blahsome

[blahsome]

March 18 2024

Good fucking lord,

Where has the time gone? Now you’ve been gone for 29 years. If you were here today you’d know what I mean when I say the math isn’t mathing.

29 years?? I know documents say I’m 35, but I pretty much just graduated college and I guess it’ll never make sense that you’ve been gone for any amount of time. The farther away I get from 6 years old, the more you stay 45, the closer my niblings get to 6 and then surpass it with their world view intact- I’m always holding my breath at milestones.

The time passes, I exhale.

The calendar pages turn and remind me to get ready for the waves. This last year though, it felt like I never got to come up for air. Just a gasp here and there. I’m fully submerged in a cycle of fighting, flighting and mostly being frozen. It looks like I’m moving but my muscles are shattering ice cubes and I can’t fall asleep and I hate to wake up. I love to be needed but my cup is empty and there seems to be a hole in the bottom.

I could’ve made time, I had plenty of it. It was the only thing I had, but I was like a spinning top: stop, drop. Finally, I’ve fallen and I can’t seem to get back up.

I’ve got little sense of comfort left. The last year was so jarring and I’m left raw. I don’t know how to bandage myself, I can’t afford mental health and I can’t afford to be mentally unwell, either. All I can do is feign a little dance to give the illusion that I’m on my feet, my knees at least.

These are just some of the most pertinent notes I’ve digitally scribbled over the last year or so. Some of these notes I think: what does any of this have to do with my mother? And I tell myself that I am how I am because she’s gone, so it is what it is.

-

Bb freeeee

may the beasts not render you an island

Bonding over poison

It’s crazy how time flies without you

But still I’m dragging around memories of you

-

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between compliments and manipulation

When I’ve got a new boy stretching my hamstrings

How do you know just when to creep back in?

I don’t know where to find Inspiration.

What beast have I encountered? How can I dissolve its teeth, sunken into my will, draining me of any sense of purpose or direction.

-

I told a forlorn boy that I could have his dick in my mouth and he’d still wonder if I’d like him tomorrow. I need to be held, but not so tight that I lose my autonomy. I don’t want to drag anyone down with my morosity, and I don’t have the ability to cleanse someone of their insecurities. No one really does.

-

I’m longing for peanuts

Lusting for when you used to come to my room

When you used to swing from my chandelier

Feigning human interaction through my screens

Nothing comes

-

A life time requiring too many moments of silence

I can’t quiet my mind

I want comfort

I want the cover of darkness

I want to make bad decisions

if they’ll make me feel good

-

Funny how men boast about survival of the fittest

While women hold the seeds before we’re even born, before our mothers are even born, we’ve existed for centuries before we come to be, in a form that you objectify and make small

-

Always an onslaught of processing to be postponed

A moment

Quiet

I can’t

Stir stir stir

Sleepless

What for?

I’m ready for the now to start

Without the worry of yesterday and tomorrow

What did I forget?

What will be forgotten?

-

A two way street

But one lane is paved with silver spoons and oblivion

The other with rusted shovels and painful clarity

-

Hello mama,

I’m in the midst of a flood of feeling desperate for your presence. All my old people are getting older, and so am I. Everything hurts. I’m suffering from chronic pain but I’m keeping as strong a face as I can. There is too much to do to tend to myself, what with everyone slipping away. You wrote it yourself “worry makes my face look funny”.

-

I’m so mad

I swear the breath heaving in my chest is 101 degrees

My heart’s warmed by the generosity of strangers

Lit on fire by the indifference of familiar faces

Broken by the additional pressure to keep a brave face

What would my mother think?

What was she doing when her mother was dying?

What would guilt feel like if I wasn’t breaking my back?

Guilt and shame are my ultimate punishers.

-

I’m traumatized by your intake and your disregard

Heart broken and lonely. Sometimes I think that everybody doesn’t want to hang out with themselves so much that they can’t hang out with me.

-

Knees leathered

Spirit weathered

Trying to make it all better

I fall apart

Disappointed in my efforts

Icing on my sad girl cake

This year is just another racket

What are efforts even for?

I spent four nights bedside, in a hospital chair

2am coffee, 3am slapping hands away from needles and monitors,

3:30am coffee, 4am alarms going off, more coffee

My mouth is small when I’m angry

Teeth clenched

lips pinched

Biting my tongue

What’s the point in fighting a saturated wall?

My dead mother, used as a weapon.

I’m not her.

I imagine she picked her battles thoughtfully

Cancer or an addicts addiction?

Better odds at beating cancer maybe, still lost.

Hakuna Matata, for who?

For her, for sure

My father has made her his higher power

His disillusion has damaged her good image in my mind.

I have to, I must, imagine that she would have stood up, intervened.

Distorted: my ideals of what love is.

Surely it’s not getting walked all over, second hand smoke, and dismissing bad behavior and bearing witness to a slow suicide.

-

Someone told me to have a cry as a little treat

So I tried

I tried to shed just a few regimented tears

But they all came out

They rushed

They dehydrated me

They turned me red and burned me

They took all my air

I went out to lay in the dirt

To feel the support of the earth

I tried to pull myself under the surface

But only ended up pulling out grass

Can I do nothing gracefully if I’m so distraught?

-

What is the opposite of horizon?

About 35 and ready for a reinvention again

Nothing has changed, I’m still a baby

I still want my mom

What was I born to do?

Ain’t nobody got a fast car round here, and even if they did

Somebody’s gotta take care of this old man

It’s kinda silly wanting my mom, I really didn’t know her.

What if we got along awful?

I went to an event with my #1 friend earlier and afterward she messaged me and told me I’m good at talking to people and she loves that about me. I said I felt embarrassed about what comes out of my mouth sometimes, and the how and the timing of it.

We went in hopes of winning gift cards or spa treatments.

I won a vodka gift basket, classic.

-

Every time I get a book of poems

I’m inspired to write again

I feel powerful

Grabbing balls

Stroking their taint

Sliding a digit in

I feel powerful

Knowing, if just for a moment

I have them wrapped around my finger

I’ve been thinking all day

About how to manifest a casual coincidence

Of standing next to you when the clock strikes midnight

I wish I could go back in time

And commit no sins that I need to be absolved of to feel worthy of you

But then I wouldn’t have ruled so many realms

I wish my worth and my shame weren’t in a constant battle

I wish I didn’t feel like the life I’ve lived apart from you would tear you to bits.

“Laying here naked,

Woman I previously hated”

We’re forging friends from enemies

Freaks from foes

Drunk darlin’s

Late nights

Early mornin’s

Velvety soft and smooth

Perfect teeth, my weakness

Gifts of lilac

Chains on our tongues

In the shade by a damn river

Be naked and aggressive

Longing for a late night bath

Good freaks

Dream of me

Life blood boosted

Effortlessly cool

Sunsets in the sticks

Crocs and cowboy hats

Day dreaming

Tailgates in wheaty fields

Caught off guard

So comfortable

So quick

Swooning

Nourishing bodies

Good looking

Looking good

“You’re good, baby”, rolling off the tongue

Your hands on me

Sweet lil angel freak

Necessary nap time

Neon lights

Dark nights

Sentimental and poetic

Philosophizing

Chill with it all

Seamless

Slowly and so comfortably

-

I just want to write

My woes

My ohs

My ooh lalas

Woe: I have no discipline

Oh: I have no discipline

Ooh lala: I want to be on that dick again

Sometimes all it takes to manifest is saying what you want in front of the right person

