I’ve noticed I’m having a hard time getting motivated to do anything. I’m 100% sure the reason is because I’ve stupidly given myself permission to stop exercising and fasting, which in turn makes my body hurt and makes me gain weight, which in turn makes me not want to do anything. You know, the ouroboros of managing our mind-body connection. It’s cold and (soon to be) rainy and I just want to drink tea under blankets while watching true crime documentaries. And yet this doesn’t feel particularly good, either. Because I haven’t been exercising, so my mood isn’t great. And so it goes.
I sang a lot last weekend - four nights in a row - and did not enjoy any of it. I think the cloak of lack of self-consciousness that one needs to get on stage and perform has been worn thin for me for lack of use; I’m afraid I’ll forget lyrics of songs I haven’t sung or thought about in two years, none of my dresses fit, and just in general I’d rather be home in bed watching TV. Performing at an amusement park with long hours, long, cold walks from parking lots, and random people staring at you the whole time you’re singing (as in, rather than dancing, which is what I much prefer - playing for dancers), is just not my wheelhouse at all. Why am I complaining? I should be grateful gigs are back, right? It should be the best thing ever, right? And there’s much needed money. And yet. I got home late Sunday night and just thought to myself…I don’t want to do this anymore. I talked to a friend today who confessed to me that she, too, after a lifetime of performing, no longer has any interest. Leave it to the young people - the striving young girls with lithe bodies and an insatiable hunger to be somebody. That used to be me. But not anymore. I’ve always been somewhat meh about singing with a band - it’s always been just for a bit of a lark, and somehow managed to continue for twenty years. I am nowhere near up to the par of where musicianship is now. What do I do with all of this? I don’t know. I’ll suffer through the three remaining theme park gigs (two this weekend…ugh), happily take the checks, do our NYE gig, and then we have nothing at all booked for next year, so maybe just relax in the reality that my life will soon not be so regularly intruded upon. It’s terrible, I know. I shouldn’t feel this way. And yet I do.
My mother’s 80th birthday would have been on Sunday. It’s hard to imagine Earth 2 in which she’s still alive - maybe even somewhat healthy - and somehow not a negative presence in my life. So much of who I am now is a direct result of her being dead, or at least, dead to me. I never could have even begun to get a handle on my depression and anxiety were she still in my life, and 100% could not have had these kids. Did she die so that they could live? I do think of it that way sometimes, yes. And because she died (to me) and I was able to have these kids and have a nice family life and things to look forward to, I have the luxury of not going through the sort of soul-crushing soul-searching angst that used to permeate my holidays (as much as I loved them anyway) as I watched others make nice families and have things to look forward to while year after year I didn’t, which to this day is the worst of the many traumas I’ve suffered by far. By far.
And yet the rough edges of my mother angst wear off year by year, especially now that she’s truly gone. For the first time ever I’m going to have a picture of her in my house (I’ve asked my sister to frame a cute picture of my mother and aunt washing dishes for my kitchen, the same one she has in hers). When I think of her now, I rarely think of the bad things - I choose not to, I guess. But oh, it was so raw for so long. Many years. I couldn’t say her name, see her face, or her handwriting. I had to pretend she never existed, even though without her, neither would I. I can still conjure up a tear for her if I try. But that one year I decided to take Mother’s Day back from her, I started the process of taking everything back. She doesn’t get this Christmas, or this wedding, or these kids. I very intentionally built all this to have something that was just mine. And I have succeeded.
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