Anyway.
Tonight was our Fight Club holiday season celebration: a celebration of us! I forget who put it that way, but it was so good.
We were missing Sara, sadly, but we're planning on photoshopping her into our group photo. Whoever suggested that was genius.
We saw Elizabeth who we hadn't seen in a while. She said that it felt like coming home to her, to be with us tonight and that she was so glad she made it, even if she couldn't stay for the whole time. Lovely Elizabeth gave us each her and Myles' holiday card and that was just great and so sweet. I hardly ever get any cards (probably because i hardly ever send any, lol) so this is especially sweet coming from one of my "sisters." It's a gorgeous card and they are such a gorgeous couple. We always say how much we love knowing that Elizabeth has Myles. (And that Myles has Elizabeth).
Then Kerri said that she had something for us, too. So she whips out some cute little bundles that have each of our names on them and starts handing them out. I look at her and go, "wait, did you make this?" Leave it to Kerri to knit each of us our very own, different colored scarf! The cutest part is that she handed out cards immediately after and my card has a short piece of yarn in it that's a preview of my scarf, because she hasn't finished mine yet since the yarn is finer. But it's turquoise! It's so gorgeous. And it's a color i've been wearing more and more in the past couple of years (right, Georgia?). I especially love all my turquoise earrings.
I think that my mom used to discourage me from wearing blue and green when i was younger because she didn't think it looked good with my skin color but in recent years i did start wearing it and showed her that yes, it did look good with my skin color.
So that was just so amazing of Kerri and crazy sweet. Alison told us that Kerri's a good liar because they had had a knitting afternoon at Alison's apartment a couple of weekends ago, and Kerri told her that she was knitting scarves for some coworkers or some people, i forget. Clever.
Fran's is black, but a sparkly black. Brianne's is kinda pumpkin colored. Cara's is a lovely chick yellow. Elizabeth's is a gorgeous blue and white variegated color. Jenna's is like grass green. Alison's is like a raspberry. I told Alison that it's a similar color to my first scarf that i knitted, the "red and green" one that my mom lost in the street when she wore it one day.
I love my holiday card from Kerri, too, because it's of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller center and it has glitter all over it. My mom so loved to glitter-ize her Christmas cards and this made me think of her. Plus i have such fond memories of our day spent at Rockefeller Center taking pics with tia Emilia, mom and me.
I wanted so badly to show my mom the cards. Or to tell her about the scarves. I want so badly to tell her about my Fight Club and how wonderful each of the girls is and how much i love them. Dr. Hirsh and E.J. would say, "go ahead and tell her." Well, i'm not there yet but at least i know that a) she would be happy for me, and b) she would absolutely LOVE the girls (and she'd probably tell me to be more like them, actually).
Dr. Hirsh told me last week that i was a normal daughter. That getting impatient with my mom or some of the other stuff that i feel like an asshole about now is actually normal. And he asked me to give myself credit for taking care of her at the end. I feel like it's shameful that it took my mom's illness for me to be the daughter that she wanted me to be. But at least i keep repeating to myself that i wasn't always an asshole, i was normal, too.
I talked to Cara about guilt at length after we said goodbye to Jenna. They still feel guilt from their surviving parent and i still feel guilt about my mom dying and me not giving her the life i would have wanted for her. My whole plan was to take care of her and have money and take her places and do fun stuff and show her the world as i see it. But our time was cut short.
We all agreed tonight that the holidays suck. Celebration all around and some of us are "celebrating" one year anniversaries of our loved ones' death, some of us are reliving our loved ones last days and hospital stays. Some of us are trying to stay sane while the world around us tries to make Christmas, or Hanukkah, or the "season" happen.
Gretchen, stop trying to make the holiday season happen! It's not going to happen!
Brian asked me today in the kitchen how i'm doing with the holidays and if i'm having a hard time. I said yes, i don't want to celebrate. Immediately he said, what would your mom want? I couldn't believe that he asked me first of all, and i couldn't believe that he asked about my mom. I just responded, "celebrate." Then he told me about his post-holiday party and how it's fun and how it doesn't have to be awkward.
I thought about that all afternoon and evening. Nobody asks me that. And nobody has asked me that recently. He's the only one at work who seems to have remembered that my mom died and maybe i'm sad about it now.
Well, Cynthia always asks me anyway and i adore her and she's like a mom, which is why i'll always defend her when people talk smack about her. She's crazy but caring, like nobody else.
Uh oh, i need my beauty sleep. Tomorrow night i'm taking tia Beatriz, tia Emilia, Carol and Diana to see "Burn the Floor" starring Maksim Chmerovsky and Kym Johnson. It's my Christmas present to all of them. I'm looking forward to them enjoying it a lot. I'd like to think that if my mom were alive i'd have taken her to see it and she would have loved it.
I saw "Everybody's Fine," on Sunday night with Dana and Corey. E.J. was great, very, very funny and the audience laughed. But the movie is so freaking sad. I mean, it's so touching and it's so harsh in that it depicts real, complex parent-child relationships as well as grief and coming to terms with the truth about who we really are. I think i might watch it again on dvd, i liked it that much, but it might be too sad. I cried through nearly the entire movie.
Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island, speaks to me:
He thought of what Cawley had said to him.
It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.
Was he suicidal?
He supposed he was. He couldn't remember a day since Dolores's death when he hadn't thought of joining her, and it sometimes went further than that. Sometimes he felt as if continuing to live was an act of cowardice. What was the point of buying groceries, of filling the Chrysler tank, of shaving, putting on socks, standing in yet another line, picking a tie, ironing a shirt, washing his face, combing his hair, cashing a check, renewing his license, reading the paper, taking a piss, eating - alone, always alone - going to a movie, buying a record, paying bills, shaving again, washing again, sleeping again, waking up again...
...if none of it brought him closer to her?
He knew he was supposed to move on. Recover. Put it behind him. His few stray friends and few stray relatives had said as much, and he knew that if he were on the outside looking in, he would tell that other Teddy to buck up and suck in your gut and get on with the rest of your life.
But to do that, he'd have to find a way to put Dolores on a shelf, to allow her to gather dust in the hope that enough dust would accumulate to soften his memory of her. Mute her image. Until one day she'd be less a person who had lived and more the dream of one.
It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.
Was he suicidal?
He supposed he was. He couldn't remember a day since Dolores's death when he hadn't thought of joining her, and it sometimes went further than that. Sometimes he felt as if continuing to live was an act of cowardice. What was the point of buying groceries, of filling the Chrysler tank, of shaving, putting on socks, standing in yet another line, picking a tie, ironing a shirt, washing his face, combing his hair, cashing a check, renewing his license, reading the paper, taking a piss, eating - alone, always alone - going to a movie, buying a record, paying bills, shaving again, washing again, sleeping again, waking up again...
...if none of it brought him closer to her?
He knew he was supposed to move on. Recover. Put it behind him. His few stray friends and few stray relatives had said as much, and he knew that if he were on the outside looking in, he would tell that other Teddy to buck up and suck in your gut and get on with the rest of your life.
But to do that, he'd have to find a way to put Dolores on a shelf, to allow her to gather dust in the hope that enough dust would accumulate to soften his memory of her. Mute her image. Until one day she'd be less a person who had lived and more the dream of one.
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