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12 & 13 years of misguided mourning

There is really just the one time of year I write on this blog. I don't know why. It's comforting. It feels like an excuse to tell people a part of me is missing. It's an outlet for pain that doesn't require processing the emotions of others. Its selfish. It's harmless.

This year I haven't known what to do. I started working on a cover/adaptation. I finally abandoned it. The adaptation ended up being a song for me 8 years ago but I don't think I ever clarified for myself why. It was happening too soon. It was making me resentful.

It is generally difficult to feel like I can move on without abandoning her. But I have made some big life decisions recently that have not been made complicated by her presence or lack thereof. Which is to say that her absencee is becoming normal. I am not holding on in a way that is painful.

I've always cried a lot. Even as a kid, even now. I no longer see it as a problem to be dealt with as a much as a thing that happens. Like leaves falling or hiccoughs.

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The part above the line I wrote last year, didn't finish or post.

The 11,12,&13 anniversaries of my moms death have been difficult to mourn. I haven't been crashing the way I used to. One suggestion is I don't need to. Maybe I'm moving on, however reluctantly. But I can't shake this heavy, shadowed, lingering, tin, corner-of-my-eye feeling. I can't name it either. It scares me. It begs to be acknowledged but it refuses to let me see it straight on. Or maybe I'm refusing to look.

This year has been over shadowed by the fostering of a kitten who quickly reflected back at me every feeling I'd ever had about the loss of unconditional love and the possibility of holding it again. On whether constant trust and adoration should be held on to or let go of.

I am disgusted with the possibility that I can live without her. Still I refuse to do the things that bring joy and meaning into my life with constancy. Yet the kitten requires play, and to be fed, and to be cleaned, and to be held. The kitten reminds me that I require play, food, cleaning, and holding. The kitten reminds me that I can do this by needing me to do it. The kitten does not doubt that I will find food. Why else would it meow into my face? The kitten does not doubt that I can play. Why else would it crawl across my face? The kitten does not want me to clean per se, but I cannot let it live it's life with poop on its foot and goop on its face. The kitten perpetually reminds me that I am capable of and willing to assist and heal no matter how much I would like to avoid this responsibility.

I don't know how to stop grieving. I don't know how to bring my mother with me into my life without steeping in pain. I don't know how to resolve this post.

My mothers death day was yesterday but today I spread some of her ashes at the Brooklyn botanic garden rose garden.

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