I Don't Think it Makes Me a Bad Person

Lately, I’ve felt selfish.  But not necessarily in a bad way.  I just feel like I can only take care of myself, which doesn’t work all that well when you have a toddler (especially this toddler who has no fear whatsoever…every day, at least once a day I say to her “a little fear would be nice!”).  It’s not that I was a caregiver for my mom; my dad took care of the everyday stuff once she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it anymore.  And she went into respiratory failure the day after she went into the hospital so there wasn’t a lot of “care” going on there, either.  Although I did have a lot of phone calls and conversations with doctors and nurses and social workers.  But still. For some reason, and I guess I’ll just chalk it up to grief, I just feel on some days that I can barely handle myself, let alone anyone else.  I don’t always feel guilty for it when I’m in the middle of saying or thinking “I can’t handle another thing or another person right now”, but the guilt does come on eventually which just adds to the fun of this whole experience.

 

I try very hard some days to not be a total and utter bitch to those around me.  On some days, I succeed and I’m proud of that success, and on others…well, I fail miserably.  But those are the days that are my worst.  Those are the days that I can’t get the images and stories and all of the “could have been”s that are now gone out of my head.  Those are the days when I force myself to leave the house, that I remind myself constantly that Emily is not driving me crazy on purpose – its her job as a toddler to do so.  It’s on those days that I can barely stand being in my own skin, let alone be around others in theirs.  Those days are tough, and they sneak up on me like a mugger in broad daylight on a crowded city street; I never see it coming.

 

Today, thankfully, is another good day.  Two in a row, I think, may be a milestone for me.  I try to take the days as they come, good/bad/ugly/uber fugly (which are the ones when I really should be sent to a deserted island until my attitude improves).  I don’t know what creates a good day, they just seem to happen. And in the midst of a good day, something may come up that turns everything over and it magically becomes a bad day; but you can’t plan for those.  When that happens, although I try my best to push that trigger to the side, many times it just consumes me and takes over.  I turn back into the sad girl who’s mom just died and no one knows what to say as they see me walk by with my head down, possibly looking like I’ve just spent my lunch time in the car crying.  When someone asks how I am, especially on those days, it is very hard to not come back with “well, my mom is dead so I’m doing pretty shitty.  How are you??”.  It’s amazing my tongue doesn’t have a groove in it from the all the biting I have done in the last 6 weeks.

 

I hope that because I’m not actively mourning all the time it doesn’t make me a bad daughter; I also hope that on the days that I am in the throes of it that it doesn’t make me a bad daughter or a bad person.  As I’ve mentioned before, I wasn’t exactly my mom’s BFF, but I want to honor her memory; for all the craziness, ugliness, nastiness and for all of the good because there was some good in there, I want to honor her.  I guess since she wasn’t exactly pleasant, my attitude issues aren’t exactly doing her memory a disservice.  But still.  I hate the idea that, somehow or someway, she is someplace watching as I yell at my daughter for something stupid like taking off her shoes before we leave for school or dumping a bunch of crayons on the floor when I told her not to, or as I yell at the cat and scoot him out of the way with my foot when he’s being a jackass (yes, I do sometimes think my cat is a jackass), or as I toss out my nasty attitude at those that care about me the most.  I want her to be around us, especially around Emily, but I don’t want her to sit there and see me being a horrible person; but if she can see it, I hope she knows that it’s only happening because I miss her and I feel robbed.  Yes I had her for 39 years, but it wasn’t enough.  She could have been here for 59 years and it wouldn’t have been enough, I guess, but to have her die the way that she did and as quick as she did…it’s mostly a curse and not so much a blessing these days.