Some days I just hate being needed. At home, at work, everywhere in my entire life. I just hate it. This morning, my toddler work up before 4am. Rob had to go to the gym around 4:30 (yes, he ‘had’ to go…lucky him). She was awake and asleep until around 5 when I finally had enough and went into her room. She was sitting in the middle of her crib, asking where her Curious George was. He was right next to her. Did she want to go back to sleep? Uh uh. She wanted “up”; she went to watch Sesame Street and color and play with stickers. I had to change her diaper, get her breakfast, make myself coffee (which ended up making me sick – hi, coffee on an empty stomach is just a bad idea for me and I should have known better), take a shower, keep her entertained while I was in the shower…blah blah blah. So since before4am, I have been needed. I needed to give certain information to her teacher when I dropped her off at school, I had to go to a meeting at 9am, I have to answer emails and questions….I am needed all over the place and I really don’t want to be.
Since my mom died, I’ve had days that make me feel like I can barely take care of myself…let alone anyone else; saying this out loud has become a bit of a routine for me as of late. Rob kept asking me to rub his back; he loves when he can sit on the floor in front of the couch and I sit on the couch and rub his shoulders. He’s always loved it and it’s been 11 or 12 years for us now. But I stopped when my mom got sick. I hated feeling like I was taking care of yet another person; I was taking care of my dad, my sister, trying to take care of myself and taking care of my daughter – enough was enough. And it got to the point when I had to tell him why I stopped; he wouldn’t stop bothering me about it. “I need a back rub….if someone loved me they would rub my shoulders for me….can you rub my shoulders tonight….” On and on and on until one day I asked if he knew why I wasn’t doing it anymore. I told him that I can barely take care of myself some days so I really don’t want to take care of yet another person at the end of my day most days. He finally stopped asking, although it’s recently started up again. This whole mourning thing takes the wind right out of you; I am exhausted most days. I feel like I have been up three times with a crying infant most days because it’s just that hard to do. It’s hard to work full-time, be a mom, be a partner, be a regular generally non-dysfunctional person, and mourn the death of your mom all at the same time. I wish there was a way to prep for this – a course, a webinar, something. But there isn’t; and I guess I wouldn’t have had time for it anyway.
I was talking to someone the other day who, in response to me saying “well I have bad days and good days” said – “Michele, you’ve been through a trauma, you have to give yourself time to get through that and process it”. For the first time, I thought “someone gets it”. (That person was my boss; I am very lucky to work for someone who just gets me and what I go through professionally and personally.) My mom didn’t just die. I found out 19 days before she died that she was sick – just sick, no diagnosis, nothing more than “there’s nodules on her lung and possibly a tumor on her kidney”. I found out five days before she died that she was terminal. I sat and watched a part of my family die with her over those days and weeks; a piece of our history, a piece of our traditions and a piece of our planned future died with her. I can’t just wake up and be okay. I can’t just go about any piece of my life without any sort of fall-out from that. It took me at least 8 months to recover from that accident with a drunk driver; there were physical scars from that and they might totally heal one day. I think emotional scars take longer to heal and some will never totally heal, but hopefully they’ll get a little less noticeable as time goes on. I don’t want to be this emotionally ugly for very long. It sucks worse in my head than it will ever suck for anyone else around me.
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