Today is a good day. Well, so good so far.
Yesterday was a baaaaaaaaaaaaad day.

It remains unpredictable. But so far the bad days are closely followed by good days, so i think something is still working. I'm not completely out of order.

Today something sparked my memory and i decided to look up Father Luigi on Google. I was really surprised to find some youtube videos of him being interviewed on Brazilian tv about some Catholic stuff. He's the director of a university, a different position than when he last visited here in 1994. It was great to hear his voice again, so familiar and comforting. Meeting and knowing him was a highlight in my life. But it really hurt me that i'm not able to show my mom the videos. I wish so much that she could be here. Who else can i share this with? Who really knows what this means to me?

He's a part of my past like she's a part of my past. Good times in the past. Never to be regained.

Every day that i leave my apartment i start anticipating the moment i can go back home. While i'm at work, i can't wait until i get back home. Sometimes i go shopping at the end because it provides a comfort that i don't find anywhere else, but my favorite place, or maybe the place i need the most, is my bedroom.

I joined a great Facebook group called "please don't jump" in response to a postsecret.com message about someone who was planning to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge this summer. I found a link on ONTD of all places, and i'm so glad that i did. There are many inspirational and loving messages posted on the wall of the group.

One of them was a link to a Facundo Cabral youtube video. I'd forgotten how much i love his words. And of course i remember that my mom loved him. We both enjoyed his songs and the wise words we'd hear him say on television. I wish i'd gotten a chance to take her to see him.

I stayed home from work yesterday because i hurt my back. I slept for about 6 hours during the day. When i woke up i remembered various dreams i'd had with my mom. They were actually good, comfortable, happy dreams (not the nightmares i had last week) and it hurt me more than usual to wake up from them. Sometimes i wake up happy that i dreamt with her. Sometimes, like yesterday, it sucks to wake up and be in this world in which she's dead.

I bought a beautiful journal when i went to the ICFF with Jes in May. It's a book of blank pages, except all the pages have photographs of walls on them. They look like NYC walls. So it's like your own personal graffitti canvas. So far i've only written a couple of things in there. But i just sat here and looked through the whole book. It's amazing how blank, bare walls with only the pattern of the bricks or paint can tell entire stories. Almost all of those walls look familiar to me. And they each trigger a movie in my head, of my mother and me in the city. Lots of images come from photographs i've seen. Also from stories i've made up in my head based on stories i was told about photographs i've seen.

I'm having trouble not living in the past. Dr. H asked me if it's possible for the present and the past to co-exist, or to reach a kind of harmony. I said the answer was no.

I think i can live in the present and there are many things every day that draw my attention and engage my brain and heart. But my soul also keeps pulling back into the past. Like i don't deserve to live in the future. Like it's my duty to stay in the past.

I have to fight to stop not caring.

I wonder when i stopped caring. Maybe high school. 8th grade? I gotta think about that.

Keeping track

Friday: Baaaaaaaad morning (uncontrollable crying at work) turns out okay later in the day. Enough distraction and i put that fire out. Ate A LOT. Partly for binging purposes, partly because i was hungry.

Saturday: Fine. Slightly focused but not intense. Trying to update my budget and make sure to eat and keep hydrated.

Today is a better day

Today

It feels different than last year. Not as...a little less...a little more...
Better. I wince at that word yet it fits in some ways. A part of me knows that i felt worse last year, i know i cried a lot more and a lot more often. Day to day and hour to hour was worse. But different.
Today, this year, day to day and hour to hour i never stop thinking about my mom. It can happen anywhere and everywhere. I rotate between three thoughts: i miss my mom, i want my mom, i need my mom. These words come out of my mouth multiple times a day.

I think at times i have a teeny bit more of a desire to have my own life rather than to recreate my mother within myself as closely as humanly possible, which was my goal for about a year. I have some goals for myself. On some days, at least.

I've been dreaming with my mother every single night without fail and remembering the dreams for about 6 weeks now. Many times she's sick and i'm taking care of her or other times she's angry at me or i'm angry at her. Occasionally it's just a happy nice dream. I wake up every morning and let the dream slowly come back to me so i can pinpoint what she did and what she looked like. I stopped writing it down. I don't really forget the dreams and i don't feel like they'll ever leave my mind.

Moving forward is still very difficult. I'm riding loops and waves. Going forward and going back, being high and being low. Like Jenna said it, just keeping my head above water. And for me that's good enough. Getting up every day and going to work and eating and functioning in the world and maintaining social contact, these are the minimum requirements that i'm happy to be fulfilling.

I'm still a mess but that's a position that i know and am comfortable with. Progress not perfection. I make tiny moves forward and i'm satisfied. Maybe i'm too easy on myself.

Is it a full life? No.

