Couldn’t We

May 11, 2024May 11, 2024 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Couldn’t we just go back for a visit so I can ask you questions that now hang in the air unanswered?

Like, did you used to thin out the hasta plants that grew along the walkway?

We were gifted several hasta plants last year and now they seem poised to take over the whole garden.

I don’t remember you gardening when I was little. Maybe I was in first grade?

I was wondering if you had wanted me to help you clear out and organize your accumulated stuff, but I never asked you. I don’t know why. I guess I thought it was enough to visit or bring you swimming at Laurel Lake, and going out for ice cream after.

Maybe we were just different, but you never failed to help when I asked. I was your ‘needy’ daughter I read in a letter you sent my now deceased sister.

Couldn’t we just meet on a sweet summer day and walk together and talk?

You could tell me more stories about your life, about my relatives.

I know it was a hard life, Mom. I know. It was hard all over, and it is again. You loved going to your French Catholic boarding school. I’m sure it took you away from whatever else was happening.

You had friends that made your world – and Harvey who was your first boyfriend and I never knew why you broke up, but he remained in your life through letters and occasional visits your whole life. I think he really loved you.

Couldn’t we have time to be together more than snippets in a dream that were strange and unsatisfying? I suppose something is better than nothing, and I’m glad I saw you as a young, radiant woman.

You offered me food, or were carrying food. Was that a message to myself from my subconscious? Maybe I need spiritual food now?

Change is tough, but so much changes all the time you’d think I’d be used to it. But I’ve also lived in the same place for ten years, but I don’t expect that will always be so. I’ve had the same routines, hung out with many of the same people – so there’s a sense of stability even though we’re all changing all the time. We’re growing older, and friends and relatives are leaving or have left us.

I heard your voice say “what a rainy day,” as I looked out the porch window onto the steady rain dampening the days plans.

I thought you were really there for a moment because I hadn’t been thinking of you, but it was your voice I heard. It was both comforting and filled me with longing to see you again.

Thank you for what you did for me, and for loving me.

Past Present or Present Past

February 13, 2024 / Hermionejh

I dreamed I saw a young woman who had red hair in a long thick braid like my sister used to wear her hair when she was younger. I didn’t dream of my sister – just a stranger.

What did that mean? Anything? Nothing?

I’m stuck in this wanting place. I recognize it but I don’t know what to do about it.

Why am I hanging onto the past? What do I think is there? Maybe it’s a kind of protection from the reality of now.

The past is long gone – I know that. I know there’s no going back, nor would I honestly want to. It sucked back then – but I was a part of a tribe.

A fucked up tribe, but it was as fun and interesting as it was terrible.

I didn’t know how to live this life. I only knew how to react to it.

I dreamed of being famous because it looked like an inoculation against the hell of life as I saw it.

I didn’t know that they were just people in another kind of hell. Some of them were genuine and good, and some were shit in reality. I wouldn’t know that for many years. I only saw the fantasy and the potential ticket out.

The older girls I got to hang around with seemed worldly. My sisters didn’t want me around them, but they were overruled by the clan leader. She was the arbiter of all things back then – at least to me.

She deemed me worthy, and so I was – at least when she was around. Mostly the older girls, including my sisters, kept to themselves, but I always got to hear about their adventures.

One of the girls, just a year older than me, was a true friend to me, but even we seemed to pass in and out of each others’ lives. We had a bond beyond time and space though. We belonged to each other without having to declare it – although we did become blood sisters by cutting our fingers and pressing them together to mix our blood.

She pierced my ears when I was 12. She was a mother hen toward me and did what she could to protect me.

I didn’t know that I needed protection, but she saw how I blew with the wind. She kept me safer than I would have been on my own. The wolves were always at the door.

She left the world last May and I so wish I could talk to her about my sister’s death and hear what she would say to me.

I keep thinking I should just go join her, but I can’t for several reasons, the biggest being that I don’t know if I would find her out there. What if suicide fucks you up on the other side from here?

My therapist said to hear what she would say to me, but the thing is she almost always said something I wouldn’t have thought of. She also didn’t judge me or tell me to have a better attitude or that everything would be alright. Just that she loved me and was here.

But she’s not anymore.

I have to figure it out from here.

I guess I always did figure it out anyway, but knowing she was in the world helped.

My sister was a jerk to me quite often. It was how our family abuse twisted her, but she came into this world with her own essence just like I did – just like we all do.

