Threes

The thing I noticed this year is that all the milestones, all the anniversaries, are way harder than they were before. Year one was just total numbness. Year two was an aching longing, but starting to feel like a person again. Year three was sort of like the ghost pain after an amputation -- all the feeling started to come back into the nerve endings that had been SO traumatized they had to just shut down. Until now.

All the threes have sucked.

Today is the last one.

Three years ago today, my mom died.

I'm distracting myself by going indoor skydiving (basically, flinging myself into a wind tunnel). Later, I will eat pumpkin pie that I bought last night, because my mom never in her 56 years of life tasted one (even though she MADE lots of them -- from scratch even!), because she said she didn't like the texture.

The pie is like my DFTBA tattoo. It's like today. It's to remind me that as much as I love my mom, as much as I miss her, I don't want her life. I want to try new things (even things that scare the bejeezus out of me) and I want to give myself every opportunity to be awesome that I can. (It's not that I'm always going to take those opportunities, that I will always remember to be awesome, but the magic is in the trying.)

There are some truly amazing people in my life -- people who are willing to rearrange their lives to go indoor skydiving just so I don't have to go alone, who reach out with surprise gifties and hugs and music, who send these emails that make me cry or want to or just sit there with my mouth hanging open (yes, literally) because I am just so amazed by them and their kindness.

I can't help but wonder if my mom has found peace, at last. I can't help but wonder if she sees all that I've done the last three years, if she's proud of the way I've tried to figure this all out and still come out whole, if she understands that it's all about love and I'm trying so very hard to remember that every day. 

I could never live in Seattle

So. Much. Rain.

In my late teens and early 20s, it was really bad – if we had a low pressure system, the pain in my head would be so terrible that all I could do was take prescription painkillers and sleep sleep sleep. I had no energy, and even if I did, my head hurt too much to do anything.

It got better as I got closer to 30. Over the last year or so, I noticed it getting worse again. Doubly so since the concussion I got back in August. (And then I remembered, it all started with a car accident when I was 15, when a guy who was looking one light ahead, slammed into my mom who was stopped at the light right in front of him. My head hit the seat in that old Datsun so hard it gave me headaches so bad that, over the next year, I had to have an EEG and an MRI and no one could ever say exactly what was broken or how to fix it except to take pills.)

Despite the rain and the headache and the fatigue, I managed to feel good on the “I’m better than Accuweather” day, LAST Monday. But then it kept raining. For days and days and days. (The one bonus: My cat snuggled with me pretty much all day Saturday. He’s a good snuggler when he decides he wants to be cuddly, which happens very infrequently.)

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, but then two more days of rain. Assuming the forecast is right.

I can’t tell if the way I’m feeling right now is because of the rain, because it’s October (and even though I love the fall, I doubt it will ever not tear me apart in big and small ways at the exact same time), because I’m reading a really intense book, because of hormones, because of all of it smushed together, because nothing is ever as simple as just one thing in one moment.

All I know is, right now everything feels a little too intense, too bright, too loud (too much like those last few days three years ago), and it’s making me feel sad. It hurts, just like this ridiculous burn on my thumb that I got tonight steaming asparagus (because, really, if any idiot could burn her thumb steaming asparagus, it’s me) but everywhere all at once.

I AM BETTER THAN ACCUWEATHER!

Me, circa 9 a.m.: Is it supposed to rain? My head is KILLING ME.
Cubemate: Hold on, I'll check. (Pulls up accuweather.com) There's a 7% chance of rain.
Me: Hnh. This is the intense pain at the back of the head kind of headache I only get when there's a low pressure system moving in.

Approximately 8 hours later: The heavens open up like somebody unzipped a cloud (thank you, Ma, for that description AGES ago, even if you didn't remember saying it).

TAKE THAT, ACCUWEATHER!

There was a rainbow curving over my street on my drive home, the most vivid one I've ever seen. I was listening to Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors" and when I got into the apartment and the cat cried for food (his normal greeting any time I enter the apartment, even if I've only been gone 5 seconds), he rolled belly up for me and I scratched him and sang to him and he didn't even seem to mind (especially odd, since that meant a delay in the food actually hitting his bowl).