But sometimes even if I’m doing nothing and saying nothing to no one

I’m manifesting

Maybe something better than my weak spine

Likely not

Confrontation makes me want to vomit

The internal conflict of necessary confrontation also makes me want to vomit

-

I can’t afford feng shui or Jesus

-

It’s so crazy I keep opening my phone

and looking in all the same places to find meaning

I wanna be in it for the long haul

Tired of playing hard ball

And you’re not even playing at all

-

Toss

Turn

Toss again

This knee up

That knee up

I swear my shoulders are almost touching

Not on the blade side

My hips are pinching at my spine

It’s past 2am and I refuse to get up and stretch it all out

I do this every night

Pace all day

Twist all night

-

Dear Elmo,

Harrowed by the year behind me

Overwhelmed by crushing anxiety with even the smallest glances toward the year ahead

The week, the day, the minute ahead

The present is just a tornado

No steps forward on solid ground

A slippery mountain

A pit full of treacherous mud

No whatchamacallit in sight

Just pastel rainbows plastered on the walls to drown out the darkness

Hoping they’ll come alive

and as my caring companions

Braid themselves into a rope

And tie me up

And pull me out of this unfaltering fog

-

Laying in bed

Night after night

Pulling my pillows under the covers

Fighting them as I flail

Left side

Right side

Belly flop

One leg bent

The other

Would a big spoon sooth my ailing back?

Would my anxious fractured sense of self shove them off the bed?

Fetal position

One pillow clenched between my legs

Hoping it aligns my spine

One pillow clutched to my chest

Hoping it keeps my shoulders from touching before my collar bones

Turning in

Withering

Bedrotting

It all aches

A pillow tucked behind me to simulate a caring hand

steadfast on my back

-

I don’t know yet how to write about how scared I was when I thought Herman might die last year. He’d gotten a UTI that was so severe that he became septic, he was also going through alcohol withdrawl. When elderly people get UTI’s often times the only symptom is delirium, so it can be hard to tell when they’re usually drunk and delirious already. The good news is that he’s almost completely cut out his vices. The other news is that it’s difficult for me to accept that he is elderly, and he still has bladder cancer. I can actually accept the cancer part, I just get a little heartbroken when I watch him shuffling around not being present. I think about how my mom would be with her grandkids. And selfishly, how she might be the one to take Herman to his appointments if she was here, report back to the rest of us coherently, give us all hugs afterwards, and then be able to encourage him to be more of an active participant. When I got him home from the hospital I wrote a note and stuck it on his bathroom mirror: What would Becca do? He did actually appreciate and elaborate on it. It’s still there, 6 months later.

I’m so tired of scrolling instagram and reading stupid inspirational memes like “you haven’t met all the people you’re going to love yet”. I’m pretty sure if I can’t leave the house unless it’s to tend to my already loved ones, then I have. I don’t know how to make space for both the known and the unknown. All I do every day when I don’t have a task to do for someone I love is wonder what I’m on this earth for and what I’m even good at.

I wish I could see how my mom interacted with people. I wish it didn’t matter. I wish I didn’t spend the better half of the last two years in bed. It’s insane to think how much I actually did accomplish while simultaneously falling completely apart. And now I’m here, having hit an absolute wall, unraveled.

I am still full of wonder and comforted by the fact that all shades of light purple exist and so do I. My wondering can have no conclusion though. I can’t collect enough lilac, lavender, and orchid to conjure clarity. How many countless hours would my mother allow me of her time, to sit with me and hold me until we come up with a plan? Why can’t I do it myself? If we can’t do it, who can help? I’ve expended all my resources and am left with nothing to offer. I’m not even an expert on my own grief.

Sometimes it seems as if everyone forgot that we have to mourn this loss forever, together. So, I’m left alone. My fathers diminishing memory not remembering that I told him I’d like it if he would be home today so he can hang out with me while I plant some flowers. He’s 5 hours away and it won’t be me who reminds me.

Almost nothing seems worth a breath if I don’t mention all of the children in Palestine who will be left to mourn their martyred parents, and the parents, their martyred children. Ceasefire now, and forever. Free Palestine.

Hug your loved ones, ask them questions, use your time wisely if you have the energy, and if you know what I’m good at and should do with my life, please let me know.

Accepting defeat and hoping to rise from the ashes,

Blossom

[blahsome]

