It is impossible but life goes on regardless. Crazy but Joey 'Coco" Diaz of Joe Rogan universe fame put it in the exact words I had felt when my dad passed away, he lost his mom a 13. Basically summed up, the day before and the day after are just days, and the days keep coming and nothing you do will ever stop that, so you just move on without them. The emotional pain is smoothed over by the forward momentum of your life, though I don't think you ever really get over it.
Yea, the days between my moms death and her funeral were the longest days and hours of my life. We'd go out and get beers and only an hour had passed when it felt like it should've been at least three or four, then the day after her funeral time sped up again. I've been told random things will trigger my grieving and I accept that. My school colleagues gave me two cards and it was humbling to feel that kind of support but it also reminded me I'll never have a mom again.
Just a word of advice from someone who's been there... your mom's death isn't what defines you, so don't let it. Don't let it consume you, or steer you down a dark path. Grieve, but keep it as short as you can, and then go out and make her proud. Focus on yourself, first and foremost. She may have been a shitty mother, or a great mother, but regardless, the best thing you can do to honour her is to live a good, solid life that people will think highly of. If she was a shit mother, the story will be, "wow, he is a great guy, especially considering where he came from", or if she was a great mother, it will be, "not surprising he's a fine, upstanding person". Remember the good times with fondness, and forget the bad times. But now you have to figure out your "new normal" that doesn't include your mother. So go do that, and live a good life... don't wallow in despair. It won't happen on its own, you have to make it happen, and it takes work. So go put in that work and reap the rewards. $0.02 CDN
Thats a good point. I get to redefine myself now without her influence. As I wrote before I am determined to live a less rage filled life and I think thats a good start. And you're right, no more excuses about being shitty in friendships. My mom was a bit of an anchor, but I get to move on now and thats freeing in a way. I knew she always loved me, but she wasn't the greatest person and wasn't very interpersonally effective, no more blaming her for my current troubles, which is respectful to her memory and helps me.
Its starting to become blindingly obvious how kids in dysfunctional families become like their parents even if they hated them. Parents for better or worse are role models and if people like it not, we learn a lot from them just because we were around them so much growing up. Is alcoholism hereditary? Yea, is a gene thing or environmental learning? There is a gene component, but if you grow up watching your parents getting trashed when they get stressed, its going to be awfully tempting to do the same thing once grown up. Same thing with any behaviors good and bad.
Hey Toddamus, speaking as a guy who just lost his dad, the only parent I had since 1996, what Kubla and Nett are saying is dead on. If you dwell on it, it will just eat you up. My boss offered to give me some time off work after he died, but I'm still working (I have taken a couple of days off to deal with necessary details), because it keeps me occupied (and I need the money). If not work, try to get more into one of your hobbies/interests. There are some people who think that you have to go through some dark "grieving period," but everyone is different. In other news, MY NEW VALVE SPRINGS ARRIVED TODAY! (You know that you're a real gear-head when you get excited about a boring engine component like valve springs.) And just to keep things on topic here in the Drunk Thread: Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
Y'all. I was at work Saturday and a man came to the salon for a haircut. I HATE cutting men's hair. I don't like touching men unless I know them. Men's haircuts give you hair splinters and all kinds of gross. But I was available, and it's 30 bucks for like 20 minutes of work. So fine. THIS MOTHERFUCKER STARTED MASTURBATING WHILE I WAS SHAMPOOING HIS HAIR. We didn't see his actual penis, but his hand was stroking and he was opening and closing his legs and slightly rocking. I hate.
Well, gee, now I feel bad for sharing my good salon story from today. As everyone may have gathered from certain pics in certain threads, I have very big, thick, curly hair. A friend of a friend is apprenticing at Vidal Sassoon and was desperately looking for curly-haired people to practice her blowouts, so I got hooked up with a free visit and now I have stick straight hair and it. is. NUTS. My curls have always been a big part of my physical identity and when you have curly hair you don't have many options to make drastic changes so I'm all off balance. It's crazy how much of an entirely different person I feel like. If I were seeing someone, this would be the one time I'd be into role play. You be the cult leader and I'll be the flower child runaway. I'll be the bitchy CEO and you be the junior executive who makes a risky move in a meeting that gets the attention of the client...and my clitoris. I can't shake the urge to get some fake nails, turn on the vocal fry, and do this all the time:
Apparently the salon owner didn't want me to choke slam him because despite the four of us KNOWING what he was doing we couldn't actually see it. Ugh.
He was a sixty odd year old man with a ponytail he wanted trimmed. AND HE DEMANDED I PULL HIS PONYTAIL BACK FOR HIM. Yuck. As to who does that? It happens in salons, mainly because creeper dudes don't know how to deal with being touched intimately by a female. Having your head washed and massaged by a female is, I guess, too much for them.
Hmmm, so you're saying, hypothetically, if this happened at, say, my salon, the ladies there wouldn't be surprised? BRB