back on track

so i'm feeling much better. i guess i just had what holly golightly would call a case of the mean reds. that happens. but it's passed for now. and i know that my friends aren't going anywhere, and i know that my happiness is in my own hands, and blah blah blah. i bought a wedding planning book (though it is a year and some months away, i admit i have become slighlty obsessed) and it keeps mentioning all of theses things that the parents are supposed to do. i'm glad i'm not going for traditional, because if i was i would pretty much be screwed, what with having no mother or father of the bride around to fulfill their myriad duties. my stepmother M did say the sweetest thing the other day, though. she said that she would be glad to stand in as mother of the bride and help us with anything that we need. i'm glad she feels like the mother of the bride, that's how i like to think of her. at christmas she said that she felt like i was her daughter, that she and i relate to each other like mother and daughter, and it made me cry. i love her so much, and honestly, i don't know how i would get through this without her. she even reminds me of my mom- she's smart and strong and funny and just the slightest bit guarded. she's overwhelmingly independant, but still soft and vulnerable deep down. and she just oozes with intellectual curiousity. just like my mom. they aren't personality twins, but they're alike enough to feel comfortably familiar. and i need that now. i know my aunts will also swoop in to help with wedding duties. i know i will be covered. the part that makes me the saddest is the father-daughter dance. my dad was such an incredible dancer. he loved music as much as i do, actually both of my parents loved music, and i know that he would have been so proud to dance with me on my wedding day. and i would have been so proud to dance with him. i really hope my grandfather is still well enough to dance with me. he's quite the smoothie on the dance floor too, but at 90+ years old, he may not be up to it. i do need to stop with the wedding obsessing. i basically have the whole thing planned and i still have 18 months to go. well, they say you can never be too prepared...

blue on ice

tonight feels blue, deep dark blue, like not quite blackness but almost. i don't know what brought it on, maybe hormones, maybe the clausterphobic weather, maybe the fact that tonight i watched a show about a woman going to her mother's funeral- no, maybe it's that i watched it twice (stupid, stupid girl!). i just sat in the shower, yes SAT in the shower, how pathtic is that. but i don't know, i just feel like my mind is a blender full of garbage tonight, just the really bad, old, smelly stuff. maybe it's just this time of year, right between my dead father's birthday and my dead mother's birthday and the day my mother died. i'm sure i sound like the world's biggest baby, how can i still be using the dead parent thing as an excuse, hasn't it been long enough? i mean jesus christ it's been nine years (or eighteen months), so why the out of no where blue streaks? what's with the unexplained midnight pity parties and the sitting in the shower bullshit? i guess i am realizing things about myself lately, things that make me feel even more alone than usual and even weaker. why do i constantly push people away or hold them at arm's length? what am i so goddamned afraid of? well, that's easy, i've got textbook abandonment issues, but i wish i would just get over it already, because i'm tired of feeling so damned self-isolated. take my friends, i have some wonderful friends, old friends, wonderful people who i have known for most of my life and who have always been there for me when the going got really rough. but i have neglected them, they hardly even know me now, i have let them go to seed. i never call, i never email, i never visit, and now i feel like a phoney for trying to reconnect. i feel like it's too late, like i have waited too long, like i don't have a right to try and waltz back into the picture because i'll probably just fuck it up again, stop calling, stop writing, stop being a friend. and yet, i know that is all just an excuse. the truth is, i am afraid to reconnect because i am afraid i will be rejected, i'm afraid i will knock and find no one i home, or at least no one who is interested in answering the door. in my fucked up mind, it's better to let people drift away or to take them for granted than to stay close and risk losing them completely and suddenly. and now, here i am in love with a wonderful man, and now i'm really screwed because i DID let him in, i did let myself get close to him, i have learned to depend on him and what the hell will i do if he ever goes away? every time he's running five minutes late i imagine horrible car accidents, bloody muggings, and every other variety of unreasonable death. i have stuffed in my grief for my parent's to the degree that i can't even make myself cry about them without a tv show or movie to spur it on, but if i lost J i don't think i could take it. and how is it that i let someone become that valuable to me? i have been pushing and holding everyone else that i love away for nine years, how did he sneak in? i guess i am trying to say, to anyone who is listening and to whom it may concern, that i am so sorry if i seem aloof, or distant or disinterested in our friendship. i'm not at all, not any of those things. the truth is i am scared of loving people, scared of counting on people or being close to people. you are all so important to me, so important that i felt the need to try and let you go. because the most important people in my life seem to have a bad habit of dying. i am sorry. i love you all. i miss you. and i am trying, slowly but surely and so so hard, to break down my own walls and stop being afraid. they say identifying the problem is the first step right? how very AA; my dad would be so proud. the truth is, i don't really have a family now, at least not one made up of people who know me and my history. my closest blood relatives weren't really there when iwas growing up, it was my Mom and Dad who knew my everyday, the rest of my family just got it second hand. my friends are the only remnants of my childhood. and i am so afraid i am losing them too. FUUUUUUUUUCKKKK!!!! i just want to scream! i am so sick and fucking tired of being scared! i just want to feel safe.