March 18 2020, yet another big milestone. 25 years. A quarter of a century. Is it a big deal or are numbers arbitrary and it’s the same amount of a deal as it ever has been? I can’t publish everything I’ve written down for this year without feeling guilty, but I also can’t step on no toes all the time. And now, I will also feel guilty posting this when there's a pandemic occurring, but, I am trapped at home with little to do other than edit and re-edit this writing to be suitable enough for the public. I started writing this on April 9, 2019, too early to start my 25th anniversary writing? I’ll guess not. So here it is, my yearly open letter to my mother with intermittent ramblings and poems about my experience moving though life as the person I am and my perceptions as a flawed but resilient female. It’s like if I put it out there, maybe I’ll somehow reach her and she will somehow let me know. Highs and lows, as usual. Just after 2 years off the sauce I had a bigger ‘aha moment’ than putting down any bottles, though one wouldn’t have happened without the other. I realized drinking wasn’t my real problem to begin with. It was people, and my desperate need for their acceptance and approval. My need to be recognized and valued instead of coddled and unconsciously kept in a box. My need to control the outcome of situations and stepping on toes in the process. After so long being alcohol free I came to see that I had to start living for me. In early June 2019 a dear friend turned me on to a book called CoDependent No More. In maybe a week’s time I absorbed every word, the narcissist in me was almost convinced that I’d written it myself, it resonated so deeply. The following week I started attending CoDA meetings. Now that so many of my grievances and ailments make sense, I only wish I’d known sooner that it was okay to live life with me as my number one priority. I didn’t know before that I didn’t have to feel responsible for other people’s actions or inactions, but my self worth had been dependent on it. I’m 95% sure my mother was CoDependent, and with that consideration, I’m able to understand her life choices better and therefore navigate my own with slightly better foresight. Wikipedia says “Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.” Now, that’s just one definition. There are many charastics to pick and choose from, and let me tell you, us codependents (I can only speak for myself) can be picky and choosy. Some people define codependency as a disease because if it goes untreated it only gets worse. I’m trying to break a lifetime of habits. Hi, My name is Blossom and I’m CoDependent. Every Monday night I go to a meeting where a group of women gather and we all try to work on ourselves to let go of whatever unmanageable ailments are keeping us shackled. It’s humbling and it fills me with hope. It empowers me to continuously seek change and clarity. Codependency is a tough one to recover from, as you can’t quit people. Once I had a name for this problem, every love song sounded different and every frustration made sense. I became able to recognize crazy making and slow down and see that I didn’t have control and things had become unmanageable. In doing so, I was able to step back and make better decisions for myself and my life and that’s how this whole last year unfolded more in my favor than any year previous. I worked on detaching and I started living for myself. March is a hard month for me. I sometimes feel so undeserving of a skin to be settled in. I writhe around in my persistent and annual grief. I start getting anxious in February wondering how it will appear this year. This March is particularly hard. I moved into a house with strangers and rarely stay there. I’ve got no place of my own to grieve, and with COVID-19 amongst us, I don’t want to take up any more emotional space while the world is feeling its current devestations and fears. My hopes for 2019 were to have more highs than lows, make my amends and reconciliations, and to keep my head mostly above water. And that was mostly the case. My aunt told me shortly after my post last year that my mom had self imposed low self esteem (now I recognize this as codependency). Watching home videos of her I feel like I could see stress in her face and I think about what she wrote in her journal about worry making her face look funny and how she didn’t want anyone to feel as she did. Maybe because it was a different time she felt like she couldn’t talk about her anxieties and had to bottle them up. I’m thinking about all the time I’ve spent transfixed by being a motherless daughter and trying to figure out where I fit into the word. I’m thinking about how long I spent tending to my father's bent and dusty wings, thinking I’d needed to see one of my parents fly so that I could’ve learned how it’s done. I’m in some required college to career success class that’s making me question my path, as if stress wasn’t doing that already. I’m laying in bed wishing that I’d figured out sooner that my wings were fine regardless of anyone else’s. I wish you were here so I could tell you all about everything. And so you could do the same. And so we could share the load. I quit smoking finally. Now my only vice is other people’s problems and trying to fix them to no avail. The eternal heartbreak I mentioned in my last letter makes more sense now. And the boy who told me to turn off the lights on my birthday sent me a podcast that said something about only being able to be loved as much as you’re willing to be vulnerable. And I think we’re all scared to be completely honest about how shitty we are, so we just perpetuate the shittiness and stay closed and unloveable. Early August 2019- I’m off track as usual, probably malnourished, definitely exhausted. This morning I was crying, I thought I wouldn’t be able to pull it together and that my eyes would be red when I got to my first job of the day. I think I was mourning. Things are going to change so much. I won’t have any more free time. I have to restructure everything. Which I think is what I wanted, but what a learning curve. I still have desperate hopes of creating a camp for motherless daughters someday. And it has to be accessible to all. But lord knows how far off in the future it is. At this time my feet are seldom beneath me, I’m sprinting forwards and if I stop I will stumble. I have to figure out my shit first I guess, and I’m putting in the worrrk. Or trying to at least. At a CoDA meeting a woman was talking about learning how to wield her anger, a thought that made me tremble. I liked the sound of it, as I have so much, and if we could turn it into a power, a force for good...it’d be all over. But I’m stifled by it, embarrassed of it. When I cancel plans it's usually because I’m embarrassed about how angry I am over something out of my control, and I can’t come down. Everyone was relatable, everyone seemed to be making progress, even if at this time it looked like a breakdown. They told their stories and I cringed inwardly, thinking of what I would have done in their situation. The time for change is now, I’m shaking in my boots. Some poetry and prose: My broken heart painted my world red slandering your name ensuring I’m to be seen as a fool who sobs wolf My depressed history understands every bit of where you come from like we have the same veins My logical self tells me that’s your burden to bear but I do everything I can to fabricate your crutches and excuse your bad behavior - Codependent Cowgirl Uncharmable. You only want your ex cause you think that’s where you can be yourself, but really that’s where was born the version of yourself you hate the most. Here I am standing strong, aching for my newest weakness. You’re having none of it. If I unclench my jaw and take a deep breath Tears roll down my cheeks THIS is relaxing So I tense back up And jump back into my cortisol spiral There is too much to get done to spend even one second thinking about you Six Sundays have passed since I’ve seen you last Codependency writes all my prose and all my sonnets All my pros and wilted bluebonnets - Go hard or go home Or go hard and stay at home, for forever because you thought you and your home would be each other’s salvation because home was the only thing that ever willingly invited you to change it and was better for it. But home got too heavy and home wouldn’t change on its own. And all the changes you did accomplish didn’t prove your worth. Plagued by nostalgia and sentiment Chronic grief Frozen in grief, and just when I begin to thaw, the temperature drops again Perpetually stressed What if to lose a parent as a child, is to lose the present. Because then you are trapped dreading the uncertainty of the future and wondering about a past you never knew and will never know, theirs. - Fuckless nights I unwittingly dusted off my fiddle strings and played as best as I could but you were never pleased. I was always out of tune or just off beat. -- And so let us not demonize others for our perceived shadows they cast and have casted We can’t all be deciphering your eccentric and elaborate needs when you’re shouting CUNT at the tips of your fingers and claiming to empower women while you dig in your claws to another. Chicken soup wasn’t enough to cleanse your soul. -- I think about you every day Literally nothing happens And I’m reminded of you I wake up I think of you I want to punch a wall I till the dirt I think of you I go on a date I don’t like him I think of you I let myself get so fucked up over you My rose colored glasses are shattered but I’m still wearing them I can’t bring myself to say nothing but nothing I say gets through to you I was operating out of a place Of fear I felt threatened by any number of women I’d never met and will never meet. I saw a message on your phone It confirmed my suspicions You drunkenly tried to explain it away I wanted to believe you but I had already poured the concrete and I cart it with me everywhere Slowly I’m leaving little bits here and there Becoming lighter - This week I wrestled with my codependency, Manic and exhausted from my nervous system vibrating I spent countless hours elbows deep in the dirt trying to find the root of it all An unsolvable problem parallel with reality Hard work makes me stronger Even if I can’t kill all the weeds Progress over perfection What even is progress? fuck my life. I’m no fun at this time. The doors will rot in the yard, my gut tells me just like the others. It’s not even a metaphor, just a strong probability, and a waste. Oh my god the realizations just keep rolling in. For hoarders the drama triangle isn’t just for people, but objects too. The doors must’ve been playing victim, and he’s gone to rescue them. The only corner left for me is The Persecutor. - Back in the thick Texas air Drawn to tough love From best friends to boyfriends Can’t get enough of the push and pull I’m nothing like the others I’m so much more with so much less You make me nervous But I don’t have much to lose I want to roll over and kiss you on the mouth I want reciprocation I want you to push my face away Just to kiss me on the neck You always get me with a twist We are scared of each other Collective hurt Collectively hurt We are missing something and are unable to accept ourselves and each other as we are I don’t know how you can lie to me Or how I can stick around for it For all those times you smash it right I guess Second best to you kissing my neck Is when I’m out of sight but on your mind I don’t fit in to some plan you thought you had I break the mold I’m quiet and bold We are anxious, we are stepping on each other’s toes Bite your tongue For better or for worse Things stay the same But with time, and your tongue between your teeth Eggshells are everywhere, splintered into our feet Make it up as you go along Keep the gas on I’m filling the space between my eyes and my rose colored glasses with wool - Same as ever Tongue between my teeth Lighting up another 100 out of 10 You wonder if you know me But you don’t give yourself the opportunity I’m right behind you writing my words that my teeth won’t allow my tongue to speak Desperation is such a drain Self inflicted low self esteem A familial affliction Looking like a 10 Feeling like a dud That low self esteem has me trembling And today was a good day - With a bottle of booze as his gate keeper He’ll never let me in I’m flushed, way too in my head Thinking up scenarios to catch you with your hands red bloodied from tearing my heart out and probably hers, too. - When I first quit drinking I felt this temporary empowerment, like I always had my wits about me. I could do anything. And then my codependency cloud settled back in, my intuition slipped back out the window. Now it’s like I’m in the desert, with a paddle, which makes even less sense than being upstream without one. It takes so much energy for me to state my needs. I’ve lived much of my life being brushed off and I predict rejection of my needs and so I try to suppress them and be ok with things as they are, but I need more. When I’m cancelled on, or am not prioritized, I need to be provided with alternatives or I feel insignificant. Reminders of my stated needs feel like nagging. I need reassurance. It’s exhausting and disheartening. -It’s the little things like when I ask if you want to do something and you tell me what you’re doing instead, without offering any alternative. Or when you tell me nothing. And I have visceral feelings that to inquire is to overstep and overstepping leads to termination. When I’m doing better I don’t write as much. Pain is romanticized, joy is foreign to me and perceived as fleeting. I’m trying to flip that script. Going to CoDA helps me in this effort. It reminds me that there is space for me and it's ok for me to have needs and taking care of myself should be step one in all of my endeavors. It's ok to say no. I don’t owe anyone anything, and also no one owes me anything. I’m closer than ever before to becoming the butterfly out of the cocoon, though I'm still very far, and that's okay. Progress over perfection. Now wash your hands and stay safe. If not for you, then for your loved ones, or your friends friends loved ones.

