Starting to see a pattern in this blog (if three posts is enough to see a pattern.. haha)– I post once in a blue moon, get things out of my system; carry on for a while with no “new developments”; and then I find myself toying with the idea of posting for a few weeks until I get excited enough about something to do it again, haha. A lot has changed since April. I just re-read my last post, and to be honest… I sound like I was going semi-crazy haha. Maybe that’s just how I read my own voice, and not that what I was saying wasn’t true (it was all very true) but.. it was just a lot packed into only so many words, hahah.
It can serve as a very fact-based perspective of my past year– very little emotion aside from.. not sure what the right word would be, haha, but it was definitely written in that time and place. Kinda “classic Lauren”, looking back; I’m great at talking factually about my emotions, without talking about how things actually feel.. which maybe makes it easier? (Seems kinda dissociative.. but isn’t that just what reflection is? Objectivity? QTNA)
But then again, it’s funny knowing I spent hours on a Sunday writing it all out… crying tears of sadness and joy; editing it a million times over only to still have a ton of misspellings and errors; condensing so much time and feelings into so few words– making it digestible, bearable, and purposefully.. overwhelmingly positive. And for who? Yes, I guess for the people who might read it, but honestly– for me. I don’t type these up for y’all, I type them up for me.
In summary: it was a long post, but it was no where near long enough, or honest enough, to really do “the last twelve months” justice.
Now that I’m far enough removed from it, I can be more honest with myself about how I was really feeling.. specifically in the months that led up to and followed it. At the time, I was a few weeks removed from a time that I considered “really good”– somewhat settled in Denver, doing well at work, mostly isolated but very happy and unbothered– and things had just started getting chaotic in some areas. I’d been living in that chaos for a few weeks and had been desperately trying to “get back” to the “perfect” routine, mindset, headspace, and outlook on life I’d somehow managed to find over the winter months. I’d just had two really big successes at work in March but much to my surprise, I “wasn’t happy”– or at least wasn’t happy in the ways I had expected… or maybe, it was that I was simultaneously sad in ways I hadn’t foreseen. In a turn of desperation, I began trying to recall what had made me feel so content and present-minded only months & weeks before.
That post from April was honestly my genuine, well intentioned attempt at convincing myself into believing, into feeling, that things were okay even though things just weren’t feeling okay– an attempt of-sorts to come to entirely positive terms with all the changes I’d been through, the challenges I’d surpassed and succumbed to, and an attempt to inspire myself into believing that I could get back to that “ideal state” of living a perfect, little, happy life– the one that was just so perfect– in retrospect.
At the time, I’d re-read some of my personal journal entries from January and February, trying to find the answer to how I’d “been so happy back then”– so not stressed, so not distracted, so blah blah blah… and y’all, lol– I was embarrassingly shocked when I read my journal to see that my past writings were not so perfect, happy, or ideal. I was stressed, worried, etc etc. But in April, I for some reason couldn’t accept that that was my past reality, because things just felt different. No identifiable rhyme or reason, but they just felt different. I kept re-reading past entries & thinking “no, no; I WAS happy then! The happiest I’ve ever been?? These don’t reflect that, what the–“ and without fully reading them, I honestly would stop reading a few lines in and go back to the internal thought process that I was happy then. How do I get back to that.
Not going to lie, this continued/spiraled for a few more months– all the while logically knowing that you can’t hold onto the past, you can’t seek out going backwards– but that didn’t change my futile attempts, haha. I spent evenings after work and full days on the weekends obsessing over what I wanted my daily life and mindset to be like once again. I got sucked into anxiety over work, my relationship, over what I feared was a “stalling-out” of sorts in my personal growth and development; and maybe most disturbingly– over my lack of gratitude for things that I once felt so tangibly grateful for. My routine, my apartment organization, my cooking habits, my excitement & optimistic outlook towards work, hell– even my consistent ability to water my plants– all started falling out of place over time.
I spent so much brain power trying to work through issues and worries that captivated my mind non-stop; trying to force square blocks into circle holes, becoming paralyzed by over-analysis, and basically trying to logic my emotions away so I could say “success, problem finally solved”. Thankfully for the better this go-round, I wasn’t up all night thinking & doing drugs/drinking by myself like I had at my low points in Dallas… but, that almost made it harder for me to realize what I was doing; because I was sober– I didn’t see the red herrings quite so clearly.
I was desperately looking to my historically beneficial tool– astrology– to solve my problems. The best and worst part about astrology though (lol) is that it doesn’t give you an answer. It doesn’t solve your problems. It’s not a preacher who will stand in front of the congregation on Sunday and firmly tell you “This is how God and Jesus Christ would want you to handle the problem; and this is why; and this is why you should have faith that your decision to follow Jesus & handle it XYZ way is the undisputedly right thing to do.” **thumps bible**
(I now see why mass religion is so appealing, haha– it’ll give you a comparatively easy, “no-questions-asked” answer. Who wouldn’t want that? No accountability for your own choices & the resulting impact on your life that is only of your own doing, because Jesus has “got you”?? How appealing… but I digress, haha.)
