Oh Good, Grief.

Twice now out of nowhere, I've found myself sobbing in my bed, clutching my grandmother's ashes. Once about three weeks ago, and again last night. I'm having trouble with my mother, it seems that her way of channeling her grief may be to grill me and lash out at me about my life choices. By all visible accounts, I am as happy and stable in every way as I've ever been, which isn't saying there's not room for improvement (note opening sentence), but her supportiveness and open-mindedness of a few months ago appears to have reverted back to the judgement and lack of support I've received my whole life.

I'm moving to Louisville, now, in just a month. Friends were looking for a place for September first, and they love my home and were here last night to fill out paperwork. Assuming my landlords find no issue with their rental history or employment confirmation, they're in here in just over a month. Money from grandma's estate comes in, supposedly, around the same time. My mother doesn't seem to know any more details, and I don't want to grill my uncle who is the executor, since I know he's being bombarded by similar questions from other members of the family.

What this means is that I may still be living here when my friends move in. They hardly have any furniture, so I'll have moved most of my stuff out to be stored using these fun pod things we've got these days that come with a month of free storage, and then they'll ship said pods to wherever they need to go. My friends also want to possibly keep a lot of my furniture. In short, it's been made clear that I am welcome to stay here a week or two until I can get things sorted financially to make the move.

But, I am hoping it doesn't come to that. I am going to Louisville next week, and I am going to ask Joey if it wouldn't make him uncomfortable to loan me the money so that I can have everything settled and get there asap. He wants me there asap, he's offered to help me financially several times lately, and he's got the money to do it, plus I know that I can pay him back in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Back to the sobbing, though. This week, my mom decided to text me, insinuating I'd sell off all my grandmother's antiques and other things I've got that are of some value, stating that "the past" dictates she ask this. I have never once sold off a single thing from my grandmother, or things that friends and family have given me over the years. If anything, it could be said that I hold onto things well past their value because of their sentimental worth. There is no way in hell I will get rid of any of these things. What I may part with are a fair number of mid-century pieces of furniture that are worth something and have almost no sentimental value to me. That's it. I have collected these things over the years as giveaways from various places or pulled off of boulevards. I don't know where she gets these ideas, and she's ALWAYS had these ideas about me.

She also grills me about my work. Though it's more complicated than the pat answer of, "I freelance, mom," she also has no reason to assume I'm not getting by better than ever. I haven't asked for money but once in probably two years. That doesn't appear to count for anything. She is hardwired in the belief that "work" means going to another place, punching a clock, and getting a single paycheck from one employer. When I tell her that that is just not how things are for a lot of people these days, that what I'm doing is what a dozen of my friends and acquaintances do, it goes right over her head. When I tell her that the money is erratic and yes, sometimes I'm really, really broke and struggle, but that I am happier and healthier and more stable in every way than I've ever been and set my own schedule and don't answer to anyone but myself, that all sounds like laziness and frivolity to her.

It was so nice, for the few months after Chris and I broke up, to have the mother I've always wanted. It's not easy to adjust to the idea that that was just her knowing her mother was dying and softening for a while. Apparently, we are back to the same damn thing that's broken my heart for the past 30+ years.

I prayed to my grandmother that if she could, if she could hear me, that she would let her daughter know that this is not helping me. That this behavior, which she believes is "support," and "love," only serves to drive me from her. My grandmother never approved of the way my mother treated me. None of my grandparents did. They saw the way she treated my sister as indulgent and over-protective, and her treatment of me unsupportive, often mean, and sometimes abusive. My sister has had her problems (conflict avoidance to a fault, a sniping brattiness here and there), but she has mostly outgrown that, and as a result, we've gotten closer (I, too, have obviously overcome several things as well), and she's less close to my mom.

In any case, one of my grandparents heard me. I had a nightmare, a dream I was in a car, something old, a sedan with a bench seat. My family may have been in the back, I can't recall. But I know my dad's father was driving. A country road, and the way the sky goes green just before a tornado. I used to dream about tornadoes all the time. In every one of these dreams, no one saved me, and I had to save everyone else. It was just my responsibility. Dreams about nuclear bombs, too, where I was the only one who seemed to know how to take care of everyone and save them from themselves. I used to have these nightmares two or three times a month. In the last few years, I almost never have them. I can't remember the last time.

