Friday Things // 12.09.2022
The one celebrating my mom, and some grief rambles.
Today’s my mom’s birthday.
She would have been 71 (and probably told me not to tell the internet that).
I’ve been feeling sort of off this week, and what do ya know — looking back, it’s probably because I knew her birthday was coming. This is now the 3rd birthday of hers that I’ve spent celebrating her alone, without her, wondering how she might have wanted to spend her day, or what the best way to honor her looks like.
I’m planning to get myself a slice of cake later today and, like the previous years, have some Italian food that she would’ve loved. (Today that’ll be in the form of some homemade pizza.) So far, that is the best way I can think of to wish her the happiest of days, while also wishing she was still around.
Anyways, I figured today was as good a day as any to ramble some more about the weird ways grief can show up in our lives.
Soon after I lost my mom, I noticed that my anxiety was on high alert. That feels, uh, unsurprising, I suppose, given the circumstances and all, but stay with me. I’ve experienced some health anxiety on and off for years, but it had been mostly triggered by stress due to an old job, and had been fairly quiet after I’d left that company… really til March 2020, which, if you’ve been reading here a while, you may recall is when my mom was diagnosed with cancer (and when good ol’ Covid arrived in the U.S.).
After my mom passed, it spiked.
Suddenly, everything I felt — a random ache or twinge — sent me into a hurricane of worry. I assumed the worst case scenario every time I got a weird lab test result or felt a strange pain. I became almost obsessed with being sure I was healthy. With being certain that something else wasn’t about to come knock me off my feet, steal the wind from my lungs. Being in the middle of a pandemic, worried about an extremely infectious disease that, at least in 2020 and even early 2021, we didn’t know all that much about, definitely didn’t help. I worried about my husband, my dad, anyone I loved getting sick. I felt like I constantly had the weight of the world on my shoulders, terrified that something would happen that I hadn’t thought of, something I hadn’t planned for. I attempted to become the most careful person alive when it came to trying to keep myself and my family safe from Covid, and honestly if I could have Clorox wiped my entire universe, I probably would have. I developed a totally unexpected, unprecedented sense of dread and anxiety related to medical appointments and checking my lab results every few weeks (if you’re new here, I have a chronic blood disorder and get blood work done regularly to check my blood count and other fun metrics of health). The anxiety wasn’t daily or all-consuming by any means, but it was… exhausting. And amidst this anxiety spiral, I desperately missed the reassurance that my mom had always given me, and the space she’d provided for me to share things I was worried about related to my own health or really just anything. I just wanted someone to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Somehow, I didn’t actually pair the uptick in my health anxiety with grief until later.
Like, a lot later. A few weeks ago, actually.
I had just thought I’d been through a lot, and that my nervous system was fried (like most other people after living through the early days of the pandemic). I recently read, though, that things like health anxiety and catastrophe thinking are pretty common when you’ve experienced a significant loss — especially for women who’ve lost mothers. I read that and was like OH, OKAY. Sounds familiar! I don’t know if anyone else finds that interesting, but when I came across that information, I felt seen in a way I hadn’t in a long time.
So often when I’m writing here, I think to myself, “God, you sound really, really fun.” 🫠 To be clear, you can experience occasional anxiety, or grief, or both, and still have plenty of moments of happiness and peace. You can grieve perpetually and also enjoy life and be a damn delight. [Two things can be true at the same time.] But regardless, I think it’s important to talk about this stuff, and to be open to the ways in which life can be hard — even unexpectedly so. Grief is a forever journey and a wild ride, and sometimes it shows up in ways you may not expect.
If we fast forward to nowadays, my anxiety is not gone but it’s gotten a whole lot better. I’m also trying to lean into the notion that instead of worrying about the worst, I could instead pour that energy into assuming the best. In other words, what if the best case scenario happens instead? What if things actually DO work out?
Ironically, it feels exactly like something my mom would have said — advice she would have given. She was always a ‘hope for the best’ sort of person, right up til the end. And really, that’s probably the best gift I can continue to give her, I think.
Maybe it all will work out, for all of us.
+++++
Thanks for being here, friends — today and all the days. Go get yourself a brownie or some Italian decliousness in honor of my mom, okay? She’d appreciate it, and I sure do too.
Thanks for reading,
Joelle
I’m sorry for all of your sorrow. December 6th marked 4 years since my mom’s passing and everything that you wrote resonated with me. I will for sure buy some Italian goodies today in honour of your mom. 🙏