Mom’s Birthday…

While we were enjoying a rather quiet day weather-wise in the anchorage today, things were rather stressful otherwise. I don’t know why, but things were getting on my nerves. I found myself not having the usual patience to deal with issues on the boat, the weather and whatever else. Later in the day, I was trying to take a nap, when I realized what was eating at me. It was my mom’s birthday.

Now that my mom has been gone for over two years now, and my dad for almost four, I’ve become fairly well-accustomed to the ups and downs brought on by the milestones. But the thing that’s been happening more and more differently lately, is that the milestones have not been registering with me consciously right away like they used to. Subconsciously, however, they hit every time. Hard.

So while I may not be necessarily dealing with it on the surface, I’m still dealing with it. I suppose that’s part of the healing process. As time passes, you find you’re able to process away the grief below the surface a little better each year. Even if you don’t “forget”. On one hand, I’m glad that I’m better able to process this stuff subconsciously, only because it does make it a little easier to get through them. On the other hand, I feel like it’s numbing me, but I’m not sure I want to be “numb” about it.

Something I’ve come to learn about my mom since she died. Most of her life, at least from what I know of it, she never really had any peace. I honestly can’t remember even one time when my mom was completely content about her life or at on some plateau of peace. Sure, because of her addiction, she was able to experience pleasant highs and euphoric moments, sure. But those were artificial and temporary. I think maybe she longed for genuine peace, and never really got it. I find myself being very sad for her about that sometimes.

Maybe at the very end of her life, she saw what that kind of peace was like, even if just a glimpse of it. I hope that was the case. One thing I don’t ever want to do is find myself in a place where I can never have peace. I’ve been lucky so far despite the tribulations and loss in my life, to experience long, really wonderful periods of incredible peace. Peace with myself, my past, my surroundings, so on.

So in a way, thinking about her and processing things subconsciously actually helps me find and hold on to the peace that so eluded her.

Peace is everything.