It feels stupid to miss her. But it’s complicated. She brought fun & high adventure in our early lives regardless of her prickliness.

I don’t know if anything truly exists after this life, but her story has ended.

The ringleader of the group of older girls died a few months after my friend died, and then my next oldest sister a few months after that.

I’m worried that I’m just going to see all my friends and loved ones die before I do, but I have no control over any of that.

I wish we would all just leave this world on the same day and have a plan to meet on the other side – if there is an other side, but it’s not my deal.

Being here at all was never my deal. But here we are, so, good luck, I guess?

I’m not pondering or railing against anything that hasn’t been pondered or railed against before, I know.

There are thousands of books and programs and gurus and religions who all say different, albeit similar, words and thoughts about the why of this place, but the bottom line is that no one knows – and anyone who tells you they do know is deluded or lying or mentally ill.

“Life is pain, Highness, and anyone who tells you different is selling something,” from The Princess Bride.

She Was Here

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I pick up a paper from the growing stack of papers, and sympathy cards scattered here and there on the table, and I put it back down. I seem to walk in circles – doing mindless tasks, and chores – but nothing that requires real focus because I can’t seem to get myself together lately.

I’m supposed to be writing her obituary, but I can’t. It nauseates me to think of it – like maybe I’m making it real? I don’t think that’s really it. Maybe it’s that I have to face all that her passing means.

Any chance of a closer relationship is gone. While we both lived there was the possibility.

What is an obituary anyway? So much is left out. It’s the highlights, the best of them.

We don’t talk about the trauma much, if at all – or the pain and lingering hurt. That’s for me to work out alone, but it makes the writing seem disingenuous.

She was this, and that. She did these things, and then she left.

She left in the middle-ish of her life, and didn’t want to go – but not many of us do, regardless of our age.

She had a small life that she enjoyed, and she worked hard.

She didn’t know that she was getting sick, or that once she got sick it would be two & a half months of progressive hell with the hope that she’d regain function that never happened.

Her partner is devastated – shell-shocked really – and just a shadow in his own life now. Work is what saves him from the gaping hole of grief.

Her chair sits empty – her belongings mostly gone. How quickly physical traces got erased.

Do I want a shrine to her? Don’t we all deserve a shrine? We lived, dammit! WE WERE HERE.

I see my favorite picture of her in my mind’s eye. She is standing on a hill, maybe, with an Aruban breeze whipping her long copper red hair into her brightly laughing face. The beaming sun brings the feeling of warmth and being fully alive into that moment she was captured mid-laughter.

That was one of the happiest periods in her life. That’s when we were friends & I got to enjoy her company – her sense of adventure and be part of her strong, independent and earthy existence. She was fearless and exuberant. Her life was filled with activity: camping, canoeing, sunbathing, swimming, singing, dancing, and laughing.

But life moves on. She was better at letting go than I was. She went to nursing school, and finally got her bachelor’s degree focusing on diabetes education where she began a career.

She liked her house and her garden – so many things she did on her own.

She was good to my son, her nephew.

Time took away her sense of fun – or maybe that was what she thought maturity was.

Maybe we all figure out what’s comfortable for us, or what we’re willing to accept. Or maybe time just goes by regardless of what we’d like.

She was important to me. She was family. She showed up and made a point to have at least four gatherings a year.

I wished she had been kinder to me as time went on, but I didn’t recognize that maybe she was changing in ways that she didn’t understand herself.

Accepting how she changed was hard for me. I’ve changed too. Time changes us all whether we know it or not.

We have an essential self that gets buried under life’s burdens, but we can still shine through.

I will remember that laughing young woman, grateful for all she gave me as her sister, and hoping that she remembered the goodness we once shared.

I love you Twyla. I hope you’re in your happiest self, sparkling among the stars.

Strangeness

December 30, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

It’s this inbetween-land. Everything looks strange and inaccessible, but it’s also all familiar and available. I think I’m not liking this aspect of human-being.

Anger has saved me lately. It’s raw and vivid, and takes me out of any other feelings. Its also cold and callous. I see pain around me, even within me, and I’m not moved – except sometimes I am.

I will come back to balance & center again – but I’ve been trying to drink it away, and all I get is 15 or 20 minutes of relief, but hours or a day of feeling sick.

It’s not a good trade off. I feel better when I don’t drink, plus I can’t afford it anyway.
I can’t sustain anger either. I have to let the grief be there. I don’t want to talk, I have to walk about and let all of it be there.

