Realizing That Self-Realizations Are the Best Realities to Realize

I had a mind-blowing self-realization last night.

Let me begin by telling you about my new friend, Racheal. She’s been working in my office for over a year now but we’ve only slowly become friends over the past couple of months. She is sweet and funny and asks a lot of questions about life as she is trying to understand and give depth to important issues by listening to the perspectives of others. Which I think is fantastic because I love to talk about things like systemic prejudice, the obstructive power of hierarchy, and the possible reasons why people stay with their abusive significant others, just to give a few examples.

While running into each other in the restroom the other day, we once again began to chat about deep topics and Racheal had mentioned that her mother had passed a few years ago and this had, in part, triggered her move to NYC. I had the immediate feeling that she and I should talk about this more as I am very eager to speak to people about the experience of losing a mother and how that impacts our lives going forward, especially as women.

She and I met for drinks last night and we spent over an hour bitching about work, discussing our romantic relationships and the trials of dating, before finally coming to the topic of losing our mothers. Through our conversation, I realized that there is a Pre- and Post-Adrienne. The before and after versions of myself with the pivotal moment being the loss of the person who loved me most in the world.

Pre-Adrienne didn’t really date much. Pre-Adrienne had a support structure and felt safe that she could remain independent and unbound and, if life went a little south, there would always be people there to help her get back on her feet. I took risks and I allowed myself to embrace the noncommittal attitude that made serious relationships and full-time employment seem so unappealing. I knew I would eventually find something I loved to do and someone I loved to be with but I was in no rush and enjoyed my freedom all the while knowing that I had a support structure to fall back on if necessary.

Post-Adrienne does not want to find herself all alone one day. She worries that each person in her life that loves her and would do anything for her will be gone and there will be no one left to help her through the hard times. Post-Adrienne now knows just how hard the hard times can be and how much she needs loving people in her life to help her get through it. Post-Adrienne suddenly desires stability and safety and wants, more than anything, to find that one person to love and by loved by and build a life with. I am looking for my life partner because I NEED someone that is mine (and I am theirs) and when times are rough we are there for each other. Someone I can rely on completely because the one person in the entire world who loved me more than anyone else is gone and I realize how the loss of a love like that leaves a hole and I desperately want to fill it.

*Please forgive me for writing in the 3^rd person – I took creative license and it may have been a bit douchey.

Since my mom died and I moved back to NYC, I have been in a constant stream of relationships. And the moment I feel like one isn’t going in the serious, committed direction I want it to, I abandon it and move on to the next. I’m not cold about it. I get pretty attached to these guys. Obviously. They represent my savior who is going to keep me from being alone during life’s tumultuous moments and give me happiness, fulfillment and encouragement the rest of the time. We will build memories and love each other and life will be so much more fulfilling because I have this lovely human to share it with. I still think this is a wonderful thing to aspire to and this change in attitude isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that I am now realizing I am approaching it with a desperation and fervor that is coming from a dark place. A place I don’t venture to often because it hurts. Which is probably why, for a girl who self-analyzes on the regular, I missed this glaringly obvious piece of myself, this Post-Adrienne.

About a year ago, after a break-up with a guy I’d been dating for just a few months, I had a serious breakdown. I was feeling so low and crying so hard I could barely breathe. And I didn’t even like him that much! I was flabbergasted as to why I was reacting that way and called my best friend to try and explain and hoped that she could offer clarity. I sobbed into the phone trying to explain that this guy had really liked me and that felt so nice and my mom is gone and I need someone, I need a someone that is all mine so I have someone to support me and make me feel cared for, and this guy wasn’t the right guy but there has to be some guy, right? It was an almost incoherent mess of words as I was trying to connect my break-up to the loss of my mother. I didn’t understand it myself, couldn’t articulate it well, and Amanda was at a loss as to what to say to help me through this moment. I think she tried to understand but couldn’t relate to what I was feeling.

When Amanda lost her mom at 23, she was already married. The only person she could talk to about her loss was Charlie. He was and is her person. Her family. Her support. She tried to talk to me about it – about how that loss felt and how much it meant for her to have me by her side during it all – but she was unable to get it all out as the emotion and vulnerability were too overwhelming. She told me she could really only talk to Charlie about it – having someone like that is a really beautiful thing.

