The question...

In the last few days I have had some of my friends as me the question... how are you doing.... they are not asking me how my day is going ... they want to know how I am doing with having lost my mom.... It's a hard question... because I don't know what normal is... or how I would be acting if I was doing really well or really poorly... I just know how I am doing... and for the most part I think I am doing okay...

I still get sad... think I always will... and I still get mad... also think that will always be there... but I am sleeping, well as long as I exercise hard during the day I sleep, I am not pulling away from people...and I am not over thinking things... for the most part...I find myself worrying about my Dad... thinking about how much his life has changed... and get sad for him, for his loneliness...and I do get sad for me too, for what parts of my life my mom won't be a part of... but it's not all consuming like it was...

There have been some things that have happened that I have noticed myself reacting a lot more strongly than I normally would...and I think it's related to grieving... for example I pumped gas the other day and the machine was out of receipt paper...and the guy working there didn't know how to replace it... so called a manager... who also didn't know how to replace it... and after figuring out how to feed the paper through, couldn't figure out how to get my receipt... and gave me a had written receipt, not even on paper that had the company logo on it... and I was a total bitch to these guys... lectured them on how ridiculous it was that neither of them knew how to replace the paper, how unsafe it is given our society's rampancy of identity theft and fraud... that it was important to get a receipt... I took it to the next level and called the national headquarters of this company and complained to them too.... Am I really that passionate about not getting a receipt? Is it THAT big of a deal? No... Afterwards I was pretty upset that I had let myself get so angry and was so aggressive with the inadequately trained men... that I shed a few tears....which made me more angry... so in my analytical way ... I thought about it... and what it comes down to is that this situation should have been just a problem that had a simple solution... and because there was no solution I was pissed... Mom's situation was a problem that had no solution... and even when the doctors tried to find a solution, they failed... and that sucked... So I think that not having a solution to a reasonable problem pushed a button and I took out my anger on these guys...

So... I think that my emotions will manifest themselves in many ways... and I need to be aware of that... and ask myself if I am really that intense about something or if it is grief manifesting itself.... just what I need... something else to think about and analyze...

So the answer to the question is.... losing my mom has sucked... but given that there was nothing anyone could do to change that... I think that I am coping okay... and my friends who work in the mental health field, have told me that from their clinical perspective I am handling things well... for the most part I am... but I am also good at shaping how people see me... but I am trying, these days, to be more transparent... it takes too much energy to be otherwise...