Back on the Horse

I spent the weekend in my apartment this weekend. The first time I spent a night there in over two and a half months. I went back not really because I wanted to, but rather because I felt I should. Another attempt at getting back into the full swing of life met with moderate success.

Friday night I caught up with an old friend for dinner. It was nice to catch up. I had not talked to him since my mom’s funeral. It is strange, he is one of the few people who will ask how I am doing and actually mean it. It doesn’t seem to bother him for me to talk about my mom. Others are too uncomfortable with it. They won’t ask, they can’t ask, they don’t ask. But, he does. Afterwards while driving home I was overcome with this enormous sense of loss. I just started to cry and could not stop. Everything just seemed so pointless. Hard to explain, but it really felt like nothing really mattered anymore. I just wanted to get back to the apartment and sleep.

My roommate had a friend visiting for the weekend. I met her on Saturday. She was quite a bit of fun and the morning and early afternoon was spent talking and laughing. Laughing a lot. She has a quick wit, which I enjoy. After they left for sightseeing, I spent the majority of the day unpacking boxes of my mom’s belongings. I came across a box of old videotapes. One of the tapes was of my sister’s wedding. Nine years ago. I was curious and put in the tape and started to watch it. I saw my mom. I started to cry. There she was…walking, talking, laughing. Memories of the day of my sister’s wedding came flooding back. I just kept crying. After the wedding the footage was of the reception. After a little bit it showed my mom and I dancing together. I could not believe it. I am so thrilled to have it, but it is still too raw. Catch 22 once again. I had to stop the tape I was crying too much. I was nearing a breakdown. I at least had enough wits about me to stop the tape before I had a complete and total meltdown. Someday I will watch the rest of the tape. After that, I just went to bed. I did not even want to be conscious anymore. That night I had dreams that my mom was still alive. That it had all been a mistake. I am sure that the dreams were brought on by the discovery of the tape. It was a rather long night.

Sunday I did nothing but unpack more boxes and lay on my bed.

There it was…my first weekend back at my apartment. Baby steps.

I just kept feeling a sense of aimlessness all weekend. I felt like I should be somewhere else, doing something else…even though I had no where to really be or anything else to do. I was beyond antsy. It didn’t feel right. I think that it is because that pretty much the past year and half has been so concentrated on my mom that I have trouble getting back to my life. She was the focus and now she is gone. I don’t really know how to go about living for me again. I don’t know how to do shift the focus back to me and my goals and my dreams. I start to panic when I think about August coming around and the play being done. What then? What next? What? What? What?

Death of a loved one changes people. It truly does. I am not a completely different person, but there have been some drastic changes. People may not notice, but I do. Changes in my thoughts and thinking. Changes in my personality. Changes in my outlook and perspective. I look the same on the outside, but on the inside I am different. One of the worse changes is my lack of patience with people. Not that I was a terribly patient person to begin with…but it is much worse now. I look at some people and the only conclusion I come to is that they truly are a test from God. Often times, I fail the test. Crash and burn.

Strange event of the day.

After play practice I was driving my friend home that I had picked up for practice. After I drop him off at his place I was heading to my sisters and I turned up the radio. The song that was being played I was unfamiliar with…as in never heard before in my life, so I decided to wait and see if the next song would be any good. I started to think about my mom and was getting angry once again that she died and was only 51. I started to debate in my mind the eternal battle of “is this all a grand plan” or “is it truly just a series of random events”. All of a sudden the next song starts and I recognize it immediately. It is Testify to Love. So I immediately look down and realize that my radio is on the Christian music station Spirit 92.9. Now I have nothing against Christian music or anything, I just hardly listen to it…ever. Apparently I must have had the radio on scan on my way to practice and when I shut it off it stopped on this station. I had not changed stations at all on the way home, but had it turned down…which is why I never noticed what it was on. Strange thing…Testify to Love was the song used as the finale at my mom’s benefit in April 2004 and was also used at her funeral this April 2005. So I start thinking that this is really odd. As soon as the song ends, the next one begins. It is “I Can Only Imagine” which was also sung at my mom’s funeral. I had never heard the song until I was picking out music for the funeral with Terri and she asked if I was familiar with it. She played it for me, the lyrics and music were great and I decided to include it in the funeral.

It was very strange how thing worked out for me to hear those two songs at the very moment. Had Bob not been riding with me tonight, I would have never waited so long to turn up the radio. I would have probably been listening to a tape. Had we not finished rehearsal early we would not have been to his house so early and I would not have turned up the radio until after they had been played. It was weird that those two specific songs were played back to back and they both have very specific meanings to me. There were 10 songs played at my mom’s funeral. Angel, Scarbourgh Fair, Any Dream Will Do, Testify to Love, I Can Only Imagine, Into the West, Thy Word, Song of Farewell, Agnus Dei, and City of God. Tonight in a span of 7 minutes, I heard two of them…back to back after I started thinking about her while driving down Highway 15 as I was passing the cancer center.

A sign? Not a sign? It really doesn’t matter. The truth is…it made me remember her in a loving way and I did find comfort…if only for a moment.

You have to admit though…regardless of what you believe in this world. It does take an awful lot of things happening just right to be in the right place at the right time to have something like this happen. Had anything been different…driving alone, practice not getting out early, the radio not on scan hours before, a different route home…anything been different, I would have missed it. True story.