So I’ll leave the booze to those it won’t try to kill, and I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other.

My sister got very sick, fairly quickly – even if it had been signalling its arrival for several years. It was hard to see what was happening until the worst happened.

Systemic scleroderma is a lot like cancer in remaining a general malaise for a long time before it erupts. Some get a milder version they can live with, but my sister got the worst version. It was relentless.

Her death was a relief for her because there was no out. She wasn’t traumatized at the end, her breathing got fast for a few minutes and then just stopped. We did all we could & in the hours before her passing we kept her comfortable, and kept telling her we loved her.

Don’t make any major decisions for a year wiser people say, but all I want to do is run. I want to move to another country or another planet. I want to not be at all anymore, and not because I’m grieving over my sister’s relatively early exit, but because there will be more.

It’s never going to end – it was just much less of it earlier in my life.

Maybe whatever comes next will be amazing and I’ll be so happy once I’m there, but as I am still earthbound, I have to deal with being human. If I hurt myself through carelessness, I’ll just have those consequences on top of getting old or sick.

If I’m going to be here, it’s important to me to be in the best shape I can to live the rest of my time well, and I will deal with my death when it comes.

Sisters Forever

December 14, 2023January 7, 2024 / Hermionejh / 6 Comments

So, what is there to do, after all, when the hard news comes that you knew was coming?

You also knew, and held out hope, that sometimes circumstances come together to change momentum’s direction, or change a person’s mind and will to continue on.

Hope was needed, but now it belongs back in its box.

The story’s end is known – only the timeline alters.

There is no changing what is happening, but I don’t have to hold my breath, or keep anxiety in my heart or mind. It won’t help, and it’s not compassion or acceptance.

What if she were going to a privately held party on a remote tropical island where everything is as you wish? I would feel envious instead of anxious, but I would be happy for her.

I wouldn’t try to delay her flight, or talk her out of going based on my fear.

She’s got her party hat all picked out.

Her dress is floral and flattering, her sandals and bag match, and her heart becomes light and joyful upon her arrival.

Maybe the flight was dreadful and terrifying, but the warm breezes embrace her as she disembarks. The distress of the difficult journey falls away as she gazes upon white sand, an azure ocean, and a forget-me-not blue sky.

Relatives and friends from her entire life are there to greet her, and celebrate her arrival.

She pauses before walking off because she hears crying in the distance – tears for her, and she looks for a way to ease them.

She sees an oyster shell at her feet and picks it up. She somehow knows that if she blows on it, the breeze will whisk it away into the ethers and it will soon gently fall at those sad ones’ feet.

They can know that she is now safe, and happy, and free.

All is well, and as it should be.

That Was Then, What Is Now?

November 18, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

It’s ok if you go, but it’s not ok. Or maybe I don’t know how I feel.

It’s so complicated. This life. Our trauma. You were so mean to me growing up and then we became friendly and we had so much drug-fueled fun together.

You were fierce and brash – so full of your youth and life.

You laughed a lot then, and danced and sang and played.

Life slowly chipped away at you and you reverted to being mean to me again.

I didn’t understand what happened. I remained who I always was. I’d glimpse your old self now and then, and my hope for friendship’s return brightened, only to be dashed with your harsh words. Your inner bully grew, even though I sensed the conflict within you, the desire to be free again.

‘Nothing is wrong with me,’ you would declare. ‘I’m not crazy,’ you spat out from your deeply wounded, deeply guarded self.

No, you’re not crazy. You’re wounded in a way it takes professional help to navigate, but that’s only for weak people like me, right?

I got to be the scapegoated one. You got to see me as more fucked up than you because I couldn’t contain my trauma. The irony is, neither could you – not really.

We were brutalized. We suffered PTSS before it was given a name.

But you pulled into yourself and declared war on the world – and pushed me out.

I never left. I still loved you & waited for the day you might remember the joy we had through the pain that was easier to ignore in our exuberant youth.

I hate seeing you stripped of your vitality and strength. You’re still trying to bully your way through this illness that does not compromise or get worn down. It just keeps punching.

Getting well means accepting that you’re not in charge, and it’s calling the shots. Your chance is in letting go and finding that resilient affirmation to live.

You’re scared and so am I – and I’m still on your side through it all.

It’s ok to go, but I’ll be sad we never got back to the goodness we once had. I’m accepting that it belonged to back then, not now.