Astrology is beautifully (and much to my despair at the time) a simple tool for analyzing yourself, your patterns, getting an idea of which areas of life you need to explore/live out in order to reach your personal, maximum fulfillment; and occasionally it’ll help you see the patterns of those around you (if you know enough about them). The one thing it absolutely will not do is tell you what to do– what decision to make or which road to take, at all, in any scenario. At the time, I felt like astrology was failing me. I knew it wasn’t, but it just wasn’t giving me what I wanted. I tried to find faith in the unknown, I tried to lean on my spiritual practices, mediations, etc etc– but it wasn’t hitting like it normally would’ve.
I recognized this frustration to an extent at the time, but looking back… what I deeply desired was a resource I could look to and tell every detail of my entire scenario to; a resource I could be totally honest with and seek solid, dependable advice from. A powerful reassurance– from anything, anyone– that I could have blind, unbending faith in the fact that everything would be okay, that I had done a good job, and that I would keep doing a good job in regards to whatever came next. In hindsight, I think this really made me realize and appreciate that that resource for me, my entire life, was my mother– the person who I wished more than anything I could call, cry to, talk to, and heed the advice of. The one person who knew me as well as I knew myself, if not better; the person who I knew could’ve advised me in a way that I would absolutely trust beyond a shadow of a doubt to have my best interest at heart; the person who I could count on to be supportive of me even in trying times; and the one person who would give me permission to be my fullest self regardless of whether or not I felt at my best, or at my worst.
That was a hard feeling to grapple with and the resulting realization tying it back to my mom did not come suddenly or clearly… truthfully, it really hadn’t become clear to me until the last week or so. But– and here’s the “positive” spin in how I ended up working through it (and how I look at it now)– she’s not here, for whatever fucking stupid, big-picture, divinely guided reason; and therefore, I have to figure out how to make decisions for myself.
Reflecting on my childhood (comparatively at least, to some of my friends), there were a lot of areas in which I never really had the autonomy to make choices for myself. No, my parents weren’t totally controlling crazy parents– and I harbor absolutely no anger over this– but I do kinda think that they did enforce a lot of rules and expectations that limited my autonomy to not only make decisions for myself, but also to learn how to stand by them. To be allowed to make choices that I had to reassure myself in, big or small. It could be (very fairly) argued that I rebelled and practiced autonomy on my own by getting into trouble, yes, haha. But, there were kind of a lot of rules & expectations set for me that unintentionally undermined my faith in myself to 1. Come to certain conclusions, and 2. Make certain decisions on my own.
On the flip side though, I also always really valued my parent’s opinions.. whether they realized that or not, haha– but and also, like duh— who doesn’t go to their parents for advice and affirmation? So many people do, so why should I be any different even now as a 25 year old? Lots of sides to the same coin, clearly.
For a lot of people I think this is also just a part of growing up, myself definitely included. Before I go back to how it felt in April, though– nowadays, I look at this entire time frame as playing a part in “what I’m supposed to learn” here in this physical life, and through my lived experiences.
Yeah, it sucks. But it’s just how the cookie has crumbled. Do not get me wrong— I won’t pretend that it’s fun, and I won’t pretend that I’m okay with what happened to her (or me, or my siblings, or my Dad), but it did make me ask myself; what was– what am— I being asked to learn here? In retrospect, how would I have otherwise ever evolved to this point, making a conscious effort in learning how to make my own, personal, important choices (and have the self-assured confidence to act on them/live with the results, good or bad) if I wasn’t put into this position, you know?
What possibly would’ve/could’ve been this strong of a catalyst for that personal evolution?
I once brought this up to my therapist and he said that I “didn’t deserve her passing” and that “it was unfair to assume” that I “wouldn’t have learned these lessons another way without her dying”, which yes– I see and appreciate his point, and I understand the logic– but look: that other-world scenario is not what happened. This is what happened. This is how it panned out. So what were– what are— my options for how to look at it? How else am I supposed to look at it? What choice do I have– look at it like me and my family are victims of tragic life circumstances with no “moral of the story”?
No, absolutely not. I seriously, genuinely refuse to believe that narrative. You can’t tell me that a person’s mom can die and there’s nothing huge to be learned there in regards to who you are as a person. It might not be okay, and it absolutely might not be “fair”– but what is life?
Not fucking fair.
Yes yes, there are plenty of things in life that COULD and CAN be more fair– but inexplicable things like death by disease is not one of them, at least not in this specific scenario. So what do you do? Make the best of it for yourself, and/if not for the sake of everyone else. Live it, learn from it, be sad, be angry, be happy, find contentment, and overcome all that you can in spite of it. What more can a person do?
