It’s hard for me to feel as if there is not a disaster looming in my future. I don’t mean that in the sense of my wellbeing or life, I mean that in the sense of something happening that will leave many people feeling empty and distraught. I’m not sure if this is simply because of my increasingly nihilistic nature, or that there are now things that were not prevalent to me before. It is hard for me to feel any ounce of hope and ambition with these sentiments hanging over me.
I don’t know what I wish to convey with this writing. I think I’m searching for some semblance of catharsis, but I don’t know that this will bring any to me. For almost as long as I can remember I’ve bounced my knee when sitting, I’ve never really looked into it or asked a doctor, because it never really bothered me. But recently I’ve noticed myself doing it with more conviction, jumping my foot harder and faster than I used to. Part of me used to think that was something that I needed to get out of my body. Like there was something I was cooping up inside that needed to get out so bad that my knee would involuntarily bounce. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do with this writing, alleviate that need to bounce my knee. It’s not working.
In my current circumstance, a disaster is inevitable. My mom was diagnosed with a glioblastoma (aggressive brain cancer) in April. Nobody had any idea until she fainted one night and needed a CT scan for clearance to go home, but instead of clearance they found a mass. I had talked to her the night before it happened, but I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember the conversation. I don’t really remember a whole lot around that time, my mind fogged up very quickly. I remember talking to family about it, and I remember my dad calling me when they confirmed it was cancer, and I remember not having any reaction. It wasn’t that I didn’t care or have any feelings towards it, my mind just went. I knew in that moment what that meant for my mom, I knew that it meant disaster.
Those next few weeks felt like nothing. It felt like there was an empty space between my ears, like my feet weren’t hitting the pavement as I walked, like my eyes weren’t closed when I slept. Nothing felt like it was supposed to. Then one night as I drove home it all struck me like a bullet. I wept. It was the first time I had cried in many years. I had already accepted what was going to happen, but now I had allowed myself to actually think about it. I thought about my childhood with her. I thought about who I was in her eyes, and I wept at knowing that I could have done better, that I should have done better than I have. I don’t consider myself a sentimental individual, but there are times I will find myself reminiscing on things that have passed, and wishing they had gone differently.
I was given a spoiled and cushy life as a child, I recognize that, but I would never blame my mom for trying to give me a good life, even if at times she made it far more difficult and traumatizing. I was given love and care and freedoms, and with it I chose to fail. I chose to spit it back in her face and do what I wanted and what made me comfortable or happy. It never really worked the way I wanted it to. I found myself in a deep depression that has only dug itself further and further down. Catalyzed by my desire for isolation and my lack of care for most things that mattered. I treated people like shit for seemingly no reason, I said horrible things to people because I thought it was funny, I would berate people online and avoid them in person. I was by all regards a fucking asshole. I was a pathetic shell of a man, but I got there all by myself.
I think if my mom had any indication of the person that I was at that time she would have been horrified. The idea that her son could behave in such a way and treat people in such a way. I hate to think that she would feel guilty for any part of it. I hate for her to think that I was who I was because of how she raised me. I wasn’t. That’s what made me weep. The idea that I was a representation of her, and I have done nothing short of a terrible job. I’ve never really cared about the idea of a legacy, I really don’t care how I am remembered or what part of me will live on after my death, but I am her legacy, and for how much I have failed in the past, I cannot fail this.
It’s a really weird feeling hearing a loved one has brain cancer. My mom had been diagnosed with cancer seven years ago. Some rare form that was typically found near the lungs which had manifested itself behind her ear. It wasn’t very threatening, or so that’s how it seemed. She spent months in Houston getting the best treatment she could find until eventually she was completely free of it. She’s a very tough person, my mom. Toughest person I know. But when you get diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor, that feeling and resiliency fades quickly. I don’t mean to say any of this to take away from my mom’s struggle, she has been strong through it all, and I know she will continue to be strong, but the feeling of hopelessness is impossible to escape. I don’t want to come across as a pessimistic person, or as someone who is filled with doom, but it’s hard not to fall under a blanket of sorrow. It turns itself into a prolonged grief with an inevitable end, but you have no idea when. I’ve been grieving somebody who is still here, who still lives down the block from me, but I don’t know what the fuck else I’m supposed to do. My mind has been pulled each and every way as I try to centralize my thoughts and understand what I’m feeling, but there’s too much despair and fear in there to truly get a grip on any of it.
I had wanted to expand this idea of disaster and hopelessness to a general feeling of the world and our current circumstances, but I’m not sure that I have it in me to discuss that eloquently right now. Perhaps I’ll delve into that at a later date, but for now I think I would like this post to be reserved for my mother.
Grub's Dirt 