[blahsome]

March 18, 2019: Another Letter to My Mom and Other Notes Damn it. This is all over the place again. 24 years. You’ve been gone for 24 years. I’ve lived 5 times as long as I had when you passed. I think about time all the time, how much has gone by and how much is left. I turned 30 in November. All I wanted for my birthday was a mom. Or rather to be seen, heard, and cared for as only a mother can care for her child, I imagine. Every day is a learning curve. Every day I struggle. For at least part of every day I feel invisible and unknowable. How have I lived for 30 years without anyone getting to know me? (I’M MAKING EXTREME GENERALIZATIONS AND GREATLY APPRECIATE THE VERY FEW WHO DO KNOW ME AND MAKE THOUGHTFUL EFFORTS ON MY BEHALF. Also, I know I make it hard to get to know me, I’m scared and I’m jaded.) I’m fucking heart broken eternally. I feel like a spoiled brat. I feel resigned to suffering. Sure, sure, other people have it harder and worse than me. I know this and it makes me feel worse. I wonder if I will ever have any successful relationships of any sort (generalizing again). I feel like I have to shoulder so fucking much. If I don’t, who will? I’m fucking pissed, still congealed in anger. There is no god. I’m just a poor girl from a poor family (read that like Bohemian Rhapsody). Always reeling. My shoulders are caving in to protect my fragile little heart. I’m fucking cold and brittle. I do too much, a jill of all trades and master of none. I don’t have time to figure out what I want to do. My post birthday depression was shattering. I felt completely isolated and incapable, so close to the edge. I trudged through it, always with enough mascara on to keep my eyes dry. Last spring I went to the doctor to see about these stomach pains I was having, mostly they would happen if I was on a date that I think my body was telling me to leave “this guy ain’t it, Bloss”. The doctor came up with no answers. Blah blah blah, webmd- I decided I maybe I was low in estrogen so I got a prescription for birth control. I took it for three months and it greatly increased my mood swings, insomnia, fury, rage, anxiety, and had me nearly suicidal. I’d quit smoking for 12 days, physically I was feeling great, but the mess in the yard had me so enraged I was about ready to throw a pipe through my father's windshield, I went and bought a pack of cigarettes, in lieu of outward destruction. I quit taking the birth control when I put two and two together. My stomach pains had subsided, but I was exhausted. I went on a date with a guy during that time and it was wonderful. When I arrived he was playing Marvin Gaye with his shirt halfway unbuttoned and didn’t look at his phone once. We went to dinner and made out on the roof. But I was so anxious I slept at his house with my jeans on and then didn’t see him for 2 months. Everytime we would make plans I would break them because something would come up that would have me distressed, fists clenched or in a ball with my head underwater. Once I came back around and saw him again he asked me why I blew him off for so long. What are you supposed to say to that? “Oh uh, I was constantly on the verge of a mental break and I am actually still recovering. Please bear with me.” I have attachment issues, trust issues, too. My ex-stepmom, and also former individual literature teacher sent me a card in the mail recently, she was hoping to make amends. No, but thank you for the issues. When I was 17 I wrote down word for word a voicemail she left me, after she’d betrayed my trust. She called me rotten and horrible and said that I ruined her life. Maybe this is the point when I feel like I learned how to survive on sticks and stones. Herman and I had been going through a probably relatively normal teen vs. parent battle and this lady disrupting everything really brought us back together. So, thanks for that, I guess.. (Quick recap for any new readers, this woman said she could help me with my grief of my mother dying, and then married my father. lol) For my 30th birthday I laid down with the boy who wondered why I’d been illusive, (we’d spent the month together and I was falling, hard) he was drunk and fell asleep telling me to turn off the lights because he didn’t want to look at my fake eyelashes *birthday flexing* and that I need to quit thinking that anybody owes me anything- I was crying because 3 people who had once been close to me didn’t tell me happy birthday, and I’m weird about my birthday, try as I might to have no expectations.. I get me everytime. I just want a mom. I spend a lot of time trying to mother myself “listen baby girl, you got this” but I don’t have answers to questions I’d ask you if you were here. Like what the fuck should I do? How’d you know? Why him? How were you so patient? I know you didn’t choose cancer, but why’d you have to leave me here to deal with all this? And the plot thickens. Lord, I hate the month of March. This whole year really. I thought things might be going somewhere with that guy, I decided to get a different kind of birth control, went to a new gynecologist, she suggested getting a breast MRI to get a “baseline” blah blah blah. They found “an 8mm dense mass at 12 o’clock in [my] right breast” Well fuck my life. It. Is. Probably. Fine. Mammogram, Sonogram. Because everything was inconclusive, next on the list is an MRI guided biopsy, tomorrow. I opted not to get it today, the 18th, because.. who knows?? I was In the waiting room, biting off the skin of my lips. If I beat you to this milestone, I’ll think: finally. Fuck. This, this is different than getting my first bra. This one I really wish you were here for. I’ve said before that I wanted to do something you had done, but this ain’t it, Ma. I probably meant I wanted to go after something I wanted and get it, or to be sure about who I love; to have patience and accept people as they are, faults and all. Not this. The other day I was listening to Herman tell a story and my jaw just about dropped. I nearly kicked myself listening to the similarities in our storytelling patterns. I wondered about other ways I’d be different if you were around. I watched home videos to see if I could find you, or to see if I can see you in me. There must be some bits here and there. I’m ⅔ the age you were when you passed. I wonder what annoyed you and what you did that ticked other people off. I wonder how you handled things and lived with Herman’s mess. I’m mad at you because I feel like you left me with so much to do. Herman’s always saying how you just “accepted” him just as he was. When I’m with someone I want to leave my mark, I want to affect them. Mama, I been wastin’ time again. Sick over a another undeserving fella, wishing you’d been here to teach me a thing or two about self respect and boundaries. I’ve walked myself through this a hundred times, wrong path each time but I’m staying in shape. Not really, I’ve grown weary. I can’t hope to hit your milestones with no hand to hold. I’m jaded as hell and my biological clock is ticking. I’m not a goddamned place holder and I sure as hell don’t wanna be playin’ second fiddle for some asshole who can’t think 5 minutes into the future and doesn’t know why he’s even hanging around me. Oh mama, I wanted to be bad, but I just don’t think I have it in me, not if I’m gonna be my own collateral damage. Lie to me baby. Lay with me, say you don’t want to hurt me, baby. You’re such a fuckin’ ho, I hate it. Men stay boys and we all stay angsty, fragile, and insecure. Dramatic, I might as well be an orphan. It’s Christmas for everyone else. I think I’m allergic to the holidays. I’ve got a cold, no direction, feeling sorry for myself. Want a mother. Want to be a mother. I want to see a woman going through something and overcoming it. Related to me, not sweeping it under the rug, saving the dust for later. To savor it, as we do, our pain and resentments. How shall we overcome? I’m undereducated and overqualified. I’m here, I’m there, this man can’t look me in the eye. He’s a starfish and I should be worshiped. God damn it. I try to make moves and I run into walls. I like to give myself big cushions of time just incase I need to schedule around my trauma. It feels like I’m fucking crazy. Trying to make plans to hang out with people in March “oof, sorry that day won’t work, its uhhh..somewhat of a family holiday.. Might lay in a pile of flowers or cry on my floor all day IDK, OKAY?!” I guess the point of me writing these open letters to you is to talk about my experience navigating the world as a woman, with little to no guidance. Last year around this time I started hanging out with a right-to-lifer who said he was anti-abortion because of property rights.. Wow. Fuck my rights to my property though, right? What really got me about him was, obviously, that he wasn’t prochoice, first red flag for me right there. Then he got mad when I told a stranger that he wasn’t my boyfriend, which hadn’t been discussed at all, and then finally, that he had been talking to his parents about his relationships and was concerned that he was primarily attracted to “girls with issues” and when I was a bit offended by that he said he only meant he wanted to help me… WHAT? Also on a few of our dates he would say “if you want to break your sobriety tonight…” UUUUMMMMMM no. Not for you or anyone. At this point not drinking is easy for me. I don’t even think about it. It just makes other people uncomfortable. But even the alcoholic I fell for never said anything like that to me. Maybe he’s just more clever. Deeply under my skin and trying to take over this whole letter. I’m a projector, I let myself get so affected. I think that’s a good and bad thing, depending on the intentions of the person effecting you. I just don’t want to waste any more time on anyone trying to make me feel small or obsolete. Looking like a Swedish God, a gentleman fraud Gaslit, you had me Fooled, I thought you were something else and I wanted you, badly. You lit all kinds of fires in me. Some gave me drive, some just made my blood boil. I can’t help where I come from, but I can make the best of it. I wanted to affect you, too. And I think I did. But you are stoic, and cynical, minimizing our time together. That’s on you. You were lucky to have me while you did, and I’m still a fool. If you made even the slightest effort I’d probably be swept up again, looking for my self respect.. I just can’t understand why you wanted me, if you didn’t really want me. My uncle on my dad’s side passed during that time (birth control rage fury time). That had me real low. He was one of my idols, one of the most gentle and giving people, but he still seemed to have boundaries, something I can’t seem figure out. He was an artist, an author, a nurse, a masseuse; he would make beautiful quilts and donate them to charity. For two weeks I hadn’t been able to take a deep breath without feeling like I was going to burst into tears, like I don’t deserve the air. Listen, I am blessed to have the greats that I do. My fucking goats. Despair despair despair. Fuck Even though I got off the birth control and haven’t had a drink in nearly two years, I’m still at rock bottom way too frequently. The other month I was googling though heavy tears “wellness retreat for poor people” no results. I wish I came with a reset button, or at least that I could communicate effectively. A friend told me she thinks it’s important that I mention that I am capable of laughing at myself and the constant hurdles life throws down for me to trip over. And it’s true, I laugh all the time. Highs and lows, baby. March is a cruel joke but I decided maybe I don’t need to change everything. And maybe my dads right: I am an artist. And maybe I can get it together enough to make it work for me. I don’t have to find a new path, I just need to make the best of this one. Also, maybe I need to be medicated and maybe there’s no shame in that. I’m horrified. I’m pissed. I need her now more than ever. I imagine there is nothing like crying with your head on your mother’s lap while she runs her fingers through your hair. I have such bad anxiety, it’s debilitating. And I have imposter syndrome, fake it til you make it, baby. I feel like I missed out on half of getting to build my sense of self. In the book Motherless Daughters they talk about how at least if you have a mother you can compare yourself to her and I’m still here comparing myself to a saintly ghost who could do anything and never got mad or annoyed anyone and never made anyone mad or annoyed. I watched all our home videos recently and I think I could see a sadness or darkness in her, or maybe she was just thinking too hard, worrying, as we do. She wrote in the only journal I have of hers “May 24 - Reminded not to slack off. Keep up the fight. Worries make my face look funny. Blank. Whenever I’m worried the joy can’t shine thru my skin. The expression on my face is not inviting because I don’t want anyone to feel as I do. But then, even rotten sheep are cared for.” Have I honestly spent my whole life scared and hoping for my mental ailments to manifest in a physical way so people can see that I need to be cared for because I’m incapable of asking for help? I’m the doer, I do what needs doing. I’m the opposite of a fair weather friend, come to me in your time of need, I will do what I can. This is all copied and pasted and butchered together from notes I’ve been taking on my phone when I’m too in my head. So my apologies for the roller coaster and how disjointed it may be, but, is that not life? I will leave you with this, another excerpt from my mother’s journal: “ Maybe if I work at this, be very patient, develop my stamina and endurance, maybe I’ll get to experience the butterfly out of the cocoon.”

