semi-automatic.

the morning my dad called to tell me my mom had died, i threw on the first articles of clothing my hands touched: a dark teal top, jeans, flats. the same thing i had worn the day before. i put my hair up in a messy bun and i highly doubt i washed my face or brushed my teeth before k and i left to drive to my house.

news hadn’t gotten out yet, so it was a relatively quiet day. dad’s best friend was the first one at the house. a few hours later dad and i drove into town to take care of funeral arrangements; k went to the mall to get a black dress for herself, black stockings for me. when we got home, i had to call my cousin, who works for the phone company, to figure out how to check our landline’s voicemail – mom was the only one who knew how, and our inbox was filling quickly.

a handful more people came and went, and then finally around ten, we all shuffled to bed. it burned like hell to close my eyes, so instead i lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, tears leaking sideways from the corners of my eyes into my ears, into my hair. i’m sure i slept, though i don’t know how or how much.

it’s saturday now and family will be flying in. i get up and shower. k’s sister got me a beautiful sweater for christmas – it’s soft and white and sits just off the shoulders. i pull that on and some jeans, wear my hair in waves, add a pair of dangling white beaded earrings my mom had just gotten me. i do my makeup, a routine so automatic i could do in my sleep. i don’t think i bother with shoes or socks. it’s january in new york and i pad around my uncarpeted house barefoot.

i try to eat breakfast – my best friend had brought over tons of food the day before, yogurt and fruit and granola, to make sure i keep eating through the whirlwind – but my throat feels sutured shut. a few spoonfuls later i stop, put everything away, begin to wander aimlessly around the house.

the first person to arrive, after several phone calls, is a woman my father works with. she is loud and obnoxious and her first words to me are, “just feel lucky you didn’t have to watch her die in a hospital like i had to with my parents.” despite the lovely spread of cold cuts and kaiser rolls she has brought, i instantly abhor her and want her gone. she is irritating and gets drunk and stays far too long; i play with my dog.

family and friends begin to filter in and my father clings to them like life rafts. he is 6’5″ but today he looks like a little boy, his face crumpling every time he stoops down to accept a hug. looking at him breaks my heart, makes my throat swell shut and my lips tremble. i am trying to be graceful and strong; i stop looking when people hug him.

i brew coffee and answer the phone and bring people beer from downstairs. we amass a plate of lasagna, more cheese and cold cuts, a fruit arrangement, italian pastries, and at least two cakes. i touch up my makeup, lay off the mascara, keep detangling my earrings from my hair.

each time i answer the phone i am mildly surprised to hear my voice, so clear and even cheerful, sliding like silk from a throat burned raw by the effort of keeping in hours and days and a lifetime of wailing sobs stuffed into silence.

above all, i want to handle this with grace. i will not fall apart, because there is my father to think about. my mother was our family’s rock; without her, we need a new one. so i fix my hair and straighten my sweater and make sure everybody has a drink and a snack.

when i fall into bed that night, my eyes stay open like wired springs. tears leak sideways out of the corners of my eyes. into my ears. into my hair.

rebound.

we all have our own ways of dealing with life. some folks are more resilient than others; some hold grudges; some fear and fight change. regardless, we all take life on our own terms.

a little less than three months after my mom died, my dad started seeing somebody. he has known her for years – they actually dated back before he met my mom – and so he contacted her and found out she lives about 2 hours away. but they got together, hit it off, and have been nearly inseparable since.

the other night he told me that when she moves to florida in november, he’s going with her.

of course this is a lot to handle. i think i’ve been slowly digesting the entire concept since i found out on easter weekend. and while it’s definitely an adjustment…i’m not silly enough to think that either of them have the idea in their heads that somebody can ever ‘replace’ my mom.

yes, maybe this was a quick turnaround. and yes, it sure is shocking to find out that my dad might be moving permanently to florida. but the bottom line is that he’s happy. those days after my mom died, he seemed so lost. somehow he aged ten years overnight but at the same time looked like a little kid (a very tall one) – lost and in pain. he managed and he began to adjust, because that’s how he is – he absorbs what life gives him and makes it work. but when i went home for easter and he told me about this new girlfriend (yes that word still seems strange in reference to my father), he seemed like his old self. some of his twinkle was back.

