Year: 2012

You would think that after eleven years I’d be over the worst of it. I would anyways. It’s some kind of freak phenomenon where I mourn in reverse. I was so strong when she died, I don’t think I cried that much after that day. And I have been able to recall, to share, without breaking down for years. But these days… I don’t know. It’s like… Like she’s here, trying to tell me something I worked hard to forget. I want to hear her voice. I hear her voice. I want her to be here with me, being the mom she never really was, but that I so desperately needed. Need. I’ve been teased before about my liking older men, something about me looking for a father figure. That might’ve been true a long time ago, but lately I have experienced emotions that led to thoughts I never let myself explore further. Time, life and compromise has helped my dad and I mend our relationship. I don’t know if  that would’ve happened with her. I’m not killing myself with the regrets, the what-ifs, I’m simply overwhelmed by an immense sense of loss, a loneliness that is completely new, unknown in its nature, its provenance. Why now? Why does she come up in conversation, why do I stumble upon one of her notebooks while going through my own, why do I see her reflection when I look at mine? I’ve fought so hard not to be like her, not to be her. The fears are gone, I am me, completely. And I wonder if it’s because of that that she’s making this sudden come back. I’ve let a lot of guards down, I’ve opened up, secure in who I am, who I’ve become. Not so far removed from the woman she could have been had she chosen a few different paths maybe. But overall… I could turn this over this way and that way, pry open the memory chest, cry over old birthday cards, but it won’t do any good. I don’t understand why it’s happening now, or how long it will last. But I guess I just miss having a mom. And everything that comes with it.

A very long time ago, when I was all that (not!), Steve Faguy from The Gazette did a profile on An Unexamined Life… I was reading his post about getting a permanent job at the newspaper and through his memories I was reminded of that very special time in my life, that place I was in.

One of the things he wrote that I always remembered was this: (…) writes about emotions the way a political junkie talks about parliamentary procedure.

Through the years since then I’ve lived a whole lot more than I could’ve imagined. What I thought was the worst of times, in hindsight, might not have been that bad. Yet again, in a couple of years from now I might feel the same way about the last few ones.

Years. Cycles. It should be frightening to be talking in years and not in months, weeks, days. But as I emerge, as a human being, as a woman, from a multi layered and armored cocoon, I can see, accept, that things take time. And that we have to take it. Take the time to cry, to suffer, oh so much and when will it ever end? But also to screw up, to not give a fuck and to just say fuck it all, fuck all that fucking bullshit.

And in the midst of all this, I lost faith in my worth. Thinking about myself first, about my own happiness only made me feel guilty. It’s a long, very long, very hard battle. But I am closer to its end than to its beginning. I wish I could send thanks flying around to everyone involved, but if you don’t mind, I’ll thank myself first.

Lui: L’important, c’est d’être heureux.
Moi: J’ai de la difficulté avec ça, faire des choses qui me rendent heureuse.
Lui: Tu ne devrais pas, il faut prendre soin de ton bonheur.
Moi: Oui, mais je veux être certaine de la justesse de chacun des gestes que je pose pour ça. Il est trop facile de confondre le bonheur, la liberté, avec la fuite. Alors que l’on croit qu’on avance, lorsque l’on fuit on ne fait que tourner en rond!

And so it goes. Full circle? Not quite. But the past is not so far that I can’t see it’s ugly face. As I tread along, it will remain visible, but only as a reminder that I will not hang around his lot anymore.