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Here’s an entry from my mother’s journal that I found recently.

And here's something more to read, possibly out of order and random as usual:

Dear mom, Becca,

I'm 28 now. It's been 22 years that you've been gone. I'm still fucking mad. I graduated high school 10 years ago and I've still got all this pent up angst.

If I were you, I would've written a manifesto for my kids.  It's understandable that that wasn't the first thing on your mind.

Sometimes I feel whole and like you being gone makes me the person that I am, other times I feel like I'll never be the person I could've been if you were still here.

Like, what is a bra that fits well?! (I'll get to dropping off my return package to Amazon on Monday...)

You made great friends in your time, a lot of them have taken me in and told me stories about your times together. Nothing will be like being able to hear your side of the story though.

I fear I'll never be sure about "the one" as I've heard you were about Herman. It was a different time then, sure. But you had a mother’s intuition, that I am, pretty sure (no guarantees), doesn't exist today.

Apparently this means breaking hearts, my own included. Fuck. I didn't ask to be this way.

I'm 28 and I've got the world telling me that my clock is ticking. You were 39 when you had me. And older when you were pushed down and miscarried my sibling.

In 11 years I'll be the age you were when you had me. That's so long from now, but also I only just graduated high school 10 years ago. Tonight I talked to the cashier at Fresh Plus and she told me that I went to highschool with her ex-stepbrother and I remembered making out with him in his front lawn like it was yesterday. I felt free and like a confident woman in control, laying in the grass at the time.

Now, while I still feel confident, I'm so unsure, I think and am pretty sure I know, I am a beautiful woman. This makes me uncomfortable. I see pictures of other beautiful women (models and girls I know irl) and question myself. I don't want to compare myself to them, and I don't want others to compare themselves to me. I am proud of myself and my body. I judge others. I try not to. I feel shame that I do. Other times I hate myself and my body. I judge others. I try not to. I feel shame that I do.

Do I have an identity or am I just this junk that surrounds me?

I've heard that someone in my family once said it's as bad to be offended as it is to offend. Maybe it was vice versa. Either way, I think it's made me hold my tongue, and probably to the detriment of some relationships, and to my mental health. If I know someone who is passive aggressive, it's me. I just don't understand why people can't be more observant, thoughtful, and have common fucking sense.

I was talking to my neighbor recently, one of my idols, a woman who has known me for the last 22 years, or longer, whom I look up to greatly and gratefully. She was helping me build my garage apartment and we were discussing what I should do with my life, as I am always seeking advice from women I respect, among other things she told me that when her daughters and I were in elementary school together she got one of them a tutor because the school wasn't acknowledging their learning disability and she told my dad that she thought I might benefit from one as well; maybe it's because we were poor and my mother worked at the school, my father brushed it off and the school never said anything about me needing extra assistance. I never did well in school, and my mother partied out of South West Texas (now Texas State in San Marcos). For a short time, I had a dream of attending the same college and flunking out as well. I wanted to do something my mother had done.