Back to the story though; everything I just said above was reeeally not what I was feeling/believing in April. I think I knew on some level what I was going to have to do.. figure things out alone, make my own choices and face whatever the consequences were… but I didn’t want to. I felt like the victim. I was tired, beatdown, and simply didn’t want to have to deal with this bullshit alone anymore. I felt so, so victimized. I felt pity for myself.
I absolutely wasn’t expecting it, but… I think what was happening, is that I was grieving all over again.
And the grief manifested in a much different way than when she first died.. for the first time, I felt angry, I felt hopeless, and I felt bad for myself.
I did recognize those feelings in real time– but what made me so overwhelmingly distraught was the recognition of the feeling of them… without a “clear answer” as to why. I was constantly berating myself for being so sad, for feeling ungrateful, for feeling bad for myself– for all of it. I told my therapist, “Marcus, I know I have so much to be grateful for. I used to journal my gratitudes and feel so, overwhelming thankful for the “simplest” things– having a roof, having a job, having Ruby, having a phone to call and FaceTime my Dad and my sister– those things genuinely used to make me feel so filled up with thankfulness it could bring me to tears. It was wonderful! But I try to do that today, and it feels fraudulent. I logically am thankful, but I don’t feel thankful, and I feel like an asshole for it.. and I’m tired of feeling so ungrateful.”
That probably sounds kind of dramatic if you’re unfamiliar with first-hand grief, but it’s truly how I felt so deeply in my bones.
Honestly now I’m crying, because I suspected at the time that I was going through some weird kind of grief but… dang, I couldn’t put my finger on it specifically till just now.. that, that was g r i e f.
Aw. Good job, me. Thanks, journal blogging. *Gives self a tearful self-high five*
That’s kinda nuts. Wow. I might have to dive into that later.. they say there are 7 (5?) stages of grief or something, and my therapist was always in disbelief when I said I never had an angry stage post-Mom’s death, or a stage in which I felt sorry for myself.. and I really didn’t. Not that I’m aware of. But I guess that just goes to show that grief really is a never ending process.. and boy, did it come through this time around. Damn.
Any who… don’t really know how to wrap this up now.. this is not the way in which I expected this to go at the outset, hahaha. I guess to summarize, what happened next was Cancer season– and that shit kicked my ass. So emo, so tumultuous, so depressing, so manic– it was awful. It genuinely had me questioning every year of my life prior– I was like, “has Cancer season always been this awful every year and I just didn’t realize it because I wasn’t keeping up with astrology?!” — Lol. Don’t know the answer, and to be honest it really doesn’t matter at this point to me because the past is the past but the point is– it sucked, and despite knowing that Cancer season is notorious for being emotional and making you feel your feelings (clearly some lessons are probably in there, lol)–I fought the emotions nearly every minute of it.
That being said– I never knew I would look so forward to a sun-season changing, hahaha; I was literally WISHING time away to get to Leo season out of pure desperation in some feeble, fleeting hope that it would change things.
But! What do you freakin’ know! Just like clockwork, around the end of Cancer season I had some realizations thanks to said emotions; made some conscious, intentional, personal changes; and jumped into new things. It was sad, but I was captivated by the feeling that wow, the world might really my oyster; a mix of sadness, relief, and bliss all in one– with a nice side of inexplicable faith that I was making the right decisions for myself. While we made it out of Cancer in one(?) piece– and as painful (and oddly short-lived) as it was– it really taught me that I cannot go forward ignoring my emotions in favor of logic and what other people want– I have got to trust my intuition more going forward. And, I guess it proved that I can rely on, I can trust myself to make decisions “on my own” that are good for me.. although I won’t pretend that my sister wasn’t a sounding board for me, haha.
Hm.. love that?
For those two lessons alone I am so, so grateful. Thank you sensei-Cancer season.
Almost immediately (on the edge of Leo season), I made some awesome, wonderful connections with the coolest, most genuine, most self-aware people in Denver– and have already made some of the best memories with them. Cheesy, some might say.. but I genuinely mean it, haha. Taking it a step further; I don’t think anyone could convince me that these recently made friendships and experiences are anything other than worldly affirmations that I made the right changes/choices for myself– a little reward for having faith in yourself, I suppose?
Again, Universe.. thank you. Thank you a million times.
My life is not perfect, it’s not always happy, and it certainly does not always seem or feel beautiful– but it’s imperfectly, uniquely beautiful.. and that’s what makes it mine. I know the grief will undoubtably come again some day… which reminds me of a quote I once saw that read “How terrible it is to love something that death can touch.”
But then again;
What is everlasting grief, if not the clearest, most tangible sign of everlasting love?
That’s all for today. Smile, be nice to yourself, and if everything in your life changed tomorrow– what would you miss? There’s so much to be grateful for. 🙂
So, so much love to each & every one of you
Lauren
Through Lauren's Lens 