I never, i don't think, write in here when i'm happy. And i certainly don't think about writing in here. Well, that's not true. Sometimes, when something good has happened to me, i think about how i would write about it. But i usually don't.
But when i'm walking down the street, feeling miserable, batting the tears out of my eyelashes, i'm definitely thinking about how i'm going to write that down in here.

Is it because i need to get it off my chest because it hurts so much? Because expressing it, even to cyberspace and onto a screen, actually helps me to bear it? Why do i have to record when i feel at my lowest? Maybe to legitimize it. To say, i feel like shit because x,y,z. Also, sometimes when i'm "talking it out" i see the situation from a different perspective. Maybe in the end i just get a better grip on it all after i've written it down. Probably it's that keeping it inside, unspoken, will kill me.

I had a few dreams with my mother over the weekend. Nothing revelatory or mind-blowing or particularly delicious, which is what i hope for. But she was there and this morning that made me wake up at 8:32am. I'm supposed to be going out the door for work at that time. But i just kept going back to sleep because i didn't want to leave her, i wanted to stay with her. I don't even remember the dream that well, or the other two i had a few nights ago. I sort of remember but almost don't feel like writing them down. It was good to have her in the dream, even though she was sick in them. But waking up was so harsh. Literally, waking up again to the fact that she's dead. Again. Why at the end of January is this a hard concept to grasp again? Probably because her birthday's coming up.

I walked through Lincoln Center today during lunch, on my way back from tia's where i was checking in on the birds and cat, and they've redone the plazas. The main fountain's totally different, the benches surrounding the azalea bushes by the pool are gone, replaced by some "grove" of tiny trees and very modern rounded stone benches. The old benches are gone. All these changes around the city move me further away from my past with my mother, my childhood and my adulthood. It's like she's going backward and the city is going forward. Everything i see is like a sign that she's gone.

Sometimes i think of my grief as if i'm swimming through it. Sometimes i'm thrashing about, trying to stay afloat and not drown. Sometimes i'm just floating along, not moving, not stirring anything up. Sometimes it's a relaxed ride.
But today i didn't feel that way. Today, walking in the rain, which is, by the way, a surefire condition for me to cry, i thought of it as a contained explosion. I was walking down the street, just keeping it together. Just keeping myself from breaking open and spilling all over the sidewalk. And i wonder, how do i do this today? How do i do this for the next 30 days? The next 300 days?

I haven't transformed. I haven't been broken open in a good way, like that awesome book describes. Maybe it's in the future.

I don't really have anything to say other than i'm sad, i miss my mom, i wish she were here, i wish i could get a do-over, i don't think this is fair.
I want to do stuff for her, not for myself. I'm no substitute for her.

I'm grateful. People love me. I know amazing, inspiring, lovely people. I've been blessed every single day of my life. I don't think i'm ever not lucky.
But i'm sad and my heart hurts.
I'm lucky but i'm not happy. What's the next step to fixing that? I have to be happy before i die, right?

Sometimes i'm afraid that if i don't write stuff down i'll forget it. Like the specifics of my mom's illness and the treatments and the last days. Like, was that on a weekday or weekend? Was it 2 weeks before she died or 1 week? Did we take the subway that day or was she too weak for it already? What were the last words she said to me? I only just asked myself that a few days ago. I have no idea what they were.

I realized that being in fear of forgetting is missing the point. There's TOO much to remember. It's all there. I have to shut down my memory so that i don't go crazy. I'm not struggling with the details, i'm keeping them at bay because i don't want to go back there. I need to find happiness in my memories and for now my default is to focus on the sad memories. I would like that to stop.