Baby steps

I have a ton of different blog ideas roaming my brain but the urge to put them down just isn't there at the moment. I'm hoping the ideas stay until the desire to blog returns. If not then perhaps others will fill the vacuum.

I'm not certain how much of this apathy is the turmoil of the last 6 months and how much is the fact that my favorite blogging platform just isn't available at the moment. For those who know Harold, you remember he isn't fond of angst and being the picky muse he is, he decamps when I'm feeling emotionally out of sorts. For those who know Yahoo 360, well you know that it is all but dead in the water at the moment. Perhaps the new platform will renew a spark.

Baby steps: I think I have most of the paperwork surrounding Mom's estate taken care of save for a possible life insurance policy. Fortunately it was more simple in ways that I had assumed it would be. The years of contributing increasing amounts to Mother's expenses (as well as providing room and board gratis) is not without a tiny reward. Something about providing funeral home expenses being a tier 1 expense --- which translates to we pay ourselves first. Sadly there's not even enough to do that. Then again, I didn't step up for possible reward. It's just what you do.

We're also doing the slow conversion of 'her' room into the garb room. Don't get me wrong, Mom will still have her place on her dresser but I'll be moving the renfaire things from the other room to 'hers'. That will free my guest bedroom. Now to attempt to find a donation place to come get her things and hold her faire items for the MS Prepare for Faire sale. Bulk pickup is today.

Baby steps.

There is a blog in here somewhere about what it's like to be an empty nester for the first time in my life; to have a string of days where I don't have to check in on someone, where I don't have to bank sick days for another's potential illnesses. Perhaps another day.

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the photo above is of The Wharf Rat in Fells Point (Baltimore) taken during the Pirate Invasion/Privateer Day this year. A good friend of mine held a toast to Granny here. As The Wild Granny was Keeper Of The Rum, we had a rum toast. She would've approved.

The mist of dreams

or perhaps in the midst of dreams?

In coming to grips with my mother's passing, I find at times I'm coping so much better than expected and at other times not coping at all.

Yes it's difficult to write that even now.

For the first week I felt so very fragile that Jon was basically concerned about leaving me alone for more than a few moments. It was a new feeling to me. Fragile. I'm never fragile nor have I ever been.

Thankfully that feeling has passed.

In its wake though are the strangest forms of dreams. Most revolve around me having to convince my mother she truly is dead. Her reply is always the same "Stephanie you are so full of shit your eyes should've been brown." Tacky tacky but a favorite phrase she used to use on me when I was a child. So I tell her repeatedly that no I held her hand while she slipped away and I watched her stop breathing and I even checked her carotid pulse to see if/when it stopped. At that point she always (in my dream) tells me "You just don't know what you're talking about." (said quite sarcastically - again another favorite of hers). So I argue with her and finally tell her she's in a box on her dresser in her room and I'll just take her in there to show her.

And -- in the dream -- I do. And when I see the box her reflection in the mirror is gone.

Then I wake up.

They're not quite as startling as one would think -- especially from a veteran of nightmares and night terrors. Typically one would also think that this means she's still roaming about ... I don't think so.

I think this is really *me* trying to convince myself she's gone. For one thing most of the sarcasm wasn't directed at me at the last --- she was quite frightened and I was literally her life preserver. That meant she tempered her temper with me. Also the Mom of my dreams is the visage from about 3 years ago ... right about the time she moved out here. Back when she was vibrant and full of life.

Maybe I want so very badly to remember that time that my dreamworld is reminding me it's not the case.

Maybe I'm just not quite ready to let go - even though I know I should, even though I know it's time, even though I know she is finally at peace.

the photo above was taken spring of 2006 from the Clipper City Clipper Ship cruise Jon and I took. It's of the lights in Baltimore Inner Harbor as we returned back. Mom didn't go on that cruise because she was afraid of being that long without extra oxygen and by the time the next one came around she was too ill to go anymore.