I lost you long ago, but keep holding out hope in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

I’m sorry. I forgive you, please forgive me. I love you.

Leaving Claw Marks

July 10, 2023July 10, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Sometimes you just have to let go.

The problem is that anything I ever let go of had claw marks all over it.

We were a solid group of close to a dozen. Me & Jimmy were the younger ones in the group that ranged from 13 to 18 year-olds, but Jimmy was more fully accepted by everyone. Maybe because he was one of two boys in our group that regularly hung out together.

I had such a crush on him, and I didn’t know he was crushing too until one night we were at a dance and we were laughing and running around when he stopped and turned around to kiss me. I was more shocked than anything, but it was nice.

Maybe because I didn’t pursue more kissing, we just went back to the dance and our larger group as though nothing had happened, but continued dancing and having fun.

I was confused. I liked him, had a crush, but some inner sense held me back. I valued him as a friend – and I already had a boyfriend from school – who I rarely saw, and who lived in another town.

But this was summer, and our group met every day. He never said anything about the kiss, and neither did I.

He had a steady girlfriend before the summer was over, and my school boyfriend broke up with me. I had another crush by then, which eventually turned into my first true boyfriend.

We all continued on as a close knit group throughout the next few years, eventually drifting away as we found serious relationships, had children, or moved away.

A few years later, Jimmy started spending more time with my next oldest sister whose birthdays were two days and three years apart. I started visiting her almost every other weekend & we all grew close, had a great time partying, going dancing, taking trips to the beach, or weekends in New York City, and going to dozens of rock concerts. – the B52’s being one of the stand outs that Jimmy and I had such fun dancing to with my next oldest sister.

My crush on Jimmy, who now preferred James, remained. I nearly confessed my feelings, but something held me back.

It turned out he got into pretty hard drugs, and his life was beginning to invite more trouble than not, and I had college to focus on, but that crush remained true.

I accepted that that was all it could ever be, and I continued to value his friendship, but I think something broke for him about me.

Maybe it had been that first non-rejection rejection, but I was moving away from the drug scene – though I’d end up struggling with alcohol abuse throughout college.

I hadn’t seen him for several years after college, and it was so good to reconnect when we bumped into each other in our old town.

We both had a child about the same age, and chatted for a minute. I went to hug his son goodbye as we were about to part and James told me that his son only liked to hug beautiful women. I stood back and said “oh, okay,” and to my eternal gratitude his son looked at me, recognizing the dis, and gave me a big hug. Years later I got to tell his adult son how much that meant to me, regardless of what he thought about my looks. Lol

But, I continued to consider James as a friend – and I didn’t think I was very good-looking anyway.

He and my next oldest sister reconnected a few years ago, and my sister told me that James had bought her a ticket to go see the B52’s. It was so devastating that they didn’t think to invite me. Hadn’t I continued to be as good and true a friend as I had during all those years, seeing all those great bands together?

It took way too many years to figure out that neither of them are my friend anymore, regardless of the reason.

I must have left behind some of the longest, deepest claw marks in the world. I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure it out.

The Years Teach Much

May 19, 2022 / Hermionejh / 1 Comment

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “The years teach much which the days never know,” and as time goes on I feel that much deeper.

I carry a weighty sadness for not being able to get out of my own way through the years, and I don’t know whether I was just lazy, or didn’t really want what I said I wanted, or what I said mattered, or if it truly was that most of the time getting through my day was a laudable accomplishment.

I have so many questions if this is not a random universe and my being is not an astounding stroke of luck in such a universe.

I don’t know what the difference is between someone who attains their goals and lives a fulfilled life and someone who doesn’t – even when they sincerely try – or believe they sincerely try.

It’s not like nothing happened. A whole life was lived and managed – for better or worse.

I grew up, procreated, and am coming into my declining years – kicking and screaming.

I am a writer. I am writing. I have been an actor, and I have been a singer – in a band even!

Those were the goals I had. The famous part eluded me. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I was a hurt, vulnerable person in a sick and suffering world, and likely would have been prey as I had been anyway – but maybe not. There is no control me to know for sure.

Maybe I would have had protection from the predators – or lots of dumb luck.

Or I could have died in a back alley somewhere, or become what was done to me.

I did none of that.

I did want to end me – sometimes still do – but it’s far less than it was (most of the time.)

Worries about facing consequences in a spiritual realm kept me from offing myself – that and my son.