talk about your gender-based oversights...

my good friend jen called me about a two weeks ago and said she wanted to throw me an engagement party. i was flattered, i was pleased, i said of course she could. robin joined in on the planning and the three of us put our heads together to pick a date. jen's husband (and my good friend) brad is out of town for the rest of january, so that narrowed us to dates in february. sunday was chosen as the best day, as both J and i work on friday and saturday nights, and, for many of our friends saturday night is either a work or a date night. brad's birthday and valentine's day both take place too close to the second sunday, and any later than that was later than jen wanted, so we decided whole-heartedly on the first weekend in february, perfect, sunday february 6th would be our party day. i mean what else could possibly be happening on the first weekend in february? (anybody catching on yet? most of you are girls too, so you may be just as in the dark as i was) so today i was taking to J (who, i might add spends every sunday watching football with his friends), and he causally mentioned that there won't be any football on sunday the 30th. "Why?", i innocently inquired. "Because they always take a week off before the superbowl", he informed me. the WHAT!!?? the SUPERBOWL is the same day as our engagement party??!! how much of a girl am i? it never even crossed my mind. between all three of us- jen, robin and i- it was never even the slightest consideration.
boo. boo football.

a quick note on spelling

have you ever noticed that the word 'complaint' is same as the word 'compliant' except for the postion of the 'a' and the 'i'? and someone who is compliant (like myself) would be unlikely to make a complaint (like i just did, though passively). interesting. i love words!

venting...sort of

okay, so i've come up against a blog point of complaint. as a now official addict to this self-indulgent online babbling, i find myself upset to realize that it is not a good place to vent when my anger/frustration/righteous-indignation is aimed at someone who may actually read the blog. no, loyal freeman/tucker/hermitage alumni, i am not talking about you, and chances are the person i am talking about will never read this since i told her it was just about dead parent's, but i am MAD, like, let it all loose, catty, bitchy, "i'm right and you're wrong and that is so obvious" mad, but if i really do let it all loose and then she someday actually logs in to check out my blog, then where am i? so i find myself with a conundrum. but i will vent a little...this person, let's ironically call her Sunshine, just drives me crazy sometimes!!(and this is one of those times, in case you didn't get that) she can be so sensitve about certain things, but if i do happen to trip up on one of her personal landmines, she absolutley refuses to talk about it, to tell me that she is really mad/hurt/whatever or why.....okay,change of tack. she just called back and i talked to her, and kind of (sort of) told her how i feel. so i feel a little better, though i still feel like i kind of wussed out. i am so bad at standing up for myself! i am so bad at just telling people how i feel, unabashedly defending my own (totally legitimate) feelings! and i know damn well that it all goes back to my fear of losing people, of driving them away. man, yet another thing to work on. but it does still bug me that i can't fully vent on my blog.

