Last night I had a dream about my Mom. I've had some of them over the last couple months since she died. Most of them I don't remember. The ones I have remembered have been pleasant. Mom is happy or smiling. It usually leaves me with a melancholy happiness. I'm sad when I wake up, but in a way that feels natural and good. I miss her, it makes sense.
But last night's dream was different. It was the first time she talked to me in her dream. She only said my name, before I jolted awake. I'm sure there was something in my head, some memory floating in there somewhere that tried to make her voice sound the same, but it didn't work. I knew it wasn't her, but at the same time, the fact that she spoke to me in my dream was very disturbing to me. I'm having trouble putting a finger on why. I'm not someone who believes the dead communicate with us through our dreams, so it's not that I think my Mom was trying to communicate with me. If I had to guess I would say it's a subconscious way of trying to get the contact I'm missing. And maybe I wasn't ready for it.
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I have this recurring feeling that everything should stop. That work should stop, that the lawn shouldn't keep growing and need me to mow it. That it should all be put on hold so I can think about what the loss of my Mother means to me and how I want to deal with it. But, of course, none of that stops. And I need to take the time to think about that stuff on my own. Except that I really have not wanted to. I've enjoyed being a little overwhelmed with work stuff, and the lawn. And when I have the free time, I've buried myself in books, video games, movies, or anything else that would let me feel like I do not have time to think about my Mother's life and death. It has only been semi-conscious, but it strikes me that this is probably not all that healthy.
Of course, sharing all those thoughts here is probably not the best idea either. But at least I'm going to start doing some of the work.
And of course, none of that stuff is going to stop. And that's good. In a lot of ways it feels like I stopped. Stopped being a part of things in the same way. Like I was jarred out of living the way I had been comfortable living, and now I'm rejoining things. Slowly. Or, I was trying to do it too fast, and now I'm going to do it more slowly to give me time to be more conscious about what I'm feeling. I need to be more reflective when I'm feeling overwhelmed. I need to be more thoughtful when I'm hurting.
Mom's last years were not happy ones. It makes me sad to think about that. It makes me feel guilty. But it is the truth, I think. There's nothing I can do to change it now, just like I think there wasn't much I could do to change it as it was happening. I loved my mother, but she made some decisions that I think she regretted. She made some decisions I didn't agree with. And I don't view her life as any sort of cautionary tale, but I know she wouldn't want that for me. She wanted me to be happy. So, I have to do things differently. I have to commit myself to living a happier life. The misery is fine if it's not a permanent thing. And it hasn't been, really. It just washes over me sometimes when I don't expect it.
Maybe none of this makes sense. It's hard to make sense of my feelings right now.
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