Everything’s about balance, isn’t it? That’s what they say about a healthy diet. You can have the chocolate cake, but just once in a while. It’s the same with working and making time for the things you love to do. You have to find that equilibrium that doesn’t weigh your nose down to the grindstone, or you’ll pretty much turn to dust. I’ve found this same philosophy to be true in dealing with the loss of my mom, Kim. It’s all about balance.
Because life goes on. If life didn’t go on, she would probably charm the gods into making it so. I’m only half-convinced that’s not what actually happened up there, because things did seem to stop when she died— and that’s probably when her divine barter began. Down here, life was moving like molasses. One day felt like three weeks, perpetually, because a person isn’t built to feel that much emotion— especially when the emotion is despair— in a timeframe marked from sunrise to sundown. It doesn’t really compute with the brain. Going to sleep at night isn’t the pause button that it usually resembles; instead, it feels more like a reset button. When you finally drift into those inky yet vivid tableaus that the subconscious whips up for you, you have to rediscover what life is really like when they screech to a halt. And then you remember what happened, each morning, again and again and again. It goes on that way for a long time. In the grand scheme of things, several months might not be very substantial— but when each day feels like three weeks, it is. And deep down, you know this isn’t right. I said I would be okay— I promised. I am not holding up my end, here. But she’s my mom, so remember, she’s pulling some strings up there while I’m sorting myself out. Because if it’s up to her, life will march on with gusto for her loved ones, god dammit. She lived her days to the fullest, and we are expected to do the same, come what may. That’s a pretty little deal we made if you ask me, especially when things are heaviest. Remembering that promise to her is sort of like the first glint on the horizon— it may be dark now, but there WILL be light again. So now to my mom’s magic fairy dust that allowed life to resume at a normal pace. At a certain point, some small, glitter-sized bits of clarity started to rain down fairly consistently. They were light and feathery and always came right when I needed them, even if they got stuck in my frickin’ eyelashes and made me tear up. They were these pieces of wisdom that I’d learned from her for 24 years, and she was reminding me to keep living by them, even though she wasn’t physically discussing them on the other end of the couch with her chardonnay in hand. And it sort of dawned on me that her grandiose presence in my life— in so, so many people’s lives— is never going to go away. That had been my biggest fear when she was in her final weeks, and even after she was gone; I felt like I was trying to catch smoke. But all the things she passed along when she was on this earth— her values, her kindness, her curiosity, her hopefulness and ideals— once those things are imprinted upon others, they can’t die. I know her legacy touched a whole lot more people than just her family. And so it seems, she can’t really die either. I guess I need to get back to the idea of balance at some point if I want this to be a coherent piece of writing, which admittedly, I do. So here’s the wrap-around, which came to me while I was in New York City last week. I went there on vacation, and the plan was to go for 7 days, which turned into 10, because I was having too much fun to leave. It was very much go-go-go, which I was really pleased with myself about, because as noted— life has an annoying way of dragging its feet a tad when you’re grieving. The boots get heavier and the ground gets sludgier. But in New York, even in the cold, it felt like I was running a marathon in my best Nikes each day. And to be clear, those felt like marathons that I was actually trained and prepared for, which is not a thing for me. I was making a point to fill each day to the brim with laughter and merriment, and so appeared a shiny gloss around everything in my view. I found that intoxicating. It was like how things used to be. I’ve been able to find those kinds of moments for many months now, but they were usually running side by side with the sadness, both of them trying to edge the other out of the race. This time, joy was winning by a landslide. One night as I looked across the East River at the Manhattan skyline at sunset, I thought, “Mom would love this.” And then I quickly replaced it with, “Mom loves this.” It was a very nice, almost run-of-the-mill moment I might have shared with her if she were standing right next to me. Now it's like this instead. But life, as they say, goes on. I guess joy can’t remove the feeling of loss, but it can outweigh it at times. If you’re holding onto pain, you can’t just let it go— but you can try to tip the scales.
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