No one was on the schedule to write for tonight so I am posting this as an Open Thread for people who want a place to gather.
Please share whatever you need to share.
on a personal note, i have been having a terrible time lately.
at this point, after all these years, I can hardly tell what it is. everything is such a mish mosh. is it mourning, is it depression, is it loneliness, is it the extended period of bad weather? it could be anything or everything.
i just know that tears have been coming and coming and coming and i have been struggling just to get out of bed and get anything worthwhile done.
and i have a shame and blame tape playing in my head that repeats endlessly:
i did this to myself
i created this bubble of isolation around myself during those hard eldercare years. i neglected my friendships. i neglected my health. i neglected my career, such as it is. i set everything aside and now that she is gone i have to face the consequences of not building a better life for myself.
at the time it seemed like the right thing to do, and it was a labor of love, and it does save me from a certain level of guilt i might otherwise have had.
if i had held on to the the anger that strained our relationship for so many years, and had just let her languish and suffer in an institution to punish her for wrongs I felt she did to me, and if she had died while we were thus estranged, i might have a lot more guilt now, or other even more complicated emotions.
even with my care, which was better than she could have had in any nursing facility, she still suffered a great deal. memories of suffering i could have done more to alleviate still eat away at my heart.
but i also have wonderful memories of being very close in those final years, an extended period of reconciliation and mutual love that were deeply nourishing. i drank it in like a lifelong desert dweller who for the first time is living in a place where water is plentiful and free. any other hardships paled in comparison to the soul-satisfaction of "having my mommy back" after decades of being so physically and emotionally distant from her.
now more than eight, (eight!) years later, i go to that well and it is dry, and I did not plan for other sources of love and life to replace it.
then that voice comes up: you did this to yourself. you chose to build your life around your mother's care. people are expected to do that for a spouse. maybe even for a child. but a parent? does that make sense?
i gave her all those years that were my last chance to create a life and family of my own.
i did it for her, but i also did it for myself. i needed it as much as she did. and now the aching emptiness of coming home to the empty apartment is worse than I used to feel when i came home to an empty apartment in the years before the time i cared for her. i got used to having her companionship and love, after longing for it my whole adult life. and now she is gone and i feel so stuck. i have wasted (?) the last eight years pining away for my mom who can never come back, instead of looking ahead.
i have so much respect for the widows and widowers who remarry, and just MOVE ON in spite of what they lost and what they miss. i spend hours wondering what they have that I do;t have. i have therapy. i have friends who would love to see me! the blockage is inside me. and it's all mixed up with mourning and loss and depression and other general dysfunction.
i had those few years of feeling loved and connected--recapturing some of the closeness of my very early childhood. now, when i am in this hard place, i feel have nothing. intellectually, i know it isn't true. but emotionally, i am just struggling on every level.
i have no one but myself to blame for my isolation and loneliness.
and i just don't know what to do.
please talk about your own situations. i just needed to vent a little. and now i have to go take my walk, the only self-care thing i have been consistent about over the last six months, so I'll have to check in on the diary much later.
Welcome, fellow travelers on the grief journey
and a special welcome to anyone new to The Grieving Room.
We meet every Monday evening.
Whether your loss is recent, or many years ago;
whether you've lost a person, or a pet;
or even if the person you're "mourning" is still alive,
("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time),
you can come to this diary and say whatever you need to say.
We can't solve each other's problems,
but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
Unlike a private journal
here, you know: your words are read by people who
have been through their own hell.
There's no need to pretty it up or tone it down..
It just is.