Thank you Diane

So, mom died. I attribute (blame) her last months here on Earth for my lack of writing.  I kinda attribute a lot of these past “lost” years to her.  Not in a “bad” way, it was just the way I coped, which to be honest was not a great example.  I moved back to Pittsburgh 6 years ago.  First of all, I was living in Daytona Beach and did not have a job.  I had a temporary job but I was in between jobs after the dreaded Stetson experience. And I was offered a job in Pittsburgh, back home.  Although I didn’t really want to move back to Pittsburgh, I did need a job, and this was a really good job offer.  And of course my kids are here.  Grown up, and used to not having me around, but still they were here.  Not to mention countless friends (those same ones I deserted when I moved to Finally Florida).  Anyway, but what was the final justification that gave me the strength to leave my Finally Florida dream?  I had to help with mom.  It wasn’t fair to my sister to bear the brunt of all of that so I should move back and help. Plus I loved my mom. And move I did.

I think there are levels of debate as to how much others may have thought I helped.  I joked with someone recently that it will be etched on my gravestone “you only came once a week” – which is a rather sore spot, but I digress.  The real impetus of my whole existence these past 6 years, while we watched and waited for mom to die, was, well, watching and waiting for her to die. Being on edge, waiting and wondering.  Every day there was some sort of guilt.  Was I there enough?  Was I there too much? Am I helping?  Am I intruding?  Am I over doing it?  Am I underdoing it? There was a whole lot of resentment.  Was I getting anything out of this?  Was I getting any money?  LOL.  She gave me plenty of money, I’m not complaining.  Really she’s my mom and I didn’t mind, mostly, helping.  But there was just so much more to it.  It’s so much more emotional than just being there physically. 

I noticed these past few months I just kinda stopped. I did not stop Jar painting, I probably picked that up even more out of nervousness, but I am now wondering, on some level, did I know it was about to end ?  I mean we always sort of joked about her ending, joked with her, and she was always cognizant enough to joke about it, and also to want it to happen, fast!  But she was basically healthy.  Other than losing her sight, which could have been avoided we all believe, her vitals were always strong. Good heart, slightly elevated blood pressure but never that high.  Clean living until the end. She had an “alert” end of her life that she could communicate, good and bad, with us. Her frustrations, her fears, her anger.  Lots of anger and frustrations there at the end.  And you know as a daughter, as this daughter, one (me) can take a lot of that to heart.  Not that she was angry at me, but just the fact that you have to witness that and figure out how to process it, and how to support it.  I mean it’s A LOT.  And I feel I have put my life on hold ever since I moved back to Pittsburgh, my life, my thoughts, my feelings and actions (or non actions) have all been based around my mom. 

Why was this a mistake?  Because now I feel pretty lost. I don’t feel lost without my mom, I feel lost that I didn’t pursue my interests more.  I didn’t forge those broken ties with my kids more.  Although I have been working on that.  I mean I have been back here 6 years and still don’t know where I want to settle.  When I first moved back I thought I had to be in Sewickley, near my mom and then in a knee jerk decision ended up in Mt. Washington.   Like where did that come from?  Then I bought a house, a goal of mine since 2010 when I sold my other house.  Then that fell through and I end up in an apartment in the city!  Like where did THAT come from?  Now my kids are in Bethel Park (south, but still a suburb of the city) and another in San Francisco.  Neither near Sewickley.  I can’t afford Sewickley.  I mean do I go to the south suburb where my one son, who I rarely see, lives?  I mean I don’t even know where to live.  I have been waiting and watching and wondering when my mom would die before deciding where to settle.

Ever since Finally Florida, ever since I left Florida and moved in with mom in Virginia, and then back to Florida and then back to Pittsburgh I have been struggling to find myself.  And then in the midst of all this I retire!!  Which I swear has been the greatest feeling (other than the birth of at least that first child.  I mean the second was great too, but that first is like “wow, this came out of me” – there is nothing so wonderous as that realization.  You created this human being!  The second one is like, oh yea, I did this before 😊 ) Anyway, so here I am.  After retirement I thought “NOW, I will find myself” – I thought now that I can do whatever I want (but obviously still need to survive financially) I felt freer to try things.  And try things I did, but always with that tie to mom.  Not to mention the support and encouragement from mom.  Which I got, but historically did not come easily.  However, this late in life she became very supportive, but also, not exactly critical, but always asking what I could do “better” – and she did this lovingly.  I know that.  I KNOW that. But I always felt like I was disappointing her because I wasn’t this huge success that she thought I should be. SHE was frustrated by it. LOL. I mean the pressure of not only not succeeding in my trivial pursuits but of also letting my mother down.  I mean, where are my therapists???