Out of nowhere, a huge bank of black clouds turned into FOUR huge tornadoes in the fields just to the left of this gravel road. My grandfather just looked at me and smiled, and I smiled too, turning to the back seat to tell everyone it was going to be okay. Grandpa took a sharp right and drove right into the field on the other side of the road, toward blue skies. We both grinned the whole while. Once we were clear of the storm, I laughed and told him he could stop driving, that we could wait it out and go back. But he just kept smiling, and told me something to the effect of, "I am going to get you as far away from those storms as I can."

Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Fucking rain.

Fail on the way to win

It is taking some adjustment to be in a happy, healthy relationship. Joey accepts me, unconditionally. He is patient and loving. With him, I am not pushy, or intense, and when he tells me he's eaten some horrible food covered in cheese and I chastise him, he tells me to push harder because he wants to be healthy--he's got myriad seasonal allergies and has a shit immune system and I'm trying to help him eat better, and he loves that I care and give him helpful suggestions of things he can eat that are healthier. With him, I haven't experienced any anxiousness at all, at any moment, aside from the anxiety and frustration I feel that he is so far away from me and there's not much to be done about it right now. It's been three and a half weeks since I last saw him, and my finances are currently in a shambles (it's the 7th and I have $0 toward rent, so rent plus other bills and debts I'm behind on total $2574.39, all due before August 5th. Normally, that would be totally doable, but my work has slowed to a crawl, and I'm transitioning into other work that so far is also proving to be a bust. It seemed like this new job would be something that would really open me up to getting squared financially and starting some savings and finally being on my way to buying a house, but it's been completely disappointing thus far. It is something that can potentially pick up, though, so I'm going to persevere. And quit the other job to devote more time to this.

So, the happiness and excitement I felt initially when I began this work has resolved itself as the image of a brick wall, again. The wall I've seen for the last year, the wall that says, "Sarah, you're almost 35, and you're a failure."

Today, I realized something important, though. I realized that having someone like Joey in my life does not make me a failure. I have had people love me, care for me, be patient with me, but not like this. He is a natural caretaker of the anxious and the neurotic. His actions are preemptive. I never react badly because there's nothing to react badly to. He curtails my usual fears by simply being himself. Instead of being frustrated that we haven't seen one another and that our next meeting is uncertain because I can't afford to get there (he's got a 9-5 M-F job, so coming to see me doesn't make much sense, especially since flying is several times more expensive than me traveling to him by bus), he just says that everything will be okay, that he'll be there any time I can get to him. He tells me he misses me every day, but his patience is contagious. It's okay, it's all okay. Three weeks may feel like a long time, but by October 1st, which is two months and three weeks away, I'll be living there, and I can see him all the time.

Yes, I'm moving to Louisville. I will be getting an inheritance of $5,000 from my grandma's estate, and it should arrive within the next month or so. I had really hoped I could piggyback another few thousand onto that and buy a house, but I will have to wait. It is what it is, and it is what I have to accept.

I am learning how to make sense of someone good. I am feeling my neural pathways reset. To stop craving extremes, and to accept that being with someone so even-keeled is going to mean being bored or not wholly stimulated all the time. I am going to have to learn to be easier going. And I am.

What's most noticeable to me is how I perceive the world around me now. I have always made excuses for bad behavior because I understand it. One of my first therapists always cautioned me against this behavior in myself, and while I took his advice to heart, I was never able to act on it. I find myself doing it now. There are so many things about Chris and our relationship that were destructive. From the first hours. Within the first 24 hours, we had gotten into two minor fights and he'd made me cry by being insensitive and rude. We had an intense connection, and we got on famously in so many ways, but looking back on that, that kind of constant intensity and tension, it frightens me a little. He is not a bad person, but that was not a good relationship. It pains me so much to say that, and to acknowledge it, and I find myself feeling angry with myself and at him. I know what I could have done to be better, but I also know he needs a lot of help to be better himself. I am also seeing how I have been an enabler to so many of my lovers and boyfriends and friends. Chris is a mean drunk. And he IS a drunk. I made excuses for him, when he told me he was an alcoholic, I told him that it wasn't true. But it is true. He doesn't get through more than a day or two without getting drunk. And he is rude, and unpredictable, and he blacks out when he drinks, and so much of our fighting happened in those situations, and yet I always encouraged us drinking a bottle of wine together, or him drinking when we were out. I, and Chris, and Lindsay, have been operating in the mindset of drinking = fun. But I'm finding out that's simply not true. I go out and don't drink or drink half the amount I used to, and I am still having a ton of fun. I'm just choosing much better people to have fun with, these days.

