Mourning

 I've been in mourning a lot lately.

I think any other time, I might just categorize this as a particularly weird spate of depression, but... it tastes different to me.

sometimes grieving can just come out of the blue

I lost my grandpa a little more than 3 years ago - on the near-anniversary, I wrote this:

"it's about my three year anniversary at Trupanion which also means it's the three year anniversary of my paternal grandpa's passing - I started working there about 2 days before my mom called me and told me to find a place to sit down so she could give me the news.

my sister walked me through figuring out bereavement time off. his funeral was the first time I saw my extended family as Moss, without any dresses or skirts.

I wore a tie.

I remember talking with my cousin about how we both wish we could have talked to him about our lives better before. I wonder what my cousin wanted to tell him.

I came out to my extended family really Firmly this year because of how much that's been a regret for me, and I'm glad I did it. I wish I'd done it sooner.

anniversaries here are always really weird because of this. I still have the brochure from the service on my work desk.

I dunno. I feel like this is always a sore spot for me, and I'm not sure how to move forward. I'm not sure I want to yet.

thanks

I don't think I want a solution here. I think the grief just punched a button tonight after remembering it's pretty much my work anniversary in a week. just, solidarity."

Today I've been thinking about how grief can continue to impact you in these weird little ways. like a tide coming in, there are more and more small things creeping up the shoreline, until you're underwater.

at least I know the tide will go out again.

My housemate killed herself 2 years ago. It's hard not to take on responsibility. someone you live with, see every few days...but we all see friends and family, and we all go through hard, difficult, even cataclysmic times inside our own heads. She was assaulted by a guy in a sport she played, in our house, and was going through the process of reporting it. I don't know what internal switch flipped, what came up for her that left this door open, what made that decision become more and more real to her.

we once had a coffee date where we talked for almost an hour about personality tests, because we both love them. when i got a silly possum plushie to give to my partner for our first valentines day together, she was in the room when i opened it, and i excitedly told her about it. she lamented to me about her love of costco and buying in bulk - especially, weirdly enough, whole cases of mint gum. she quoted me on twitter once about my then-obsessive love of dominos pizza.

"So I've become friends with some of the Domino's delivery people, which might be a sign that I need to stop ordering Domino's." Mar 3 2018

I struggle with being too close to people. I know that sometimes my own internal switch can flip, that I push people away so that I don't over-rely on them. I struggle finding a middle ground, and so aloof-ness is usually safer, emotionally. We were new housemates to each other, and I don't think I pushed her away, which is a relief to me. I know I have hurt people by being intentionally unavailable, because I am myself afraid of becoming overwhelmingly invested in them. It helps to know this about myself, and it helps to have such a clear view of this tendency, because I know that I gave her the friendship that I would have wanted in a new friend.

Sometimes all the support in the world isn't enough.

In the same ways that I don't believe in the idea that a person could be a monster - or wholly good - I don't believe that anyone is safe from these sorts of personal tragedies. Whatever we do in life, however we protect ourselves, something can always slip through. No matter how we rebuild, no matter how supported we are, we have no guarantees of permanence or protection. 

It's hard to mourn for people. It's hard to still be struck by these feelings. It's hard to navigate anger and grief, matter-of-factness and frustration and intensity. Knowing Chelsea is now a part of my own history, one of those things that I have to balance how and if to tell people. I want to respect her memory, and I want to respect that we all approach death - especially suicide - in different ways. 

I'm still building how to mourn. In that days after, I tore out all the carpets in the house, pried out staples and nails, swept. I did this with housemates and without. and still, at the end of it, there's no end. There's no final ending nail that tells you that you're done mourning, no final scrap of carpet that wipes away the grief. 

Ghosts are just memories. We build up what we think people are like, and we talk to them, and we reinforce those models. And when those people leave our lives, in whatever way is available to them, we are left with those echoes in our heads.

Grief comes in like the tide, and goes out again in the night.

Because

This week I’m done with everything.
For a change, it’s not depression.
It’s stress and tiredness and a little bit of grief.
My maternal grandmother died this week, see. When everyone else was drinking and laughing and counting down the seconds to 2013, my mother sat in a room with my grandmother and her family counting her breaths.

In.

Out.

I haven’t had the best of relationships with my mother’s parents. I hadn’t seen them for something like six years. At least. The problem wasn’t most of the common ones, I guess. It isn’t because of my religious views or my political views.

