Category: Family

October 16, 2018

Sometimes the phone rings, and I’m like YAY SOMEONE LIKES ME. But sometimes the phone rings, and my mom’s name pops up on the caller ID and I’m like OH SHIT WHAT HAPPENED OH GOD NOTHING IS SAFE WHAT’S GOING ON and I can barely answer because of the panic.

Today she called to say hi and ask me if I was safe. I almost died of a heart attack receiving that call.

That’s what losing someone does. You will never feel safe again. Trust me. You will think that every time your phone rings, something has happened to someone you love. I don’t keep the ringer on my phone because of this. I have like PTSD or something from phone calls. If my phone rings and either one of my parents’ names pops up, I consider throwing my phone in a lake. Every single time.

I wish I lived by a lake. I’m not kidding. I’d lake that phone so fast, I really would. I’d probably have gone through 50-100 phones by now.

Day 128 – Don’t call me, I’ll call you

October 13, 2018

Some other family members are here. They’re good buffers. They have babies. The babies are cute. I don’t know. I think it’s all too much. I smile when I don’t feel like smiling. I act all casual when I feel all tight and uncomfortable. I make jokes when I want to curl up alone. I help when I want to run away.

Not because I’m actually nice. Because I know I’m supposed to.

Day 125 – Buffers and babies

October 11, 2018

Maybe someday I’ll lose weight and make a million dollars a day and save all the dogs and help my family and run a marathon (this somehow seems the least likely to me) and watch my own show on TV and save the planet/reverse climate change and travel everywhere on my list.

The least likely one of those is actually lose weight. I don’t know why. I probably don’t care about it all that much. When I’m tired/bored/anxious/sad/annoyed/tired again/any other feeling, food seems like the only thing that makes me feel better at all.

Day 123 – Weighed Down

October 9, 2018

If I don’t call my mom, I won’t have to know if anything else bad has happened, right? But then I leave her there, with her pain and her pile of work and worst of all, my father.

I never know what I’m supposed to do. Live my life? Live her life? Move back and help her? Move on and help myself? Call? Don’t call?

I so often choose not to call. I know. I’m the worst.

Does it get easier?

Day 121 – So tired

October 8, 2018

Bad news bears. My mom’s dog died. It’s hard to explain to people when your dog is ACTUALLY your best friend how hard this is.

It’s hard. Loss is hard.

I can’t seem to eat, drink, sleep, exercise, laugh, run, avoid, work, or beg the sadness away. How do people get out?

Day 120 – Sad Day

October 5, 2018

Do so-called “normal” people have as many ups and downs as I do? What is normal, though? Like, pumpkin spice lattes and cute fall photos and long blonde hair and a terrier puppy and a small waist and a job in PR? Or, like, a big friend group and co-ed sports teams and tickets to concerts out in the desert and a boyfriend of 8 years that’s perfect and church on Sundays? Or, better yet, a comfortable job and financial security and good friends and a spouse and a house and a workout class every Wed/Fri and hosting themed parties and in bed by 10?

Instead, I have emotional roller coaster rides and confusion and judgment from my family and flaky friends and constant sadness and lots of cookies and evenings on the couch watching reruns and a job I tolerate that pays me next to nothing and a dream I haven’t accomplished yet and disappointing my parents and anxiety.

Am I doing it wrong?

Day 117 – Normal

October 3, 2018

I am avoiding talking about all the real things. If I talk about the thing that makes me paralyzingly sad, I will be too sad to function. Duh. But really. It’s true. If I talk about my favorite TV shows and ice cream and the dumb thing I did today, then I can keep moving and breathing and getting out of bed.

I write this to be cathartic, but I don’t often use it that way. I talk about my relationship. I bitch about work. I drool over a cookie I ate today. I write about politics and then delete it because it just makes me angry and instead talk about my dog.

How the actual fuck do people survive devastating things without annoying everyone around them or collapsing into an immovable ball of tears or both?

Day 115 – I…Sad.

September 30, 2018

It happened. Half his stuff. In the house. The move-in was actually pretty seamless. But then we got in a fight about… something. I can’t really remember. It seemed important.

He didn’t want me to put dishes away. I wanted to put dishes away. That was the fight.

For the record, I put the dishes away.

Day 112 – First day fight