your mother

whenever i drive past, i propel my thoughts a few steps ahead in a different direction to avoid turning into that intersection.

perhaps i have what is called "complex grief" which i read about recently where there is a mixture of pleasure and sorrow in thinking about things lost.

but this may be one of those tendencies to self-diagnose with everything one reads about.

for the first time in a very long time, i let my mind register its location. for a second, i hoped for a glimpse of a memory in the present. a car was waiting at the intersection and i could have looked away and stopped my mind. i could have and i didn't because i wanted to make sure it wasn't what i wanted. because getting what i want never leads to anything happy in retrospect.

but i squinted and saw something familiar. was it really you? no it wasn't you but i knew in that moment that i wasn't crazy delusional because it was your sweet mom. she called me one day, after, because she was unable to get a hold of you. she called me. in any other situation, i would have been more than pleased to have been the emergency contact, to be the one with answers. and all i could say was "i don't know". it felt horrible.

it was lost and i tried to leave it behind. i realized the other day that two of my birthdays were spent feeling bitterly about life and love. i probably wished for the same thing on both my cakes and i probably didn't get my wish. maybe life is trying to convince me that growing one year older means to be more realistic and cynical. but what if i want to stay optimistic?

i've come to a few realizations. i wasn't the perfect person then. in fact i would have been terrible. maybe i never will be perfect, or right, and that's okay. i'm learning. and there is a time and place for everything and it just wasn't the time, any of the times. for now, i can try to be better, but not for you or anybody in particular, but for myself and for the world.

dont you just love downer moods? =P happy me will be back next time.