So, even though my head feels like it could fall off any second, and even though I'm a veritable circus freak in the way I can predict the weather by my aches and pains, I'm left feeling kinda like that time I was backing out of my parking space at a rest area and saw in my rearview that this guy in one of those adorable new Fiats was doing the same; I pulled forward back into my space; he backed out, stopped alongside my car, honked his horn, and waved in enthusiastic thanks -- SOMETIMES the world doesn't suck. (This is one of those times.)

"I know bad things happen. Bad things happen, but you can still live. You can still live."

- Super 8

The beginning of an email I sent Em this morning:

I wake up in the twin bed I’ve slept in since third grade, made up with the dinosaur sheets I bought in the little boys’ section at Target, because I have not outgrown the love of dinosaurs I developed in kindergarten.

I’m eating Oreos for breakfast (because why not? I’m an adult and I live by myself, so there’s no one to stop me) and re-watching Super 8 while I catch up on email and Facebook messages and plan out my Sunday. 

Somehow, I had forgotten that the first time I saw Super 8 (maybe a month ago?) the kid Joe says those lines above and all I could think was "YES" when I heard them, because I KNOW EXACTLY HOW THAT FEELS. But this time, distracted as I was by the other things I was doing, those lines rang like a bell all through me.

Bad things happen. Like, y'know, finding yourself motherless when you are still very much in need of a mother. Last weekend, I way overdid it. I'd already planned a busy Sunday with DerbyLite and a bout back-to-back. And then Emer suggested a trip to Rhode Island on Saturday, and it was such an enticing plan that I agreed, even though I know better than to pack my weekends so full. (And, in true form, I ended up feeling crappy most of this week, because I didn't get anywhere near enough sleep.) I kept thinking how my mom used to be kinda controlling about things and didn't like a lot of my crazy plans. She would often tell me I shouldn't do things I wanted to do (like derby). Most of the time, I would do what I wanted anyway (because why not? I'm an adult) but sometimes I would at least take what she'd said into consideration and maybe soften things up a bit for myself. Be more realistic about what I can physically tolerate without getting sick or injured. I've often remarked in the last year that I should really have some sort of adult supervision. I guess what I mean when I say that is, I miss my mom. I miss how she used to say, "You're going to regret that," and sometimes help me come up with a way to do what I wanted without also pushing myself too hard.

Bad things happen, but you can still live. That's what the Misadventures with the Box o'Ma are ALL about. And it was a misadventure do-over that made me want to go to Rhode Island last weekend. While there, one of my partners in awesome lent me the book Rat Girl by Kristin Hersh. I'm not terribly far into it, but I think I might love it. Memoir isn't usually my favorite thing to read, but I like her voice. I like the details she focuses on. Last night, we had a bout at the expo, which means tons of down time. I usually bring a book. Last night, I sat in the penalty box reading Rat Girl and I had that same YES feeling take over me reading some of her words (and it made me really sad that this is a borrowed book that I couldn't underline and highlight and generally mark with affection -- see why I spend so much money on books? If I own them, I can mark them all up.)

For example, she's talking about how people scare her (YES) and her friend Betty says, "It's okay to be scared, sweetheart. ...How're you gonna give 'em your heart if you don't have one?"

(This reminded me of an epiphany I had in my shrink's office a year and a half or more ago: Being brave and being fearless aren't the same thing. Being brave is acting IN SPITE OF your fear. Being fearless is probably just a sign of psychopathology, really. ...Or so my epiphany went.)

But then there was this part that made me want to sing and cry and jump up and down and just scream YES. She writes about these "bullshit wishes" her band had when forming, including:

"That people should be able to touch one another and feel each other's pain. Physically, like you could place your hand on someone's cheek and feel their toothache; and emotionally, if you move someone, touch them deeply, you have to take responsibility for that depth of feeling and care about them." 

