Your life was cut too short … for me. Though if your last couple of years were any indication of what the remainder of your life was going to be like, I am thankful it did not continue any longer.
I feel guilty for saying that but I have said a million times over, the life you were living from 2013 on was not the life I’d wish on anyone. I am grateful though that we got to spend those additional years together.
I still get the urge to call you each day and check in with you on my way home but there is no one there to answer. I find myself envious of Mo in Breaking Fast that I did not have the foresight to keep your phone number active so I could still call without the risk of some random stranger answering. Perhaps that is holding on to too tightly to the past but even still, to be able to hear your outgoing message every once in a while would be a welcome reminder.
As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but feel as though I have let you down in someway. While we are talking about life not worth living, I am participating in my own at the moment and have no real excuse – hence the letting you down part. You only wanted me to find happiness, and I have not been able to manage that, and for that, I am sorry. You would be heartbroken to know how I have managed to isolate and separate myself from most anyone who cares about me.
it is important to set goals … this is either that or an expiration date
February 12, 2028
I have often imagined if I would want to live past 50. I am now committing that I will not … not without some significant changes.
Participating in life has become exhausting and lonely. I give all the energy I have to the students in my care day in and day out without regret but I am tired.
I am tired of fighting against a society that emboldens the very character traits I try tireless to get my students to disavow. Those selfish GOP fucktards are ruining not only our democracy but also our very humanity.
I am tired of spending countless hours alone and lonely.
I am tired of cowering with zero self confidence in a body that repulses me.
I am tired of hiding who I am from the world but not because the world can’t handle it, because I can’t. The world impresses me every day how far we have come.
I am tired of being afraid. My anxiety and lack of self confidence has me constantly second guessing every attempt, no matter how small, to get away from myself.
I am tired of being so god damn tired …
My hope and prayer is that I am able to transcend this space but I am not sure I have the energy.
You have become a respectable young man. Only days ago, you invited Krist*n (i or e, I have no idea, but probably should) to share the rest of your life with you and I could not be happier for you.
But I need to ask, who takes care of you?
You mom has shared with me ways that it seems you are setting up your life to be in hers, or there for her at least. From purchasing land across the street to your daily calls to check in with her, you are a mommas boy and there is nothing wrong with that.
But from someone who spent the better part of 24 years doing the very same thing, please, I beg, don’t forget to take care of you.
Please don’t get me wrong, I in no way resent/regret those 24 years. If I am being completely transparent, I was pretty damn selfish through many of them but still, taking care of Ma became a huge part of who I was. Unlike me though, your mom still has a partner in her life that would do anything for her. Ma’s partner walked out on her when I was 14 like the coward that he is. Travis though, never ceases to amaze me. I wonder though if you all take him for granted.
Just remember to take care you boop. That’s all I ask.
I was thinking yesterday that I would write a post titled “Happy Birthday” yet I am compelled to focus on my memories of you on this day.
I was just awoken from a dream a few moments ago that while not disturbing, created an anxiety that disturbed my sleep to a point of being suddenly awakened.
I will stage first the setting of this dream. I was at work – a school though I am unsure which because I do not recognize the parking lot. You are at work with me though I do not fully understand why (exploring this is perhaps a separate post – you were always so interested in the population of students I worked with and often expressed a desire to come and read with them – yet you never were able to do that). I do know that we drove separately but again I do not know why you are at my school. In the midst of dismissal, busses and cars moving about in the parking lot, I grab my things and head straight for may car as I am preparing to go out of town (I get the feeling I was going to the mountains or Gatlinburg more specifically).
As I approach my car I am torn between actually leaving or going back inside to see if you need anything. I am thinking of you and that you may need me to drive you home because you are tired. I distinctly remember recalling a vision of you weak and wearing your turban. Rather than go back in side I call you on your cell – I recall feeling worried if you will remember how to answer your cell phone and think perhaps I should just walk back in to the building. You do answer, from my end I hear a very tired and weak hello and then a second one. Hearing your voice confirms that I should not leave but check on you instead – I am immediately reminded that the day at my school may have been too long for you and that perhaps you should have only come for a couple of hours to keep your strength up.
I ask how/what you are doing and you tell me “I’m downtown” … With those words, I become anxious about you driving your truck (the brake light comes on now) downtown at this time (it is dark now in my dream).
