Maxine Monday

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It's not all angst.

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Back to work today, it went well.  I am very grateful for the people I work with, no one expected me to jump in with both feet immediately, and welcomed me back warmly.  

I sent an email to our team expressing my thanks for the flowers, kind words and prayers.  I told them it would take me a couple of days to get acclimated but I hoped by Monday I would be able to make a meaningful contribution to the team again.  An email from a co-worker said:

"Why start contributing in a meaningful way now?  I think what you've been doing for the last 2 years has been working for you!"

Ah .. home again.  It's nice to fit in.

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Wherein I reveal uncomfortably dirty laundry.

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Going back to work tomorrow, and I'm kinda scared.  Still feeling raw, and before my brother left to go back home he asked if I was on my meds.  Well yeah!  But taking antidepressants does not stop you from feeling what anyone else does when a loved one dies.  ???   Plus, I am a crier.  I am the emotional one.  Always been that way.  Yet I came to some disturbing realizations about our family, I cried, and I got that question.  For a person who has suffered from depression for a long time, it's the equivalent of asking a woman "are you getting your period?"

My family kind of sucks.  Not my kids of course, I'm speaking about my siblings.  Okay, and me.  We don't truly get along and we all have too much of my dad in us.  None of us are married, everyone has been married and divorced twice except me, and that's only because I don't want to do it again.  But after an argument with one brother I burst out to the other one - "I hate our family .. !!".. pause.."dynamic!"  And the realization that we don't really have a family unit, that my mom was what held us together at all, made me sad.  So, am I off my meds?  NO!! 

And .. I kind of went off on one brother (not the one I argued with) because he wants to give my sister money right off the top of what my mom has left us to make there be some equality between how much money my mom gave all of us over the years.  That's fine.  I couldn't care less.

But.

He's making it sound like a moral equivalency because my sister feels ostracised by the family, feels no one understands the things she did or why, in relation to my mom.  Like giving her money and making things equal will make her feel like we care.  Putting the whats and whys aside, what I do know is that for the 2 years my mom lived with my brother, my sister did not see my mom.  For the time my mom was here and in the nursing home by me, my sister did not come to see her.  Even after several hospitalizations during which the doctors were not sure she would make it, my sister did not come. 

So if my brother feels some need to make things equal for my sister, that's fine.  Money isn't the important thing and honestly - it's what my mom would have wanted.  But he can stop trying to couch it as a human response to my emotional sister who has his ear and is most likely only dealing with her own guilt.  I just don't feel the need to soothe her psyche or his.

.. climbing down now ..

Oh, and for the record - I have said before, my meds made such a huge difference for me in my life, someone will have to pry them out of my cold dead hands one day.   NOT off my meds.  Just grieving.  What a concept.

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It's a new day

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Thank you to all of you who expressed your sympathies on my mothers passing.  It's a wonderful place this blog land, isn't it?  I do appreciate all the kind words.  It makes a difference, truly.

Feeling a bit like I've been submerged under the sea for 15 days and am now coming up to the surface a little at a time, adjusting to each small distance as I slowly move through it.

The last time I was at work was on October 21st, and will not be going back until November 11th.  In 23 years that is the longest I have ever been away and I'm a bit nervous about going back.  Feeling a bit fragile I guess, worried about the stress.

While Mom was in the nursing home and even in the hospital I was thinking about her.  Making sure she had what she needed, visiting, keeping her company, and sitting on an ottoman next to her bed (in the hospital) holding her hand still felt like I was doing something.  Even after she was gone I felt a need to circle the wagons and close the circle around her so no one not intimately involved in her life would wander into our small group of family as we grieved. 

This morning my brothers went home.  One to New Jersey, one to Washington state.  There is no nursing home to go to now, no hospital to hurry to, Mom doesn't need me to care for her anymore.  No laundry to do other than my own, no copious amounts of chocolate to buy.

It's done.

And honestly?  I'm not sure how to start again, where to go from here.  If anyone knows where my reset button is, please let me know.  Because I'm a little freaked out.

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Maxine Monday

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