Holes

As I got myself out of bed this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize me. Who was this woman staring back at me? Who was this woman with dark circles under her eyes from crying the night before and tossing and turning all night? I can see in my own eyes that there is a hole in my heart, in my soul. Who is this woman?

                Some days I really honestly do not know who I am any more. I think back to times where I remember that the happy days outnumbered the sad ones. The days that I could call my mom and even when I was sad, she would make me smile and make the pain go away; she would wipe away the tears. Even when I think about the times that she made me mad or said something I really didn’t want to hear, it didn’t matter. Now it is still a good memory. I wish I had more days ahead where I knew she would lecture me about something: finishing my degree, coming home more often, or taking my vitamins. There won’t be any new memories like this. This is where the dark circles under my eyes and the hole in my heart come from. Just knowing there won’t be any more new memories.

                I do really try and grab on to the memories; grab onto the positives in life, because there are some very positive things in my life right now. Some days, the dark circles make it hard to see those positive things. It makes it hard to remember the amazing things that will be coming my way. It’s just plain hard.

                Many days I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t be normal to feel like this, can it? It’s been almost a year, and some days it hurts just as much as it did the day she died. How is this possible? I thought someone told me that time heals everything. It ain’t healing this. Most days, I do not know how to cope with the emotions surfacing. I find it hard to talk to people about these emotions, as I am afraid that it is a burden to them. I even find myself hiding what I’m feeling from my family. I know bottling this all up cannot be good, but I don’t know how to un-bottle it. My mom always said I was “the caregiver”. That I always worried too much about others and not enough about myself. She may be right. But after 27 years of bottling it up, I’m having a really hard time finding a way to get it out.

                Today was a bad day. It just was. I don’t really have a reason. Perhaps it is from the stress of a situation which has been unfolding over the last two weeks.  Perhaps it stems from missing my family. Perhaps it is just one of those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I don’t know. It was just hard. I wished I could just lay in bed all day and close my eyes – keep the rest of the world out. That did not happen. Unfortunately. So, now what? I guess for now, I will just blog about it. Isn’t it odd that I have such a hard time talking to others about how I’m feeling, but I am okay with posting my deepest thoughts and feelings on a public blog? Mom always said I was “special” and “different”. Perhaps this is what she meant.