Home is such a lonely place without you, home is such a lonely place

It has been about eighteen months since my mother passed away. If you’re new here this may give you some background as to how I was feeling then. I still miss my mother every day, my heart aches to see her smile. I was no stranger to grief before my mum passed, but I was unaware just how hard it can wallop you, leaving you feeling breathless and disorientated. Grief has changed me, a little for worse and a little for better.
I am not as good at being alone as I once was. Before, my own company was something I would often seek, spending hours on my own and being quite content. Loss has made me anxious when those I love aren’t close or they’re difficult to reach. At the back of my mind I am worried that something bad has happened and I won’t know and won’t be able to save them, like I couldn’t with my mum. I am scared that they will leave me. The swirling oppressive panic rises and the haze can be hard to break free from. Irritating for those I burden with my messages, I am working on trying to hold down the adrenaline and assumption that everyone will leave me.
I am kinder, my edges are softened. Caring for someone you love whole heatedly will always have an effect upon you. I had to teach myself to be more patient, compassionate and empathetic. It’s not that I didn’t want to be, I just found it hard after spending years blocking out people’s negative comments about me, to let the walls come down. However, when the person who has cared for you and done everything she can to provide a loving and well rounded existence for you, the walls come tumbling down. Looking after my mum showed me how to be a little kinder than I have to be. I wanted her to know that I loved her; I hope she knew just how much. I hope I was kind enough.
Grief has changed my relationships. A different family dynamic had emerged when I was caring for my mother, but after her death it has changed once again. I have distanced myself from certain people because I have realised that I do not need or want their negative energy in my life. Our existence is too short and filled with horrible things that we have no control over, so to take decisive action upon the things we can change is something I am working on. That being said, I have also had the chance to strengthen previous relationships. The big group of women in my life that I had always had the ‘my mum’s friends’ relationship with have now become my friends and an added support system should I need them. The Surrogate Mothers Club.
My tolerance for other peoples shitty behaviour has depleted. Although I have never been backwards in coming forwards in my opinions, I would often let others get away with their hostile and hurtful attitudes towards me. For years I allowed comments on my appearance to make me feel small and angry and at twenty-six I still feel sick every time I have to walk past workmen. The panic rises as I know the staring or the jeers are coming, keeping my head down and hoping that if I don’t make eye contact, maybe this time it won’t happen. However, over the past couple of years (as you may have read here before), I am learning to take proactive stands against such people when this happens. It isn’t just strangers in the street that I have felt the need to put in their place, but aforementioned distanced people too. I try to do my part to take a stand for those that haven’t found their voice yet too and if you’re mean to my sister, I’m coming for you. I do not need people in my life that do not encourage and empower the people around them.
Today will mark seven years since I lost my Grandma, the other woman in my life that loved me unconditionally. To lose my maternal twin pillars before they saw me flourish, find myself and love is heart breaking. I hope in my lifetime and through my actions I can be as clever, sparkling and fabulous as they were.
Something terrible has to occur for us to experience grief and loss, but once we get there something good can bloom from the darkness. Eventually your eyes begin to adjust and you can start to make out the silhouettes around you and stop being so scared of the blinding, smothering blackness. It won’t be easy and I’m under no illusion that it will ever end, but you adjust and endure, bend with the changing tides.

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”

But I am a ghost, just haunting myself

An exercise in dissipating writers block. Come back to me creativity.

