One more overnight. That’s one of the things I’ve wished for since my mom died. Along with another visit, another afternoon, more of the ordinary time that didn’t announce itself as something I would eventually want back.
There were always things competing for that time. Work, my own health, everything else that needed doing. I could explain why a day was full because it was full. I still find myself looking back at those days and wishing I’d taken a little more of them for her.
My mom died on Christmas Eve. I’ve tried to write about what that changed, and I keep finding that the answer reaches beyond missing her. It has changed the way I hear myself say “later.” The word used to feel like a place where I could put things safely until I was ready for them.
I’ve put a lot there. Writing. Taking better care of myself. Ideas I cared about but didn’t quite begin. I’ve returned to this blog more than once, thought about how it should work, and imagined the version of me who would keep up with it properly. She has energy. She knows what she wants to say. She seems to have a more cooperative calendar.
Meanwhile, I’m here, with multiple sclerosis, responsibilities, grief, and a head full of things I’d like to do. I can spend so much time thinking about that future version of myself that I overlook the one who keeps showing up with something to say now.
Losing my mom has made that harder to ignore. I wanted more time with her, and I can’t arrange it. I can’t move a visit into next week or decide that this is finally the season when things will settle down enough. There are things the calendar no longer gets a say in.
I don’t want to turn that into another reason to judge myself. Grief already has enough places to go looking. I loved my mom, and I was living a real life with real limits. Both of those things are true. But I also want to listen to what that longing has shown me about how often I postpone what matters.
I keep thinking about the difference between having time and taking it. I’m good at recognizing the first as a problem. The second asks something more uncomfortable of me. It asks me to choose while other things still need doing, while I’m still tired sometimes, while I’m still unsure whether the words are any good.
So I’m returning to this journal with the life I have. I miss my mom. I’m still figuring things out. There are stories I can tell now, even if I never become the woman who has everything organized before she starts.
Maybe this is the version that writes. Maybe the life I’ve been waiting to begin has been here all along.