They say it's your birthday...

Hi –

55 minutes left of my birthday. The first, ‘day of my birth’ that you missed. To be followed by many more.

I woke up thinking I would like nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep, not getting out of bed all day. However, the DMV called my name. After that slightly painful experience where I signed up to be an Organ Donor, the rest of the day was pretty good. People at work made a big to-do, which was really nice and totally unexpected. I really like working there; it really is a little family going on. Kahni made a delicious dinner. Then Carly, Meridith, and I watched a few more US of Tara episodes. All in all a pretty ok day. Minus that whole you not being around to celebrate it thing. Minor detail though.

It was still weird. Dad was here so that was nice, but the day did feel a bit more empty than other days. I guess that could be because the whole you actually gave me life, and not being here to share that gift is stupid thing, but that could also just be me hypothesizing. Who knows.

In related birthday news Khloe Kardashian, the youngest of the sisters, shares my same birthday and also turned 27 today. I find that fact to be incredibly weird. She looks like she could be 35 and I look closer to 21 than I do 27. I also don’t have a reality TV show, much to my disappointment, nor do I tan every day, or have a black basketball player husband. All of which I’m sure make her look older. Just another one of my awesomely random facts.

Another thing I learned today – Dolphins sleep with one eye open. Who knew!!

I’m going to go to sleep now.  It’s been a really long weekend, followed by a fairly long Monday.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

Anticipation is our greatest enemy

Hi –

Lately when I’m going about my business and you pop into my head, it’s always this one particular image I see. It’s you with your head turned just enough to the side so that the light catches your cheeks and I can catch a glimpse of all the peach fuzz you had. I always thought it was so cute. You probably hated it. I’ll never know if you grew up with all of that, or it was a later in life thing. 

It’s that image that I’m going to take with me now as I go to sleep because I'm EXHUASTED. I some how managed to pack more into this day than I thought was even possible for a Sunday. The day started around 9 when we did birthday cake in bed, than had a full-scale brunch operation in the kitchen that included blueberry pancakes, eggs, and fruit salad. Around noon Meridith and I dragged Dad and Stephen over to Home Depot to pick up our carpet remnant we purchased the day before. After the 12-foot carpet made its way back to our apartment and found its home in our living room, we headed to Best Buy to get some birthday presents for moi.  At 2 we met up with everyone for 2 games of bowling and some laughs. We had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack where I managed to meticulously eat an entire Crab Daddy Feast, BBQ style. The day was finished with me watching over Daddy as he put my awesome new knobs on my IKEA dresser, thank you Hobby Lobby. Seriously an insane day.

Tomorrow I shall wake up at the ass crack of dawn to go hang out at the DMV, lucky me I know. Nothing says Happy Birthday like renewing your driver’s license.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

Happy almost birthday to me...

Hi –

Tomorrow starts the birthday festivities for my golden birthday. On Monday I will be 27 on the 27^th. Go me I guess.

Wish we could revel in it together.

Did you celebrate your golden? Turning 29 on the 29^th?

Headed to bed now because at around 9am all the Millers, Heads, Marrero’s, and one Robert Rosenthal will be barging into my room for my ‘birthday cake in bed celebration.’ They are rather fun. Although I’m definitely a little excited / scared about the whole thing. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

“…All eyes on the calendar

Another year I claim of total indifference…”

Some things never change…

Hi –

Every day in NYC I would walk home from work and when I would get to the intersection of 50th and 7^th avenue I would get this pit in my stomach.  I would bob and weave around tourists to walk closer to the street and make it past the corner faster, all the while listening to my iPod. Always with the thought that on a different day in a different time I would have been talking to you.

Now every day I get in my car after work, tired, and wanting nothing more than to collapse on my couch but knowing I have a 30 minute drive ahead, I pull it together and start the car. As I turn out of my office parking lot I’m always overwhelmed with the need to talk to you on the phone. Not because I have anything worthwhile to say, but because no matter what I had to say you would have listened, and cared. Or done a really good job pretending. Instead I take a deep breath and turn the radio louder to drown out the thoughts in my head. Sometimes it works, and sometimes nothing works.

There might have been a part of me that thought if I changed the routines, if I changed the desk I sat at everyday and talked to you, if I changed the bed I sat on and talked to you, if I changed the commute home, if I changed the home then part of me might change too.

Oh, how wrong was I.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

Side by Side...

