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Testing out my messy zombie (or messy weird earth) nails.
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Because this is how every woman should try on clothes. With champagne. Oh and yes this is how I try on dresses…with my pants down!!! 😝#HelmutLang #saks
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And here we begin. Wish me luck, you guys. At least I have over a year to plan. ;)
the other day i had a dream i was in my old house in queens, on the 3rd floor, on the brown fuzzy couch from when i was about 8 or 9. when i dream about my old home it’s usually in context of when i’m around 8-11, before my brother was born. the furniture is laid out the same. it’s before my mom had her Awakening and threw out all the furniture and replaced everything with stuff more modern. it was when she was still sad about being with my dad.
i haven’t really been sad about my mom not being here for a while now. i used to write about it all the time, i was really sad without her. it was a codependance i’d gotten used to, without my realizing it at the time. when she was alive, i was her best friend. she needed me because i was a reflection of herself. i looked like her, and her own husband was failing her, so i was the one in the house who was her ally and support. in turn she supported me but also treated me like a friend, as well as a daughter. when she finally died it was stunning, like a part of my body went away somewhere. i often had dreams she fled for a different “better” family, abandoning dana, myself and james. she was living an hour away in a different suburb and she changed jobs and had a new phone number. in these dreams i called her office secretary and asked for judy, and when we finally connected, her voice was distant and cold. she wasn’t happy to hear from me, i was a reminder from her previous life, intruding on her new one. i told her we needed her because we were falling apart and weren’t the same without her. she was indifferent and preferred her new life. sometimes in the dreams she’d come back to me, dana, and james, but she never looked us in the eye. she kept staring off behind her, wanting to go back to the other life. then she’d leave to go back.
in other dreams, she comes back from the dead, miracuoulously cured of cancer. it’s like the x files episode where mulder’s corpse is resurrected, and he develops a heartbeat and heals. except my mom gets cancer again and starts dying again. she gets weak, and i hold her hand in her hospice bed. she is tiny and frail, eyes glazed over, her skin is yellow. she breathes and then dies, she is gone from us again. i grieve again and feel empty.
i used to dream like this all the time for years up until about 2 years ago.
the other night i had a dream about her again. this time it was very different. it starts out the same on the brown fuzzy sofa, except i’m the age i am now. i’m sitting here, and see her come near me in a white soft nightgown. she looks like how she does a few months before she died, thin and frail. i see her, and calmly say to her, “i miss you. i love you. nothing is the same without you. but it’s okay…it’s ok without you…i am doing fine without you here. you don’t need to come back. we don’t need you here anymore.” then she sort of disappears, or i transition into another dream.
i woke up that morning stunned. i walked around the apartment in a daze, then relayed the dream to jon. i went throughout the day the same, but couldn’t stop thinking about that dream, where i tell my mother i don’t need her anymore. is it really true? i guess so. i’ve gone through nearly 12 years without her. my present identity is still shaped by her absence, but so much has taken place since she died, that her death is no longer the highlight of my life. there is so much more fullness and experiences that have replaced her death, that she is no longer the main point. she is sort of an afterthought now. she is still my existence, i cannot breathe or focus my lens without her passing through.
it’s strange but i’m presently grieving for that prior type of grief. my detachment from her is foreign to me, i became used to needing her and grieving her throughout my 20’s, that to not feel that intensity is a new emptiness that opens up new [better] feelings and [better] experiences to flow through. it’s freeing but also frightening. i’m learning to make my way through life without needing her, and this is indeed new.
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Jon’s parents are watching Beck for the weekend. Or rather, Beck is watching them. Pic by @pammyjill
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Woohoo! :) (Taken with Instagram at “THE BOOK OF MORMON” at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre)
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So the photo on the right is me #ready. I had my hair blown out for a Very Important Meeting two weeks ago. The images on the left are just weirdo. #photoaday (Taken with Instagram)
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I went hiking this weekend. Proof: standing next to tent. (Taken with Instagram)