I woke up this morning to see that it was winter once more. Okay, so not technically as it’s June, but weather-wise, very much winter. The melancholia has weighed me down like being placed under a damp blanket; my mind as grey as the steel sky. I ventured out into the cold oppressive morning, barking dog on lead as I slowly became saturated. It was that fine wet mist that kisses you on the cheek and curls the tips of you hair. A haunting love affair. I haven’t seen anyone or spoken aloud yet today, a ghost town with only I that roam. The wind thrashes and beats against the windows and howls down the chimney, there is something beautifully poetic in its persistent anguish.
A cup of coffee warms my hands whilst I observe the gloom from my window, taking a sip and holding it on my tongue. The bitterness with a sweet tinge at the end awakens my taste-buds and feels like the weather outside. I cannot find a lighter, so a length of raw spaghetti stands in as a taper to light a candle. As the flame flickers to life I am reminded of a quote from one of the best books I’ve ever read – “Sometimes when I watch people trudging through their daily routines, I think that fire is more alive than we are–brighter, hotter, more sure of itself and where it wants to go. Fire doesn’t settle; fire doesn’t tolerate; fire doesn’t ‘get by.’ Fire does. Fire is.” I watch the orange glow dancing, it’s twinkling flare mesmerising.
The rain hits the windows and becomes an auditory version of pins and needles. The soothing sound of woe and static. The weather today emits such sorrow, a lost soul searching. An eerie sadness that settles over towns brought about by a simple change in course. I try to find the beauty in the breakdown, there’s something so ghostly when the air around you is howling.
My cluttered thoughts are hushed by the rhythmic lashing of rain drops and the swaying branches of trees. This is the kind of weather that strips everything back, the acoustic equivalent of sunshine’s building beats. A narcissistic retrospective that is difficult to shake as it consumes everyone. It is self-indulgently reflective.

A melancholic playlist.

I’d wait here for you but there’s nothing more now I can do

I have all of these blog posts planned out and researched, but I just don’t want to write any of them today. I thought I would just sit here and see what happens. Today I am having a crappy day. I was awoken by having a panic attack, yes the way every girl wishes to arise from her slumber. I have boring things that need to be achieved, such as the online food shopping and the scrubbing of the kitchen. And now it’s raining. I am feeling all Cinders in tatters right now. Yes, I know…moan moan moan. But this is my place to be as melancholic as I like, you chose to come here!
Loud music has cheered me a little, but the exasperated sighs still escape my lips. I cannot snap out of it today. I am sad. And one day, I know that flowers will once again grow in the saddest parts of me, but in the quiet moments I am alone and it is the dead of winter. I haven’t been here since my last post because I find it too confronting. This is the place I come to be honest and at the moment I sometimes have to live in the lie to stop myself from breaking. I haven’t been honest with myself.
I know that some days are going to be harder than others, and I have managed to move on from taking it hour by hour to day by day. The swirling vortex is not as prevalent as it was in the earlier days, but it still lingers like a shadow; always dark and one step behind you. Something you cannot run from. My personal menace. Some days are just sad, so unbearably sad. And I am tired of having to endure, for six long years I have endured. I would like a moment to catch my breath.
Today I have let the darkness consume and pursue me, tomorrow I will try to capture it and stuff it back down, deep inside. Tomorrow I will carry on.

(I do not own this image)

I don’t wanna talk about it, I just wanna hold your hand

I have been gone for over a month and that is because on the twenty fifth of February my world stopped spinning. Almost four years after her diagnosis, my mum passed away. Although we all knew that it was coming at some point, I don’t think any of us were prepared for it to be this quick. She died peacefully in a hospice on the Wednesday morning with my dad by her side and my sister and I making it just in time for her final breath. I have been staring at the sun for the past year but I was still not prepared for it to hurt so much; for this chasm inside of me to be so damn wide. That day was the very worst day of my life and clibing out from under the rubble is an ongoing and painstaking process.
It’s like being permanently homesick and expecting to go home soon, but you never do. You don’t want to be here, but you cannot leave; being held captive by my own grief. I spent the last year looking after my mother, getting all her tablets ready or speaking to various medical staff about how we could tweek things or how things weren’t working. Calling the paramedics when she had a nasty seizure and never leaving her alone for longer than I needed to. I don’t tell you this to make you feel sorry for me, I am just trying to explain just how encompassing this all was and how this hole got to be so large.
Every day I find myself thinking “I must tell mum that later”, before remembering that it isn’t possible. That the person I told absolutely everything to, the one that kept my secrets and insecurities isn’t here anymore. I am reminded about things that we never got to do, like finish all eight seasons of House. This seems trivial, but it is something we enjoyed doing, together.
My waking thoughts are filled with her and my dreams are dominated by trying to bring her back to life, back to our family and how I can save her. I am exhausted.
It may look like I am holding it all together on the outside because the last three or so years have taught me how to wear this mask of composure expertly. No one gets to see the churning inner turmoil and the dark rain cloud that constantly follows over me. A continuous shadow. In the quiet and confronting moments when my carapace falls and the flood gates open.
The funeral was a lovely service, maybe a weird sentence to read but it was a real celebration of her life. The amount of people that came to send her off was wonderful. The crocheted flowers that had been sent from across the world strung together and draped across the casket brought a brilliant pop of colour and brightened the place up, a lot like my mother always did. This is something I wrote for the service.

