I want to break free

A free write about life and grief and nearly 2 years without my mother.

How have April and May become the busiest months? How is this exhausting and exciting and a little terrifying but also okay? How is it going to be 2 years since my mother died?

Thank God for spring because it teaches me resilience, that I can and have survived winter, that life persists despite the horrors, that we cannot be besieged by men too stupid to know our power.

I miss my mother terribly. I miss who I used to be when I was her daughter. I miss feeling tethered to someone else in that way that you can only understand when you are the child and they are the wonder.

I am busy, life feels steady and full and almost too much. I read headlines about bombings and stock crashes and tips for the best ways to survive if you choose to stay or if you run elsewhere. Where to go, what documents to have on hand. I sit in Zoom calls where I codeswitch on autopilot, promising to circle back and follow up with tasks in Wrike, on Teams, in Slack channels with personalized gifs to make it feel more fun and lighthearted.

The daffodils are blooming and I swear it’s when I feel her the most, my mom lingering in the cold spring air. Did she know? When she was planting the dafs and the crocuses and the hyacinths haphazardly towards the beginning of her illness, of what was to come? That one day this would be the closest thing we had to her when we final started to shake off the darkness of winter and our quiet sorrow?

It is patternless, abstract, almost desperate. Staccato but beautiful. Imperfect and whole.

I wonder why I worry so much about my writing, about getting it just so. But we’re in an age where we can’t allow for imperfection—every word we write will be scrutinized until we retreat. Apologizing ourselves into silence.

I miss the old me, but I know I can’t go back. There’s no direction but forward. I know it but it breaks my heart to think that there will be so many more years between me and the last time I napped with my mother, both of us fitting easily in the twin sized air mattress of her hospice hospital bed.

I was talking to someone today about the grief of the timelines that we haven’t gotten to live. All the heartache and versions of ourselves we haven’t gotten the chance to live along the way. Of course there have been so many incredible gains, and somehow, despite of the losses—because of them—I get to live a life I’m so grateful to be living, surrounded by love and light at a time that can feel to only contain darkness.

But the weight of it is still heavy. I used to be so good at small talk and chitchat and now I find myself with nothing to say, unsure how to even talk to other humans if we can’t be real about the persisting horrors and grief that come with living. It’s not that I want to be a drag, not that I’m trying to force others to steep themselves in their sadness, but it’s easier for me to start from an honest place, one that acknowledges how heavy the world is, how impossible it can feel to move through it, before moving on to the things that bring us joy. Small talk feels stunted and exhausting, I try to keep a bank of questions and answers in my head that allows me to seem affable, agreeable, but I stumble through my words, distracted and tired.

I want this to be a phase, want to get back to some semblance of “normal” living, but it’s hard to know exactly what that means anymore. I think back on what the last 5 years have been—the time since the last timeline ended. The things we’ve collectively lost, and gained, the things we’re all trying to muddle through while we still look for joy and progress and life worth living. It’s not all bad, nothing ever is, but I’ve had more time to think about all the things that have actually been lost in this time, including a version of myself I haven’t exactly figured out how to replace.

I’ve been using song lyrics as Blog and Podcast episode titles pretty much forever, my feelings always accompanied by some soundtrack. This one’s been playing in my head a lot recently, and when I went to look up the lyrics, I learned that the video had been banned on MTV for showing the band members in drag. Crazy to think the same silly fights continue to be fought throughout the years—the ways we try to limit art and self-expression. May we all have a chance to break free from the limits that are put on us in this lifetime, especially the ones we put on ourselves.