discombobulated

when emailing with a dear friend about how i'm feeling right now (crappy) she wrote: "her (my mum's) visits really are adouble-edged sword for you, aren't they?"

and oh yes they are.

i love my mum so very much. i can't really express it, it's like the best friend you've ever had, and she happens to have known you since birth and knows all the family history and you can gossip about it, but also understand where neuroses might be coming from.

but here's the catch. she's going to leave at some point. no visit is ever long enough. because no visit is just moving here.

i don't know how to describe this, but there is an element of numbness that can come from being away. that is to say, although i miss my mum when she is not here, i do get accoustomed to it. the pain isn't accute, there isn't the feeling of a gaping void, somehow you learn to almost ignore that she isn't there. i guess it's kind of like going into a really cold lake, at first it hurts like a sonofabitch because the cold is like little needles stabbing into your very being, but after awhile you become aclimatized, or numb, but the point is you can stay in the water quite effectively, even if it isn't ideal. but if you get out and warm up a bit then try and go back in the pain is every bit as accute as it was the first time and you have to get used to it all over again.

that's what a visit with my mum is like for me.

when she leaves it is heart wrenching.

and before she leaves, the time leading up to her leaving, i can't help but anticipate the leaving.

last night i curled up in bed and cried to myself because i knew i only had a few more days with her (bugger, and now i'm crying as i type, bleh). then i chided myself for being such a big baby. seriously, who would have thought a grown woman would cry at the fact her mum was going home. you'd think i was being left at daycare for the first time. okay, maybe daycare isn't fare, but maybe going away to camp for the first time. i feel like some silly little kid.

but the truth is i can't help it.

and i know that i shouldn't think about it before she leaves. i know that i should enjoy my time with her. i know that i need to live in the moment. but for some reason, on this particular topic, the glass is always half empty, even though in my life i am very much a glass is half full type of gal.

there are times that i have thought to myself that maybe it would be easier to just not see her. i of course would never seriously consider that, i couldn't imagine not seeing her. but there are times when the thoughts that go through my head include things like "is the pain of her leaving worth the joy of her coming?" every time she leaves i am thrust back into the icy water and have to give my body and soul time to adjust, time to stop hurting, time to be functional.

of course it is worth it. i just need to find a way mitigate the pain.