I love her, and that is the beginning and end of everything.
My mother was the best person I have ever known. Endlessly strong and full of heart, an inspiration and warm. Forever a little kinder than she needed to be, choosing to see the best in everyone. Always at the ready to give advice…and yes, she was always right. As John Green once wrote “There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed.” My mum was like the lights on a Christmas tree, beautiful, shining and bright. A sight that would bring hope, family and joy to gather around her and make you feel a little fuzzy inside. And now one of the bulbs has gone and she leaves the rest of us a little duller. But we keep burning because there is a little something of her in all of us. Her unparalleled strength and positivity is something I will forever be striving for and inspired by in my own life. Nurturing, colourful and blue skies. There isn’t anything I won’t miss about her – the way she encouraged me to always be myself or the way that she loved the dog more than any of us. I will miss her everyday and it will never measure up to the gratitude I feel that she was my mother.
Ultimately my mum showed me on a daily basis how to do small things with great love, and I can only hope that she now goes to seek a great perhaps.

I am trying to treat my grief as a guest – “You acknowledge it, you cater to it, then you send it on its way.” But it is an ongoing battle and some days are terrible, some are bad and some just are. Sometimes I feel like I am holding my breath whilst I drown. I have lost two of the most important women in my life and they were each taken far too early, my mum was only 47. So please ladies, check your breasts and see a doctor if something doesn’t feel right.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to bring my mum back, to be able to talk to her for just a little while longer. Make the most of your loved ones. Because even if you know it is coming to an end, you will never be prepared.

Forever.

My warships are lying off the coast of your delicate heart

Today has led me to find whatever tiny morsel of solace I can, which always brings me here. Some days I become overwhelmed with the things I need to get done/are being done faster than I am happy for them to. Some days I just want to go back to bed or stand in the cold and scream. However, I am trying to channel those feelings into writing more. So, here I find myself on this chilly oppressively grey afternoon, note book, pen and writing aid at the ready. My chipped red fingernails ready to swiff elegantly (…yeah right), across the keyboard.
642 Things To Write About:

“Write an anonymous letter to a stranger detailing the things you’ve learned about life”