looking in

get comfortable, this is a long one.
i must begin by mentioning that i have become a bit obsessed with blogging.all of my old(not old like that, and you know it)east coast girlfriends (and i think MAH counts as a girlfriend) have blogs now, and it is a nice way to keep in touch with them, considering that i am otherwise horrible about keeping in touch. i know quite well that i am known as the girl who never calls/email back, so you can all come out from behind your fans and stop whispering. but blogging somehow seems to be doing the trick. so far i have commented on two out of four of my friends sites, and that's half way to correspondance as i see it. to put an even better spin on it, i have talked in person to the two people who's blogs i have not yet commented on in the last month (well, i will be talking to one of them in person tonight, anyway, close enough), so that's still better than my average for the last few years. but anyway, i like this thing. it makes me feel closer to people who, frankly, i have been missing lately. good stuff. and in fact, the thing i wanted to talk about tonight comes from a posting on someone else's blog. (i may not always comment, but i am often there lurking in cyberspace). MAH (short for Mister Artsy Hotpants) wrote his first blog about my oldest and dearest (bumpy spots and long distances included) friend Le Synge Bleu (what does that mean, by the way? I gave up French after highschool). Synge and I have seen each other through some pretty horrible times, and though we have certainly had our good and our bad moments, she is one of my favorite people on the planet, now and forever. MAH was waxing similarly poetic about this wonderful lady, and in doing so he noted her amazing sense of self. I agree totally (though, I have to add, because she would, don't look behind the curtain), and I must say that she is one person who has always had a very distinct and memorable presence, a real sense of being who she is, almost shamelessly so(another nod to another post). and i think this is especially true since she moved to new york, a venture she had been planning for far too long and which she boldly achieved at the end of last summer. i have been especially bad about keeping in touch with her since she moved there, but i have heard, through (often unreturned) emails and phone messsages, of her many adventures and dramas there(including lawful protests,unlawful arrest, and a strange attraction to sick men). and this holiday season, mere hours after i was successfully popped the question, we met in new york, for the first time in over a year, for celebratory cocktails. and i immediatly remembered why she is one of my favorite people. she is just so very alive and so aware. synge know her own strengths and she knows her own weaknesses. she is tremendously intelligent and curious and giving and loving and attentive. synge never holds back her emotions. at least not anymore, and for that i am so very proud of her. she has learned to stand up for herself, to be proud of, or at least not ashamed of, who she is, and it is with this revelation that i come to my rather buried point. i do not know who i am. i am really not sure at all lately. and i wonder if this has something to do with my parents. last summer, another close friend of mine, who has known me since i was a child told me that she worried that since my mom died i have been coasting, and, essentially,that she feared i was not living up to my own abilites. she told me that i was too smart and talented to be working in a box office, and she's right, monkeys could do my job(totally stoned people seem okay at it), and that is frustrating. her comments really got to me, probably because i know they're true, but i don't know what to do about it. everyone has told me how strong i am and how they would fall apart if their parents died. and i have even convinced myself that i'm that strong from time to time. but the truth is i haven't really faced it. Kristoise once assigned us all Springsteen songs, and mine was- very appropriatly- Born to Run. i've just been packing my grief away into boxes and trying not to look at it, either running away from it (two years in europe anyone?) or pretending that i'm dealing with it while trying not to with all my might. it's ironic too, that i used to chastise Synge for the same practice. well she took my advice, stopped hiding from her past, and now she's better than ever. but i didn't take my own advice. and i just feel so goddamned lost. i feel like i am trying to be a million people, for a million different reasons, but i don't know exactly who 'me' is. i feel like i spend so much time trying to impress people, trying to please people, trying to be loved, and really i'm not very good at it. not to say that no one loves me, i'm actually pretty lucky to have so many wonderful friends in my life, but i am just not good at meeting new people. my fiancee (i'll bow to pressure and use the 'f' word)J is so good at it, he's a true extrovert. he can talk to anyone, make friends anywhere. he loves people and people are drawn to him. not that i'm a total shrinking violet, i'm just very particular in who i open up to. i'm like those flowers that are called four o'clocks because they just open up and bloom fully at 4pm. i need just the right conditions to show myself fully (liquor helps). and i think that's because i'm so unsure of myself. it takes a lot for me to feel safe with people, i'm afraid they will reject me, afraid they will leave me, because my parents loved me, and they left me. i just wish i could be more brave, more confident. i am drawn to people who are. i've been thinking about it, and maybe i'm looking for excuses, but i feel like when my mom died, my confidence went with her. when she was here i felt so strong, so sure, because she told me i was amazing. she was so sure of me and so proud of me that i couldn't help but be proud of myself. and then my number one cheerleader went away, before i had learned fully how to be that for myself. and after that, since then, i have been sort of hiding out inside myself, very cautious to make friends, very cautious to show anyone who i am. J's friends all love me now, but they didn't know what to make of me at first. J always said that i should just show them the person that i showed to him and they would be sure to love me too. he said they didn't know what to make of me because i never acted like my true self around them. i have been in chicago for over five years and i really only have a few good friends to show for it. i am afraid that losing my parents, and especially losing my dad right as i was starting to recover from the shock of losing my mom, has thrown me into some sort of permanant adolescence, self-doubting and unformed.
whew. that was alot. i need to sit back and soak it in now. more later....

