and hurt so many people that no one except her youngest sister spoke to her. 

I did my grieving years ago when she decided I wasn't worth having in her life anymore.  I was of no value to her.  Sometimes I often wonder if she tried to get rid of me the way family members say she "lost" what would have been my younger sibling.  Or if she would have given me away like she did my older half sister.  Too many people would have stepped in I think to stop her from doing that though, or at least my father's mother would have. 

She never let me forget growing up how I was an accident, that I wasn't supposed to be here.  That she and my dad weren't even sleeping in the same bed.  Which sometimes made me wonder if he was my biological father.  She would never let me forget how I "owed" her for raising me, feeding me, clothing me.  When I started working and making a decent income but still lived at home, even though I was about 17 she told me one day...You owe me now for all those years I put clothes on your back and food in you stomach.  I took care of you now you HAVE TO take care me.  Simply put that meant support her gambling habit. 

I don't know if I will ever shed a tear over her death.  In someways, it feels more like I lost my mother years ago instead of two weeks ago.  Or perhaps one day I will grieve for the mother I didn't have.  But if I think about that, I've probably done that too years ago. 

But this anger that I feel...I have to find away to let it go.  It's building and it's starting to affect me.  It's messing with my stomach and I don't like that.  I just don't know how to let it go.