These are the events and feelings of anxiety that immediately awaken me from my dream,
This post is about much more than my dream on the morning of your birthday – it is about my memories of you.
For so long I saw you as a fragile, tired, weak, and broken body with an absence of light in your eyes … so this is what I remember of you. I struggle to remember who you were before the dis-ease took over your body, mind, and spirit (in that order). It is hard to imagine you now as the person you were when the relay for life photo on my desk was taken. It is hard to remember you as the strong independent woman you became who would pickup and drive to Knoxville because Ashlyn was having boy trouble.
One of the largest hurdles along the path of my journey is the crippling fear of making a mistake and then making the necessary changes to resolve a mistake made.
I expend a lot of effort -not- doing something as a result of the cost analysis conducted in my head … more often than not, I convince myself that the costs (e.g. financial, time-based, physical resources needed) associated with something are too great to begin the task/project for fear that if I am not 110% satisfied with the outcome then I will have wasted those resources.
A perfect example of this is my desire to create art or paint as the case may be. I have been in possession of 2 stretched canvases purchased from Hobby Lobby years ago. Likewise, I have a complete ‘artist’s kit’ with watercolors, oils, and acrylics that Ma gifted me one year for Christmas many years ago. While I am nite sure exactly when I acquired these items I do know that tit was prior to the summer of ’02 because they made the journey to/from Dallas in my move. I have long resisted in painting anything with these resources for fear that I would waste the paint/canvas.
I approach everything very analytically and when I imagine myself painting, I cleverly convince myself that I must have a specific idea in mind down to the necessary dimensions so that my brush does not have to pass a spot on the canvas more than once. Anyone who has painted before I am sure would tell you that that thought is completely ludicrous, asinine, faulty, etc.
I actually discussed this crippling fear with a counselor a few years back and she encouraged me to face that fear as many times as necessary in hopes that I would eventually get beyond it. She actually gave me an ‘assignment’ at one session and told me to go home and paint something so that we could talk about the experience when I returned. Needless to say, I didn’t even attempt it.
I provide that background as a means to lead up to the events of the past few days. Last Wednesday (10/11) we made a trip to Homegrown Taproom for dinner. Aside from the great food and excellent beer selection, my primary goal was to fill my growler with a great beer and sit and paint while becoming inebriated. For me, consuming alcohol is a necessary prerequisite to engaging in any sort of activity that would require me to ‘loosen up’. So the following evening, I poured myself a beer and we sat in the sunroom painting.
I approached the activity with the canvas in landscape with the idea that I would paint a rendering of the image that appears on this website since that image is a perfect reflection of my journey. Needless to say, before the night was over I had rotated the canvas to portrait and began painting with an entirely different purpose – and that was okay …
The next day however, when I again looked at the painting (sober no less), I quickly began to analyze it and then began to ‘fix’ it … The whole process was really quite informative. I had never painted with acrylics before and so was surprised to learn just how soluble they are in water (which is great considering that I don’t want to ‘waste’ any brushes with oils). I had read on wiki-how that the canvas works better if is damp and so I also realized that I could mist the wet paint to get a great bleeding effect. That bit of knowledge and experience came in handy on Saturday morning when I decided to mist the entire painting and then rub it down … once the canvas dried, I proceeded to paint it entirely black.
I spent the day going back and forth to the painting as I slowly began to develop it in to a piece with meaning and I have to admit, I am pleased.
I call the painting ‘journey’ as I see it as representative of my journey. Here, the painting appears to be black/white. While it is dark, there is color int he trees and flashlight. There is a lone figure with a dog walking a moonlit path in the dead of night. In the shadows are two glowing eyes though from who/what is unknown. As I take my journey, I often feel as though I am in the darkness often unsure of where I am going. The glowing eyes represent the fear that cripples me constantly.
Something has changed and I don’t know what it is.
Initially, I want to blame the break in our routine of calling one another which occurred as I began my summer vacation from work and you and Travis celebrated your anniversary in Hawaii but it’s just not that simple.
When we do talk, I feel like we are strangers and I secretly cross my fingers hoping that you don’t ask me any probing questions about my life space for I am ashamed.
Still though, I don’t feel as connected with you as I had in recent years and that is not your fault.
