Journal: 05/14/06

I really hate it when things sneak up on me and bite me in the ass. In this case, it was Mother’s Day and the unexpected surprise it dealt me. Actually, if I had been working today I probably wouldn’t have reacted to the day as I did. In the end, today was a pretty messy day. I did manage to accomplish one thing though, I cleaned up the two side-by-side tables where I’ve been tossing mail, receipts, and other odds and ends. Those tables haven’t been cleaned since Joann and I moved into the new apartment.

Mother’s Day

My reaction today to Mother’s Day wasn’t a pretty one. The day started well enough, but in the end I was so depressed I couldn’t get to sleep, though I did take a three-hour nap in the late afternoon. The beer flowed and I was a mess.

Two things got to me. The first was the total absence of anyone to celebrate Mother’s Day with, the second was a cascading sense of loss that started with Joann and moved onward to finally reach my own mother. In a sense, I was grieving for three mothers, not just one.

I took it hard that there was, for the first time in my life, no one to focus on for Mother’s Day. My own mother died two years ago in January, and I talked Joann’s mother, Mildred, into being my surrogate mother, a task that she took on gladly. When she died this past January, Joann was still alive and not in home-hospice yet. Now, with Joann gone, this year’s holiday was a bleak one with no one to direct my attention to. As well, because funds are tight, I wasn’t able to go anywhere with Bill, like out to dinner or something.

As the day rolled on, I just became more miserable, drank more and ultimately passed out cold. If I had been working today, as I normally would have been, I could have made it through the day without a breakdown. That’s how I’ve made it through other days in the last few weeks where there were anniversaries and the like. Keeping myself busy and distracted seems to do the trick. Leaving me alone where I can sit around and dwell doesn’t work so well.

I’ll be better tomorrow, if I can get a little sleep.