she'll be missed in a thousand different ways

my birthday was a few days ago. i’m 27 now. i’m at work today and i’m trying so hard not to cry. there’s only so many ways i can try to postpone my grief but eventually it will always catch up to me. i spent the weekend with my friends in new orleans and it was really nice and i’m happy but there’s still just a tinge of sadness. i miss meme too. this is my first birthday without her. i feel so small. i don’t expect the whole world to remember my birthday but sometimes i try to convince myself if just enough people tell me happy birthday it will make up for the people who can’t.

it feels weird to be on the other side of grief. my best friend’s dad died last week. his funeral is tomorrow. next month will be 9 years since my mom died. i’ve done so much healing & processing over the years and now i’m holding my best friend who is at the very beginning and it’s so incredibly hard to tell her she’ll get through this. i think i’ve forgotten a lot of the first few months after my mom’s death because it’s just too painful to remember. i feel so silly trying to guide my friend through her grief because i have to let her experience it and work through it on her own. but i try to guide her anyway because i want her to know that eventually after a long time she will be happy again. i don’t think i started to feel like myself again until 5 or 6 years after my mom died. it takes time to create this new life that your loved one isn’t there for anymore and it takes even longer to accept that this is the way things are now. some of the most painful moments in my grief were when i would get stuck imagining my mom in my life in present day because it would just reinforce all the things she’s missing. i think at some point i stopped thinking of her that way and finally started appreciating the life we did have together. i don’t know. she’s worrying about what she’ll wear to his funeral tomorrow and all i want to tell her is that none of it matters, but then i remember crying at the store picking out a dress for my mother’s funeral. i have to remember to be gentle. i didn’t have anyone to hold my hand through my grief and i’m just glad i can be there for her.

i think bc i never talk about my grief my friends assume i’m over it? literally in the 8 years since my mom died my friends have probably acknowledged it less than a handful of times and i’m pretty sure they are just following my lead bc they also have no idea how to handle it either. i don’t talk about it with them bc i learned very quickly that they simply don’t get it in a way that will comfort me. and obviously that isn’t their fault. we were all just kids when my mom died. but bc of this self fulfilling prophecy, i feel so incredibly lonely all the time. my friends are the only family i have and i feel so far away from them. my grief takes up so much space and they don’t even know.

today is 8 years since my mom died. i don’t have much to say about this anniversary. my sister turned 17 last week. she’s now the same age i was when it happened. it’s a really weird feeling. my mom died 8 years ago and i still can’t talk about it.

i know i did the best i could at the time. this is just something i deeply regret.

yesterday my friend was having a problem and she was upset and crying and i am doing my best to be there for her and giving advice and she is just like “i need to call my mom.” i became annoyed and i don’t like that i get mad at her in these situations, but i just cannot sympathize. of course if i was having a problem i think i would call my mom too but my mom is dead and i can’t. i don’t have any adults in my life i can depend on and that’s okay. it is what it is. i just wish my friend was a little more self sufficient. i wish i had someone to call to ask about cooking or laundry, rather than googling it. i love my friend dearly, but sometimes she is the epitome of everything i don’t have and living with her only emphasizes that more. like pouring salt in the wound.

i miss you a lot. life is scary and hard right now. i would do anything for a hug from you. i love you.

i’m not sure if this blog is the right place for this but i need to talk about it before i combust. since my mom died i’ve become my grandmother’s primary caregiver. my grandmother lives on her own and is still able to take care of her basic needs, but she also requires a lot of help. she lives about an hour away from me and i spend nearly every weekend at her house taking care of her. i love my grandma dearly, she’s my favorite person in the world. but i can feel myself starting to harbor this resent toward her. i’m 23 years old, i don’t necessarily want to spend every single weekend taking care of my grandma. i want to hang out with my friends and have spontaneous plans. i want weekends where i can just enjoy myself and not feel guilty. i feel like i never get anytime to myself and it fuels this anger i have built up inside. i work a full time job during the week and then have to care for my grandma on the weekends, when do i get a break? and then i get pissed off at my aunt because she only comes when it’s Convinent for her. and my cousin hasn’t seen OUR grandma since christmas. since when did i agree to all this responsibility? i get mad at my mom because she should be here helping me with this! she should be taking care of her mom!

with the five year anniversary of my mom’s death coming up, i’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. i recently attended a funeral (the first since my mom’s) and i kept thinking about how i felt during her funeral and i realized i barely remember anything about it. i don’t remember who went to her funeral. i don’t even remember who sat next to me during the funeral. and then i realized i don’t remember much from the first few weeks after her death and it’s kinda surreal to be so far away from that low place in your life when you felt so empty and sad and hopeless and that it was never ending and you believed you would never feel like yourself again and it’s true. i don’t think i’ll ever feel like “myself” again because i lost a part of me that i will never get back...but i have become a New Me and she’s strong and powerful and resilient and brave and she’s doing Good things and i’m proud of her for still being here and not letting the world break her down to nothing. so if you’re reading this and you recently lost someone who meant a whole lot to you, i just wanna let you know that eventually there will be more good days than bad days and it’s worth it.

today would’ve been my mom and stepdad’s 15th wedding anniversary. i don’t know why their wedding anniversary brings up so much grief. maybe because i don’t think my stepdad remembers or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk about it. i feel like i’m the only person in the world who knows what this day is and i hurt for my mom because i know she’d never forget. i have this survivors guilt that makes me feel like i have to be responsible for remembering everything. anyway, i’m Sad today.