Hi –

I had a very good, incredibly uneventful, nice and relaxing weekend. Pretty remarkable if I do say so myself.

Meridith and I have discovered the Showtime series ‘Shameless’ and it’s amazing. We spent quite a bit of time watching that back to back over the weekend. I need to do some research to see if they were picked up for a second season and when its starting, because we are 2 episodes from being done with the first season and then we will have no more ‘Shameless’, and that is just unacceptable.

Today Kahni, Meridith, and I went to the movie theater to watch the musical ‘The Company’.  It was a special performance for Steven Sondheim’s birthday with an amazing cast that was backed by the New York Philharmonic. It was a Fathom Event, which is this company that takes events that people don’t have easy access too – IE special performances, concerts, etc – and play them in movie theaters. I think it’s really awesome, and very nice of them.

The show was incredible. I loved every minute of it. Patti Lupone was in it singing her pipes off, Martha Plimpton was there, Steven Colbert, Christina Hendricks, and the fabulous Neil Patrick Harris – to name a few. There was a poignant moment in the show when one of the women is explaining why she’s leaving NYC and she says, ‘I think there is a time to come to New York, and a time to leave.” She couldn’t be more right.

I think I left at just the right time. I definitely miss things about it. It’s an amazing city that constantly has things going on, and every day you could do something completely different and never repeat yourself twice. I think though that there might be a few people out there who had expectations about my moving that I’m not necessarily living up to. Oh well. I can only do what I can do. Right now, I’m working on me. Making me ok. That should be enough for everyone.

And on that note, I'm going to crawl into bed and watch some Bones. I should be able to catch up by the Season Premiere this year.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

“Another hundred people just got off of the train

And came up through the ground,

While another hundred people just got off of the bus

And are looking around

At another hundred people who got off of the plane

And are looking at us

Who got off of the train

And the plane and the bus

Maybe yesterday.

It's a city of strangers,

Some come to work, some to play.

A city of strangers,

Some come to stare, some to stay.

And every day

The ones who stay

Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,

By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,

And they walk together past upholstered walls with the crude remarks.

And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never

know.

Another hundred people just got off of the train.”

Obladi Oblada

Hi –

I was perusing the stats for the blog that Blogger keeps track of, and someone in Brunei has read my blog. I have no idea where that is, what so ever. But yay. Go Brunei!

I’ve noticed that since moving down to Orlando, I’m not writing nearly as much as I was. I can’t really pin point the reason for that. A huge part of it is lack of time. If you can believe it the amount of time that I spend hanging out in my room watching TV and doing nothing else has decreased ten fold. Outside of going to work to see Ila and Elissa, hanging out by myself in my apartment was one of my favorite things to do. Now, not so much. I enjoy it don’t get me wrong. But I really look forward to seeing everyone here and being able to hang out with them. Which does result in less blogging time. Sorry about that, you get the brunt of that trade off.

I was talking to someone the other day and explaining how one of the coping defenses I have been using since day 1, besides humor of course, was complete abrasiveness and bluntness. Shocker I know. But being the young person with the dead mom is incredibly stigmatizing, so sometime in the beginning, really unconsciously I might add, I decided that I would be the one who always made it known. I would bring it up in casual conversation, get it out, shrug it off, and then it wouldn’t be a ‘thing’ anymore. Sort of a wham bam, thank you ma’am attitude. I’m not 100% sure how its working out, but I feel OK about it.

There really is no right way to respond when someone gives you that look after they find out, and everyone always has the same reaction, it’s really interesting. A study waiting to happen I’m sure. Without fail the way it goes does is this – at first its like they didn’t hear you and they move on with the conversation, then they stop mid-word when it occurs to them. They take a breath, sometimes cock their head to the side the way a dog does, and then say ‘I’m sorry.’ And honestly, what is my response to that supposed to be? I usually go with ‘It’s OK, I’m OK. It is, what it is,’ and try to keep the conversation moving. But I think the fact that I appear so OK makes it even more awkward. The whole thing is just awkward.

I was wearing your perfume yesterday, and someone was able to recognize it and complement me on it. It was pretty awesome. She said I smelled warm. Which is how I would have described it when you wore it. Like mother, like daughter.

I’m going to call it an early Friday night, and head to bed now.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

“…I won't let you close enough to hurt me…”

Everyone loves a good misguided hope and dream...