The problem was just because my grandparents are were are old and ill and a little paranoid and worried about losing their daughter, so they lashed out at her husband.
The problem was just that even though my grandparents have so many other relatives, they couldn’t handle losing one.
Which I guess I can understand. My mom and I aren’t always on the best of terms, but she’s an amazing woman, and everything makes me think of her. She sees the best in everyone and worries too much. She loves gardening and drawing. She looks like a movie star – a gracefully aging one. So I can understand how it would be difficult to let someone like that go.

In.

Out.

I’m still working through a lot of this in my head, and I’m still trying to figure out why.
My grandmother died of a brain tumor. She’d been through four years of on and off chemo, and couldn’t do it anymore. So they disconnected the tubes, gave her morphine, and let her rest.
And at the end, my mother arrived in time to sing her to the final sleep. They let her have that. My mom was tired and had been driving all night. She was worried about the reception with my grandparents. She was worried about our family, because we were a state away. But she stayed up all night (my mom who goes to sleep at 8 pm in the middle of movies) and sang to her own mom.

In.

Out.

At the funeral we had speakers. I learned more about my mom’s mom in a few hours than I ever had. I got to meet my mom’s cousins, and my second cousins. I didn’t make an idiot of myself, nor did any of my family. My mom and I had been up the night previous reading through old genealogies and family histories.

My mom tells the stories, you see. She remembers the funny things, the weird things, the touching things. And it felt like the first time I got to know my grandmother was after her death.

In.

Out.

So this week I’m just going to cope. I’m going to sit here and watch Supernatural, and drink. I’m going to go to the movies with my parents. I’m going to pet my dog.
Because it’s the little things that are important, but you can’t get over-cluttered with them. Because there will always be time until the time that there won’t be.
Because.

Depressed-You is an Idiot

I'm going to say first that if you have depression, and you think talking about it will be triggering, then stop. And go here instead.
Or here.  

For the past few years, I've been having issues with depression.
Apathy and insomnia is the worst of it lately, but it's all bad.
I like to say I'm a writer, but I can barely explain what depression feels like, because you read books about it and look at web md's symptom pages (warning, going to web md's symptom checker may cause you to think you have leukemia), and you still can't quite grasp it.

But, okay. Here's my attempt at explaining depression - for me, at any rate.  For those of you who already know, skip down a few paragraphs.  Go ahead.  That's where I'm talking about how I'm dealing with it.  Shoo.

I find it easiest to compare depression to a migraine, because I've had my fair share of them (that's a lie.  The only "fair share" of migraines a person can have is none.  I have had way too many migraines.) and it's easier to explain a migraine (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see) than it is to explain depression (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see because I've been crying for the past week).  For one, it's easier to be funny.  You can be more open about migraines, because we don't have the same stigmas about physical pain than we do about emotional pain.  With depression, I feel like I can't be as funny about it because while I can compare a migraine to evil little gremlins driving spikes into your brain while playing *shudders* country music, I can't say the same thing about depression without sounding, ha ha, crazy.

Depression is like having a migraine for three weeks months years and not having any Excedrin.  Straight up.  Sometimes you're listening to music that you like and the migraine goes away for a few hours, or you're talking with people that you actually like and you forget that your head hurts.  But the one surety for those entire three weeks is that it will come back.  

Depression is like all of those scenes in horror movies where the heroine is bashing away at the villain with the baseball bat screaming "Why won't you die?"  And then the villain stays around for the next 8 terrible sequels.  

The important thing to know about depression is that sometimes it does go away, and sometimes, with help, it stays away.  But in my experience, it comes back.  And sometimes it creeps up on you, so that you don't realize you have depression until you're lying on your friend's couch staring at the wall crying.  And then you can talk about it, because depressed-you isn't the same as you-you, and you-you has the ability to talk about what's wrong.  Depressed-you is a proud idiot with a mental illness.  Don't Listen to her.  

Here's the part where I talk about what I do.  What I've been doing.  Those of you who skipped down, welcome back to the party.  The depression party.  We have black balloons, but our confetti is made out of glitter, which is the prettiest confetti, and we stay up all night because when we go to sleep we have really bad dreams.

What I do is I figure out what triggers me.  And I avoid it.  I tell my closest friends that I have issues and we work on it.  Together.  Community is the thing that helps me the most, honestly.  Lately I've been working on a blog where I talk about the sort of things I avoid talking about here.  It's depression-me's blog.  Even though I'm fairly sure no one reads it, I like thinking that when I'm older, and better, (and famous and popular and rich, because this is my fantasy, dammit) maybe some kid will hear me reference that blog, and look it up, and maybe they'll read it and think, "Dayum.  If this lady is so effed up, and ended up so cool, then... I guess there's hope for me."