a week later when we were on the phone he was telling me about her some more, and he said, ‘i really like her, jenny.’ how can i argue, or even think to get in the way of that?

i’ve thought a lot about this. to be upset that this happened so quickly would be the equivalent of saying, ‘i want him to stay sad longer.’ he’s lucky – and by extension, so am i – to have found somebody who he likes so much, and to have found her so quickly. maybe it doesn’t seem right to some people; sometimes when i think about it i feel a stab of injustice for my mom. but we all deal with life differently. life threw my dad and i one hell of a curveball; he did what he always does and kept on keepin’ on. and now that he has this new lease on life, who am i to stand in the way?

flicker.

when i first got to my house the morning after my mom died, nobody was home. my dad had driven into town to tell his mom and my mother’s dad. i walked into the three-seasons room – my mom’s room – and stood there for a minute or so. her chair had been pushed up against the back windows. her small table was completely clear – laptop moved, probably in the house somewhere – coffee cup gone.

she had died out there. i knew that everything had been moved out of sorts when the ambulance got there, or maybe by my father when he found here. a million images flood my mind and i shake my head, scattering them like dust.

the spare key is on the shelf and i let myself and k into the house. i’m mildly surprised to find that it feels the same as always. there is no wall of sadness or no haunting emptiness; it feels like any other day i would come home and find both of my parents out.

i walk zombie-like through the kitchen, the dining room. i stop at the end table in the living room and stare down at the lone piece of paper sitting there.

CORONER’S NOTE. name of deceased. time of death. case number. a phone number to call.

the tremors running through me turn into full-body spasms and i let out something between a wail and a scream. my face crumples like tissue paper and i buckle over the table. one breath, two. no tears come. i straighten up and walk back through the house.

when i get back to the door leading from the kitchen to the three-season room, i see it. a flicker of gold. sitting on the side table, underneath the little fake christmas tree we had still yet to put away, is a ferrero rocher, the untouched foil wrapper catching the early morning sunlight.

instead of sadness, rage suddenly bubbles in my gut. the cruel injustice slaps me in the face – i wonder how it doesn’t leave a mark.

“how the fuck does this happen?” i want to scream. “if you’re going to kill her out of the blue like that, at least let her have a goddamn piece of candy before she dies.”

i don’t know who i’m angry at – Fate, God, whatever Grim Reaper it is out there who decided to snatch my mother out of my life – but my throat closes and i struggle to breathe through the ire coursing through my blood.

“you terrible, cruel piece of shit,” i seethe. “i fucking hate you.”

it occurs to me that i may be angry at the world for killing her…but i could just as easily be angry at her for dying in the first place.

tremors.

it was 5:32am when my dad called to tell me my mom had died. i was in CT with k and had, for the first time since being back up north for the holidays, actually turned my phone on and set an alarm. we were going to get up, the two of us, at 7am. we were going to shower and stumble our way to panera, load up on coffee, and i was going to finally finish the paper i was presenting in 8 days at a conference in tallahassee.

so it was by complete chance that my phone was on, ringer set to near-deafening levels, the morning my dad called.

the phone rang and dragged me out of that ooey gooey sleep that consists of a lover’s tangled limbs and the delicious warmth of blankets and skin. i snaked my arm out into the offending cold and poked around for my phone, still surfacing from downy dreamland. and it was somewhere around that time – as i picked the phone up off the nightstand – when i realized that it wasn’t my alarm going off, but the ringtone. i squinted at the screen, and roxy’s puppy face smiled back.

“Incoming Call: Home.”

i’m sitting upright now, wide awake and afraid to pick up. nobody calls at 5:32am unless it’s something terrible. “please don’t let it be bad,” i whisper as i hit the little green button, knowing full well that is will be.

k is awake now, my jumping out from under the covers having dragged her out of sleep as well. she sits behind me, pressed against my back. i barely feel her but i know she’s there – my world has been reduced to my father’s voice at the other end of the line.

“jenny? it’s dad. uh…” he breaks off here and i know he’s crying. “mommy died last night.”

