I’m just gonna talk about my actual life, so if that offends you please skip this blog.

Saturday was Grandma’s funeral. It was… Taxing. I got some closure, although it doesn’t feel like I can ever truly accept that she’s gone. The idea of living another however may years without her in my life isn’t very appealing. I said this on twitter, but since most people have abandoned that platform I may as well repeat it here. Grandma called me Special Angel my entire life. I’ve heard it hundreds of thousands of times & she meant it EVERY time. To my ear those words are what love sounds like. It’s so childish but knowing I’ll never hear it again, the way she said it, fills me with despair.
I have a feeling that without her our extended family will drift apart now. With no central location to come back to everything will change. Of course things have changed over the years as we’ve lost family members and gained them. Maybe the new version of life will be tolerable. I’ve dreaded this point in my life for almost as long as I can remember. I’m the kind of person who gets obsessed with future calamities & now I’ve lived though one of the ones I’ve been haunted by.
We’ve had the last Christmas & Thanksgiving at Grandma’s I expect. None of us knew it for sure, but I’m sure most of us suspected as much. In my family those holidays were almost ridiculously important. My great grandmother didn’t have happy Christmases so she overcompensated with her kids and passed that pageantry down to through them. Those traditions have been slowly deteriorating over time, especially after I had several years of ill health and whatnot that damaged me in so many ways, plus the deteriorating health of my grandparents generally.
There’s just a lot of little weird things that you never think about until they are taken away. Like stopping in at Grandma’s on the way to or from someplace. I can hardly fathom that never being a thing anymore. I haven’t let myself think about it because I truly experience profound grief when I do. I’ve tied to train myself not to bask in sorrow because I was addicted to it growing up, but some of this has to be experienced because it can’t be ignored. I’m standing on the edge of a level of depression I haven’t been in danger of in a very long time. One wrong move and I could slip into it and never return.
I’ll have to look after Grandpa for a week at least. After that maybe off and on until fuck knows when. Grandma’s deaf blind dog who screamed when she couldn’t be near her was put down & put in the coffin with her, so I don’t have to look after her. She’s Grandma’s eternal problem now. Although I expect Grandma would see that as a blessing if, in fact, all dogs go to heaven. It’s certainly a better fate than wandering around crying all the time because your person is gone forever.
I’m going to see if I can just keep things going like normal. If I can’t then I’ll see if I can find some kind of filler story to keep things going until everything settles into whatever the new normal will be. If you have any suggestions for topics feel free to comment about them. I’ve finally experienced enough turmoil that I’m legitimately creatively impaired now.
I know some of you will say I can take a break if I need to, but I really can’t. Without me this whole circus burns to the ground. So either I work, or I lose everything. Just like anyone else in the world. There is a hard limit on how much charity the general public is willing to tolerate & I don’t intend to press my luck if I don’t have to.
I’ll go on in hopes of helping others through my work, maybe making Grandma proud posthumously. Just trying to do my best in the times between.

Posts authored by Jackie

2394 Sleeping With Her.