I’m happy to have made this realization. I can’t completely separate my search for a loving life partner from the emotions associated with my mother but I can most definitely control it better than I am doing now. I had no idea that this was the overwhelming feeling I was experiencing and even less aware that it stemmed from this loss. Basically, I have some serious soul-searching to do as I continue to live and date and love and progress throughout this uncertain life full of ups and downs and self-realizations.

Thank goodness for those moments. The moments when the “crazy” you feel takes on a shape you can wrap your head around and create a game plan to address. I know my healing is far from over and may never actually end but I’m thankful for this next step in the process. Here I go…

To Write, To Share, To Connect

It's been well over a year since I last wrote in this blog.

I love to write and thought that starting this blog a year ago when my transition back to NYC was pretty rough would help me to organize my thoughts and feelings - while at the same time feel a sense that others might read it and we might connect on some level that we don't fully understand. Some level that technology and globalization brings us that we have yet to put into words in a way that can fully capture the connectedness of humanity.

Or some such bullshit.

Now I'm back and for a similar reason. I've been living in NYC for roughly 3 years, with a 6-month absence when I moved back home to California to be with my mom after she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I had been studying abroad for the summer in Colombia and thinking that life couldn't be sweeter, when I got a call from my dad saying that my mother had multiple tumors, malignent, and it had spread - I better come home quick. I was there the next day. The doctors gave her 11 months - she died 11 weeks later. With my brother holding one hand and myself the other. We whispered comforting things into her ear as we squeezed her hands, brushed her hair from her face, and watched. There was a moment when she was gone and we were still there and that fact seemed so impossible and the knowledge of what our lives had become, absent of the woman who loved us most, so huge and so incomprehensible that we stood in silence. My brother then walked outside. Screamed. Screamed so loud from the bottom of his tattered soul that I rushed outside and held him tight while he cried and screamed, cried and screamed, fists clenched, muscles so tight it was like he was made of stone, staring at the sky and at the house and at me like he didn't have any idea what to do next. The only thing left to do was let our hearts keep breaking - crumbling into the soles of our feet.

It is at this point that I went pretty numb to the world for about 4 months. I apologize to my family who had to deal with me in this state - I wasn't much help to them emotionally as I could barely handle what was happening to me. I really am sorry.

I couldn't have possibly written about this a year ago when I started this blog (the rough transition mentioned above). The wound was too fresh and I would sob myself to sleep so often that it became normal.

I remember dating a boy shortly after moving back. Dating was still a pretty new concept to me and I had met him on OKCupid. A red-headed, beautifully bearded plummer, born and raised in Brooklyn. He was interesting and complicated. Kind of an asshole but with the potential to be the opposite. I couldn't share any of these precious, fragile emotions with him. He'd been broken-hearted and this caused him to be closed off emotionally. I didn't know how to handle this so I broke off the relationship within a few months. Having dated several broken men since, I realize we all have broken pieces because we've all lived. We aren't 18, clean and untouched. We've loved and lost and tried and failed and jumped, dived, crashed, burned.

This didn't go where I thought it was going to.

I've never told anyone about my mother's last moments. Always wanted to, never could. Now here they are. For anyone to read. And it feels good.

I think that's why I wanted to start this again. Type what I can't say. Articulate the things that I have trouble verbalizing. My mind works best in writing. I should have been born in that era when letter writing was an important and time-consuming part of everyday life - capable of sustaining long-distance relationships. You know, like in all those Jane Austen novels. I'd Pride & Prejudice my way into Mr. Darcy's castle so fast! Well, no, not so fast cuz it took a really long time for letters to get places. Then you have to wait for a response. And you know he would have written and re-written that thing at least 6 times - you can easily do that with a text message but hand-written letters, forget about it. Then, if he spilled the ink bottle all over it, the whole thing is fucked. Then one of his servants has to make a day-trip to town to buy him another bottle - which is not cheap! - and then he has to start again. Except he can't that day because the Duchess of Windchestshire Abbey is visiting and you know how she can be. And then, when I finally get his letter, he uses "there" when he means to use "they're" and I lose interest completely.

So, I'll just write here instead. This is the conclusion.

- Adrienne