Hey there. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Hope every one of my readers is doing well and had a good week. Things are decent here. Haven’t been feeling 100 percent this week but I am blaming the time change and my leg injury as well. It didn’t get worse it just seems to have started up another old injury again or it’s sciatica. I probably should really get to the doctor but I’m going to give it a little bit more time to rest and heal on its own because every year around this time when the humidity starts creeping back in my arthritis and sciatica start bugging me again. My mother went through this and I seem to have inherited the issue as well. FUN.
But yeah, things are good overall. We have been babysitting Brian’s Dad’s (Dan’s) dog for the last few evenings and we plan on having her here this entire weekend so she isn’t home alone. Her name is Shelby. She’s so cute and tiny and easy and so good in general that she makes it seem like she almost isn’t here. She is super cute about how food driven she is (kind of just like our kitty HOPE!) She just overall is a joy to be around and I hope to eventually someday have a doggie just like her. Not only easy to take care of but super friendly and so lovable and cute.
I have been starting to get packed for my trip to Chicago which is already next week so I don’t think I’ll have a newsletter after this one until the following week and I don’t have much really to say in this one. I just wanted to discuss a little bit of a type of loneliness that I never really knew existed until I lost my MOM.
Today, March 17, 2023 marks 3 years and almost 2 months (the 19th will be the actual day) since I lost my mother and the 17th always seems to be the day of the month I always struggle with her death the most. I’ve mentioned before (I believe) that my mother always gave me a Valentine’s Day card and we celebrated that day together every year. We aren’t Irish and I guess we just never really got into this day especially since my mom herself wasn’t really a drinker (she was actually pretty much against any type of heavy drinking – good for her…) but the day is still always fun to decorate for and just have fun. I really look at any holiday as a reason to get festive—doesn’t have to include drinking, but this holiday just kind of happens to be heavy on that type of stereotype. But back to my original point… I’m not feeling lonely about losing my mother right now in general but overall, I always feel this new type of loneliness. It’s the type of loneliness that comes from feeling your family shrink and get much smaller. With the loss of my grandmother in January I really feel the effects of this shrinking and I miss my grandmother herself a lot. She was really a funny lady and she always had ways of being so smart as a whip. My mother and her butted heads but they were both such smart women and had great independent ideas. I loved them and will continue to love them as I continue to live the rest of my days and I don’t think that there will be a day I don’t miss my mother or think of either of these matriarchs of my family. (My other grandmother passed away from a heart attack when I was 6 after my grandfather on my mom’s side passed away from the same issue 4 months before her death—so both of my mom’s parents were gone when I was 6 years old).
Loneliness comes in different forms. There’s the type people feel when they don’t feel that they have anyone to talk to or that cares about them. There’s the type of loneliness from being in actuality alone in person or just not being able to connect with anyone. These aren’t the type of loneliness feelings I mean. I mean the type of loneliness that comes with losing your mom. My mom was my ROCK. She was there for me for anything I went through no matter what or how badly we had fought whatever. She was an amazing woman and mother to me and my brother and she forgave like no other person I’ve ever known.
I have a disorder of my mind that sometimes has me saying things I wish I didn’t say. My mom knew me. My mom understood that part of me like no other person did (and here come my water works)… anyway, she always knew I was speaking out of anger and hurt as I was hurting her and she knew that I didn’t mean anything I was saying I just could not control how sad and hurt I was and didn’t have the skill of what is called EMOTIONAL REGULATION (which I am relearning in DBT- Dialectical Behavior Therapy- yes, I decided to work through another workbook for DBT for people with ANXIETY). I don’t know how to regulate my emotions naturally. I have to work at it. I learned how to work through my feelings and put a stop on what I was thinking so it wasn’t said out loud (many mean moments and mean things said that didn’t need to be said and I had learned how to pause and walk away for a little while before saying what can only be described as damaging to my life and to the people I said these things to (witch Laura as a special person in my life describes it)… I feel it’s time to revisit and work on these things after a particularly bad incident recently. I did walk away from someone trying to trigger me though, or what seemed like was only an attempt at triggering me, but I don’t feel this person is emotionally mature themselves. But anyway, my point is that I think in order to not feel so lonely in my life and that no one understands me I need to work on myself and to fix different aspects of my personality and who I am as a person that didn’t come together properly due to a disorder of my brain. Hey, if the treatment is there and it worked before in this way, I’m going to try again. If at first you don’t succeed (or in this case you need a reminder course—and I love learning and relearning (geek Laura)—try, try again. (Hilarious the irony in the song on now. It’s called Judas by a group called FOZZY… “What have I become- now that I’ve betrayed- everyone I’ve ever loved I’ve pushed them all away- and I have become a slave to the Judas in my mind- is there something left for me to save in the wreckage of my life? I’m becoming Judas in my mind.”—Borderline Personality Disorder in a nutshell.) (In case you’re wondering I have a double diagnosis of BPD and Bipolar 1 Disorder.)
I hope in time I’ll feel less lonely as I learn I can depend on people because they can depend on me not to say horrible things and hurtful mean things if we get into an argument. I’m not as bad as I used to be but I never want to get to the point I was at once. I think my MOM’s death has made it necessary to relearn these skills because to be honest: It JOLTED me. (Remember that soda, Jolt? Throwback to high school- lol and missing Liz.).
What I’m reading: FEAR STREET by RL Stine. I read a couple of the books so far and they are either rereads or first time reads. They’re quick reads but they’re fun and I didn’t realize how great a storyteller (in short form) RL Stine is. My husband talks about Goosebumps books but I got him hooked on the Fear Street books by this writer now. Good. I hope to read all 30 of them. It’s just hard to find them now and they upped the price on Amazon because they’re so rare now to find. But the Kindle price isn’t so bad. Might have to download them on my actual Kindle so Brian and I can read that version. Not sure how all that works but I’ll figure it out. I’ll probably still be reading FEAR STREET by the next blog because I want to try and read about one a day as long as I can get them and have the time. I read one last night during the March Madness PSU game which they won.
It’s really annoying to me that Villanova was not invited this year and just overall did terribly. They better make it next year. Rooting for Xavier who has a game in an hour. It’s just irritating to me that my favorite time of year in sports besides baseball season… aka ‘March Madness’—Villanova just didn’t deliver this year. A girlfriend on the Twitter machine said they have first year new coach jitters and will be back—hope she is right on this. She usually is. I’m keeping the faith. But missing the playoffs? Like what is this, the Phillies of the last 10 years till literally LAST YEAR. They’ll be back soon enough playing games for the season too! Can’t wait. We are also going to the Phanatic Birthday game on April 23rd. That game is always fun and is a Sunday afternoon game. All the silly mascots are there, lol. Just such a good time. It better not rain!
Thanks as always for reading my writings and ramblings. Have a great weekend!
-xoxo-