“it’s grandma. he must mean grandma. HIS mom. he can’t mean my mom. i just saw her, i was just home three days ago. no this can’t be right it’s got to be a mistake my mom isn’t dead this cannot be right.”

i don’t scream, i don’t even really cry. hysteria laps at my throat and i ask my dad how, what happened. as he talks, i start to shake. full-body tremors. i don’t know this now, but they won’t stop for three days. every time somebody comes to the house or hugs me at the funeral they will ask me if i’m cold.

not cold; shattering from the inside, out.

 

and when the smoke clears –

i had damn near forgotten this blog still existed. i just assumed i had deleted it at some point along the way. but – well, here it sits. i’m too much of a sentimental, semi-hoarding person to delete the old posts. although, as i read through them in the next few days, if any of them are painfully embarrassing or idiotic i doubt i’ll have a problem nixing them.

i keep looking for the right fit, the thing or things that will help me continue to grow, and also continue to heal as my mom’s death gets smaller and smaller in the rearview.

i’ll give this a whirl – it’s as good an attempt as any.

back to the beginning

I’m back home in new york for the next seven weeks, until I move to kentucky.  leaving hartford, kim, my yoga studio, my boss(es), my teachers, it was all…difficult and surreal.  it really hasn’t hit me yet that I’m moving seven states away.

recovery at home is difficult.  the routine is drastically different.  I have parental relationships to manage.  emotions tend to run higher.  and I don’t have kim.

this relationship has changed my outlook on recovery.  I have something and someone beautiful and exhilarating to live for, to live fully for.  I’m learning to play and explore and be less rigid, more forgiving.

strength.
love.
beauty.
inspire.

reality bites

non-sequitor: I am waiting with baited breath for my camera’s connector cord to come in the mail.  I don’t think I can handle PhotoBooth creativity too much longer.  project 365 will be much easier once I can use an actual camera!

but now, on to what I really have been mulling over for a day or two.  it all started with this post on a blog I follow.  I think it brings up some great points.  what do we insinuate when we scoff that a tall, leggy model (or actress or fitness instructor or the lady at the grocery store) isn’t a “real” woman?  what’s the alternative?  is she, then, a fake woman?

a painful truth in recovery for me was that I will never, while in good health, be waif-thin.  although I am petite, I am not naturally sinewy and willowy; in my natural, unadultered state, I’m actually built more like a boxer than a ballerina.  I’m compact, I’m muscular, and whether I like it or not I’m gonna have an ass.  and that’s just the way I am.

just like some women, love them or hate them, are just naturally, simply thin.  does that make them any less “real” than me?  nope.  just makes them thinner.

as I was thinking about this and listening to pandora, an ad came on about a new television series, Life Unexpected (about a teenage girl who finds and goes to live with her biological parents, who gave her up at birth).  and the ad said something about her “going to live with her real parents.”  and I became so infuriated, it actually took me by surprise.

I have never thought of my adoptive parents as anything but…my parents.  not my second set of parents, not my adoptive parents (although I used that term just now for distinction), and certainly not my fake parents.  and on the flipside, my birth parents are…well, my birth parents.  nothing more, nothing less.  it would never in a million years occur to me to refer to them as my “real” parents.  because again, by default that would make my mom and dad, who raised me from the time I was three months old and who are just overflowing with love for me, my “fake” parents, my “unreal” parents.

and what about this silly phrase that gets thrown around more and more as commencement approaches: “the real world.”  I understand that the college life is something only experienced when one is in college.  but my life here is not less-than real.  I get up at 520 every morning and am sometimes going full speed ahead until almost eleven at night, between getting to the gym/yoga, classes, practicing, teaching, rehearsals, and RA things.  trust me–it’s real.

I just found out there’s no such thing as the real world,
just a lie you’ve gotta rise above.

so?  should I aspire to be a “real” woman?  what the hell does that mean?  I’m (getting) healthy and strong and I’m the right size for me. can’t that just be enough?

