People Don't Get It.

People don’t get it.

It’s waking up one day every single month realizing it’s one month later. It’s seeing everyone at breakfast with their moms on Mother’s Day. It’s friends calling their moms and yelling at them like it’s not a blessing just to have them on the phone. It’s teachers referring to the classroom’s “moms and dads” when you don’t have both.

It’s consoling random people relatively every other time you go out because they’re drunk, and they feel “so bad” that they then become overwhelmed. It’s telling people not to mention it to your dad and watching them do it anyway because they “had to” because they think they know what your dad needs more than you.

It’s the nine frames (that she picked out) hanging on your walls not being switched out with the other paintings that fit each season better—how she used to do before you got home from school. It’s the being scared of Opa and Grandma’s old age because when they’re gone, you can’t answer all the things she accidentally, involuntarily, regretfully left unanswered. It’s the kissing a boy and being so excited but not being able to talk to her and not wanting to tell dad because it’s not the same. It’s the old note she wrote you slipping out of a book you haven’t opened in years.

It’s the going to doctor appointments and them asking how she’s doing because you haven’t been in years and she always came with before…and they don’t know what happened and they didn’t even know she was sick in the first place. It’s the pity you don’t want from parents whose names you can’t remember when they ask how you’re doing and you telling them you’re fine just to end the conversation. It’s awkward silence in the room when you bring her up because for some reason it’s okay when other people talk about their moms, but you can’t because you don’t have one anymore and that makes people uncomfortable. It’s the finding out you have a class presentation on her one-year death anniversary.

It’s the first family birthdays, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first Easter, the first parents’ wedding anniversary, the first Fourth of July, the first Father’s Day, the changing of traditions she worked so hard to preserve, your first newspaper publication, your first real job, the buying new glasses alone, the struggling to find a long dress for a school dance, the wanting her chili recipe that never existed anywhere but her head, the looking for notes she might have left for you, the old plan to have her walk you down the aisle with dad, the waking up from dreams of her dying again, the waking up from dreams where she tells you she’s coming back, the waking up from dreams of just hugging her, the going to therapy about her, the sleeping four hours every night because you can’t not think about her, the consciously drinking hot coffee with two hands to look more like her.

It’s fixing your posture yourself because she’s not there to remind you. It’s not getting upset over boys anymore because what a waste of life. It’s crying alone. It’s walking yourself home from a night out because you got drunk and couldn’t not think of her. It’s being so happy and then getting so sad because how can you feel the happiest you’ve ever felt without her there?

It’s worrying about four siblings endlessly. It’s seeing the flowers she held at her wedding. It’s planting the planters she used to do herself. It’s making sure all the boys have fresh boxers. It’s cooking more dinners and cleaning more of the house and doing all your laundry. It’s growing up way too damn fast. It’s becoming your own mother because no matter how incredible your father is, he cannot play both roles. It’s watching violent movie scenes and remembering how she’d say, “garbage in garbage out” to remind you not to expose yourself to anything that’s not happy and good because that’s what you’ll project out to the world. It’s making a list of what you want to find in a husband like she told you to do, even though you’re not necessarily looking for a boyfriend at the moment. It’s demanding respect by most people but letting others treat you unfairly because some people simply aren’t worth the energy.

It’s old photographs. It’s extremely personal questions about what she looked like and how that last week went. It’s teachers asking how you’re doing after class. It’s learning not to cry about her because if you did whenever you felt like it, you’d dehydrate yourself into nonexistence. It’s people stressing about a job after school when you’re stressing about living long enough to become the grandma she never got to be.

It’s hearing her favorite songs play on an old playlist. It’s taking seven vitamins a day now. It’s hating hospitals. It’s being scared to walk into church. It’s seeing a cardinal and wishing that brought you comfort but knowing a bird is just a bird, and she hated them anyway. It’s watching movies with the mention of cancer and the whole room going silent.

It’s spraying her perfume just to remember how she smelled walking down the stairs for a night out. It’s being scared to speak her eulogy but being more scared not to speak it. It’s driving her car. It’s selling her car. It's looking up the obituary you wrote for her to remember where she was born. It’s walking in her shoes and knowing they look a little less beautiful now. It’s praying to find someone someday to love you like dad loved her. It’s sitting alone doing homework or reading or thinking and just begging her to give you an immediate sign that she’s there but seeing nothing.

It’s missing home even when you are home. It’s fearing some tragic freak accident happening to dad because what happens then? It’s compiling old family videos to hear her laugh and see her smile. It’s choking up in class when you read a story about her aloud. It’s having a question about her childhood that only she’d have the answer for. It’s rereading old journals she wrote from the day you were born.

It’s everything. It’s exhausting. It is. Every. Single. Day.

It’s needing to figure out how to be fine, because what other option do you have? And then it’s not settling with just being fine. It’s finding strength in weakness. It’s finding happiness in sadness. It’s remembering not to forget. It’s living so differently while trying to keep things the same.

It’s being an adult but knowing you’re still a kid who should have a mom, but you can’t and you don’t, and you move forward.

Nobody needs to get it, and I hope nobody has to get it like I got it.

A friend recently told me that the worst cards are dealt to the toughest people. I feel stronger now than I did before. I am happy and feel like myself. I am confident, and I know I would be making her so proud.

I just wish she were here.