generalities..or not

boy, well i don't want this thing to become too somber, the whole point was that it was done with a sense of humour...but those things can't be forced ("hey, did you hear the one about the 29 year old orphan?")...and why am i feeling self-concious about writing in a place that i created just to talk about things that i feel too self-concious to talk about in general company...and i guess, really, the joking thing is usually done for the benefit (or to induce the discomfort) of other people anyway, and here is a place where no one has to be, where people come by choice...so fuck it. i'm not worrying. (yeah right) but there are other things in my life besides my dead parents, i mean they do cross my mind every day, but not always in a sad way. lately more sad than usual though. i am getting married next summer, and that is an incredibly happy thing. but god does it make me miss my parents. last night J (my boyfriend, well, my fiancee but i hate that word) and i were talking about music for the reception, and we came to the subject of the parents dance and he asked me who i wanted to represent my parents. we decided on both of my stepmothers and my grandfather, but it was just so weird. who do i want to represent my parents? well my parents, goddamnit! my father was an incredible dancer. and my mother loved to plan a party. they should be there. i should dance with my dad on my wedding day, he should walk me down the aisle. my mother should be there wearing a "mother of the bride" dress and hovering over the caterers. this makes me angry, this makes me furious, that they, who have the most right, do not get to come to my wedding. i am honoring my mother, i'm carrying daises, her favorite flower. i am honoring my father; the ceremony and the reception will both take place on my grandparent's farm, his favorite place on earth. but that's not good enough. i want them there! it's my wedding and i want them there!! yeah, i guess i do have some anger issues. i have never been one to express it well in the moment. i tend to repress, to silently seethe and then yell and scream and cry once i am safely alone (or in my car, because that feels like alone).i should talk to my therapist about that (if i ever go back to her).

frustration

on a totally non-dead parent sort of note (which i will go off on more than occasionally)this whole blogging thing can be a bit frustrating for a newbie. or maybe it's just me.

dreams

last night i had a dream about my father. it was so realistic, like ones i have had before about my mom. i dreamed that he was alive but i knew that he had died; it was almost as if my concious self was trying to remind my unconcious self that he was gone, but my dreaming self didn't want to believe it, like i was trying to convince myself that i must have made a mistake, that i must have dreamed his death..confusing, i know, but i have had the same sort of dream about my mother, and wonder if it is common...anyway, in my dream he was alive and i had gone to visit him for the weekend and i was so happy to see him and get to visit with him. but then he said that he was going out until late that night with friends and that he had to go out again on saturday night, and i knew that i was leaving on sunday. i was instantly angry and hurt. i turned to him and pleaded with him not to go, saying that i had come just to see him and spend time with him, and that my visit was so short and couldn't he just stay and spend time with me. he looked surprised at first and then genuinely distraught. i was crying and desperately begging him to stay and visit with me. he got out of the car (where we were talking) and i got frustrated and started to drive away. i could see him in the rearview mirror, walking with his head in his hands, torturing himself. i only drove a few yards away and then stopped to cry and fume and wait. eventually, when he did not come to me, i got out of the car and walked back towards the house. he was standing there with my aunt and grandparents and cousins, all of them chatting and settling in for the weekend, and when he saw me he approached me and said that he would stay, that he could not get out of his plans for that night, but he would cancel his plans for saturday and stay with me. he told me he loved me and he was sorry he had upset me. i hugged him and cried and felt so warm and grateful. boy, that's pretty obvious i guess. not wanting my dad to go away, wanting to spend more time. when i have had similar dreams about my mom, i have the same feeling, such an overwhelming relief that she is not really gone, that i was wrong and i do still have time with her, and that each moment i have is so precious and important. i wonder when these dreams will go away- it has been almost nine years since my mom died- i wonder when i will stop wishing it was all just a dream. probably never. though the dreams of my mom do come less and less. and for my dad they are just starting. great. my sub-concious sure has a way with timing...

Prologue

so, just to set the record straight, before people think this is some kind of weirdo matricide/patricide site, i want to lay out my intention: i am 29 years old and i have lost both of parents. i don't mean in an irresponsible, they went away for the weekend and didn't leave a contact address sort of way, i mean that they have both died. my mother died when i was 20, from cancer, and my father died in a car accident just last year, four months before my 28th birthday. and i have dealt with that pretty well, considering, minus a few years of running away to europe and drinking and smoking myself into a stupor and the occasional out-of-the-blue crying jag. and my boyfriend and my friends and family have all been great, very understanding, very patient. but i have always felt awkward and guilty when i talked about my parents' deaths too much, even if i needed to, even if they said they didn't mind. so i wanted to create a place to vent. i know a lot of people, far too many people, my age (and younger) who have lost a parent or two, and i'm sure there are a lot more out there. and i wanted a place where we could all feel safe, to talk as much and as long as we want to without the guilt and the weirdness. oh, and the blog title is there to thin the herd, because a sense of humour is required, i think, for anyone who has dealt with death. i mean, if we can't make dead parent jokes to make everyone feel uncomfortable and mask our own pain, who can? so feel free to join in, or just read ("lurk", as my blog-savvy friends tell me it's called)- i plan to pour out my heart and mind, and you are welcome to do the same. just don't make fun of my typing; sometimes i get caught up in a moment and i am not the best typist to begin with (in fact i just re-typed that sentence five times). besides, if you make fun of me, i might cry, i'm sensitive. my parents are dead, after all, and it's not nice to make fun of orphans....