one year

today is the one year anniversary of my mother's death.

it's hit me much, much harder than i thought it would. i was really ok until everything started to go to shit with my last paper, and i was walking down the street trying not to cry after the postal worker at my local post office was rude and unhelpful.

i'm slightly consoled by the weirdness of this morning. as i was printing my paper, the ink cartridge ran out, right around time of the morning that my mom died last year. and then watching tv to try and fall asleep, the song came on which reminds me the most of her, and all of those memories came flooding back-her last moments before she actually died, heartbreak which i have felt many times this pat year, and and how much i miss her every day.

and i'm tired, and have a short fuse today, and am dreading this upcoming weekend of family time and going to the cemetery with people being sad and pitying the situation and the loss of my mom, and performing the committment ceremony of my dear friend while being reminded very moment that my mother will never get to be at my wedding. i love that i'm performing the ceremony, but absolutely hate the outside feelings which will crowd my thoughts when i should be focused on uniting my two friends.

i feel that i have to be strong, and not cry, and not show how much i'm hurting or how much i miss her. not only my family and their friends, but for my mom, who wasn't really good at the deep emotional thing. but i'm going to want to cry. and weep and scream and sob uncontrollably but whenever i do i get a headache, and the rational side of me knows it won't do any good. so i won't. but i'll be close to the edge, and pretending that everythings ok.

i'm ready for this phase of my life to be over. i'm ready to be done with the pain and the sorrow and the agony and the constant, constant, sadness which i try to ignore but has been a huge part of my life for the last four years.

i love you and miss you tremendously.

bring it on, 2008!

i cannot wait for the new year. it can only get better, and it holds the promise of amazing things to come. it's my transition year-leaving behind the things which linger from this part of my life, and heading towards a new phase which will be exciting and optimistic. i'll finish school, get a job, hopefully move, and start living as opposed to waiting in limbo as i have for the past 3 years. this year has been so hellish, so awful and emotionally draining- i want 2007 to be over so i can start living again. and since there's nowhere to go but up, that's where i'm headed.

thinking in the shower

i always think best in the bathroom. for some reason, it's a place i can just zone out and focus, especially while i'm in the shower or brushing my teeth. today i'm worried about money, my career after i finish grad school, getting my work done, and appreciating my time with my mom. the money thing is really tearing me up. i decided not to take out private loans, which was a mistake, and have seriously eroded my savings. i'm supposed to live on $9k a year, which will never happen because my rent is more than $1000/month. i always assumed i'd have a job by this point, and that would provide me with an income to live a comfortably frugal lifestyle. instead, every month is a financial battle, especially now that my insurance is screwing me over. i don't know if i even want to be part of my field-i need to figure out my interests, and where i fit in because i don't want to be part of the flourescent-light, 9-5, losing part of my soul every day for a very very small amount of money. i can make more doing almost anything than i can in my field, something i didn't really realize when i got into it. i also didn't think that i'd be in this particular position in my life of caring for my dying parent. i'm really confused and feeling not right. coupled with a summer job application that's due this week for a position i'm not even sure i want, or could even take depending on what happens with mom, my regular course load which is heavier this week, needing to exercise and join weight watchers to do something about the incontrollable binge eating, and trying not to have a breakdown is a lot to handle for me right now. the things that keep me on track, i.e. tennis and therapy, cost more than i feel comfortable spending, so extra tennis time is out. i'm just very tense and stressed out. but keeping a smile and happy attitude nonetheless even though i'm starting to despise being at the house. life is just very hard right now, and i don't see it getting easier any time in the near future. i'm juggling so many things that i'm worried about what will happen when things inevitably start to fall down.

Memories of N.

i found out that N. died yesterday. she was so ill, so consumed by the diseases which wouldn't let her get help and unable to get out. she was suffering so much. i knew i couldn't help her, and i was so wrapped up in my own family problems that i couldn't face her. i've been thinking about it, and there was another reason too: i couldn't bear to see what she had done to herself, intentionally or not.

my memories of N. are old and vivid-A, J, N and I squeezed into the backseat of a minivan after dinner with our parents, playing some sort of detective game. i remember watching ghostbusters in her basement, and the way that A's bat mitzvah videographer followed her around the party because she was so magnetic. i always felt that N. looked out for me because i was the youngest. over the years, she would come into starbucks, and i would catch up briefly and note how thin she'd gotten but know i couldn't help. she reached out to me and gave me some good advice, and i couldn't reciprocate. i couldn't reciprocate because i knew it was so much bigger than anything i could do, and i would be so distressed that my friend was wasting away; one more trauma and my already fragile self would shatter into a million pieces. and now she's gone.

L wrote a song for her, just as he wrote one for mom, and he just kept repeating about how she was breaking his heart. i cannot imagine how painful this is, and was, for L and C. it's not unexpected, because this was the inevitable ending, but it has completely caught me off-guard. she was only 28. and the disease was so horrible, a mental jailcell that was forever locked. the word i keep coming back to is tragic, tragic for anyone who even briefly knew about the situation.

i'm trying to look at this in a positive light, and see this as N's last bit of looking out for me-she's prepping me for mom's funeral. i have no idea if we'll go to the gravesite, or what we'll do in general besides attend the service and sit shiva. if nothing else, my memories of N will always be happy ones, touched with sadness and a sense of the futility. shalom, N.

gaps of memory

i lost my toe ring.

i loved my toe ring, and wore it basically nonstop for more than a dozen years. but i'm more concerned that i have absolutely no idea when i lost it. that's the problem- it's not like it's easy to misplace a toe ring. in fact, it's damn hard to take it off, and i have absolutely no recollection of doing so. there's no way that it would have just fallen off, so i'm left wondering what the hell happened, and when did it happen. who knows what i did while i was 'sleeping' on those terrible sleeping pills? it was such a part of my everyday life that i can't even remember the last time it really caught my attention, and i can't even be sure when i last had it. who doesn't remember losing a piece of jewelry that needs to be pried off a filangee?

even more worrisome, if i can't figure out when i lost something that takes a supreme amout of effort to lose, what else have i been overlooking? yikes.

2007

for the love of god, 2007 must be better than 2006. while there is one enormous negative which will most likely happen in 2007 (subject of this blog), i'm hoping the rest of it will hold the promise of good times. i resolve to start being easier on myself, accepting that i cannot change anyone or anything except myself, and doing things that are not detrimental to my physical or mental well-being. this 24/7, all-consuming life which i'm currently living will not be resented or become the source of all my problems. instead, it will return to its original intent of being with my mom because that is where i want to be. this should not be a burden, but a time which i will look back upon and realize i've learned a lot about myself and life in general. so, i resolve to try and get my own life back under control. luckily, i have wonderful people who love me and want the best for me despite the downward spiral i have been putting myself through. it's time to start climbing back to the hope and positive outlook which i know is out there but have not genuinely seen in some time. here's to 2007.

hitting the wall

i'm exhausted. physically, i'm falling apart. mentally, i'm only hanging on my fingernails. i was lucky to have a whirlwind 36 hours in nyc, but now i'm even more exhausted than i was before i went. and the awful part is that the only way that this will change is when my mom dies. i just want everything to be the way it was, before the tumor flipped our lives upside-down. but that can't be; it can never be that way again. i'm tired of responsibility, duty, guilt. and all of this interferes with my quality time with my mom, which makes me feel even worse. i'm just so sad about the state of my life, of our lives, the lives of people who know us and love us and especially those who support me in ways that i can never repay because they watch the internal struggles and see the exhaustion written in every line of my face and in the defeated presence that comes over my body when i've left the house. sometimes it's just too much.