Facades

I’m starting to feel….stressed, I guess for lack of a better word.  My mom’s birthday is two days away, Easter is three days away, my birthday is 10 days away and in between there is a trip to Florida to see my in-laws.  A trip that I really don’t want to go on.  Typically, I’m planning what I’m going to wear and I’m getting exciting and I’m checking seats and all that stuff because I can’t wait to go, but this time is just bad timing.  Really bad timing.  Somehow I’m supposed to come off of a weekend like this upcoming one, get on a plane and put on a happy face for Rob’s ENTIRE family – well, pretty much is entire family minus his kids from his first marriage.  His two sisters, their significant others, their children and their children’s children AND his parents.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 people all together.  That is a lot of people to put up a façade for.

It’s interesting to me that, as the one that is grieving – as the one that lost her mother just a little more than three months ago – I’m the one that’s expected to put on a happy face and pretend that all is well; don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think I should be catered to, that’s not it at all.  I’m the one that has to act like I’m okay, even though I will have just celebrated what would have been her 80^th birthday (a day that, although she probably wouldn’t admit to, would have been a big deal…she always said she would outlive all of us and every birthday was just a testament to it so this year, it’s not only sad but a tiny bit ironic).  I have to go do the big family thing even though I would prefer to be with my own family, or alone, so I can mourn what we have lost this year. I’ve lost more than just a mom – my dad isn’t who he used to be, I don’t think any of us are the same anymore.  I have gained a family, I really have; they have been wonderful to me and I know that I can call them at any time, for anything and they will be there emotionally and/or physically.  But – as wonderful as they are, I lost MY mom.  Not the mom that has adopted me into her existing family, but my actual mom, and that’s a pretty big deal.  When I say it’s been three months it sounds like it’s such a long time – but it feels like yesterday some days.  I just hope that they can respect that next week.  I hope that they can respect that I have just celebrated a birthday that really no longer exists, since the person it was for is no longer aging and is no longer here to blow out the candles on her cake; I hope they can also respect that I will have to celebrate my birthday in just a few days – my 40^th and my first without my mom – and that is a hard milestone to face.  I wish I could say that Saturday will be a day of remembering the good times and laughing at all the silly, funny, and probably semi-annoying memories we have of her but I don’t know if we’re there yet.  I think we are more prepared to stand at her grave/’drawer’ as she would say, put flowers there – carnations, as they were her favorite – and cry.