I may have curbed Drunk, Slutty Sarah a while ago, but Drunk Sarah remained. A friend is going through AA. She's really together and amazing now. I was an enabler to her as well, and I'm ashamed. She is far more fun now than she ever was drunk, but yet I always encouraged her drinking, even though I knew she didn't know when to stop.

Things are changing. It's so good. Every day is still a challenge, but I am surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends and a man with a tremendous heart. I'll be a winner yet, by gum!

Grandma

I lost one of my life's best friends the other day, my grandmother. She was 85 years old, and when she died, I was told her eyes got very wide and she looked afraid, like she wanted to fight it. Though there is no autopsy being performed, the cause of death is likely an aneurysm in her stomach that dislodged itself from coughing and shot up into her heart, causing almost immediate death.

She was 80 very tiny pounds when she died. She was as small as a pea, her body nothing more than bones and skin. She had once had beautiful C-cup breasts. Not a bit of that remained on her chest, she was as flat as a child. She had once had a beautiful smile. No longer able to wear her dentures, she was toothless and unable to speak (and the bones under her gums were wearing through, painfully). She breathed heavily, chuffing through her mouth with little moans and noises like she was trying very, very hard to say something, but couldn't do it. That idea upsets me more than anything, that she was too weak to speak and had things to say, but couldn't.

I had been there, at her side, holding her hands, smiling into her still-beautiful face, with eyes that were losing their ability to see in those last hours, clouding over and unable to focus. Her left eye would hold your gaze, her right eye often rolled up into her head. I can't be sure she could even see me. But I kept smiling, giving her as much love as I possibly good with my touch. Because my love for her couldn't possibly wane in the face of her death, her very visible, increasingly clear death. But there was a moment where I shut off, and needed to care for myself. I had had two hours of sleep, and seeing her literally die wasn't going to enrich my life. I was going to have to drive five hours home later, and I needed to get some more rest. So I held her tight, I kissed her cheek, and her forehead, and I told her I love you, and I went back to the hotel room I was sharing with my sister and brother in law.

Not ten minutes after I arrived there, my sister called to tell me she'd died. I hung up the phone and smiled again. "Good girl," I said aloud, and went to sleep. She'd been in so much pain. The last words I heard her speak much earlier that evening (it was now just before dawn) were "What else can I do?" She said this several times. I told her she had nothing left to do, that she was loved, and if it was time to go, she should do that. Then she asked for my mother, and my mom and I sat together with her, trying to convince her to eat something, because she had medication sitting in her empty stomach, and that was the bulk of why her belly hurt so. But she refused. She'd been having diarrhea, so I imagine she thought she'd only add fuel to the fire on that front, if she ate. Not that she'd been able to eat much at all.

She was my last living grandparent, the person I'd always been closest to in my family, and just a really good friend my whole life. She championed my singing and my writing from the very second I began singing and writing. Frustrated that I had stories to tell and couldn't yet write (but could read), I would dictate to her at the age of four. The first was called Robbie The Hummingbird, an origin myth story about how hummingbirds got their colors. I would often put together entire concerts, make fliers, and charge admission at the door to "shows" in the first bedroom in my grandparents' house. I remember one was Bruce Springsteen covers where I made up music on the pump organ and sang his lyrics along to them, disregarding their original melodies. Admission was a nickel. The only person in the family who was guaranteed to be there was my grandma. Everyone else typically continued to watch sporting events in the living room.

We hadn't been very close in the last few years. There had been a major rift in the family with my mom and my uncle that grandma lived with that I had nothing to do with, but as a result, guilt by association, we lost touch. In addition, as she'd gotten older, she'd become gossipy and kind of a brat sometimes, plus while she still had her own house, she was doing things like letting the dish sponge get moldy and using it without realizing it... I am not designed to handle these kinds of things. Everyone else in my family has a medical background, it doesn't faze them, but I can't handle the infirm. Not in a caretaking sort of way.

