an entire year has flown by.

i've thought about writing and then not writing. or forgetting. or not wanting to delve too into my own mind over such a year.

it's strange to think about how much can happen in just a year. it looks like such a short amount of time on a calendar.

after the last post, my boyfriend moved in with me. before i knew it, we were engaged. and even sooner after that, we were married. just like that. a blink of an eye. and everything felt so perfectly timed. when i think about the year, it just comes as adjectives. amazing. whirlwind. romantic. happy. lucky. loved. different.

very different.

i'm still not sure how or why i get to live this life with the most perfect man. but i do, and he's mine, and i never have to give him up, until the good lord separates us. if anyone had told me that i would get to keep him, i would have held on even tighter convinced that something would happen to take him away. i'm still terrified he'll just go away. or get tired of me. or realize i'm really not his dream. i am so careful to lock away the part of me that deals with my mother... the side of me that sometimes just weeps, and aches in places that i can't describe properly. the side of me that makes me feel utterly alone, even if i'm physically not alone.

today was my birthday. i had to work, and he did everything right. he made me breakfast, and took me to lunch, and sent me flowers, and made me dinner. and i laid in his arms at bedtime, and just unraveled about my mother for a solid 30 minutes. he was sleepy, and saying the right things, and falling asleep, but i couldn't stand the restlessness. so now i'm up, and sitting here writing in the hopes it will get her out of mind and i'll sleep at some point. he's snoring in the other room, and i'm crying over my mother.

where do i even begin? this snow globe of bullshit swimming in my head right now is so frustrating, and familiar. and annoying. i thought i was past it.

i am jealous of other women in my life and their mothers.
i am jealous of his sister, and her relationship with her mother, and i tell myself that i'll never have that with her. that she doesn't want that with me.
i am jealous of my brother's wife, and her relationship with her mother.
i am jealous of all of them.

i will never have it. i will try to have children someday, and have to be alone in it. i will not have a mother to help me, like they all have. and i resent it. and i hate it. and it terrifies the shit out of me.

i've carefully created families within my friendships, and i latch onto my aunts and my cousins and my friends like they can fill this void. but they can't. they're a cheap replacement for something i will never regain, and i hate it.

i hate her for this. i hate her for not being strong enough. for not loving me enough to just stay on the fucking medication and do the hard work of living with mental illness. she chose paranoia and voices and mental immobilization over loving and caring for me, and i will never be able to forgive her.

and fuck it all, i miss her. more than a decade of this, and i still can't get over the simple fact that she's gone. and i won't replace her.

fuck. FUCK. i hate her for this. i hate me for being this upset over it, tonight of all nights.

i'm stronger than this, dammit.

The round sky goes on minding its business.

Your absence is inconspicuous;

Nobody can tell what I lack.

–Sylvia Plath, “Parliament Hill Fields”