Dec 9

 Tired today.

Worked half a day just about, but given I had been up past midnight the day before working, eh, I figure I am more than even.

Spoke with Andy. The 3 days are temporary. I can flip them on and off at will. We are on the same page.

As the day wore into evening, a melancholy settled on me.

My mom has been on my mind today.

I get flashes. At random. Today. Walking up the stairs. My thoughts blipped to her, followed by the always inevitable immediate follow up thought - oh yes, she's not here anymore. Gone.

And on that thought all my thoughts that follow are altered. The impact of her passing away is so much more than just the loss of a parent for me. It has also triggered a seismic series of thoughts and feelings about who I am, where I am, the passing of time, the end of an era. Of being suddenly severed from my past.

It often leans in heavily to my whole, I am just marking time whilst my own inevitable end rolls closer.

Because it feels like the credits are rolling. The film is over. And once those credits finish, the theatre goes dark, everything goes quiet, and that, is all there is.

As repeated at length by me, I am not good with death. I am not good with the passage of time where all things decay. And decay they do. Above all else. Every rise has its inevitable fall. Every life has its inevitable death. The zero state always wins. There is a joyous philosophy in there of revelling in the life lived. That amazing spark to enjoy everything in the moment. Don't think about the end. Think about the glorious arc through the sky as the ball travels through it. Don't think about when it hits the ground.

But I am buggered if I can truly grasp it.

If I stop and think about it, expand outwards, it all seems... so very nihilistic. Cruel. Short. Everything turns to dust.

I have to do a pretty good number on myself to push it out of focus. Some days I do that better than others.

My very old friend is coming to visit next week. My oldest friend that I still am in touch with. I haven't seen him in what must be, 5 years. He has changed. I have changed.

He knew my mom. He does not know she passed away. Perhaps that is what has triggered my lingering thoughts on her today.

I have a terrible confession to make about my mom. When I was a teenager. And our fight was at its worst. When she was being a horrible person all round. To everyone. And every crossing of paths was an excuse for her to pick a fight. An argument. I wished vehemently that she would drop dead. Not quickly. But slowly. And agonisingly. And I beseeched anything listening to make it so. This was before she was diagnosed with MS.

Like fate listening in on my wishes, she then spent the next 35 years slowly dying.

In the years since I thought that. I have realised what an awful thing to think that was. And that no one - no matter what they have done - deserves such a fate. I realise many things now, no one really deserves. And if I could go back in time, I would correct myself. No matter her behaviour.

Young, stupid, didn't realise what I was wishing for.

The irrational part of me wonders if I didn't end up cursing her all those years ago. Stupid. Irrational. But still.

I am very sorry I ever thought it. And she didn't deserve her fate.

In the last 15 years of her life our relationship was good. Don't get me wrong, she was always the person she was. So. You'd never get much of a gung ho supportive parent out of her. Always at a distance at best. But. There was no longer any venom there. No arguments. No disagreements. We talked an awful lot. I got to know a lot about her. She got to know more of me than anyone in my family. She actually started to understand the darker bits of me and the shadows I tend to dwell in. Seen. For the first time ever.

Her last few years were, it has to be said, on reflection, fairly grim. She made the best of them, as she always did. And for her part, was comfortable enough. But still. Grim. And again, not a fate you would wish for anyone.

Old age can be horribly cruel.

So next week I will tell my friend my mom has died. I am not entirely sure how he will take it to be honest. He is stoic. But. I don't know. I would not be surprised either way. Stoicism. Or upset. For many reasons. Not least of which, as a peer, his parents are of a similar age. And shit, is going to change. Soon. A reminder of mortality.

Eh well.

There are times where I feel like I am cut free. Floating. No roots. No foundations. Somewhat liberating. But also lost. Perhaps this is the final step of adulthood ? The loss of parents. No one at your foundation anymore. Nothing between you and oblivion. The freedom of no past, the insecurity of no base.

At this point in life, I suppose your own tightly knit family would be that base. Your SO. Your kids. And all that. But I have none of that. And in my family. It's complicated.

Hmmm.

I think on reflection the loss of my mom and the estrangement from my dad is killer. In a very real way, the tenuous link we had, my dad and I, has also been severed. Because she is no longer there. As brutal as it is. As awful as it is. My dad is not in my life. Has not really been in my life for years. We were only present in each others life really, because of my mom. We had no real relationship outside of that. He takes no interest in what I do. Not of art. Or work. Or hobbies, or dreams of fears or anything. Just. Nothing. And for my part. I take little interest in where he is. I understand his path. He has little to say or do. He is surviving in a tightly spun cage of crazy.

Meh.

When you start to get down to it. You start to realise just how... not present... he has been in my life.

Hmm.

Oh well.

Tighten up the coat. Turn up the collar against the biting wind. And walk into the dark driving sleet.

As ever and always.

Walking the paths of the abyss.

My soul will always be chained down here I think. Like Perspephone. Always at least some of the year spent in the underworld. Sometimes I can walk them, observe, experience, and walk out again with just the wisps of shadows falling off me. And sometimes I get lost in them. For too long. And emerge with pieces missing.

Uh huh.

So it is.