Letters to the World
3/1/2020
Perhaps it is that I am burnt out? // I’m running the race, frantic, but my wheels have fallen off & I am on my last leg & that leg is broken. I had to step out of the caregiver role, swap my 9 years of nanny experience for a 2am newspaper delivery gig. I just can’t interact the way I have in the past; toddler activity planning just isn’t fun anymore. I think I know why…
I miss my mom.
You know, they say grief gets easier, but I don’t see how that’s possible. I feel like the easiest moments are all directly following their passing. When you can say things like, “Oh, it’s only been a week since we last spoke.” “It’s only been a couple months.” What will it feel like when I haven’t spoken to my mom face to face in 30 years? That breaks my heart more than these last few months have. I think it’s already broken.
Speaking of broken……… I would just like to document that I am completely broke right now, in debt really, thousands & thousands, & that I am paralyzed with anxiety over it. I want to write that sentence so that maybe one day I’ll read back over this post, some day I’m not 26 & struggling…. Barely getting by…. Living, not day-to-day, but morning-noon-to-night,, (do it again the next day. & the day after that) (That’s the motto anyway.) ,, maybe I’ll look over this & remember the crisp cold settled in my fingertips, them gliding over the keyboard typing unspoken words, the warmth of the sunshine helping the breezy chill of the early afternoon, & I’ll look back grateful (??) for allowing myself to continue living, finding the good parts.
Perhaps in 30 years my grief really will be mastered. // It doesn’t escape me that in 30 years, I will be 56. –The exact age my mom was when she passed in December 2019. Maybe I’ll have made her proud by then, allowing myself the opportunity to live.
To live means to continue past that 30 year mark.
What will it feel like to grow older than my mom ever got the chance to be?
What will my grief feel like in 31 years?
amberreneepoet 