- Fall Out Boy, "(Coffee's for Closers)"
I first heard this song right around the time we found out Mom's cancer was terminal. At the time, the line "I will never believe in anything again" really resonated with me. I guess it says a lot that that's not the line that stands out the most to me anymore.
I worked on my book every single day in November. I wrote most days in December. I cut myself a little bit of slack around Christmas, given that I totaled my car 10 days before the holiday. (I'm fine. I like the car I got to replace the Shiny Blue Car -- the Black Pearl -- but I still really miss the Shiny Blue Car.)
I was really surprised to find that I was in a decent emotional place for Christmas. I thought it would be fairly miserable, given that a. last year was and b. last Christmas was only a couple months after Mom died, so I was still mostly a zombie. It wasn't awesome, but it wasn't miserable either. For now, I'll count that in the win column.
I finally finished the draft of the book I've been working on about a week and a half ago. Since then, I've been in a very weird emotional place.
I've heard people describe grieving -- especially when it takes you by surprise -- as the feeling you get when you miss a step. In my case, that's not really it. It's the feeling I get when I start to slip down the stairs -- am already hurtling toward the bottom -- and I'm panicking because I know it's going to hurt and I might really do some damage to myself and I'm already trying to figure out what I'm going to do if I shatter a leg and can't get back up the stairs to call someone or get outside to drive myself to the hospital; it's the feeling I get when I've caught myself mid-fall and I still feel trembly and scared because I know how close it came and even though I didn't actually hurt myself, part of me was so braced for it that it still does feel like I slammed into something.
That's kind of the feeling I've had for days now.
I know it'll pass. If I've learned nothing else the last 15 months (or the five months before it, or the two years before that), I have learned that the sad moods come and go just like the happy ones.
I know that part of this mood comes from it being a new year (which brings back lots of sad memories and always makes this time of year hard for me). I know that part of it comes from the fact that the last time I finished a draft of the book (even though I knew it wasn't quite the draft that time), it was a gift for my mother for her last Christmas. Part of it comes from knowing that even though she read that draft, she'll never read this one. She'll never read anything else I write again.
I realized the other day that Thursday is no longer my nemesis. I'm not sure exactly when that happened; I guess it happened around the time I stopped counting the eighths of the month. Now, I'm always surprised when I look at the calendar and realize that the 8th passed without my noticing or that it's Thursday and I feel okay. I counted every Thursday for six months, and then I just started calling Thursday my nemesis. I counted every 8th for a year. I guess those are the limits of my counting (which is good to know, because I know it's kind of weird).
So, here I am, book finished and completely paralyzed. I know there's some editing I need to do before I send it to any agents. And, I know that looking for an agent is the next step. I worked so hard to tell this story, and now I can't even let myself get really excited about the fact that it's mostly done. I've spent the better part of the last several days just trying to get myself to open its file on my computer again (which I still have not done).
And so, it really is true:
I-I-I-I can't explain a thing
And I-I-I-I want everything
to change and stay the same
