I feel now like I’m staggering in the dark in this new reality.

everything is without joy or luster.

I’ve lost my eyesight and my heart, my ability to touch the world, the same world that I thought I was a part of.

it’s too much for me to handle! being here, forever more alone now, without you.

I felt that a long road stretched before me and now I’m not sure, and I’m not sure that I care. I need to be held, I need to be cared for and looked after.

I don’t know if I can ever escape the way I feel. I can’t give it words. I can’t make it make sense to anyone else.

so much salt and mucus. from my throat and my eyes and my nose. my heart can’t find the air to breathe. I wish she was only on a trip. I wish I could find her somewhere on a map. I wish she could be found. anywhere

there’s no duplicate, no other replacement or stand in, no “good enough, this will do” in my life. it’s just the biggest hole I’ve ever seen

But the other times I have to find somewhere to put it. I was going to put it in my physical journal but I hid it away so nobody could find it and I’m too tired to rummage around for it. So I come here, just to get the thought “I really don’t want to live in a world without my mom anymore” off my chest, off my lungs, out of my heart and head. I have to say horrible honest things or I think I’ll have a heart attack sometimes. It’s like inducing yourself to puke. Getting it over with so you can hopefully feel better for a few hours or a few days, until you have to do it again.

I will never get over this until I’m dead. I’m so tired of it. The hurting. Feeling alone in it, even though my siblings are hurting just as bad if not worse.

Most days I have some energy because I take Ritalin now (yes it’s prescribed yes I have adhd tyvm). It helps for the first few hours of the day and eventually fades out. Then I get like this, exhausted by the idea of living. I want someone to tell me something I’ve not thought of living for already. Nothing and no one feels worth it.

I miss her stories. I miss asking her questions and her being honest with me. Why can’t I keep better humans around myself. I’m only able to love people that are never around.

I wish I had some desire to keep living after my mom died but I don’t really.

I remember my dad telling us how he lost the will to live after his brother died, and both Rory and I were like “oh, we aren’t worth living for” and it’s like, wow the honesty. sometimes nothing is enough and nobody is enough and grief just swallows it all whole. it felt personal but it wasn’t. It’s just that big whale of sadness and that’s all there is.

I can’t think of anything I feel hopeful about. I wonder if it means I have to just sit and twiddle my thumbs until life is over. There’s nothing I want to accomplish. I’m never going to fall in love. I’m not going to be who I’d like to be.

I hadn’t realized how a majority of my identity was being my parent’s child. That’s how I’ve seen myself. Not as a mother or a parent or a lover or a friend or a student or a teacher or a worker but as their child. I don’t think I know how to be much of anything else.

I don’t mean that I was ever a good child or a good daughter. I wasn’t and haven’t been, really. But my only real ties to anyone or anything were my parents. They’re both basically gone for me at this point.

like the risen veins in my mother’s hands. like lilacs and corduroy. the sound of my mother imitating a dog barking.

I love the song title by vashti bunyan “some things just stick in your mind.” It’s one of my most often contemplated questions - why do some experiences, smells, sounds, words, textures stay with us, but others do not? I try to grasp at and track the ones that stay in me… but I have no idea why they appear, often years or decades after the initial exposure, still fresh in my mind’s eye.

how much of it have I consciously chosen to hold onto and how much have I chosen to let go and forget about. is it me trying to save space for the things I really want to keep?

something I’m good at remembering is any comment anyone has made about music I love. down to specific songs and the exact words said about it. I can remember where the conversation took place. it’s weird!