As I was driving to the office today, I had to turn off the podcast I was listening to, in order to allow the thought bubble to percolate right at the tippy top of my temporal lobe.
The thought that had been marinating ever since my sister and I reconciled in late July 2017--a reconciliation mom went to her grave not knowing about:
What if my sister only reconciled with me, knowing she needed a lot of help to empty mom's house out to be sold off, with the proceeds to go to Shady Pines?
Here it is nearly 3.5 years after we reconciled, and I guess I can only deduce that on a subliminal and perhaps other cognitive levels, I don't trust the state of things.
I hardly hear from her (same thing with her kid who turns 19 in a couple weeks). The mind riddled with grief and the void left behind with mom's death really does a number on me.
In so many ways, I feel as if mom's family has forsaken me (with the exception of a couple first cousins-once-removed. I hear from no one--and that includes her sister, who for the majority of my life I *thought* was an ally, only for me to realize in 2018 how jealous and petty and manipulative she truly is). Christmas and New Year's came and went without even so much as one of her superficial texts full of emojis and zero depth. No card. No nothing. I wish I could say it doesn't hurt.
Same thing goes for that friend, or "frenemy," or whatever you want to call that former co-worker who retired the end of September. I ate lunch with her for 17 years, and actually gave far more of a shit about her than she has about me. I can't tell if the lack of a text or card was because she finally got the hint that I'm done with her, or that she's just following her modus operandi of putting zero effort into relationships. And I'll say it again, I wish I could say this doesn't hurt, too.
The pandemic isn't making any of this easier. All the things I'd normally do to distract myself (visits with friends, lunches out, shopping, self care like pedicures or deep tissue massage etc) are shelved until this plague is under control.
My life these days is just alternating working in the office and working from home, and my only outings are for groceries, or a weekly laundry drop off/pick up, and a Sunday night dash to pick up dinner from a restaurant. Maharajah is the entirety of my socialization, and save for hugging a coworker who retired right before Thanksgiving--Maharajah has been the solitary person I've touched.
A friend/co-worker visited with me in the office today (masked up and at a distance), needing a UPS parcel to go out, and he really is one of the very few people at work who give-a-shit now. We talked about the current state of things. He even managed to get me to laugh--even if it wasn't a sustained, hearty laugh.
I have this sense of loneliness that I just can't shake. And I'm lucky to have the Maharajah--and some good friends who check in on me (just about) daily. But I have this loneliness or longing for calls I'll never have with mom again--I want to believe we were as good as it was going to get with us; or texts with Susan; or a more profound relationship with my sister.
As hokey as it sounds, at some point after dad died, he visited me in a dream, and said, "I know what you've been up to." And somehow that still brings me comfort. As of today's date, mom's been gone 8 months, and not a peep from her from the great beyond.
All of the anger from all of my earlier posts from years ago right up until the virus was in her nursing home is giving way to loads of sadness and regret--and lots of the regret for things outside my control--regret for things MOM should or could have done and had not.
A dear friend/co-worker of mine of the last 18 years said it best, "You did the best you could, under the circumstances." I wish I had the opportunity to say those words to mom. She wasn't perfect. "Damaged people, damage people." I think on some level she knew that (otherwise why else would she have asked me what kind of mother she was).
I wish she'd visit me in my dreams, so I could tell her that.
And here I am, yet again, sitting at my desk in my nearly vacant office, sobbing.
So, excuse me if I'm not jolly and wishing people a Happy New Year. I'm not feeling happy or joyful. And, yanno what? I think I need to feel this way for a while.