Dear human,
You do not know me, and before you throw this letter away – I REALLY AM NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU ANYTHING, PROMISE. I would just like to share some things that I have learned along my twentyfive years of life. A) I have found that you really have little control over the big things in life. Sure, you can have some input and maybe even reroute the course of said ‘big thing’, but ultimately the bigger the thing, the more inevitable it becomes. Unfortunately it is these things in life that we want to control most, but sometimes we have to accept that this is out of our hands. Therefore we should B) live to be a little kinder than we have to. Every day we step outside the house with our public masks on (not as conspicuous as Batman’s), a hard carapace to protect us from society, the one we are happy for the world to see. We are all aware that what we sometimes project into the world is not always what is reflected inside. Where the self doubt nestles up against the self loathing and writhes around in the dark slippery tentacles of fear. It doesn’t take much to give a compliment or send a text to let someone know you’re thinking of them. Life is too short to reserve kindness for when you think people need it, because most days we could all do with a little pick me up.
The last six years have really taught me that C) words and people do not define me as a person. One word cannot describe something as complex as a human and by thinking that it can we are doing ourselves a huge disservice. Even if that word is complimentary it is eliminating all the other things you have to offer. Just as a person cannot make us a whole or complete; because we should trust and value our own opinions and feelings to be enough for ourselves. Sure others can enhance and encourage you that bit further to shine that bit brighter, but to be confident in our own skin should be a top priority.
Something I am trying to work on is to D) be present more often. It is so easy to miss the small important things and the possible memories because our faces were glued to a screen (she says whilst on her laptop). A culture obsessed with catching memories we are ultimately failing to really experience because we are trying too hard to show others the memories we are making. Like Pavlov’s dogs we all but salivate when the trings and the pings escape from our phones, jumping to see who it is immediately. When the big red bubbles appear on various apps demanding that we respond to their silent warnings. I am trying to take a step back, resist the knee jerk instinct that has been ingrained and enjoy the moment I am in first. Which leads me to E) finding time for reflection. Those little moments we can find for ourselves to work through problems before we become overwhelmed or even just sitting and being…breathing. I have come to realise over the past year or so that these times are essential to living as well as we can. Without these moments we can often just keep going, until we can’t anymore. And when we no longer can, we are not helping ourselves and we are not helping those that depend upon us. Without these moments the smiles that should come easily don’t and the kindness I seek to give is not possible, because I have not been kind to myself. Sometimes we cannot always find these moments without the help of others at first, and F) it is okay to seek help. In fact it is fundamental to keep us ticking along nicely. Currently I seek solace in the counseling sessions I receive regularly. Due to a big thing I have no control over, I needed a little more help in my life to keep me from drowning in my circumstances. There is nothing to be done that can change my situation and I felt it necessary to accept the help that was being offered to me and I am so pleased I did. Without it I would, by now, be unable to help those that rely upon me. I would not be as kind as I would like to be. I have always dug down deep and stuffed all of my problems on top of each other and let them fester away somewhere in the back of my mind, playing on my conscience without always realising it, because that is the way I dealt with things. But when the big things come along and rob you of your sure footing, I have realised it is not shameful to seek help.
In summary, G) “do small things with great love”.
Yours faithfully, a stranger.

These pictures can tell lies and my words will still fall short

I have tried writing something of substance several times now but my house is full of people and a barking dog…and then I was distracted by the IKEA bedding section. Yes, it is going to be one of those days. One of those days that occurs for me far too often in succession. Once again on the regal throne; surveying my kingdom of procrastination. I cannot seem to make the silent sentences in my head readable words that come from the tiptiptapping of my fingers. With a song stuck in my head that I have to listen to, only distracting me further from writing this post. I find that just sitting and writing is usually the only way to focus my mind, the flowing incoherent thoughts swirling around finally finding a resting place where sometimes they become something legible. Matters are only made worse when I finally get into the ebb and flow of writing only for my laptop to die as quickly as a Victorian lady could faint.
As Charles Bukowski said “writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”, so here I am, writing about not being able to write. I enjoy blogging and I wish that we had been able to explore this style of writing at school, rather than the standard letter, short story or article writing we are all taught from an early age. To be able to express ourselves and connect with others in a medium that is truthful and inviting is something I love more each day. No finagling on Facebook and overstating on Twitter, blog writing is honest. I knew when I started belleofthebluegrass that I wanted it to be authentic in a society that revels in omissions. If I am pouring my heart out, I want you to see blood. However, when sat atop my velvet covered diamond encrusted throne; tending to my kingdom of procrastination, when the words wont form into sentences I start to write about attractive men and what I wish to buy. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy writing those posts and finding the photos of cheekbones with sharp jawlines too, but they are always the easier ones to write.
I am not really sure where this post has taken me today…I have written this post about not being able to write this post. It really is one of those days.
On a slight side note though, I am more than thankful to anyone who has read anything on my blog, whether of substance or other. I have now surpassed five thousand views on my blog, which is absolutely thrilling, so thank you one and all. I promise I shall try and be less disjointed next time we meet. 

(I do not own this image).