Hello, New Year

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I am genuinely looking forward to 2019. I don’t think I’ve said that about a year in a long time, not even last year. Especially not last year due to the timing of my ‘New Year’s’ post. But, this year is different. This year, I’ve put the hard things behind me. This year, everyone is healthy and my life is settled. This year, I can focus on moving forward instead of just trying like hell to stay afloat.

Some bad things happened in 2018, mainly just the one thing. Just the whole my mom dying thing – which, as it turns out – is a big thing. You’re so pretty. That’s the last thing my mom ever said to me. I had leaned down to kiss her while picking up my son.

“Love you, mom,” I said.

“Love you too, baby. You’re so pretty.”

I laughed and said, “Well, everyone says I look like you so…”

She smiled, and I left. The last words I said to my mom were, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And I did, but it was just her body as I sat with my dad and brother while we waited for them to come take her away to the funeral home. I’m not doing that well with it. And I thought I would – I thought I would be happy for her and just worry about my dad being sad. But nope, surprise – I’m pretty fucking devastated. Facebook was disabled over Christmas because I couldn’t deal with the whole memory thing. Yes, I know you turn that feature off – but I needed a break from social media for a bit anyway.

2018 wasn’t all bad, I suppose. Reading last year’s post, I’m happy to report that he did wait and chase and try and we have our ‘official’ one-year anniversary coming up. The anniversary of the night where we said, this is it. It’s us now. Not ‘him’ and not ‘her’ or ghosts from our past. Just us. The night he looked into my eyes and said he would never hurt me again. And he hasn’t. Truthfully, the one before him left a mess, so I’m sure it’s been hard on him. But he does everything I need him to. If I ask he tells me, if he thinks it’s going to upset me – he talks me through it. He even shares his location with me on our phones. Maybe one day I won’t need that kind of thing – but he says he has nothing to hide so it doesn’t bother him.

Now, I’m spewing all of this romance stuff – please don’t think we’re over here floating on pink clouds. We’re not. We have a lot of issues that we work at every day. But to be honest, they’re mostly brought on by outside influences and the societal knowledge of how things ‘should’ be.  My lovely sister-in-law recently pointed out to me, it’s not ‘supposed’ to be a certain way. It just works out or it doesn’t’…and we do. Speaking of my sister-in-law…ELLIE! Josh’s perfect, beautiful, sweet, I-could-die-every-time-I-hold-her, niece was born this year too. I feel a kinship with her because we’ve both sort of been around for the same time. They found out they were pregnant with her the day Josh introduced me to his family, which may seem silly – but I’m weird and weird shit means something to me.

I didn’t do that great at work this year. I mean, I was fine – but fine isn’t good enough. Not for them. I had a lot going on, but excuses are also not good enough, so all I can do is say that next year will be different. Next year, I’ll exceed expectations – and you can bet your ass I will. My personal writing, um, sporadic at best. I’m giving myself the goal to take the novels I have in progress and either focus on one, or delete them all, throw them all away, (over 100,000 words) and just start writing and see what happens. I suppose some people can write about whatever, but my life always, always sneaks in. And if my life is unsettled, my writing is too. I don’t mean sad – that usually makes for pretty good writing. I mean, unsettled. Unsure. That was 2018. Unsettled. Unsure. 2019 has no reason to be anything other than steady. Change? Yes, I’m sure change will come. But hopefully none in the soul of my life, which these days – is pretty full of hope and love.

Okay, and now for everyone’s favorite part! Advice from lessons learned in 2018:

  • Life is short. For real. Never take it for granted that you will see someone tomorrow, because you might just be sitting with leftover words and a sad heart.
  • Do what makes you happy (as long as you’re not physically hurting someone else). If people can’t deal with your happiness, they should probably stop looking.
  • Leave the past in the past. People are going to make mistakes. You have two choices. Ask them to leave your life or forgive them. If you choose the latter, leave that shit where it belongs and don’t let it mess with your life or your head. And if you have people who love to throw it in your face, well, that’s their sin to answer for. Not yours.

And my personal favorite and overall life motto:

  • It is never too late to become what you might have been.

Happy 2019 to everyone reading this. Thank you for the role you played in my life in 2018, even if it was just to make me stronger. May life’s current carry you to the next phase in your journey and Karma be there to make sure it’s exactly what you deserve.

 

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Blue Christmas

I’ve never really dealt with loss. I mean, I’ve had the loss of houses and marriages, but never real loss. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. At the time, I thought I was losing a lot with those things, but they’re just things. Turns out nothing compares to the loss you feel when someone dies. Or, in my case, is about to die. How awful is that? Looking at someone and knowing they are about to die? It’s pretty fucking awful. I’ve posted before, about my mom. Well, we thought she was better but she’s not. I’ve been sitting with this for about a month now.

Your mom’s going to die. Any day now. Any day now. Any day now.

My boyfriend’s dad passed away last year in a sudden and horrific way. It was bad. He wasn’t right for a month or two after, did all sorts of crazy things that he regretted so much he lied to everyone about it, but that’s what you do when you’re ashamed. Grief is a strange thing and affects people differently. I’m starting to do crazy things and not care about things and let the weight of ‘any day now, any day now’ push me down flat on the ground. But life has to go on and people don’t have a reason to act crazy when someone is still alive. It’s only after that you’re given an allowance to freak out. I think it would be better for it to be sudden. Better than waking up every day to ‘any day now, any day now.

Tammy Babich

Tears creep up on me at weird times. My mind works in an odd, non-linear way to begin with so thoughts randomly find their way into the forefront of my mind and bring me to my knees. Like, just now when I thought back to a moment before things got really bad with my mom’s mind – a few months after my husband and I separated. She was in and out even then, sort of with us, then not with us. I was telling her about the amazing guy I’d just met, and her eyes caught mine and focused, you know, really focused like when someone is listening to every word you say. She started to cry and asked me if I was happy and I said yes and she shook her head and turned back to the TV, then sort of went away again. That was probably the last conversation I had with her that made any kind of sense. Then last Christmas she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and things have gone downhill from there. Now the home hospice nurse comes to help my dad and he says things like ‘we’re just taking it one day at a time right now, we can’t make any plans’ and ‘I think your mom is worse than we think.’

My mom’s favorite Christmas movie is White Christmas and she always said she wanted one. If she makes it, we’re going to have Christmas at my house and my son and I are going to decorate like a winter wonderland – fake snow and all. My dad doesn’t know if she’ll last that long, so it will probably be more of a blue Christmas than a white one. The home hospice chaplain convinced him to tell some of the rest of the family, which he did today and now comes the outpouring of love – that will probably just be kind of a burden right now because people will want to come see her and neither of them are in any kind of shape for that. He made me promise to keep everything off Facebook, but a writer gotta write and no one reads this blog anyway. Like I said, maybe sudden is better? But either way it sucks. It just plain sucks. So, I guess, if you love someone – maybe tell them. Like, right now. Pick up the phone and send a text, make a call, make a post, send an email – whatever. Life’s too short not to.

~In memory: Tamera Louise Babich | 1/31/56 – 11/28/18

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