Thank you.
It has been almost 20 years and I did take the time to properly grieve afterwards so Ty JY for your concern. I spent a lot of time by myself, working my rw job back then, studying, leisure reading and listening to hendrix and the doors and skynard and anything that could somehow put whatever I was feeling into words or some kind of passion that matched the physical pain I felt inside from the loss. I learned a lot about myself amd the world around me. Everything had so much more value and meaning. I understood how fragile our time with others is. I would get angry inside when I heard my friends talk shit about their mom. I would feel jealous at times too. But the most important thing to me was making sense of it so I could survive it and let it better me instead of worsen me.
I played the events out in my head over and over and over again so nothing could sneak up in my mind and turn me into a puddle of terrified mess at the wrong time. I could not sit thru a fourth of july event for a few years. I would travel up to the mountains and drive the small roads with my stereo turned up because the first july 4th after she died the popping of fireworks made me curl up in a ball and shake for hours. I thought that would me the worst thing I would ever have to experience or get over in my life and that if I could make the best from that then I could make the best from anything. And i did. i made a great life for myself. I changed who I was and what direction i was heading. I made a stable and functional life. I worked hard to be a well-balanced and pragmatic person who could adapt and survive whatever life had in store...or so I thought. Unfortunately "the worst" didn't actually happen until 15yrs later which threw everything i thought I had learned from my mom's suicide into the air, but that is another story...
Shortly after my mom died, someone gave me some very harsh, but very sound advice. They said, "******, no one is going to care what happened to you in ten years. The only thing anyone will care about is what you did with it". I was so angry hearing that at first. I thought it was the most insensitive thing someone could have said to me. I was wrong. It was the most valuable thing anyone has ever said to me. Hands down.
Some people on this board like to joke about people being thinned or thick skinned, lately. Frankly, I haven't met too many people with thicker skin than myself. Of course I would never assume that of anyone but from talking to others over the past 15+ years its been pretty clear to me that the majority of people are just spoiled and the people who have really suffered in life wouldn't give you the courtesy of knowing - unless of course you asked, which you did, which is why I'm babbling on about my experience that I'm sure a wonderful group of people on this board are now going to sit back and make fun of because it makes them feel better.
Hey, whatever helps you make it thru the day.
