“evermore”

This will be the fourth Christmas without my mom. Everything changes when you lose someone and that is really different from person to person. Some can pick up and move on and live life and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Some don’t and I am a firm believer that there isn’t anything wrong with that either. I am the latter of those types of people. I feel stuck many days. I still have to take something to sleep and now, probably because I am used to the stuff I take, I lie awake and think about that horrible day. I’m also having weird dreams that wake me up throughout the night. Some that worry me, some that are just crazy, and some that make me sad, and some… where my mom is alive. The days all look alike. I wake up, go to work, come home and get into bed until I need to cook dinner, and then back to bed. I try to get motivated to work out. I have gained so much weight. The heaviest I have ever been and that makes the depression worse. I have said before, I have moments of clarity. Moments I know that I am doing my mom a disservice.  She needs to be brought out into the open. Spoken about. Pictures out. I have done some little things. I have worked out on and off. Made some dinners my mom used to make. For Halloween, I watched Halloween movies, like Michael Myers, with my brother, and we even decorated. Those movies used to scare me but the scariest thing happened to me so Michael Myers pales in comparison. Watching someone you love die is the scariest movie you can watch. For me, it plays on a loop. We did Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving is the second hardest time of year (after my mom’s death and even her birthday so I guess the third hardest time of year) because it was our favorite holiday. Not for the typical reasons but because we chose to see it as a day to truly be thankful for each other and just spend the day as such. I made the whole dinner and in just focusing on that and not screwing it up (as I hadn’t cooked our Thanksgiving dinner in 3 years) I was able to keep my grief at bay. I made my mom’s dressing and it was almost the same but not. All of it was fine but not fine because she wasn’t there. Food can be great but it’s the people that help make it and provide that whole experience that helps take that to the next level of deliciousness. We decided to do something different for Christmas and made a roast. We pulled out the Christmas tree but didn’t decorate it or fix the spot where the kitties laid and slept in it. I put some Christmas lights on the front porch and decorated our mantle with some lights and our Christmas tree decorations. Normally, we would be watching Christmas movies but I couldn’t manage it this year. Our favorite movie, The Family Stone, would have been played almost repeatedly from the beginning of November to Christmas; I can’t even think about watching it without her. Our normal traditions of going and looking at Christmas lights didn’t happen either. I have to take what I can do without a breakdown as a win. I admire those that can keep on with the traditions. Most people had a family of their… their own kids and husband and all of that to have a reason to keep those traditions moving and continuing on. I am so jealous of those people. I know they are still grieving but they have a purpose to keep them going. Something to preoccupy their mind. I know that comes with its own struggles. The time to actual grief without constantly putting on a brave face. I don’t know. I have my brother. He is the reason I am still standing. My brother and our cats and our chickens. He is the reason I am able to do any of the things. He is what pushes me to want to continue to move forward. It’s a constant battle of being stuck and trying to move forward. He is the reason I am trying.

One album I can listen to is evermore by Taylor Swift. I can honestly listen to anything by Taylor Swift and not be held down by the grief of listening to the things that most represent my mom. I feel like without knowing me and all I have been through with losing my mom and the changes to who I am as a person, Taylor’s music has been able to almost speak for me. To be a friend with an understanding of who I am now, without my mom, and says things I can’t say so eloquently.  Expose my feelings but between two friends. She keeps my confidences but exposes the parts I want to scream from the rooftops in ways that I try so hard to. So many songs that say what I need to say to the people I thought were my friends. To the people who fucked me over. To my mom. To myself.

The song “Evermore” exposes my grief and my wishes to just fix everything. The week before to the night she died, I replay it, over and over, just trying to find the exact moment I truly fucked up. Even thinking back before, all the signs. The things she said. My responses and decisions.