I'd like to start off by apologizing. The last week or so has been unusual for me. I'm more scattered that normal, a bit flighty, restless, uneasy. I'm tired, fatigued, and exhausted, but not sleeping well. I'm quick to anger, my temper is short. I've had more days in the last couple weeks of general dysphoria than I've had combined in the last couple years preceding 2023. So I've been reflecting, acknowledging my issues and attempting to solve them. But I can't solve this one. Nothing but time can solve this one.
It's October now. It's been almost a year
One year ago, I was helping my mom clean her house, crashing on her living room floor the night before a flight, and talking with my godmom as we watched Studio Ghibli movies. My mom wasn't on oxygen yet, and she was still pretending to smoke cigars. Pretending, because my godmom wouldn't let her have any lighters. She lived primarily on coffee and eggs, but sometimes she'd eat the takeout my brother and I brought with us when we visited after work, because we knew, even then, that meals together were going to be scarce.
She was still hopeful then, determined not to give up or let go or back down, believing that the chemo was working.
It wasn't.
In November, the week before Thanksgiving, she took a turn for the worst.
In mid December, she was gone.
This is a rough time of the year for me anyway. Working four 10 hours days, 2 hours of commute round trip for work, then having three whole days off, it's not a bad time. But it's rough in the winter when I rise before the sun, arrive at work before the sun, spend all day inside away from the sun, and leave just as the sun hits the perfect position to blind people driving westward. By the time I make it home, it's dark. There's a vampire joke in there somewhere, I know. And it's getting colder, which makes nothing better except the bugs. But I'm sunlight summer coded. I like my warm days, my sunny days. So the lack of daily sunlight and warmth, it gets to me.
So braving the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder on top of the general fatigue of returning to this time of the year is just....exhausting, I guess. I'm exhausted. But talking about it with my family? Not doable. Not that I'd want to anyway, because I get tired of explaining that the grieving process isn't linear, and I don't have a set course of recovery to follow, and that my brother being "fine" doesn't mean I also have to be fine.
But that's it, I guess. I'm tired. I miss the sun and sunlight and the heat. I miss watching movies with my mom, and cooking with my mom, and stealing her coffee because 5am wakeups come early. I miss my mom.
I hate this time of the year.
So if you think I'm being weird... I probably am. Tell me to take a breath, get a drink of water, go stand in the sun for a minute. Tell me to take a step back and breathe, because it's going to be okay. Time heals everything. Eventually.
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