Each time I start writing these things I get more lost than when I started... On Monday I'm going to see a psychotherapist who also does body work.

Maybe I'm writing these annual updates to reassure others (myself) that it's ok to be fucked up and need help and seek help and that those around you (me) who give it are great, but they aren't the end all be all, and this might not be their line of work.

I got porch drunk by myself the other night and woke Herman (my dad) up to make him listen to me cry about how I don't have that certain something that makes people sure and happy, regardless, like him and, seemingly my brothers, do.

(Note to self?) Hey girl, you aren't doing that bad. You do cool stuff and are badass. You are thoughtful and considerate (to a fault (self praise)) and are good for the planet, you recycle and try to reduce and reuse (look at your sex life). You are funny. You are confident. You are beautiful. You deserve to be happy. You are doing great. I'm sorry I didn't write you the manifesto, but you have it in you. You can. Anything anyone can do, you can do bleeding.

I've lived/made it through so many dark times. My mind is a whirlwind. Sometimes I give all the fucks and other times I dgaf. Sometimes I look up symptoms for bipolar and other mental issues and the next week I'm like "cool this smoothie will cure all that ails me!!!"

I form attachments to objects. I remember how long I've had certain things for. Maybe because I always think about how long I had time with you and how long I've been without you. There's a small number of people I keep close to me and let my walls down with. Others I get close to and then withdrawal from. (What value is this adding to the letter?) Both of my parents were/are hoarders of sorts, and it runs in the family a lil bit.

So~ this turned from a letter to my mom, to a letter to the people, to a letter from my mom to me?? Idk. It's not finished. Who knows how many years of the letter are left?

[blahsome]

Made a lil stamp for @deandrablayne 🌵

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My mom would've been 67 today so I drew this blind contour drawing of an old ID photo of hers.

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Jk... 💩

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W/e 4e

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✌️🇰🇷 I will miss you, and be back to visit sometime❤️! 👋🇺🇸I'll be seeing you quite a bit!

[blahsome]

This is probably not going to be in any sort of order, organized or very eloquent. It's just some words I've written down to get some things out because its the anniversary of my mother passing away.

I've been laying in bed writing this in my head and taking notes on my phone before going to sleep for maybe three years now, waiting for it to be this huge mile stone. Really a year for the books. The emptiness and feeling of being lost is just the same as ever though.

My mother succumbed to breast cancer 20 years ago on March 18, 1995 at 3:18pm and I've been having growing pains, literally and emotionally and existentially, ever since. I remember getting my first bra and having my dad take me to Limited Too to sit outside the dressing room while I fumbled around trying to figure out how the things worked. And I remember getting my period being confused and in pain and embarrassed asking him to go get me  "something called tampons."

So many times in my life my dad has had to share these "not a girl not yet a woman" moments with me that most girls get to share with their mothers. Sometimes I get so sad and angry watching mothers and daughters just having a simple lunch date together. Don't even get me started on Mother's Day…

I still don't know what I wanna do with my life. I don't know if she ever knew either, but she was good at talking to people and I often feel like I can't even talk to those closest to me.

I feel like so much of my identity is built around this hole and I don't know who I'd be if my mother had been here to give me a mother’s guidance and share those moments with me. I don't know if we'd get along or not. But I ache because I cannot know.

This poem by my favorite poet comes to mind often when thinking about my mother:

Boo, Forever by Richard Brautigan

Spinning like a ghost

on the bottom of a

  top,

I'm haunted by all

the space that I

will live without

  you.

I only have a few memories of her and sometimes I can't tell if they're just stories I heard from other people or things that happened with other people.

I hate crying. It might be my absolute least favorite thing. Sometimes I cry so hard and uncontrollably that I can’t bring myself to leave the house the next day because my eyes will be so puffy and stinging, I always think people are staring at me and judging me and wondering why I look crazy. I feel embarrassed and uncomposed. I never remember seeing my mother cry and surely I never saw her sobbing. I’ve seen pictures of her having unfortunate hairstyles, but she never looked disheveled or out of order. She always seemed confident and put together.

Most stories about her shed such a golden light on her you may think she was some kind of saint. Sometimes I think she'd be proud of me and other times I feel like my accomplishments and moral compass pale in comparison to her feats and warm heart.

The most comforting thing anyone ever told me about her was that she could get mad. I've only heard an example or two of this and even still I don't believe she could have ever had the fiery rage that somehow got in my belly. * get mad stay mad*

I get ridiculously upset if people don't consider me how I think I should be considered and then I hold on to that anger. And then I get even more mad that I'm mad. Sometimes if people do consider me how I imagine I’m hoping to be considered I get freaked out and immediately start to push them away. I’m scared to get too close to too people because people don’t last and I am usually terrified of conflict. My mother was a meditator and very good at the practice. I’ve attempted it but I’m too easily distracted and if feel like I’m making no progress with it I stop and go make no progress doing something else, like watching TV shows..

Several Christmas's ago a friends mother (one of my "other mothers" as I call them) gave me a book called Momento that you're supposed to fill out about yourself and it asks you things like what is your favorite holiday memory and what did you go to college for and why did that subject interest you? Since then I've been wanting to make some personalized books like this with questions about my mother for other people to fill out and give back to me. But I just don't know what questions to ask and I end up drunk and crying about it. There are too many different people to ask specific questions to. I don’t even know yet what the specific questions are until I’ve already met and overcome the obstacle that their stories could’ve helped me with. Also it’s no one else’s responsibility to help me figure it out. I wish Becca would have left me a guidebook with the answers.

Sometimes I think she must’ve been crazy. She was so confident about some things, like her love for my father, before they even got together. She knew he was the one and so she put my two older half brothers into the car and drove them to the prison where my father was incarcerated so she could holla. When he got paroled, they got together. She really cleaned him up, and without any pushing or nagging or ultimatums. When she was sick with cancer for the second time, he realized that there were more important things than doing speed and staying up do work on projects he’d only ever get half way finished. I always wonder what her friends and family must’ve thought about that. “Really, Becca? You’re taking the boys to visit a (very kind hearted and sweet) drug dealer at the prison? Do you really think that’s the best place to take the boys on a Saturday? Do you really think he’d make a good stepfather for them?” And ya know what, she did think it was a good idea and that he would be a good step-dad and she was fucking right. But what I wanna know is how she was so fucking sure. Sure enough to risk scrutiny and some sideways looks (I can’t confirm that she was scrutinized or got any sideways looks but I imagine so, because I would look sideways if any of my friends did that and I’ll blame it on not having my mother around to teach me to do otherwise.)

I get mad every spring when everything is blooming and reminding us that there is beauty and life. How can all that be happening during the same time that most important life, to me, the one that made mine possible, was taken away? Hello my favorite beautiful trees with purple flowers, I hate you for being such a harsh reminder.

When my mother moved in with my dad, into the house he’d bought in 1974 they agreed to divide the yard so that she could have half to garden in and he could have half for hoarding his unfinished projects. To this day, lilies that she planted bloom every spring, with no watering other than what the crazy Texas weather provides.

I hate the days and even the weeks leading up to my mothers birthday and departure anniversary. I never know how I’m supposed to feel or how I am supposed to act. Should I celebrate her and eat her favorite food while watching her favorite movie? If so, that’s too bad because I don’t know what her favorite food or movie was. So should I dwell on all the things I don’t know about her and the relationship we never really got to have? I usually just try to sit still and let those days pass by. Sometimes I will go out to the little stream where we spread her ashes and bring flowers and crawl around in the tunnels if the water is low enough and think all these thoughts to myself.