In and of itself, that's a big, giant YES and a wish I can relate to, but she goes on to say:

"We figure that if these...things are true, then it'd be okay for a band to sound like we do: sorta painful and a little out of control. We'd play what the audience felt and feel it at the same time and they'd feel it reflected back to them in sound and we'd all care about each other's stories and clouds of feeling and...good luck with that, I think miserably through my stage fright, trudging past the knitters, hippies, junkies, drunks, painters and psychos. ....Clearly, it isn't okay for a band to sound like we do. If it was, nobody'd think we came from outerspace, which is what everybody seems to think. Whatever. Don't have time to care about that right now."

YES. I feel that way ALL THE TIME. (Not just because my older sister, fairly convincingly and repetitively, told a story about how I really came from outerspace when I was a child.) I often say the wrong things (in fact, as I type this, I am concerned that I said ALL THE WRONG THINGS in an email yesterday to the person who lent me this book) and I often miss the point and am paying attention to the wrong things and just sorta lalalala living in another world. But the thing is, the reason I feel so compelled to write is exactly as she described it -- that way of reflecting an experience back at someone else and having that reflected emotion make you feel connected, make you CARE.

And that's why I need to find a way to stop distracting myself, stop taking the lazy way out, to finally let Ramona tell her story. My story. It's about sitting down and writing it. Sentence by sentence, one word at a time. That's what I need to remind myself. (This is me reminding, if you couldn't tell.)

So, now, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go work on Ramona's story, because it's ALL ABOUT living in spite of the bad things that happen. And maybe that's something someone somewhere needs to read someday, so that they won't feel so much like an alien in need of adult supervision....

UPDATE:

So, I did manage to finally do some rewriting in Ramona's second chapter that I'd been putting off for some stupid reason. Yay for that. I read more of Rat Girl, and I realized a couple of things. 1. It's possible to love books -- REALLY love them -- and I think that may be where this one is going for me (which is a complete and utter surprise); 2. I'd been polling people about whether or not I should check out the band's music now or wait until after I finished. I wasn't sure why I was so hesitant, and then it hit me: What if I don't like the music? What if I LOVE this book and the way she tells her story, but I don't like the music? (I think I really am afraid of ruining this for myself, but I also think this is a fear I need to face. I don't want something as stupid as fear holding me back so I miss out on something awesome. Hmm, that applies to Ramona and the writing, too. Circles upon circles. My brain might just explode any second.)

DFTBA

We had our annual teambuilding day today. It included policy review and emergency preparedness planning and trivia. And So. Much. Food. It was a beautiful day.

I changed into my bathing suit to run into the ocean, get totally wet, and come right back out and changed into normal clothes again. And then Emer and I got ice cream. And then I took a nap. It was a good day.

I woke up and found an email from my writing partner with a revised chapter for me to read for her. It was awesome.

I read this great chapter while thunder and lightning raged outside. (I love thunderstorms.)

And then I got inspired.

It was 8:30 on a Friday and I was already wearing pajamas (just a t-shirt and yoga pants) and it was still raining pretty hard, but I ran out to Target to get some supplies I needed.

And then I came home and I put together the most awesome care package for my writing partner to help her feel brave when she goes to this important writing conference next month. (Em is very talented, but sometimes she forgets. I don’t want her to forget while she’s there. I want her to remember that SHE’S GOT THIS.)

A couple weeks ago, on my way to ref a two-day tournament just outside of Worcester, MA, I stopped to pee at a rest area. When I came out, I discovered a gumball machine filled with tiny ninjas. I spent $5.50 in quarters to get a blue one (I had done laundry that morning, hence the quarters; blue is my favorite color). I gave the other ninjas to awesome people at the tournament.

I’m mailing that blue ninja (and some other REALLY AWESOME STUFF) to Em to keep as a talisman with her at the conference.

It’s like why Mel wears ninja socks when she has dinner with her mother. Or why I’ve given ninja socks to my little sister and so many friends. You can’t possess a ninja and not feel at least A LITTLE BRAVER. It’s just a scientific fact.

