Five Years
I’m 39—Thirty-nine and a half for those counting. Little kids use their hands to show their age. They’ll flash four fingers when they’re four years old. Older people would do this if we had more fingers. It’s not efficient for me to put up 10 fingers, 10 fingers, 10 fingers and nine fingers. They say “show, don’t tell” when writing. But it’s easier to just say I’m 39.
January 21st marks five years since my mom passed. About a year and a half since Rose died. Many of the promises I made myself after these events, changes I’d make and the like, they haven’t really bore out. I’m not living a stagnant life, I’m busy all the time. But on the doorstep of 40, I don’t feel particularly more wise or less impulsive. I just don’t put myself in situations to make the bad choices of my early 20s.
The very idea of committing my thoughts to this blog. To talk my shit into the internet void. I feel the fruitlessness of it. There’s not the same delusion of control in my life that once came with it. It’s not as rewarding emotionally to expel everything inside of me. Saying I was a writer or that I am writer doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I’m too aware of the apathy. Yours, not mine. I’m not getting what I want out of it anymore so I can only really hope you do.
It’s not that you’re apathetic really. You have too much else going on. We all have too much shit going on. No one has time for my emotional bandwidth when most everyone can hardly handle their own. This isn’t the exchange I would like it to be—you, the reader; me, the writer. My point of view passing through the filter of your mind.
It’s not the wishing well of my youth. Where I put coin into the well and wish for something in return. I just keep spending, coin goes in, nothing comes out. So the hope of some lesson learned, some emotional discourse, it’s illusory. There’s no combination of keyboard taps, the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters of it all. It’s all bullshit and I’ve accepted that. There’s no string of sentences that’s going to add (or subtract) anything to my life. And that’s okay.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I miss my mom. Unconditional love is real and maybe not everyone was blessed with a parent that truly gave them that. Maybe most people haven’t experienced that. I can really only speak for the relationship between her and I. And I hope that you have someone or something in your life that you can channel unconditional love through.
Being that I’m this many—flashes 10 fingers, 10 fingers, 10 fingers and nine fingers—that means I’m almost 40. I lived in California from birth til I was 13. In Virginia from 13 until I was 26. And in Maryland from 26 to 39. 13 years in each spot. When I turn 40, I’ll have lived in Maryland longer than anywhere else. I don’t like this fact at all. And five of these MD years without my mom.
For those who’ve lost a parent, maybe you understand. I don’t intend to sound so ‘woe is me’. I’m just speaking to the brusque or abrupt nature of it all. Life feels callous in these moments.
For those of you who haven’t lost a parent, try not to take them for granted. I’m taking it for granted right now with my shitty attitude, but my mood will be fluid throughout the day. And the hollow feeling will fade. I’ll find a distraction. A cause. A good song. A better feeling. That’s life. I’m sewing it as I go along. We all are.
Maybe that parent was flawed. They didn’t do XYZ. They made mistakes. They beat you. They drank. I don’t know. But my mom was cool. She was a mostly calm and collected person. She spoiled me. Maybe your parent was just not good peoples, never was and never will be. But like I said, my mom was cool.
But you only get one mom. One dad. And when they’re gone, that’s it. That’s really it. Everything unsaid stays unsaid. Even if you have some picturesque final talk with your parent, like a “Life is like a box of chocolates” moment from Forrest Gump. The moment ends. Their life is gone. The tears and pain get a little further apart the longer they are gone. The pain becomes an echo inside of you that reverberates through you for the rest of your life. And on and on it goes.
I’m trying to fill the gaps between my life’s many echoes with as much goodness as I can. That’s all I can do, right?
Love you mom. Boop Rose for me.
