Lonely

Now that I am nearing 32 years old and it's been over 12 years since my mom died, I find it completely lonely to be a motherless daughter. In the past, it's been hard. Now... it's really difficult.

It's difficult because I suppose after 12 years I'm not supposed to get teary-eyed almost every time I think about her for more than a few seconds during the day. It is obvious that I think about her every day. Every day she crosses my mind, but not every day do I think about her for more than a few seconds. On those days when I cross the threshold of thinking about her for more than a few seconds, I am in tricky territory because I start thinking about things like, "My mom doesn't know who I am anymore, because I am a totally different person than I was when I was 19" or "I bet Mom would be proud of me" or "I wish I could talk to/ask my mom about this" or "I wonder what my mom's opinion was about that," or "I wonder how similar I am right now to Mom when she was my age," or "I wish I could just hug her" or "I have this problem and I need someone objective who loves me to talk to about it--someone who really knows me and cares and will listen" or "My hands look like hers," etc., etc. I think about how my life would be different if she were alive. Would I have made different decisions? Would I be a different person?

And I have no one to share these feelings, questions, and thoughts with. It is so frequent that my husband or close friends would get tired of hearing about it. Also, they can't relate. I could tell my brother or my dad or my aunt, but even their experiences are different from mine. No one really gets it. I love my dad, but he is not my mom. No one loves you like your mom does.

It is lonely to feel alone in my grief. And it is lonely to feel silly about my grief after 12 years. I know I'll never get over it, but I feel like it's getting worse. The farther I get from her being alive, the harder it's seeming to be.

Sometimes I wish I were religious so that I could believe that I will see her again, that we will be reunited and get to catch up and hug and cry together. For me, that is not true. It is not rational to me that she lives on elsewhere. Her blood runs through my veins and she is in my memories and heart, but she does not live on. She is not aware of me and who I am now and what's going on in my life. She is truly gone. And that's hard to grapple with.