“Sleeping Beauty”
It’s the last day of 2018. The last day of the worst year of my life. The beginning of the second worst year of my life.
I never participated in New Year’s activities. Always doing or watching something other than the count downs because I was so disappointed in myself and where I was with my life.
From as far back as I can remember, all I wanted was to get married and have a family. I wanted to be a teacher but the desire to marry and have a family was always much stronger. I have always been the hopeless romantic, a little on the naive side of love… I had an ex tell me that love wasn’t a “Lifetime movie”. I knew that, of course, but I did picture love and romance and marriage as a scene from “Sleeping Beauty“, where my prince charming finds me, kisses me and wakes me and we live happily ever after. I know that is not how love goes. I saw my parents marriage and how that went. One would think, after seeing the abuse my mom went through, I wouldn’t want to get married or have children but I did and still do. It is the reason that I am still single. 37 and single. 37, single, and a crazy cat lady. 37, single, crazy cat lady, loner, stubborn…. set in her ways… 37 and realizing that she should have been celebrating the new years and birthdays… all the ones that she still had with her mother. It’s so easy looking back… the saying is hind site is 20/20, right? All the things I should have done and didn’t. I did celebrate those things with with her but now I wonder if she knew that I am happy to be alive because of her. That I am happy with my life because she gave me life. That none of the things that I am disappointed about are because of her… they are because of me, inspired by the need to have something better than her, because that is what she deserved. She deserved so much more than what she ever got. I know my dad loved her and I know she never stopped loving him. She never dated after him and though he dated and remarried a few times, I knew that she was it for him as well. Things in both of their childhoods shaped them into who they were, and he was too angry and depressed and dependent on alcohol to see what a wonderful life he could have had. She was too… I don’t want to say weak but afraid in a way, reliant on him. She didn’t drive and he was her means to everything. With 5 children, she did what she had to do to keep her kids safe. There were good times, days and nights listening to music on the record player, all of the many lake trips… I guess I want to end this here but on this note… And I say this for more than learning it from losing my mom but to listening to all of those around me, it has become a conscious thought, well.. thoughts, I try my hardest to repeat to myself everyday… Be appreciative of your loved ones… tell them you love them every day. Don’t go to bed angry. Be mindful of those around you. You don’t know what they are going through. Don’t give advice you wouldn’t want to be told told yourself. If you are depressed, please get help. You can call the National Suicide Prevention hotline and someone is there to listen. 1-800-273-8755. I’m not sure what to do with myself… I feel like a shell of a person without my mom. My heart still beats but it’s the most painful reminder that I am still alive and now without her. That this new year, 2019, starts without her, leads to her 61st birthday and then the 1 year mark of the worst day of my life.