I’m also mailing some monkeys to people who I think could use them and a belated birthday present to another friend. It’s kind of silly how excited I am to be mailing stuff to other people, but there you are.

The one downside to all the rain is that it makes my head and body ache (stupid low barometric pressure). I’m going to take some Tylenol and read a little bit while it kicks in (The Chronicles of Chrestomanci are pretty awesome) and then do some writing. …Because I haven’t done any REAL writing in months, and because I owe Em some writing by the end of the weekend. Because that’s what writing partners do. We share writing and hold each other accountable.

Today, I remembered to be awesome. It’s not always that it happens or that I’m so aware of it when it does. Even with the aches from the rain, it feels pretty nice.

People are like quarks

No exaggeration, EVERYTHING I know about physics comes from the song "Strange Charm" by Hank Green. According to the lyrics, quarks have color charge, "which means they exist solely inside of other kinds of particles and cannot exist alone."

I tend to be a very solitary creature. I've never had a roommate. I like living in my own space and having time to myself when I need it (which is pretty often). I don't like large social events, and when I have to participate in one for whatever reason, you'll usually find me off in a corner by myself somewhere. (Probably freaking out a little bit. If so, come give me a hug. Or talk to me about books. Or roller derby. That helps.)

But the thing is, even solitary creatures like me can't exist completely alone.

Today would have been my mom's 59th birthday. For more than a month, I've been having trouble sleeping, trouble writing, I've been distracted and sad and having a harder time than usual relating to people (which is saying a lot when you consider how often I feel like I'm speaking some odd subdialect that no one else in the world completely understands).

You'd think that the passing of time would make it easier. A year ago, I would've agreed with you. The first year, I was still so full of pain and numbness that I could barely tell up from down. Last year, I thought I was finally beginning to learn how to live motherlessly. But this year, it all got harder again, like suddenly someone was scraping at my soul with some kind of nasty dental tool. Scraping away every little bit of me that had figured out how to live in this world again.

Because I can't just sit and soak in it when things get like that, I tried to figure out what I could do to make myself feel better. I thought about Operation Mailing Chocolate. I sat down and I made a whole bunch of mix CDs, I painted the CD cases, and I mailed them to people who had participated in Misadventures with the Box o'Ma and the Red Notebook Conspiracy. I figured out how I want to handle Misadventure Canada, and I emailed a whole huge group of people telling them about it, in hopes that I can rope some of them in when the time comes. My friend Chantel wrote back asking what I was doing for Mom's birthday. I hadn't made a plan yet. So, we made one. She rearranged her work schedule so we could meet for lunch and then randomly wander.

I got up this morning, and although I'd been listening to the same mix CDs I'd made and mailed out -- that, according to a Twitter message, my friend Mia was listening to right then -- I found that I could not listen to them today. (I made a new one, starting with "Strange Charm" as track 1.)

I put on one of my mom's old sundresses (the one I have to wear braless, which makes me INCREDIBLY uncomfortable -- seemed like a good way to challenge myself), my charm bracelet (which has several of her old charms), and the old bracelet she gave me when I graduated from my MFA that my great grandmother had given her when she was a kid.

On the drive to Brunswick, I almost started crying and wondered if meeting Chantel was really a good idea. I'm glad I didn't chicken out. It was a nice afternoon. Chantel very carefully asked about Mom a few times, and I found it was easier to talk about her than I'd thought it would be.

I came home to an inbox full of messages. Within moments of each other (but without coordinating), both of my writing partners had sent emails telling me they were thinking of me. (Em's almost made me cry, and then my reply to her almost made HER cry; we are quite the pair, for sure.) I wrote to both of them: "Staying busy helps. Having awesome friends who make me feel loved is what gets me through. Thanks for being one of those awesome friends."

We can't exist alone, and I'm so relieved that I don't have to try.

