Mother's Day
What good is it without a mother to honor?
Please don't take that as a pitiful solicitation for platitudes... I hate those. I hate verbal pats on the back to buck you up. I really do. I love you guys, I'm not being bitter--just honest. So I'm just saying it plainly: please don't leave comments resembling "Hey, hang in there" or "You can still honor her memory" etc. At least not this time. Not for this post.
It really really sucks. I want my mom. I know she's in a better place, I know she doesn't hurt anymore. But I'm so lonely... I talked to my mom every day. I touched her every day. I don't touch anyone anymore... And it's lonely. It's empty. It's hollow. And it hurts. I know I mattered to my mom... I feel like I don't matter anymore...
I know I've done this to myself. I always have. I keep myself at a distance. I separate myself. It's not always intentional, it's just how I am. I've had very few close friends--I like it that way, because when I do have close friends, I invest so much of myself that there's so little left over for anything else. But there are times in my solitude when Satan takes hold and shoves it in my face... and I'm confronted with loneliness. See, solitude and loneliness are the exact same condition--just expressed from different perspectives. I enjoy being alone, but I don't enjoy being lonely, and right now I'm lonely.
Touch. It's so important. I worry that I'll smother Tate, somehow, in all this... since I'm so desperate for affection. Aside from Tate, I never touch anyone anymore... and aside from Tate, no one ever touches me... Except my dad, who offers up the occassional hug, but they're never real. They're "usual and customary". Insurance term... work lingo...
Work. There are a couple of people there that touch me occassionally, for varying reasons... Sam, the Hot, Flirty Guy in shipping will sometimes poke me in the back and tell me to earn my keep when he walks through my department, just being goofy (if any of you are veteran readers, you may remember me mentioning him, and my fear of his possible attraction to me--not to fear though: he's just a really nice, totally harmless guy). And Bill, my boss... he's kinda like a dad at work, sometimes. Well, at least I frustrate him like I do my dad. Sometimes he'll fondly shove me or poke me or something when I'm exasperating him... and now I find myself trying to exasperate him, in the hopes that he'll whack me on the head... just to feel human touch...
It's so trivial, but so vital... touch tells you you're there... it says you matter... it connects you...
Sometimes when I sneeze, no one says "bless you"... I catch little things like that. Lisa, another girl at work, sneezed on friday morning, and everyone within 50 feet shouted out "bless you"... an hour later, I sneezed, and no one noticed. Sometimes they do... but sometimes I just feel like that totally insignificant clerk in "What Women Want" with Mel Gibson. Would they really notice if I just disappeared?
I know it's pitiful, and weak, and totally unimportant... but I want to be cared about. Not cared for, or loved, or whatever... just cared about. No... that's not even it. Right now I just want to be touched. How pathetic is that? I just want to feel another human being. I just want someone's fingertip to touch my arm. I want to exist to someone. I want to connect. I just want to be touched...
Mom was the only one that ever remembered that I'm a mom too... so I have no one to honor, and no one ever honored me except Mom.
I'm taking Mother's Day off my calender.
-Jack-