I find myself slowly withdrawing from the world around me and everyone I care for. On some level, I seek to stop nurturing any connections held and certainly resist forming new ones. All the while I am terrified of being completely alone – a fear that is all too realistic. I picture myself in a corner slowly devouring the world around me until I eventually im/ex-plode.
It has been two short years since you and Justin tied the knot.
It is surreal for me – for a couple of reasons.
First – you are, and always will be, my baby girl. Acknowledging then that you are all grown up is not something I easily do.
Second – my memories of this day two years ago are very different than yours. I wasn’t able to join in your celebration with you. Rather, I was trying to distract Ma from the pain of not being present – a pain I am not so sure she ever let go of. Her body would not allow her to attend and her mind kept her from healing from that.
I believe that her inability to be physically present, on a day that she herself had been looking forward to, was a turning point for her recovery. It was at that point, that I believe, she realized that her life was slowly being consumed by the dis-ease of her physical body. She had fought for so long but now it was clear that even she was not strong enough.
I never heard her speak of your day except for once – when she owned that that hardest part of it all was knowing that Marlene was able to attend.
I hope you know how proud of you she was. I also hope you can see through her life how anger and resentment can eat away at the very fiber of your soul. If I could wish for you anything at all, it would be the ability to forgive even when you can’t forget.
It has nearly been a year since I last sat next to you on the couch. That day will forever be a sad day for me because it was that day, February 14th, 2015, that I helped you to the bed for the last time.
It was a different bed though and for different reasons. No longer was the focus to simply rest peacefully but now it was to rest for eternity.
That day was extremely difficult for me. Never have I had to make such a difficult decision as I did on that day. I still wonder if I made the right decision or just the easier decision. Even as I toil with the answer to that question, I can’t imagine having made a different decision for your sake.
All of those memories are flooding back to me as we approach the anniversary of your passing. Today brings specific memories with the amount of snow that has fallen. Beautiful, pure, fluffy snow – in uncommon amounts – that will from this point forward remind me of your passing. I will always believe that you left your body in sync with the coming snow out of consideration for us – as was the reasoning for everything you did. You knew that we would not have to take any more time off from work to care for you since the storm itself provided the necessary reprieve. You always felt ‘guilty’ that I was having to use my sick time to take you to the doctor and care for you – I wouldn’t have had it any other way though. In the end, no amount of time off from work is sufficient for the mourning that I continue to experience on a daily basis.
You are forever with me Ma and I will never forget your Love and Support.
Today would have been your 60th birthday had you been aloud to see it. If you were still alive, I can’t imagine it would be a day of much celebration. Seeing you deteriorate over the past couple of years has forced me to see the fragile nature of your body and even your spirit towards the end.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. My feelings wander between those of peace and of sorrow. On the one hand, I am at peace knowing that you are no longer bound to this plain by your dis-eased body. On the other hand, I am saddened greatly by the time lost and taken for granted.
As we pass through the holidays, and more importantly your birthday, I can’t help but realize that over the years the joy I experienced from the holidays came as a result of a celebration of you. As I grew older, December 25th became less of a day spent around a Christmas tree and more about the time I could spend close to you. As a result, I am faced with this quiet rebellion against all that the holidays typically bring, overtly refusing to celebrate since I am unable to celebrate with you. At the same time, I feel deep within my soul that you would want me to continue on celebrating yet I don’t know how to do that. It is almost as though I fear to continue on would mean that I have moved on and I can’t imagine that. I do hope to someday move beyond remembering only your struggles to a place of remembering your joys but I guess that will take time. Still though, I never want to forget any of the times or experiences of your fight – I just want to get passed that and remember who you were/are to me.
I spent yesterday looking at photos and files on your laptop, the one I bought you a few years ago so that you could play games and check email or Facebook in bed. I’ll never forget how gradually you became less and less interested in using it and engaging online – I think interest first began to wain when it became more difficult to see and then slowly more difficult to comprehend.
Over the last year you very slowly became someone I did not recognize. Your laugh was heard less often and your smile seen less frequently.
What concerns me most now is that all I seem to be able to remember are the doctor visits or the pain and suffering you endured. I am finding it difficult to remember the better times. I am finding it difficult to stop crying over and focusing on the times that have nothing to do with who you are.
I want to remember the good things. I want to see you in my dreams and smell you around the corner.