The playlist on the left is the mix I sent my friends, minus "Child's Song" by Tom Rush, "Hula Hoop Girl from Tennessee" by The Sugar Honey Iced Tea, "99 Red Balloons" by Angry Salad, "Twenty-One" by Marry Me Jane, "Take-offs and Landings" by The Ataris, and "You're So Last Summer" by Vitamin String Quartet.

The playlist on the right is the mix I made this morning, minus "Worry Sick" by Edith Backlund.

"And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

- Kahlil Gibron, The Prophet

Dear Ma,

I was thinking that it's odd that I feel compelled to write to you so much lately. You'd think that as more time passes, the less I'd feel like I need to do this. But I guess that's just one more thing about me that doesn't quite fit expectations. I guess I'm writing to you more, because it's a way for me to keep you close. It's been more than two and a half years, and some days, you feel so far away.

Your birthday is coming up. Already - for a couple of weeks - I've been in a mood about it. Cranky. Distracted. Unable to sleep. Unable to write (especially because I've been realizing that what I need to be writing right now is the part with Ramona and her mom....).

I was on the road all last week conducting site visits for work. Lots of time alone in the car to think. About you, about the misadventures (about the fact that they're going to end someday...probably about a year from now), about things I want to change in my life. When it all gets too heavy (and it does a lot), I try to go back to the list of things that bring me joy. I try to DO SOMETHING, because that always seems to help.

I started plotting the last of the misadventures. I've got Vermont all planned out, just need to find out when Em can come to do it with me. While site visiting up north, I figured out how I want to do Canada; I just hope I can make that one happen the way I want it to. I made a list of all the ones I want to do and the partners in awesome yet to be included. ...And then, like magic, I had some ideas about the book. (Not Ramona and her mom, surprisingly, but Ira and hers.)

Tonight, I made some paintings. It's part of what I've got planned for your birthday (to make it suck less for me and hopefully to bring a little light into the lives of some friends). I haven't painted in forever, and I forget why. A lot of the paints had dried out, so I didn't have a lot of colors to choose from. They aren't particularly amazing, but it was fun making them. I made a mess, and I didn't care. Not even a little. And for a few minutes there, joy. Joy in the midst of all the yuck that has been permeating for the last few weeks, that I'm sure will continue to permeate for weeks to come.

There's this line from an episode of Dollhouse that I've clung to since you died: “You don't get past it. It just becomes a part of who you are.” The thing I didn't think about was how there are all these different parts of me -- for example, the part of me that likes to paint -- that sometimes fade into the background a bit, but sometimes stand so vividly front and center. Always part of me, but churning in unpredictable ways. And learning to live without a mom is like that, too. Some days -- probably even most days -- I feel like a real person who thinks and feels and wants to make the world a better place, who happens to also miss her mom. But other days, I feel your absence like a physical pain and there's no telling when or how things will shift again.

Today, I'm thankful that it seems to have gone the way of moving from physical pain to more of a deep longing. I'll take that.

Miss you, Ma.

Love, Tara

"She took what came at her and made it into joy."

- The Bloggess

I love the Bloggess. I love doing dramatic readings of her blogs at work, especially when I get to do the voice of Copernicus, the taxidermied monkey with half a face.

I read today's post when I was in a bit of a mood -- I'm overwhelmed trying to keep a lot of balls in the air (work, derby, writing, life in general), and when I got to the line I quoted in the title to this post, I froze.

"She took what came at her and made it into joy."

If I could choose a statement that I wish people would equate with me, now and long after I'm gone, it's that. When my mom died, people frequently commented on my strength. They'd say how strong I was, and it annoyed the crap out of me. I wouldn't call myself strong, but I would say I've tried to take what comes at me. And I've tried so very hard to turn as much of it as I can into joy.

I've been thinking about joy a lot recently. Last week, I was talking to Em about my list of things that bring me joy (which inspired me to update it).

