Currently January 2018

The first month of the year is down.

Eleven more to go.

Does this year feel different to you?

Everything feels different to me.

I missed the November and December Currently post and part of me feels let down because I was sooo close to having a whole FULL year of posts to look back on.  I just didn’t have the drive to push through my trauma and write after my mom died. I wasn’t ready to evaluate my months.  It felt like I was in a coma. I had so much to do in a little amount of time and then I went through Christmas and it’s allll such a blur to me now.

The IDEA of a new year and a having fresh/intentional start have helped me to return to a somewhat “normal” work life. I’ve been shooting a lot for One Potato (I style/shoot all of their recipe cards). That got me back in the grocery shopping mode. In December, I used a lot of Door Dash for takeout (didn’t feel like cooking AT ALL). I also became a big fan of Instacart and had groceries delivered a few times. That’s a luxury!  I’m finally enjoying cooking again. Honestly, I didn’t want to clean. I also wanted someone else to take care of me. So, I did.

I’ll have more recipes to offer soon, I hope.

Instead of cooking, I moved stuff around my house, organized, made art, sorted out some of my mom’s things and helped my family in January. I spent a lot of quality time with friends. I had a digital detox where I didn’t use my phone for a weekend (other than to play music and take pictures). I’ve been giving myself permission to go slow-not rush, over-analyze things. I’ve really had to ease back into my schedule and let things get sorted out how they’re supposed to, without worrying about it.

Inspired By:

I have been inspired by the people who are following me along the way. I had no idea how much love and support I would receive from strangers by sharing my own grief online. I started a hashtag- #keepgriefweird because, in my experience, grief has been/will be weird.

For some people, grief feels contagious.

If you hang around it,

you might catch it.

No one is immune to it.

Some people don’t want to see another person wallow in it.

Sometimes it’s painful for other people to witness.

Sometimes people aren’t ready to move past their own grief.

Sometimes people aren’t willing to accept the fact that we all die.

We’re here for a reason, whether it’s big or small.

Death is inevitable and so is grief.

So many people have gone through this before us.

Sometimes it never really sinks in until it happens to you.

So many of you have shared your experiences with me and I am so grateful to see so many different perspectives.

Your guidance and thoughtful words sure feel like a blessing.

Watching:

We’ve been watching This is Us. Love that show. My mom loved it too. She was happy that some wholesome goodness was still left in entertainment. It was a very cathartic show for our family. It helped my brother and I discuss a lot of things about our childhood with my mom. Sometimes when I’m watching it I feel really sad because I know she would have been really interested to see where the plot went. It’s those little things that creep up on me, but other than that I really love the show. It helps me process a lot. It makes me thankful that I had my mom for a majority of my life.

We also watched the first season of SMILF. Was pretty funny at times. Kinda crass. Can’t entirely relate but I really love Rose O’Donnell’s character. She’s great to watch in it. I forgot how I grew up with her talk show. She was one of my other childhood heroes besides Oprah and Martha Stewart.

And Shameless…definitely jumped the shark. I fall asleep to it every week.

Right now Casey is bingeing on This Old House episodes. We’ve watched quite a few Fixer Upper episodes too. Makes me want to redo our bathrooms so bad!

Reading:

I am currently hoarding a bunch of grief books. I haven’t really made a lot of time to sit down and read. If something doesn’t catch my attention in the first few pages, I pass. That’s where my attention is right now.

After I do my I LOVE LISTS for the week and spend that time reading on the internet, I’m zapped out. Maybe I should sign myself up for a book club so I’ll be forced to finish a book. But what if I don’t like it???!!! Do I have to finish it? That sounds like torture.

Every now and then I’ve been looking through my mom’s recipe binder. I’ll share it one day. It’s special.

Thinking About:

The future. I’m 38 now. I could potentially have another life without my mom. To be honest, it makes me feel so many things at once. Where will this work take me? What am I supposed to be doing now? What is life like when my Mom can’t share in it?  She read my website RELIGIOUSLY and so it’s so weird coming back to this space and not having her be a part of it. This blog was a way for her to get to know me and how I saw the world, not just as her daughter but as a friend.  What does my website look like without me knowing MY MOM IS GOING TO READ WHAT I POST? Week 46 was the last week she will have ever seen. My dad doesn’t really read my website. I don’t think?  He only read it when my mom called him over to check out something she thought was cool when she was playing around on the computer. I don’t have a parent who reads my website. That is weird.

It’s 2018 and I’ve been doing this for almost 11 years.

ALSO WEIRD.

Where do I go from here?

Listening To:

I’ve been enjoying this song when I clean house lately:

This track randomly popped up when I was listening to something else and it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear at the moment. Thank you, Spock.

Also, I highly recommend Peaceful Piano. If you want to feel feelings, put on some piano music.

Dream Life:

I’ve had one dream of mom so far. She was laying on the floor wrapped up in a blanket and I looked over at her and she opened her eyes. That’s all I remember.

The week before she died, I had a dream that I called my mother and she didn’t answer. I said to myself, “Oh. Why are you calling her? She died. You can’t talk to her anymore.”  I woke up in a panic, thinking HOLY SHIT what just happened. I called my mom when I woke up and there was no answer, but I remembered she was in Hawaii. So it was a bizarre moment of dreaming of something and having it happen.

Since I had that dream, in the week before she died, we had three really long/deep phone conversations. I don’t know if that dream had anything to do with it, but we didn’t rush each other off the phone. I am so thankful for that.

I feel her presence a lot. Sometimes so much that I don’t realize she’s gone. I feel her all around me!  Her voice is even in my head. So many weird things happen on a daily basis that I know she would appreciate. My mom ALWAYS taught me to look for signs and connections with things so it’s like almost EVERYTHING I see or experience is covered in signs. Sometimes I feel her when I see the color orange. I see hearts everywhere. I feel like she’s speaking to me through music. I think she’s a hawk watching over me. I asked her to find me a parking space twice so far and both of them were right in front of a church. It makes real life feel like dream life at times. Have you ever seen Stranger than Fiction? My life feels kinda like that right now. I don’t know if I see things because it’s a sign from her or if I just think like my mom so much that I find everything so oddly connected.

Eating/Drinking:

Right after my mom died I stopped eating. My appetite was all weird. I woke up at 4 am for almost 3 weeks. I got my appetite back at the end of December and started eating feelings. We had so many family functions/the funeral/friends and family visiting. SO MUCH FOOD. So much lasagna, I felt like Garfield for a bit.

My intentional word for the year is NOURISH.

I’ve spent the past week trying to be mindful of what I’m eating. Staying away from bread because they lead me down a path of anxiety and when I don’t have them, I don’t have the chance to even go down that path. Restrictions are sometimes the easiest way for me to jumpstart discipline. Anyways, I’m adding more activity to my life and more of a “cleaner” quasi whole30 diet in the mix. The key is giving myself grace when I wanna let LIVE and enjoy something.

Eating Orzo with Pancetta & Pine Nuts because it reminds me of my mom.

Getting back into the Meal Prep zone. Hallelujah.

Highlights of the Month include:

January Self Portrait:

Enough about me. What about you? How was your January?