Hi –

Here are some misguided hopes and dreams I have…

1.   You here now, and the last 8 months or so was in fact a bad dream, a really bad dream

2.   He would be more interested

3.   Karma actually made sense

4.   I would be a happy billionaire, who still worked, and was a decent person

5.   Everyone I love in life would live close to each other in a beautiful location where there were seasons and the weather was awesome all the time.

That’s what I have for now. I could go on, but the list just gets even more misguided if you can believe that.

I’m off for a day filled with nothing to do, and I’m beyond excited about it. Wish me luck that it doesn’t become something else and I end up at Ikea or something accidently.

Love you forever, Miss you always.

Rachel

Bitch please....

Hi

So I'm about to sound like a complete and total bitch but here in the dark of my living room watching Sugarland on the CMT Music Awards is how I feel....

I have to say I get a little annoyed and resentful when people tell me how worried they were for Daddy when everything first happened. And how they are really glad to see how well hes doing. I mean, yes in the beginning i was worried too and it was my main thought for a while. That was probably why I stayed home for as long as i did in the beginning.

But now, almost a year later, i have to say hes doing fine. and he will continue to do fine. Yes he lost who I'm sure was the love of his life, and who he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. but ya know he will adjust, I'm sure he already has a bit. and hopefully one day he will find someone and fall in love with them. and make new dreams for the rest of his life.

Me on the other hand, i''m not getting another mother. I'm not going to accidentally bump into one on the street. Does that make sense? Yes he suffered a great loss, but sometimes i feel that people don't see the loss I'm suffering. Does that make sense?

I guess its partly my own fault because in the beginning i was so focused on dad, that i pushed everyone else's focus there too. but even now, i feel like people don't see it or understand it really. I've tried to articulate it to Meridith, and when I'm explaining it to her i think she gets it. But right now, I'm not sure I'm doing the best job. And its not like i want everyone to start focusing on it and asking me about it. It's just more something i want people to be aware of i guess. That I'm no where near moved on, and i probably never will be. Losing your mother is not something you move on from.

Anyway - I'm going to go drink some funky tasting water from my faucet, and watch the rest of these award shows. Where what you win is a belt buckle. Classy CMT, classy.

Love you forever, miss you always.

Rachel

"It's empty in the valley of your heart

The sun, it rises slowly as you walk

Away from all the fears

And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat

You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see

But I have seen the same

I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope

And I won't let you choke

On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain

And I will change my ways

I'll know my name as it's called again

Cause I have other things to fill my time

You take what is yours and I'll take mine

Now let me at the truth

Which will refresh my broken mind

So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults

And despite my growing fears

But I will hold on hope

And I won't let you choke

On the noose around your neck"

Best buddies, best buddies, best buddies and me.....

Hi –

Sorry to drop that bomb and run. Its really hard to explain and articulate properly but I haven’t been this busy in a really really long time. I’m literally going from one thing to another.  Now its 10pm and I’m waiting to put my laundry in the dryer so I can go to sleep, and wake up with it being dry. Riveting.

So yeah – anger. Here it is in all its glory rearing its ugly head. I have zero patience for pretty much everything, and could blow at any moment. It also doesn’t help that its 95 degrees outside which only fuels my bad mood. You know how I loathe being hot.

I’m pretty pissed about the whole situation, because it’s really stupid. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. How I’m supposed to live out the rest of my life without you there beside me is pretty retarded. And I know I have said all this before, but it was with more of a sense of wonder. Now it’s with pure anger. And the thing that I think that’s hard for people to understand is that I have no desire to talk about it. It’s just there, inside of me, hanging out. I don’t want to share it, or open myself up about it so that others can understand. The way I see it is - this is a truth about my life. And I’m pissed about it. No explanation is needed.

I also find it really hard to sit and talk to people about it because there is no way for me to even come remotely close to explaining how I feel, or how this is such a profound loss for me, so I don’t really even want to try. I know you can’t compare loss, but everyone does. There is no way to even put my loss next to anyone else’s, nor should we really. Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly selfish I do feel as if mine is worse than everyone else’s’ and then I feel bad about thinking that, and then I get more angry. I get angry because I thought it, and then I get angry because I feel bad for thinking about it, and then I get angry because whatever you were my mom I’m allowed to feel however I want, and so its just all this anger. Pretty awesome huh?

So yeah – me and anger. Best buddies.

Love you forever, miss you always.

Rachel