Feeling like she left without considering how growing up without a mother would affect me has made me scared to have children of my own. I keep anything that I think would give them (my possible future children) an idea of who I was as a person, just in case I’m not around to tell them myself. From birthday cards to receipts (not all of them because that would really be crazy) to shitty art that I’ve made to terrible fashion choices no one should have ever worn, or even created in the first place. I have horribly embarrassing journals and notes dating all the way back to elementary school packed away and stored in my father’s attic. The ones from high school are the worst, that’s when kids are really stupid and could probably really use a mom. We might have fought and hated each other but at least I’d have her to compare myself to instead of feeling like I was out in this stream with no paddle or whatever. I remember one day at Austin High School, the day my dad and I decided I should change schools, I got sent to the office for yet another dress code “violation.” I called my dad to come pick me up or bring me a change of clothes and while I was on the phone with him, the lady behind the desk said “Does your mother know what you wear when you leave the house?” Nope, Lady. She does not. (or maybe she does, who knows what happens after you die?) But that made Herman mad enough to ask to talk to the lady and then let me switch to a school with more dress code freedom and sensitivity. Well, it was a sensitive school until my dad married my individual literature teacher… That was really a riot. Hell at the time, but looking back it’s a pretty funny story. This woman told me she could help me get over my grief about my mother, introduced me to Hope Edelman, the author of Motherless Daughters, and then started dating my father, moved into the house while he was away for work and she was “helping me clean up”, married him and then… enough of that story… It didn’t end pleasantly but it might have brought my family a little bit closer together, for a while at least. Last word on it, really: At some point during that time my ex-stepmother left me a message calling me a rotten horrible bitch. And you know what, I probably was. But I think girls might be that way in high school sometimes (and apparently when they’re 43 also). I guess what I’m getting at here is that I’m sad that I didn’t get to have fights with my mom and come out from them having learned lessons from her about how to deal with confrontation and conflict. It’s not always easy dealing with the real world after being a “daddy’s girl” for so long and usually getting your way. Not that I had crazy demands or ever really tried to pull one over on my dad, I was reasonable with my requests, I think (and thats why I got my way), but it’s like I didn’t get to build up a tough skin. Too often if someone is mean to me or tries to bulldoze me I either freeze or flail and then cry to my dad and it’s like I have to have him help walk me through it every time. Thank goodness he’s always been available to do so.

When I was about 8 or so, I had a this great hamster named Hammy. He was super chill. I’d taped a small coffee can to the handle bar post of my pink razor scooter and I’d put him in there and we’d scoot all around the house. We didn’t have a proper cage for him. He lived in a dark green 30 gallon Rubbermaid tub with a gourd to hide in and PVC pipes to run though. He would escape all the time and we’d lay out paper bags all over the house and capture him when we heard a bag rustling. He got sick and we had to have him put to sleep. I remember at the vet crying so hard against my dad’s back as he was at the counter talking to the veterinarians. I made him a little bed in a small box to be buried in, but by the time I’d finished it my dad had already buried him next to Oreo I in the back yard. We (my dad and I) didn’t realize it at the time but it was really the first time I’d cried about any death I’d experienced. I hadn’t cried at the hospital when my dad told me at a nurses station that my mom wouldn’t be coming home with us, or at her memorial service when so many people she knew were there and mourning. For her service I got to get a new dress and have my hair done. The weirdest part about it is that I was there in the hospital when my mother passed and apparently no one had thought to close her eyes or her mouth except for me. I told my dad I thought she’d be comfortable if we did so and he helped me climb onto the bed and I closed her eyes and her mouth and set her hands on top of one another on her stomach and I said “now she looks ready to go.” Some time later my two half brothers arrived from Iowa with their father.  

I always hated walking on a sidewalk when someone would say “Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother’s back” sometimes I would step on all the cracks I could see because I didn’t have a mother’s back to break. And yo mama jokes...most of the time they don’t bother me, but on occasion…

“We’re from Matthews Elementary; we’re the best you’re sure to agree”…. as the school song went... and really, it may be true. I remember many many many years after my mother had passed, rummaging around in this old shed in my backyard and finding a basket full of pink pieces of paper, all of them were dedicating sick leave from one staff member or another, all to my mother who worked at the school. I don’t even know if she lived long enough to use all these generous people’s time or not, but I know that she was so very loved at the school. She was the office lady, the lunch card lady, the nurse, and apparently beloved by all. When she passed the whole school felt the devastation. We had a ceremony and planted a tree in her name dedicating an area of the school grounds to be “Becca’s Garden”. (Years later it had to be appropriated into an area for an elevator. I don’t think she would be mad seeing as her brother is an advocate for disabled peoples rights, but still it hurt a little.) Months before she died Garry Mauro (the Texas Land Commissioner at the time) had told my father it was his turn to work. My father, being an ex-con, thought “what can I do for the state of Texas..?” But Garry found him a job. I’d been good friends with his daughter Alex. She was even there in my mother’s final hours. We spent time drawing pictures in the waiting room and taking them in to my mothers to hold up and show her that we’d been working on in the other room to make her feel better.

I think thats the year I really began to hate school. Since before pre-K, I’d had a favorite teacher, Ms. Ellison, a first grade teacher, and I’d ask her for homework because I wanted to be grown up and do homework like my big brothers were doing. I think usually she would just “assign” me a drawing to do. Anyway, she stayed my favorite teacher for a long time. If I would ever get too sad when I was still in kindergarten, I would get to go to Ms. Ellison’s classroom to hang out. It’s all pretty blurry now, I don’t know what I’d do in there, probably sit and draw, if this memory is even true…

Once in 5th grade, after a lot of the teachers and staff who’d been at Matthews Elementary when my mother had been working were gone, a girl brought her two, very cute, rabbits to school for, I guess, show and tell. We took them out into the courtyard-ish area and they began hopping all through what had been named my mother’s garden. I quietly became quite distressed and once we were back in the classroom the teacher made me say why I was upset. After stating the reason the girl with the cute rabbits said “what does it matter? She’s dead anyway..” and I sobbed as quietly as possible behind my spiral notebook.

I say The Lion King is my least favorite movie, but thats just because it makes me feel so awkward. I was five when it came out in theaters. We must have watched it and listened to the soundtrack a thousand times at my house. Now, I just sit uncomfortably not knowing how to act, waiting for them to say “Hakuna Matata,” which were my mother's last words. “It means no worries for the rest of your days...” I’ve never felt that that was true. I worry like the Jewish grandmother that I never got to meet.

“I’ll Be Missing You”  by Puff Daddy was really popular around the time I was 8 or so. My dad was working at the Land Office and had to go out of town a lot to help install plumbing near the Texas/Mexico border. The lyrics of the song hit me so hard. I had to stay at my best friend's house down the street while my dad was on these trips and it seemed like every time he was driving out of town this song would be playing and I would lay this little black chiffon scarf of my mothers on the floor under my friends desk and sit on it and cry. After a while, since my dad was having to go out of town so frequently, the school allowed me to go with him as long as I kept up with my school work. Apparently, to be covered by the rules the school said I was on field trips. I think the whole school took it easy on me and kind of screwed me for the rest of my schooling, or maybe I was just too comfortable there. Maybe it’s because they don’t seem to allow uncomfortable emotions in school. Emotions can happen at anytime, like during health or Spanish class and it’s kinda crazy to think a child could compartmentalize a range of emotions that they don’t even understand yet.