But I don't regret the time we lost. Like a friend you haven't seen in many years that you find you can just pick up where you left off, my grandma and I were like that.

It fucking hurts though. If Chris and I hadn't broken up, I wouldn't have the closeness I have with my immediate family that's come the past couple of months. But, if we were still together, I'd have someone to go through this with. Friends and family aren't the same as a partner, and all of this makes me miss him so much. And maybe he'd be an asshole right now. Maybe he wouldn't be able to be supportive. Maybe he wouldn't figure out a way to be with me through this. Maybe he'd just shut down. Maybe it's all for the best and happening exactly as it should.

But I can't ever know. My heart aches and I miss my grandmother and I miss Chris. It's been almost three months now. It feels like an eon. I can hardly remember what he's like.

My grandmother was cremated. I wish I'd have known this. I went into accepting that her death was coming with the understanding that I'd see her in her casket. I feel a little robbed of this, but I am at least going to get a little keepsake urn with a bit of her ashes in it. That's better, I suppose. She'll always be with me, but now I can have something tangible.

Okay then. I've got a dozen things to do. My home is as much of a disaster as I ever would allow it to be. I should do something about that before it actually makes me ill.

Hole Spackle

My grandma has been very ill. Not quite immediate deathbed ill, but she may not recover, long term, and could be looking at a move to a nursing home if she does pull out of it. Best case scenario is it takes a month or more for her to recover from the pneumonia she's got after aspirating into her lungs last week. Aspirating into her lungs because, even though she'd been in the hospital for three days, weak from wracking coughs and needing several blood transfusions, but had pulled out of it and had been released, she decided to clean her assisted living apartment for FOUR HOURS and then treat herself to a freaking BURRITO afterward. So she went to bed, completely exhausted, and then woke in the middle of the night coughing, went to the bathroom, fell down, aspirated, and couldn't get back up. She was found in the morning lying in her body's refuse, weak and very cold. I mean, fuck yeah, I've got a ballsy, brassy, sarcastic, stubborn as all hell, 96 pound grandmother who gets out of the hospital and decides she's gonna clean and then treat herself to a flippin' burrito, but FUCK YOU grandma for not taking some fucking time to chill the fuck out and watch some tv instead of cleaning and eating a burrito when you've got serious acid reflux and shouldn't be eating that shit ever again.

So, as a result of this, most of my family made the trip to Iowa this weekend to see her, as it's possible this may be the last time we can see her. She's determined to get better, but she's also a stubborn asshole who wasn't eating the food the hospital gave her because it's tepid, unseasoned and gross. Of course you don't wanna eat it, grandma, but you have to. No one wants to eat pureed baked chicken, but you can't even put your dentures in because your bones are wearing through your gums, so just suck it the fuck up and eat for chrissakes so you can get the eff outta there. We basically sat around her bed and bullied her into eating.

Even more unfortunate than dealing with a dying grandmother (my last living grandparent), this weekend I also had to deal with seeing the uncle who did something untoward to me when I was very small, and definitely did many completely inappropriate things to and around me my entire childhood and early adulthood, until finally, I refused to be around him anymore after my cousin's wedding in 2006. That was the last time he was allowed to hug me and touch my ass. That was the last time he was able to sit across a room and take dozens of photos of me, only me, over and over again. With a year of therapy and a lot of work, I haven't had a nightmare about him in over two years.

On the way to Iowa, I found out he'd be down there.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I don't really freeze up. I may get emotional, I may break down, I may get anxious and over-communicate, but for me to become very still and shut down is incredibly rare. And that's what happened when I had to be around him, for years. He'd come near me to hug me, but I wouldn't be able to say a word, I wouldn't be able to move away, I'd just become very still, my throat would go dry, and tears would well up in my eyes and I'd just wait for it to be over. This is pretty common in the sexually abused, I know, and I resent it in myself. I want to fight, to scream, to throw things, but I can't. I want to yell at him, but I just shut down. Maybe this is why I was so angry for so many years, because I couldn't let it out on him.