I rose as much as I fell though. I battled my way back after every down turn. The problem is the cycle never ended. It was exhausting. It is exhausting.

I couldn’t find a medication that worked, or that I could tolerate. I know several people who have said that they would likely not be alive if they had not found the right medication. Why am I such an anomaly?

That’s rhetorical. I just am, is the answer. It’s not personal. It just sucks.

If I did choose this, why can’t I un-choose it? If karma is real, what the hell did I do (or what hell did I do)? Why don’t we remember how we screwed up before so we can avoid repeating it?

I look around at the world and it seems to be on a perpetual rinse and repeat doom cycle everywhere.

If there is a harmonious, functioning, peaceful society who won’t tolerate predators, they have hidden themselves well away from the rest of us. If there’s a secret handshake, or phrase, or code – I want to find it out and join them.

The Story So Far – A Pirate’s Tale

April 30, 2022May 1, 2022 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

Did I ever tell you that I grew up on a pirate vessel?

There were eight total – a small pirate crew – nine if you counted the dog.

Yes, it is unusual to have a dog on a pirate ship.

She was a good dog though. The best.

She knew when storms were brewing, and the crew knew to heed her ears down and tail lowered.

The captain was like most pirate captains you read about – abusive, demanding, unpredictable.

The captain’s wife was part of the crew. Again – super unusual.

I would not have wanted to be first mate on this ship.

First mate is a misnomer, by the way, or at least it was on this ship.

The captain trusted no one to run the ship, but demanded more than was possible from the first mate – and second – and the whole crew. As you imagine, the crew was bone weary before the ship was very far out to sea.

But out to sea she went, that shitty old vessel.

The crew was constantly plugging leaks, and even though they did their best job (and also never signed up to be pirates), they were met with the captain’s insane demands for more and better.

The youngest of the crew had the misfortune to be incorrigible. Because he was so different, and the captain’s wife promised to keep him out of sight and doing the only thing he was good at, which was taking things apart (whether they needed to be or not), he was left mostly alone.

The captain drank – a lot – as many captains are rumored to do – and the more he drank, the more onerous his instructions and demands. Even the captain’s wife began imbibing as much as the captain, and their fighting became more and more ferocious until finally the captain challenged his wife to a duel.

Ok, there wasn’t actually a challenge, but the captain did tell his wife to walk the plank because he wanted to see how quickly the sharks would get her.

She did walk the plank with the captain’s musket trained on her – and she plunged into the murky depths.

The rest of the crew did not know what to do. And only three of them were on deck when the captain challenged her thus, and they got themselves below decks as fast as possible and started pushing barrels and crates, and all manner of objects to thwart the captain’s attempts at finding new targets.

Turns out, the captain’s wife jumped straight into a pod of humpback whales on their way to their breeding grounds, and they took pity on the strange creature they seemed to know was not of the sea (the lack of gills or fins was probably a giveaway).

The whales surrounded and buoyed her up to the stern where she was able to climb onboard unnoticed by the captain.

But the whales weren’t done.

The captain’s wife edged her way toward the ladder to reach the crew below decks and assess any damage in her absence while the captain screamed obscenities from the bow into the night air.

The captain was so enraged that he walked onto the plank, challenging Poseidon himself to a duel.

The whales took that very moment to ram the ship’s side, and the captain fell open-mouthed into the drink.

The first mate climbed up to the deck to see what had bashed into the ship, and he saw the captain flailing about in the sea.

He turned away and set a new course to the first harbor without a backward glance.

Most of the crew came back on deck to assess the damage for themselves, surprised and delighted to see a group of whales breaching nearby, spouting and gamboling through the deep.

Several crew mates watched as the whales surrounded the flailing captain before dragging him down to Davey Jones’ locker.

The captain’s wife, unaccustomed to freedom, decided to finish the barrel of rum left in the hold and was no good to anyone for the rest of the trip.

The crew managed the best they could until they found the nearest land.

The youngest crew member did not come above board after the captain was relieved of his command because he had been terrified by the captain’s screaming, and the whale’s blows against the ship, and convinced himself that rival pirates were about to come aboard and kill the whole crew.

He locked himself in the hold and ran in circles until he finally knocked himself out when he ran into a beam he mistook for a group of marauding pirates.

After the crew docked at Satan’s Den, the nearest harbor the first mate found, the crew disembarked, carrying the unconscious youngest crew member with them.

They found shelter above the village tavern.

