Letting go

The e-mail backlog and the procrastination and everything is part of a broader story of gaining peace. I think the reason I was having so much trouble telling it is that I was trying to gloss over the pain on that path.

If I am no longer afraid of various losses, that was mostly achieved by having major losses and then surviving them. Maybe that means they weren't devastating, but there were definite feelings. I think I need to face that part head on. Maybe the easiest way to do that is going over the one that does still hurt, and that is still happening.

It hurts that I am losing my mother, and have been doing so for years. I don't even know when to start counting; there have been so many stages.

The first thing that I need to acknowledge is that she seems really pretty happy and peaceful.

She had been pretty cheerful most of the time, but there were moments where she would get really emotional. Sometimes it felt like she was working things out. Even if the way she presented them had not been how it really happened, emotionally it seemed to be part of a larger truth. Now she seems more peaceful, but is also slowing down a lot. 

I know there are ways in which we have been really blessed; this could have been much harder. 

It's been hard enough.

So, I have that mourning for the past decade or so, and the absence of that relationship with a lot of reminders of it, and this sense of impending finality, and I am depressed.

This is actually my standard version of depression. There have been two periods in my life that were much more acute. Currently, I just feel kind of held down. I am very functional, but the sense of loss is very present. I don't think I can move past it until she goes, and that moving past is probably not going to be immediate.

I am really grateful that I was able to make peace with the flaws in our relationship. I carried a lot of guilt for my dissatisfaction for her, like I wasn't a good enough daughter if her method of parenting was not enough for me. 

Gaining that perspective on what was missing and why was a huge weight lifted. 

It also left me able to be more understanding of ways in which I could have been a better child, and to make peace with that as well. For the most part we liked each other, and we loved each other fiercely, and that's pretty good.

And I wholeheartedly believe this is not a permanent loss. One day the pain will be gone, and the love will still be there, and that will be joyful.

Right now this holiday season does kind of suck. 

It doesn't mean I won't enjoy anything, and it definitely doesn't mean that anyone should try and cheer me up. 

It just is.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-next-mourning.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/what-mr-rogers-said.html