So, the second I heard he'd be there, I got very still. Tears welled up. My throat went dry. Sitting in the back seat of my parents' car. My mother assured me she wouldn't let him near me. That I'd be safe. But that kind of safety isn't possible when he's there. In fact, the only time I'll ever be truly safe is after he's dead. But, he's an incredibly unhealthy, alcoholic cockroach of a man. He'll never die. At the least, he'll be around another twenty years.

We arrived at my uncle's house in Iowa, and bad uncle wasn't there yet. He was at the hospital, seeing my grandma. I was so worried about seeing him, it was hard to enjoy seeing the family I'd missed. My other uncle piped up immediately to the uncle whose home it was, "What are we going to do to about sleeping arrangements to keep ___ away from Sarah?" I may have audibly sucked in my breath. It was the FIRST time anyone had ever said, in front of anyone else in my family, that there was a problem. Granted, it was also the first time bad uncle and I had been in the same space in over six years. I became very still. My throat went dry. My eyes welled up with tears, and spilled down my cheeks. My mom, dad, two uncles and two aunts discussed what could be done. My mother suggested getting a hotel. Everyone looked at me, asked what I wanted. I spoke in a meek voice that didn't feel like me. "A hotel would make me more comfortable," and tears ran down my face. My aunt came over to me and put her arms around me. It was decided we'd stay in a hotel.

I stood on my guard for over an hour. Afraid to sit down, lest I'd be trapped if he came in suddenly, afraid to wander too far away from my mom and dad. I kept watching the windows, and when he came up the sidewalk, I braced myself for the worst, that he'd go around and hug everyone, and he'd find his way to me, and no one would be able to stop him, and he'd touch me, he'd hug me, he'd touch my ass, and all I'd be able to do was stand there, very still, my throat dry, tears welling up in my eyes.

But he actually stayed far away. From everyone. He said his hellos, hugged a couple of people, but mostly he wandered away and stayed away. Didn't even make eye contact with me. The second he was out of sight and my aunt thought he might be coming around a corner nearer to me, she stiffened and made eye contact, clearly ready to leap in between us if it came to that. I assured her he'd gone away, and we shared a laugh about her vigilance.

And it went this way all weekend, and he even accidentally bumped into me at one point, but by then, even though it was a constantly stressful thing to be around him, I wasn't really affected by it. He was as surprised as I was. And so, I got through it, minute by minute, deep breaths, calming thoughts, and staying very near my mother or my aunt at all times.

The scariest thing about my grandma dying has been the thought that at her funeral, and the family time surrounding that, that I would have to spend more time focused on keeping him away from me than grieving, especially since everyone else would be grieving, and it would be easy for everyone else to not be on their guard for me. But that's just not the way it went this weekend, and I think, when the funeral comes, it won't be easy, I'll still be stressed being near him, but I know I'll have my family to support me.

This is so enormously huge. I have always felt loved by my family, but "love" in my family is always tough, never soft, never tender, and my parents have never been supportive of any aspect of my lifestyle, from my art, writing and music, to my drinking and inability to stay in a relationship for too long. Suddenly, just in the last couple of months, since Chris and I broke up, I feel supported. I feel a love that is soft and tender. I feel like my choices are respected, even if they're not understood.

I feel like a giant fucking hole in me has been filled and I just could not have imagined how incredible it feels.

It did all make me miss Chris enormously, though. He's the first man I've dated who took a very aggressive, masculine stance toward the abuse from my uncle, saying he'd love to kill him for me, to get rid of him, and make the world safer for me. Typically, the response is tenderness and love and apologies for my having gone through it, but wanting to actively do something to make things better for me isn't the response as a general rule. Not in my boyfriends, at least. And Chris was so perfectly wonderful about saying just the right thing to ease my upsets, to soothe me and make me laugh, and make me feel completely loved and safe. I mean, in the last month, he rarely did that, but in the beginning, it was something I'd never known. I wanted so much to contact him, but I resisted it. I keep telling myself, if he and I are to ever have any kind of relationship, even friendship, it's him that needs to come to me. I can't chase him, I can't poke him and convince him that I should be in his life.

In the meantime, that's a hole that'll slowly get smaller and heal on its own. Even though I'm still resisting it, because I worry time is going to let it get so small and so repaired, there's not even room for him to get back in.