I have, for all intents and purposes, two sets of parents: the ones who conceived me and had the good sense to know that they couldn’t raise me under their current circumstances, and the ones who have been my world since I was three months old.  is one set “real” and the other not?  if so, which is which?  according to the CW, the pair that I share genetic material with is my “real” set.  the people whom I have never met and probably never will.

and this “real” world nonsense.  my world is real, thank you kindly.  if my world was frolicking in the fields making dandelion crowns and chasing bunnies, ya know what?  that would be real too.  it’s all about perception.  being a music student and a resident assistant with a mild obsession with yoga and a love for running and french music and peanut butter may not be a “real” world to some people…but it’s my world, I like it very much, and I’m sticking with it.

heureux émigrants

at any family function, stories always circulate about my great-grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, my father and his brothers as kids, et cetera.  I love it, it’s one of my favorite parts of the holidays.  a lot of them I’ve heard a million times, but still laugh just as hard (and, I’ll admit, occasionally may snort).

this one was new to me though.  my dad told it on christmas eve:
my great-grandfather worked as a carpenter.  during the flu epidemic (pandemic?) he stopped working on houses and started making solely coffins.  one day he started feeling sick, and assumed he was getting the flu.  and that, like most everybody else, he was going to die (he was young, maybe twenty).  so he scraped together his money, went out after he finished working that day, and bought himself a steak dinner.  he figured, ‘If I’m going out, might as well have a nice steak before I go.’

he woke up the next morning feeling perfectly fine.  he went on to get married within a year, had three kids, and lived to see all of his great-grandchildren except for me.

he credited that steak with curing him of the flu.
this story fascinates me and just…makes me so happy.  my father is so much like that.  and I am so not like that, which is why I think I’m so fascinated.  but just…what a fantastic outlook on life, what a great way to live.

so my take-away message?  eat steak.  : )

lessons from a puppy

we had a few family members over last night for christmas eve.  it was roxy’s first time being surrounded by people in the house.  she loved it.  spent the entire day/night hopping from one lap to the other, just soaking up the love.  and as I watched her (I got very little puppy love last night, seeing as I was infinitely less interesting than the new people–I do, after all, live here) I became…just…mesmerized.

every time she would hop to a new place, she would sort of excitedly wiggle her way around until she nestled into just the right spot.  and then she would just sink in and be.

besides being undeniably adorable, it actually made me a little envious.  she so clearly knew exactly what she was looking for–the perfect spot, and somebody to rub her belly or scratch her ears–and when she got there, had the sense to stay and enjoy, no questions, no apologies, no worries.

what a gift.  and it made me, the one who hates to be touched and has a half dozen invisible walls and fences and barriers up at any given moment, all of a sudden feel that tug in my gut telling me, “It’s time.  It’s okay.  You can give that much of yourself to somebody.”

all of this work this past year, fighting through recovery and trusting people to help me.  trusting my treatment team and trusting the few people I would reach out to when I was struggling, and trusting myself.  allowing myself to love other people; allowing them to love me.

and here I am, brought to all of this contemplation by a twelve-week-old bundle of fluff and love who doesn’t even answer to her name yet.  it’s a beautiful christmas gift.  : )

trinke, Seele

still haven’t sung a note yet today.  but I did practice bach chorales and figured bass and studied theory for a bit.  so not a complete academic waste thus far!

can’t wait for yoga tomorrow.  the classes here are so different from the ones at WHY, so much more adventurous and unique.  not that I don’t love the classes at WHY; it’s just a very different experience.  both are great.  but it’s a nice change of pace.

hosting Christmas Eve tomorrow.  not a big crowd, only six of us.  I miss when the entire family was here and we had ten to twelve on Christmas Eve, twenty or so on Christmas Day.  and now (provided I get into grad school) I’ll be moving away too.

roxy’s still working on the whole ‘walking on hardwood floors’ thing.  making turns are a bit rough for her.  lots of skidding out happening.  she’s tall enough now to hop up into the chairs…but getting down is a mess.  very funny and cute, but still a mess.  she’s currently eating my old running shoe.

trying to drink in these moments, the time with her and my parents and my family.  even if she does have to pee every twelve minutes and drags me outside in the snow and cold.  even if my mother still drives me bananas from time to time.  even if the holidays and being home always inherently stress me out and put me on tenuous ground with recovery.

still drying to absorb all of the good stuff.  because there’s a lot of it.