Monday, October 8

The Year of Magical Thinking

I've been avoiding reading this- and I kind of know why. I looked at it on a table for a couple of months, and then put it on the bookshelf, I'd scan over it as I was looking for my next book to read (I've been flying through them) and not even register it, well actually I would register it but just ignore the registering of it so as not to allow myself to read it.
Today I finally picked it up, because I couldn't find the book I was going to grab to start reading and needed to head out the door.
When I got on the train I had to stand for a couple of stops and usually I'd take my book out anyway, but I didn't. I just let it sit there staring at me from my tote bag. When I got to sit I pulled the book out instinctively and just started reading. I had to stop putting it off, I needed to read this book for many reasons. So I dove in. And it was good, I was really into the story she was beginning to tell, I was finding inspiration to dive back in to my memoir writing, I was enjoying her style and seeing pieces I could work on in my own. Then I got to a part that really touched me, a part I could connect with, see myself doing, see Mom doing and I felt her pain and my own. But luckily it was my stop, so I had to close the book anyway and put it back, and the tears stayed back too.
And that is why I've been avoiding it, I think. But does it hint to something else? Some piece of processing I haven't done, or haven't allowed myself to do. Is it because I know I'm open to this but not wanting to feel the open wound that still exists? A large part of me has remained the "strong person" or the "rock" through much of this experience and maybe the rock mentality hasn't allowed me to do some piece of the processing that still exists, maybe reading this book is going to propel me in to that and I know it and I have to do it, but I've been avoiding it because I have to do it.
When I first started writing what I was experiencing after Dad died a family friend wrote me an email, having read the blog, and admitted that because of my Mom being the widow and the difficulty Sammy experienced processing and coping she had "forgotten" that I had lost my Dad, that I was another person in this mix of who is left, who has lost and who needs comfort and guidance in the process too.
I think I've always felt that too and just let it be the way it is, the way we are now. They needed something more than me, in my mind, but maybe that's not true, maybe I need just as much and now that I'm opening myself up a bit more to it, I can receive it, and it is hard for me to admit that, hard for me to not feel selfish and needy. But, I did lose my Dad. But, I want to be there, I want to be the rock. But, I'm still sad and coping and figuring this out too.
I think that's the real reason I've avoided picking this up for so long. But now I'm in, maybe only a couple of pages in, but I'm in and I'm going to take what comes with it. I need it, it's my time.

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