The two oldest crew mates sold the pirate vessel for a more seaworthy ship, replenished their stores, and told the crew that they were setting out for the new world. The captain’s wife was sad to see them go, but she chose to stay ashore and kept the four other crew members with her.

Later, in relief at being liberated from the terrible captain, the captain’s wife went down to the tavern where there was laughter and drink, and she stayed all night.

The rest of the weary crew went up to their quarters and slept.

The next morning, the captain’s wife was nowhere to be found, so the four crew members talked about what they should do. They decided to set out from Satan’s Den to find a life away from the sea.

The youngest crew members missed the captain’s wife, and after tearful goodbyes with the next two oldest crew members, they turned back to Satan’s Den to wait for her return.

The captain’s wife did return several days later when the youngest crew members were about to give up hope, but she seemed annoyed at seeing them waiting for her.

She told them that a group of landlubbers she met at the tavern told her about a life she could never have imagined existed, and they wanted her to come with them. She reluctantly said the youngest two crew members could come with her.

They looked at each other, each deciding that their best chance at survival was following the captain’s wife.

Unfortunately, the youngest crew member only knew how to function out at sea, and even though the next oldest tried to help him learn the ways of being on land, he told her that dragons were surrounding them and wanted to burn them and eat them.

Even though the older crew member could not see the dragons, the youngest insisted they were there.

She didn’t know what to do, and the captain’s wife had started out without them.

The youngest was too afraid to live on the land or at sea, and even though she tried and tried, she could not help him.

She gave him all she knew how to give, and told him where she would be if he ever needed her.

And that’s the story so far.

Avoidance

October 3, 2021October 4, 2021 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

Stuck.

I’m noticing that the night-blooming jasmine flowers, that rarely bud out anymore, are budding in a cluster of five or six.

(is that my mother making them bloom now – maybe? or is it my Aunt Lee, checking in on me. Or is it nothing because there is nothing, and they are gone now. All the aunts except my aunt Cathy are gone.)

I pulled out my Halloween decorations yesterday, and I really enjoyed that last year, but I’m having a hard time enjoying anything this year. It’s getting chilly here in Western Massachusetts, so I pulled out my fall and winter clothes too.

(mom kept all her clothes until they were practically rags, and I have the same wardrobe I’ve had for the last ten years, except underwear, of course, and a few shirts and a pair of pants I got from Costco.)

I’m having a coffee, trying to savor it. Be present to now, I think. Be present.

(mom loved coffee. why don’t I feel her? If spirit is real, and true, then why the fuck don’t I feel anyone who has gone on that I loved?)

I like how the steam rises up, and the rich smell of the beans is so delicious. I go out onto the back deck steps on sunny mornings to sit for a few minutes before starting my day in earnest. The willow trees, the small garden, the bright sky – I appreciate all of it. I am grateful for all that I have, for the time I’ve been given on this good Earth.

(and there’s the garden shed where some of mom’s things are that I have yet to go through and try to salvage anything or chuck it all out)

It’s different now. The raw grief has subsided, but sometimes it overwhelms me again. Mostly, it’s just part of me now.

(i think I’m angry with you, Mom. why are you silent? why don’t you visit me in my dreams? why won’t you make your presence known if you still exist? what kind of a shit universe is this?)

All unanswered questions. The Universe doesn’t bend to my will, or care how angry I am. I have to choose what I believe – if anything. I can be as wrong believing as not believing, or as right believing as not believing that there is a point and purpose to all of this.

I’m older now. I didn’t want to get older. I didn’t try to get older. Life just moved on – often without me keeping up – and definitely without my consent. My pain is often because I refuse acceptance too. I try to remember that I only have to accept, not approve. I can yell all I want that this is against my will, but life just doesn’t work like that. Life is neither for nor against me – or any of us – no matter how it seems otherwise.

Mom’s passing was just that. Whether it was ‘her time’, or whatever justification I might throw at it – it’s just a fact. I am on a temporal plane. Do I not enjoy what beauty and camaraderie and joy and struggle there is just because it’s going to end? Do I sit in a corner with my arms crossed until my own death comes? Joy and play are important to me! My people make life tolerable. The right music and free-spirited dancing lifts my spirits. So, I will grow older, and have more difficulty until the end. So will everyone on earth who doesn’t die young.

There is goodness, and there is terribleness. I can be as upset as I want, and rail against life’s ridiculousness – and I can make the best of this nonsensical experience. It’s not either/or for me. It’s all of the above.