when everything is everywhere
When everything is everywhere, you can't enjoy what you truly had. My mother "moved out" yesterday. I think this is supposed to be a profound moment and it is, but in a deafening way. Not the ache of a lost loved one....it almost reads like a dong that lingers and you can hear the hum of it as it quiets to a whisper and fades away. She's been trying to move for years, since the pandemic to be precise. The pandemic was six years ago, but I'll say it was five. I buffer her. I help with a smooth transition. That's what I do as a teacher, or at least, that's what I am called to do. Be the smooth trnsition from one phase of life into the next, even if it takes 4 years of high school, 3 years of middle, and 6 years of elementary. Well, it took her 5 years, so thats in between the nuances of elementary and non-sense of high school. No, no, no. That's between the non-sensicalness of elementary and the profound, radical, raging growing up of high school. She was forced to grow - as I.
And all I am left with is this keyboard at 3:13 am processing what's happening. Definitely a rupture. A wanted rupture. I still feel like I'm holding the bag at the crime scene though. Her stuff still resides in my home. The home I was meant to build with my husband, but honestly, couldn't have built it without my mother. She actually put everything in this house away. When we don't know where to find something, we call out - MOOOOOOMMMM. When we don't know the garbage schedule --- MOOOOOOOMMMM. She is matriarch, but a wonky one. She rose to power in a raging kind of way and has been radical ever since, but she doesn't view herself as such. She calls herself - an angel, cinderella, the "quietest person in here" and "doing the best that I can." She IS all of those things and plenty more and a little less in some areas, I guess depending on who you are and how you know her.
Regardless, her stuff is still here. I am left holding the bag. And secretly recycling. And it feels so dumb to be playing this game. The game my husband refuses to play. But I am the smoother transition. I think we should transition gracefully.
This is why my mom's transition and the loss of 2 colleagues, and my graduation year all seem to parallel. And I can't sleep until I get the right words. Until I put what's happening into the right spot in my brain and body. There's this juxtaposition of feelings that is coming with every major move.
I am sadden that she is no longer underfoot every day, but also ecstatic because I've wanted this for so long. I am sadden by my colleagues unexpected departures, especially after they've put so much effort into their practice, but I am rooting for their success somewhere else where they will be happier. I am sadden by my non-commitment to TC...I did it (with God and my family's help....definitely), but I am angry that I don't feel differently. I don't feel powerfully different. I don't feel unique or special. I don't feel distringuished or accomplished. I don't FEEL!
So much art is bussing through me and now I get some things that I didn't get before.
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