the end of this blog is the beginning.
and i am learning each day that there is no end.
blame is a slippery thing. i blame nicotine. mom blamed herself and her "distaste for doctors in anything other than a social setting." cancer is incredibly beatable. some is preventable. some is not.
hedge your bets.
if you smoke...try to quit. it's really hard. the tobacco industry has designed it that way. wear sunscreen. eat vegetables. see your doctor. mom quit smoking over seventeen years ago. early detection saves lives. it could have saved mummy.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

intervention

yesterday, two of the account directors at work staged a mini intervention.

they called me into a room and told me that they had been hearing, from quite a few people, that i was being quite a b*tch. they said this to me in a way that was both compassionate and constructive and i truly appreciated it. i do work at a remarkable place with remarkable people.

of course, i started to cry. if i'm feeling attacked i can remain cool as a cucumber, but if anyone is the least bit compassionate, i come undone. it is what it is. i am currently a thinly skinned bundle of raw nerves.


i had to agree with them. i'm usually the one who is saying "be kind to each other," but lately, if someone comes to me with something that is the least bit sideways, i have snapped at them. and we have launched an agency and a brand in the past 16 weeks so most things have been understandably sideways.

and i knew i was doing it, when i was doing it, but i was unable to stop myself.

i was embarrassed that it had gotten so bad that they felt they had to say something, touched by the way they said it, and relieved that i was honestly able to look both of them in the eyes and say that i had figured that out a few weeks ago and had already started working very hard to get back to the way i used to be.

no one has ever been harder on me than me.

for the past week and a half i truly have been much better and i have been working very hard at that. i feel better. i am hopeful, again.

i had one of those mothers that made me feel like i was truly something special. but this experience has taught me that i can be both unique and common at the same time.

i am a textbook case.



and there is a part inside of me that is really disappointed that i have not been able to rise above this. but there is a larger part that finds comfort in the fact that i am not going crazy. i am just grieving. and this is just part of the human experience. the fact that you can find my behavior on chapter 2, page 95 is somehow comforting to me. (this blog...chapter 2, page 65.)

i've been crying on my way into the office and crying on my way home. i am nothing, if not efficient. i am crying a little less often now. in the beginning, it is actually hard to let go of the pain because the freshness of it keeps you strangely connected to the one that you lost. it's as if the raw pain keeps you attached to the death which keeps you attached to the life that was on the other side of that.

but as i've been letting go of that a little bit, and allowed myself to drift away from her death, i have actually been able to see more of her life more clearly.

i am learning so much right now. and much of it i am learning the hard way.