That's what helps.  That's what keeps me going.  I don't want to change the world.  Just someone in it.  I make goals for myself.  I want to be at my cousin's graduation.  I want to write a book.  And one day I want to read the last book of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.    And it's going to be awesome.

Hi world.

So hi!
Yes, I'm alive.
November hit me like a brick wall, and then december happened.
Christmas.
Aargh.
Potentially, I could go into a rant about how commercializing christmas is detracting from the real meaning of the holiday...but I made a new year's resolution to stop trolling for conflicting opinions.
(No I didn't, I'm just lazy.)
And I like getting presents.
If I could rant about this without it affecting my safely commercialized lifestyle, then I probably would.
As it is, I have the sneaking suspicion that I spent *way* too much money on other people and not enough on me. My id is feeling depressed.

And then new years hit - which pretty much consisted of my family and me watching irritating people at the new york disco ball drop thingy.
I fell asleep.
Fail.
So 2011 still hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Your word for this week is Anachronism. Use it every way you can.

If you must know, I am writing this in order to make me feel productive because I'm not doing my homework.
Just so you know.

Do not expect anything of real content.

I am happy today. While at the same time not happy.
I guess I'm normal today.

So this is what it feels like.

It is very unbearably hot here. Especially for someone who curls, and used to work in the packaging area of a cheese plant.

My parents have left after family weekend.
However, they did bring me cheese. And banana bread. And CDs. And skirts. And took me grocery-shopping. And demonstrated their love for me in as materialistic a way as I could want.
:D

I have a friend who is coming to visit me soon, via bus.
If a person who works in greyhound is reading this, I am upset with you because you very nearly forced her not to come, because of your exorbitant round-trip prices from her town to my town and back again.
So grr.
When I rule the world, there's gonna be some price slashing.

However, it is now worked out.

Said friend's birthday is also tomorrow. Go over here and wish her a happy birthday. Tell her Moss sent you.

My Creative Writing Club was pretty much a success. I hope for more people next meeting. I will bring cookies. :D

However, I also have to work on a Model Constitution for our group, which is a royal pain in the ass, mainly because most things referred to really don't apply to our group.

But I have Caramel Rice Cakes, which is good.

The battery in my MP3 player is virtually dead.

But I now have six billion songs on my laptop.

And I found a fun web comic. Go Here.
It is very fun.

Hmm. That is about it.

Besides This. Do It.

Bleh to Introspective

I wanted to write a post when I got on here...
Then my mind blanked. And then disconnected from my fingers and fine motor functions.
So I'm just going to write stuff that comes into my head.
Kay?
Kay.
Good.
(This is the good thing about running a dictatorship. The only person you have to agree with is yourself. If you don't have multiple personalities, you should be good.)
I'm kind of sad that I have only one follower right now. However, I am fairly sure that more people than one person read this at least semi-periodically...but still. The follow button is >that> way!

Now I sound whiny and not tough. *sigh*

Oh well. I knew it was only a matter of time before my clever disguise of awesomeness slipped and I would be revealed for the crazy lunatic that I am.
I just didn't expect it would come this soon.
*obviously employing heavy use of sarcasm*

Hmmmm...

On a more serious note...

I'm also really pleased at the fact that some of my friends (who shall go nameless, but know who they are if they read this) have been experiencing either relationship success or easy contentment with the way single life is going after several years of crap that they are far too nice and patient and wonderful to have put up with for so long.

It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest. Of course that could also be indigestion.

My own life is starting to settle again, after the initial craziness of moving into college.

I have many old and new friends...which is cool, and still gives me a surprise when I think about it.

I've had so many years of thinking of myself as an outsider, a lone wolf...that when I actually look around at the friends that have surrounded me...I can only wonder at their patience for dealing with my ego, oddness, and misplaced humor for so long.

And then I remember - they are every bit as odd as I am.

There are very few people (in my opinion) who are as blessed as I am with the sheer awesomeness of their friends.

I started a club - a creative writing club - and I have high hopes.

For the past year...and the first time in a long while...I've been on really good terms with both my siblings and my parents...

And my grandfather called me last night.

So I'm in a good place right now.

Possibly one of the best places I've been in a long while.

I'm going to go make popcorn and edit the spelling on my previous posts now...