Over the weekend, I went home to visit my family and celebrate my grandma's 89th birthday. We'd just left the party at my aunt's house when I drove around a corner and up a hill and went, "Wee," and then started laughing, realizing that Gram would probably think it was weird. I told her how I do that when I go around corners or up hills; I do it even when I'm the only one in the car. She said, "There's nothing wrong with a little joy." And that may be one of the best things she's ever said to me in my entire life.

My wish for myself and for everyone on this planet is that we can find a little more joy, even in the small things, even in the silly things, even in the hard and dark and painful things.

"They say that what doesn't kill us / makes us who we are"

- Motion City Soundtrack, "It Had to be You"

I have a tendency to come up with really outlandish ideas that are very physically demanding (and might also require a certain amount of manipulation of time and space).

I'd planned to ref a doubleheader and a hangover bout in the same weekend. (I've done this before, so that wasn't so outlandish.) I'd also planned to do two back-to-back DerbyLite classes, because I needed to make up one I missed when I was sick. (Several of my classmates have done this before, so that also didn't seem so outlandish.) But then I realized that these two things were happening the same weekend, and that seemed like it might be pushing it. Especially because I'd volunteered to ref the men's practice after my second DerbyLite class.

I kept waffling about whether or not I should do SO MUCH SKATING in such a short period of time, but the thing I kept coming back to was that I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it, because I thought it would be fun, and because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

So, I did.

Saturday night, I outside pack reffed two bouts in a row. It was fun; I got a very nice compliment from The Famous Three-Day Bender; I got to participate in what may well be the most epic ref hip whip ever (thank you, Roo, for not pulling off my tutu); and then I got to eat with some of my favorite derby officials.

Sunday morning, I got up and outside pack reffed the hangover bout. A skater got knocked down and half out of bounds directly in front of me. Apparently, I lifted my left leg like a ballerina (I didn't even realize I did it) to try to avoid her, but I still clipped her head with my right thigh (and possibly my knee pad) -- thank goodness refs don't get called on major misconducts for blocking a downed skater. Oops.

I drove back to Portland, ran some errands. I stopped at Chipotle to get a burrito. Mmm. Chipotle. (Seriously, I can't say the name of the place without adding "Mmm. Chipotle" afterward. It's like a nervous tic or something.) I don't think I've ever eaten one of their burritos in one sitting before. But, I took my burrito to the park and ate it all while sitting on a hill, enjoying the sunshine. And then I leaned against a tree and read for a little bit before DerbyLite.

Back-to-back DerbyLite classes was actually pretty fun (despite the achy feet and sore ankle). Falling on my ass while attempting to jump over a cone during the fourth hour of DerbyLite? Not so fun. Still I survived it, and even participated in the men's practice afterward. I skated the drills -- even hitting drills! with guys! -- and then I tried to call penalties during some scrimmage-y drills (while also attempting to train some DerbyLiters in the basics of reffing, so I don't have to do it all by myself in the future).

Six and a half hours on skates Sunday, plus two from Saturday. That's A LOT of skating. But I did it. And it was FUN.

I read the phrase "keep working on love" in a book that meant something to my mom shortly after she died, and it's been my mission ever since. But I realize, it's not just about being more loving toward the people I care about or myself. It's also about DOING the things you love.

"I just ain't the same without you in my life"

- Yellow Card, "View from Heaven"

It's funny. I'd been thinking about writing a letter to my mom since Sunday night when I was driving home after the men's derby practice, when I was cutting through the park and stopped at the Boulevard and there was this giant moon hanging above the city, sparkling on the waters of Back Cove while "Sanvean: I am your shadow" came on my "No Words" mix CD and I had to skip to the next song because it was just too much for me.

I'd been thinking of it, and yesterday I found myself with things to say, so I wrote one.

And I was thinking about the one I wrote last August and, for some reason, that made me go back and look at the other letters I wrote. I hadn't realized that I wrote one exactly a year before the one I wrote yesterday or that the first one came almost exactly a year before that. (There was also one that I wrote and turned into a video for my last birthday.)

I guess Mother's Day bothers me more than I realized.

...Sometimes I still just can't believe you're gone....