So to say that mom’s passing has been freeing, is an understatement.  First of all it was her freedom.  Her freedom of stuck in a room, in a chair, blind, with no quality of life at all.  For six years.  Was some of that, all of that, self-inflicted?  Does it matter? I had to witness it, through my own perspective of what was going on and it was stressful.  So was it freeing to me?  Heck yea.  No more worries about my role in this support of her, or the family, am I free from my one day a week? LOL. I sure am.  Is my sister free from her being in her house sharing the one bathroom, having to get up every night when she would get lost in the hall?  Is she free to sleep?  Yep she is.  There is a lot of freedom now.  And again, mostly my mom’s freedom, which we all wanted for her.  I mean there gets to a point in life where life is no longer worth living.  She got there.  She got there years ago.  But I wish it would have been different for her.  I wish I wouldn’t have moved back to Florida from Virginia. I wish I could have figured out a way to stay there in Virginia.  I wish a lot of things.  But the reality is I am “here” – and I don’t know where “here” is.

This is not in tone with my usual bloggy-ness is it?  I don’t usually like to go this introspective but my fingers are typing away on this computer and I can’t seem to stop myself.  I was talking to Diane today, on this Tuesday which had recently become “mom” visit day, and told Di that I am struggling to know what to do with myself.  The Jar decorating that kept me busy for months has seemed to have waned, weirdly, because now you’d think I’d get even more into it.  But I’m sort of viewing that now as restless energy that I was transmuting. Diane said to try and remember all the stuff that I’ve been putting off because I didn’t feel I had time.  Mom used to always ask about my blogging.  I said, recently, that I just felt I didn’t have time.  I was always getting interrupted by either an actual place I had to be, or just my thoughts and couldn’t focus on it.  So Diane said to me, just today, why don’t you try and get back to that?

I love my friends. I mean, they have been there for years of my venting, YEARS, and with such good advice.  Really, I should have gotten there myself.  I should have thought, huh, now I can do “this” and “that” and “whatnot” but I hadn’t gotten there yet.  Until today, when Diane suggested it.  And lucky you all to be able to read all of this outpouring of grief and explanation of where I’ve been.

Do you think I’m a blogger?  Is this who I am?  Am I a writer?  (yes…just say yes) I mean I am a fast typist for sure as this blog coming out is taking no time at all.  I will take Diane’s advice and start actually doing the things that I have put off for so long because of whatever reason.  I have no excuses any more.  I only work TWO days a week out of the house, and those are two HALF days so I have plenty of time to blog, to write a book, to paint a jar (or my new thing of clam shells) or to start an exercise regime.  Okay I still need time for that exercise regime to take hold… can I blame not doing exercise on grief?

I have found myself often having those split-second thoughts of “gotta call mom and tell her this” – but it’s just like a split second.  I didn’t live with her so I don’t feel an immediate loss in my home, mostly I feel a loss of youth.  Of a life gone by.  I look back at times when I was a kid, like little kid, then teenager and being 16 years old and crawling into bed with my parents because I was scared after I saw the movie The Exorcist.  I mean 16!  And she just moved over and let me in. I was 58 years old and still putting my head on her lap when I lived with her in Virginia and we would sit on the couch in front of a fire I made and listen to the fire and I would put my head on my mom’s lap. She never scooted me off.  Never acted like I was too old for any of it.  I think what I’ll miss the most is when I DO become that successful person she so believed I should be that she won’t be here to share in the joy of it.  But I know she’ll be “here” in spirit.  I did suggest to her once that maybe she could help me more from the other side and to hurry up and get over there and try.  We joked about that a lot. We, us Monahans, do not fear death.  I’m sure we fear dying too soon, no one wants that.  But 92, blind, sitting in a room, is not too soon. 

Now that I’m an orphan I can look back and say that I have had a pretty good life.  There are things that happened in my childhood that would shock even the most cynical of people, as I expect happens in more families than we know, BUT when I look back as a whole, and I think about my brother and sisters and how much I really do like us as a family I would have to say they, my parents, did a good job.  We are nice to each other, we laugh A LOT, we make fun of good things to make fun of and we share a true affection for our parents and our childhood.  I mean really, what more can you ask for.

I guess I’m back to blogging.

Xoxox