I recently had this idea to start a camp for Motherless Daughters run by Motherless Daughters where girls are taught things that their mothers would’ve taught them, a place where they journal, craft and smash things, and learn how to grow and figure out who they are and what they want to do. I thought it was maybe my life calling since I’ve felt all consumed by this aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. But I’ve been living on the other side of the world (in South Korea) from where I’d want this camp to take place, having to sit on it, and while I still think it’s a good idea, it doesn’t have the same luster as the month after I thought of it. I also wanted to start a blog where all motherless daughters could submit artwork they’ve made pertaining to their loss. I haven’t started it yet because I don’t know if I’m ready yet to expose myself that much, even though I am doing just that right now.

Maybe it’s just a pipe dream, but I think a place like that could be pretty cool. Girls of all ages making shitty art (or good art) and having tile smashing hour… and later we could turn the broken tiles into mosaic art pieces or stepping stones, showing the girls how to turn trash into treasure and maybe pain into art, as well as having a crying and sharing hour; shopping trips to the mall to buy bras for the first time, learning about periods; having people working there that are skilled/knowledgeable in these different areas; having a person to help with different kinds of homework and decision making, like what colleges to apply to and helping review their college essays; teaching them about good food and maybe even how to do laundry properly.

I’d want the camp to be funded by grants so that anyone and everyone could come for little to no cost. I’d also want to figure out a way to make all kinds of heath checks and cancer screenings available to the girls in the camp who would be interested in having those things done. But also I’d want to teach them about holistic and homeopathic medicine and how to take the steps to prevent illnesses from affecting their own bodies.

I’ve decided to hold off on the camp for the next 15-20 years. I’m still young and able-bodied. I want to work with my hands, but doing what? Still not sure. I am sure though, that it is not sheetrock.

During times of stress I often think of what they tell you on airplanes about how you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help anyone else. It’s hard sometimes to take care of others when you need caring for as well.

I read an article recently that made it feel like its okay if I’m still grieving after all this time, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating that my grief still seems so uncontrollable. Sometimes, I don’t even know why I’m sad and just assume this hole is the cause. Sometimes, I don’t even know what I’m feeling.

I don't really remember my mom with or without hair. On her head or otherwise. My dad has always had super long hair. My brothers are pretty hairy. Sometimes I feel comfortable with the amount of body hair that I have and other times I feel like I look like a boy scout. In high school, I had my hair every color of the rainbow and cut super short. Somehow in the last few years I’ve grown my hair out pretty long and it’s become sort of a security blanket for me.

I remember I was in Port O’Connor Texas with my neighbors, (who are an extension of my family, and, until about 3 years ago, they’d lived down the street for my whole entire life) we were probably eating Kudos bars and talking about seagulls when we got the call from my dad that it was time to come home. I don’t remember if he came to get me or if the Wilsons drove us back, but I remember we’d gone to the gift shop and I’d gotten my mom a heart shaped box covered in shells. I’m not sure if I’d put anything inside the box but I do still have it, in a box of boxes that I don’t know what to do with but can’t get rid of.

After thinking for so long that my mother was this saint who’d never done any wrong I was so glad to find her “Smoke Enders” journal and jar. The journal explained why she wanted to quit and when she intended to do so. One of her reasons was so that she when she kissed Witt (my oldest brother) she would have sweet breath. And she intended to quit on April 12, 1981-2-or-3.

My brothers had been with their dad for a visit when Becca went to the hospital for the last time. They got to the hospital a few hours after my mother had passed away. For a few years I only got to see them during summer break.

I remember my brothers being back at home one summer when I was very against using “swear words” and they were going to go play frisbee but they wouldn’t let me play unless I went and said the word “shit” to my dad. I wanted to play with them so bad so I slunk up to my dad who was at the computer in the living room and in tears said to him “shi-i-i-i-t” and I was so upset having said the word that I didn’t want to play any more. I think the reason I remember this was just because I wanted to spend time with my brothers but for whatever the reason was, I couldn’t. Because I was younger, because I didn’t swear, because I was a girl, I didn’t always fit in with them.

I remembered earlier today how my mother was very insistent that you help out your friends, even if they are generally worthless and steal from your loved ones, because they need help too. She was a good judge of character, I’ve heard, but not always.

Another thing that I imagine must be a real memory is my mother teaching me how to put on lipstick. She was getting ready for work in our tiny bathroom and I was looking up at her. She told me “you lick your lips, pat them dry and then put just put it on like this” and coated her lips with a nice red color. Other than that day, I don’t remember her ever wearing lipstick.

I got a tarot card reading recently and after telling the card reader how I felt that I was let down by people in my life who one might think would have “stepped up to the plate” more in the face of my mothers passing, The reader told me that no one ever meets our expectations. It’s so true, and even when I try my fucking hardest to not have expectations I’m still let down or offended.

If I know a person well enough and think they know me as well, either my heart or my ego (I’m still trying to figure out which is which) breaks a little or gets somewhat crushed. I have all these issues with communication. If someone says something that seems so obviously out of place to me, I often react in what I remember as being too quick and harshly and then have to retreat back into a sort of cave and figure out why I had the reaction that I did. I sometimes feel congealed with anger and I don’t know what or who is the cause. It’s confusing and maybe embarrassing.

After my mom died and my brothers had to move back to Iowa with their father, I was on a pretty strict candy and microwave dinner diet, unless I was eating a homemade meal down at my best friend's house. (My dad is not exactly a chef, to say the least.) After coming over to check on us and seeing our dietary habits, our former next door neighbor (another one of my “other mothers”) started to make us real food that we could heat up, instead of a constant diet of Nighthawks and Kid Cuisines. It wasn't until my 2nd oldest brother moved back home from Iowa and discovered healthy cooking and natural products that I learned that there was more to eat than bean and cheese burritos from Taco Bell and dirty kitchen counters to eat off of. (This is minorly exaggerated)

All these women from the neighborhood came over to help clean up the house and they misplaced my favorite doll, “Mimi”. I think I hated cleaning for a while because it meant more change and loss for a while. Fortunately, we ended up finding Mimi behind some other dolls on a shelf in my room. Now I’m kind of OCD since I know now that it’s pretty easy to keep things clean if you just try a little.

I’m really sad that I never got to talk to my mom about her break ups or conflicts she ever had with her friends. Of course I can talk to my friends and other people in my life about these things, but sometimes I just want to sit on the steps and cry over whatever the issue is with someone who I feel like has unlimited time just for me and my problems. My dad will let me cry out my woes, but in so many ways he’s still a teenage boy (laundry piles all over his room) and his advice is usually “just be your sweet self and things will work out one way or another...” But too often I have this doomed feeling that nothing will work out and if it will, how?

This essay/story/tribute? has no conclusion because I’m only 26 and have a lot more to figure out. I’m hoping that writing this and publishing it on my various social medias will be like some kind of release for me, a weight off my shoulders, but I’ve been angry for so long that I almost don’t know what it’s like to be any other way.  Maybe when I am 45 I will write what I’ve learned in the the amount of time that my mother had time to learn. Maybe I won’t.  We will see what’s to come, and I will hope for a happy change and the ability to forgive and move forward.

If you know the questions, ask ‘em while you can, and try to appreciate everyone you’ve got while ya got ‘em.

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I got to play life size Barbie for a day. Here's a mashup of me in some #machambrebyjuyeon 2015 spring/summer collection!

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get mad🔼🔽🔼stay mad

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Now or whenever.

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What's a cats favorite color?

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We picked out the colors using shampoo.