It's still empty. I'm still alone. She's still gone.

Can i have wholeness or fullness or whatever the goal is supposed to be? Not in the way that i had planned and wanted. I don't have a plan i care about right now. I don't want to be sick. That's pretty much my main goal right now.
I need to make myself worthy of this life, i need to pay my dues and earn my keep.

I guess my biggest danger is being alone. Because when i'm alone i take myself faaaaaar away from the world. Isolation, Dr. H calls it.

So i need to eat, exercise, engage my mind and socialize and that way maybe, hopefully, i won't get sick.

I need to stop eating junky comfort food and stop buying shit to make myself feel better. It depletes my body and my wallet.

Malnourished and broke is not the way to go. But is my will strong enough?

Truth is there wasn't much i cared about before my mom died. And when she was gone i knew i'd never find anything to care about again. I have nowhere to go so i have to force myself to be here and do something.
And missing her at least does give me a purpose.

I really hope this is a chronicle of my recovery. I want to look back one day and say, those were my dark days and now i am better.

Today was a good day.
It was, and is, a surprise to me but i felt peace and happiness today. All day. Especially in the evening going shopping with Georgia.
I think it started last night when i had dinner with tia Beatriz and watched the movie, "Up," with her, which i gave to her as a Mother's Day gift.

I started repeating a new mantra of sorts, "i'm going to get better, i'm going to get better." I'm not talking to myself when i say it, i'm talking to my mother. I know she wants me to get better.
Tia Beatriz told me yesterday that she woke up feeling unwell on Mother's Day and she just couldn't focus or get her head straight. I asked why and her response was that she became sad thinking about her mother. She told me that every year on Mother's Day she gets sad thinking about her mother, and how she misses her and thinks about all the wonderful things that her mother did.
It was remarkable for me to hear this. My aunt is going to be 72 years old in July and she speaks so sincerely about how much it hurts her that her mother is no longer alive. It's been nearly 23 years since my grandmother died.

At first it was a little disheartening to hear that the pain of loss never ends, but right after the initial shock of her words, i found myself comforted that the loss of a mother could be that profound. I know i will always miss my mother tremendously, for the rest of my life. She'll never stop being the most important person in my life.

Sunday was a 0.
Monday was a negative 10.
Tuesday was a 2.
Wednesday was a 4.
Today was a 7.

I wish i could dance with my mom. It would make her so happy.
Sometimes she'd grab my wrists and just start dancing wildly with me, her own kind of cumbia, i guess. And she'd make the "chka chka chka" rhythm through her teeth and i would laugh or protest, depending on the mood i was in.
I wish i could grab her arms in the kitchen right now and dance with her and laugh with her.
I danced with my bird and that had to suffice.
Sometimes i pretend that Sandy is my mother, reincarnated. Or that my mom left her here for me. They met but never got to know each other. I think my mom died about a week after Sandy arrived. Or maybe less.

I realized today that riding down West End doesn't make me cry the way it used to last year. The memories of taking my mom to NYP Cornell aren't at the front of my mind anymore. Yet driving down the West Side Highway still hurts because it looks so beautiful, with the foliage and the new bike and running paths. It hurts that i can't show them to my mom.
And the new station entrance at 96th street hurts because it would have been so convenient for my mom, also an easy place for us to meet.
But the 59th street 8th avenue line doesn't hurt the way it used to last year, the memories of rushing to see mom at Mt. Sinai.
The most recent memories, the horrors from the hospital are fading now. Not that i want to hold onto those nightmares anyway. The 1,2,3 platform at 96th street no longer terrifies me as i remember going to and fro Harlem Hospital in those horrible first days. Now i'm just sad that she's not there with me.

I'm not as haunted by the traumatic and ugly moments as i am by the fact that my mom is, 13 months later, still dead. Never to come back or see me again.

Will i be healed when every single block in New York finally stops breaking my heart and no longer flashes the words "she was here but she died."

I don't know what to do with the sadness anymore. Dr. H would always say, "just feel it." I think i forgot how to cry. It doesn't happen often, hasn't happened in about a month, at least not a good cry. I'm afraid i'm bottling it up. Or worse, i'm afraid i'll get to a point where i feel nothing.
I can barely be bothered to write in here anymore.

"I wanna go home," i said out loud as i was pouring the hot water for my tea. Standing in the kitchen, i just wanted to go home. What does that mean, i asked myself. I was already home, technically. It means being quiet and not thinking and not feeling and not doing anything. I just want to close my eyes and not be anywhere.

Another day, another dollar.
I have to force myself to go out in the sun daily. I have to sit out in the sun and try to force the life into me.

This is a low low but i know i'll bounce back up at some point. I just don't want people, like my family, to tell me to get over it or snap out of it.