pressure vent

ok...I need to go off for a bit. I'm warning you now so that if you don't need more depression and unhappy in your lives you can just go to the next blogs. No one has to read this, but I do have to get it off my chest.

I HATE life. I despise everything about adulthood. This game of, "oh well, look on the brightside, I now have my own house to party with" is long since over.

I miss the way things were when no matter how bad they got, the foundations of my world were still intact. I went through so much shit in my younger years, and learned to deal with it and get through it, because I knew that there would always be this core group of human beings who still wanted me around no matter how much they yelled at me for forgetting to feed my rabbit, no matter how many salt-shakers they threw at me in anger, no matter how many times someone accidentally dumped a pot of boiling water over my wrist. My world was alright because even though it often wasn't the way I wanted it, fundamentally, everything was ok. There was food in my cupboards, enough money to do some fun things, and one person who would never ever stop loving me, no matter what I did. (and the crap my siblings got into proved that fact to me without my ever having to soil my hands with mischeif)

In the months since her death, I've begun to realize what a treasure to was to have a mother who, despite no money in her wallet and a half a tank of gas in her truck would drive me to school when it was raining. That realization has come through months of walking home in the freezing cold, biking to work in the rain, getting muddy and uncomfortable and knowing that less than six months ago, I wouldn't have had to feel this way. She couldn't give me very much at all. Raising a teenage daughter on $800 dollars a month doesn't give you much leeway. But the things she could do, like drive me to work when she could, and buy me a coffee when I was half awake on the way to work or school, she did without any complaint, and happily.

I miss knowing that however much crap I got into, she would always love me. It didn't matter if I called the cops on my sister, or got pregnant at eighteen, or stole a truck and led the cops on a freeway chase ending in probation for months on end and the loss of my license (all of which my siblings have done at one time or another), she was always going to be there for us to help however she could, and do everything possible while she was at it. She was always there for us, when our life experiences gave us the need to talk to somebody for hours on end, sometimes all night, sometimes at the cost of long distance phone charges that were so debilitating, we had to cut off our phone for years after that.

The greatest joy she took from us was in our accomplishments, things that we did for ourselves. We never could do things for her like buy her a house, or give her a vacation, things that would give any parent pride and happiness from their offspring. The best we could offer her was, an acceptence to SFU from Sherayna and yet another standing ovation from me, and a truck with a LOUD stereo system entirely built from scratch from Quinn. And that was all she needed. Even when those accomplishments meant discomfort for her; getting up at four in the morning to take Sherayna to her new dorm room; dealing with the crush of people and the genuine but unwelcome affection from other parents at my shows; the sheer irritation of listening to Quinn test his speakers until he could hear them from the other side of the forest by our house; she never complained and all she needed was to watch how proud of ourselves we were to take joy from it.

Absolutely nothing I've gone through in the past six months, means anything to the enormity of losing this wonderful person whom I took for granted every day of my existence. I was so sure of her continued presence in everything I would ever experience, that it was always ok for me to yell at her, and throw everything she had given me in her face, for want of things she COULDN'T and never would be able to give to me. It was always fine to run off and spend a week with Ace, knowing she wanted me at home to help put up Christmas decorations. All she wanted from me was a day of my company. One single day to take the dogs up the mountain, and find ourselves a good Christmas tree and teach me how to use the chainsaw so that if I ever needed to cut wood for myself for a fire so I wouldn't have to live in a cold house, I would know how to operate it without cutting a limb off.

But one single day of my life was too much for me to give. and that's what hurts the most.

she gave the best of the most priceless of gifts as much as she possibly could, and all she ever asked was the same. She taught me to feel joy in the simple act of having coffee to drink in the morning. She taught me how much more wonderful it was to spend a day in the mountains with coffee and chocolate bars, walking the dogs, watching them enjoy themselves, than it was to spend a day at the mall pretending to be cool like all the other moneyed kids I longed to be like. She taught me how to give the most simple but powerful gift and to take joy in return from the smallest things. She showed me how much more a little puppy who trusts you and would take a star from the sky for you if it could is worth so much more than any kind of possession. And yes it takes time and effort and expense and work. But the love and trust in that dog's eyes and how it just comes when you call it, and joyfully, is worth so much more than anything else. She taught me that.

And I just gave it away.

And I'm still giving it away. Every single day, I move more and more stuff out of the home she was so proud of. I box away, and cover up more of the garage sale treasures she was so proud of. This home, this "party place" that I wouldn't have if it wasn't for her, is losing more and more of her influence. Nothing about it reflects my life with her here. I feel like by scrubbing the walls, I'm washing away her presence. I can barely remember what it was like to sit in the same room with her. When I look at my home now, the walls that she wanted in the first place hold no feeling of her. It's like after all this time, the mere act of moving her possessions out is helping remove her as well.

I look at the yard, and it's May and there are still no flowers growing. By now, you wouldn't have been able to see the grass for the colour. All the dogs are gone and their area swept clean. Even Moth is never around, sitting on some pile of books as if she owned the world. Instead she hides in the basement, and we only ever see her when she's hungry. Her truck is no longer parked in the front, comforting and familiar. Instead it's some huge ugly black beast who never belonged to her and will never remind me of her.

I don't want to move on, I don't want to get over it. I'm forgetting the sound of her voice, and I HATE it. It's like I'm losing her twice. I miss her more than anything. Any of my stupid dramas this past year just don't matter compared to how much I miss her. I don't know why I've been this emotional lately except maybe now that I'm realizing it's never going to ease up. Life is never going to get any easier, and that's just the human condition.

Anyways, that's my big long vent. If you read it, thank you. If you didn't, that's fine too. It's just--I needed to talk about her for a while. I did this yesterday too, with Quinn. I'll probably do it again tomorrow with whoever will listen.

I think maybe it's time for that therapy to begin.