How to Feel Rushed and Pressured When You Have Plenty of Time

When attempting to write about my life thus far, there are three events that seem impossible to put into words:

-The first time a friend betrayed me.

-My mother’s funeral.

-What I am going through right now.

If pressed, these are situations that I would talk about; often in a hushed, clipped tone with no small degree of pain in my voice. The first is becoming a distant memory that can still elicit a painful response if brought up in the wrong context. The third is still so fresh and unresolved; it is so fresh a wound that the scab has just now begun to form and picking at it is a bad idea. Any attempts to write about the present are clumsy, unfocused, and whiny.

Oddly enough, it is the middle problem that is causing me the most grief now. It is a memory old enough for me to be able to start writing about it, but still fresh enough to be crippling the longer I think about it.

Since being handed down the edict from my therapist about writing for five hours a day, four days a week, I have managed to do one better and not skip a day yet. In fact, the draft of this was written on the train while going to work and I worked on several more pieces while on my hour long break.

One of the things I have to do more than anything else is to challenge myself, and to some extent I have been succeeding. My movie blogs have been doing a fairly good job of keeping my critical thinking skills sharp. I have also taken to writing things purely for myself that I have no immediate intention to show them to anyone. Regardless of if it is a blog entry or diary entry, once I feel like I have said all that needs to be said on the subject at hand, I tend to leave it alone. After a very quick proofread, I’m mostly satisfied with completing the task, or as some people in the service industry like to say, “Gettin’ ‘r done.” The satisfaction of crafting something I am proud of is enough to get me to sleep at night. Well, that and the soothing sounds of CBC Overnight.

I decided that when I was going to write concurrent blogs, I would use it as a chance to further illustrate things I didn’t get to write about in my memoirs. Some of the things I will write about are just tangential anecdotes that didn’t fit that didn’t fit the narrative flow of the book, like the suddenly relevant Eric and Sunny story. Other incidents, such as helping my parents move, have either been reduced from its original format or extended from the brief passing mention they would have gotten.

My mother’s funeral is something that both didn’t entirely fit in long form and something that I desperately wanted to expand on because when I wrote the book I completely copped out when it came time to write about it.

I described in vivid detail the weeks leading up to her death. I described almost every moment of her battle with cancer and doted lovingly on the relationship I was in at the time that was keeping me strong. I still recall with a near perfect eye for detail the day she died and waking up on the morning of the funeral. I remember every incoming and outgoing phone call; every arrangement made and every condolence offered.

In the book, all of this was written about and then as soon as the reader gets to the part where the funeral should be, it skips abruptly to the following evening with only passing references made to earlier in the day. It was almost as if everything that came before and after the funeral was more important. Now, when I specifically decided I wanted to make the week of my mother’s funeral into a three part series focusing mainly on the morning, the funeral, and the days following.

I can still only write the beginning and the end.

From the point where I arrive at the funeral home until I get home and have to start packing my stuff still seems far too surreal to me. It feels almost like my brain has blocked out large parts, or else I was completely catatonic for the entire thing.

Here is what I can remember:

-Waiting inside the alarmingly cold funeral home; sitting in front of my mother’s casket twitching and staring until Kerrilynn (my girlfriend at the time) called me to see how I was holding up. She was off at school and couldn’t make the funeral or wake.

-I remember her family showing up late and trying to take control of everything as they always do.

-I remember the casket being heavy as anything I have ever had to life despite the fact that my mother only weighed 96 pounds before she had cancer.

-I remember deeply resenting Uncle Eddie and Aunt Lillian for having a Catholic burial for a woman who hadn’t gone to church a single day in my lifetime.

-I remember being called upon to speak and sleepwalking through a performance of “Golden Slumbers” by the Beatles, the song my mother always sang to try to get me to sleep.

But above all I remembered seeing her taken from the casket that was just for show and placed into a pin box before being lowered into a pauper’s grave devoid of grass and a headstone. This was the part only I was there to see since no one else bothered to come. They were all at my Aunt Jody’s starting the party early; getting drunk and helping themselves to all the shrimp and deli platters my Uncle Eddie could afford.

My uncle Billy had passed away a year earlier. Billy was a crack and heroin addict who had been arrested sixteen times between the ages of ten and 42. Everyone stayed for him being lowered into the ground and cried their eyes out. My mother, on the other hand, was addicted only to alcohol and nicotine, had never been arrested, and was physically and sexually abused by the same people who made seemingly cursory appearances at her wake and funeral.

The entire day took place at the point where rage and grief intersect. I couldn’t have been angrier in the morning, but in the church and in the graveyard I felt paralyzed. It had finally sunk in that this was real and my mother was never coming back.

Then when she was interred, and in the following days, everything became all too painfully vivid again.

As such, this entry stands as part 2 of three. It might seem like another easy way out to the reader, but I have been beating myself up far too much over this to keep dwelling on it.

I completed the first part almost on the fly since a large part of it is dialog based and it came out as easily as it always does. I did, however, rush through it and try to work more on this entry. If I had the time or energy I could have the third part written in roughly two hours and that includes plotting out what I am going to say ahead of time. A few nights ago when I planned on writing the second part, it just would not come out.

I sat in front of the notebook and nothing was coming to me other than the notes I had included here. Out of frustration and desperation to meet the goals I had plotted out for myself, I went to the computer and hoped that stream of consciousness could carry me through to the end. It didn’t help. I almost immediately shut down while staring at what would have served as two introductory paragraphs in an otherwise blank word document.

I still could not do it just as I couldn’t do it one, three, or six years ago. I started to get stressed and rushed by my own self imposed deadline. I began to write paragraph after paragraph and I kept deleting them. I was forcing myself to write about something absolutely no one was twisting my arm to write about in the first place.

I talked briefly with my friends Jenna and Lisa online. I explained to Jenna what was wrong and she suggested that I leave it be for now and come back to it later. I didn’t want to, but deep down I knew I had to. Plus, for as long as I have known her, Jenna has only been wrong about something once and it was due to miscommunication.

Lisa offered to talk about things further and as of last we have been a great set of ears for each other seeing as neither of our lives has exactly been coming up roses. I would have talked to her about it more, but I felt exhausted just thinking about the funeral and straining to remember every detail. I doubt I could have felt worse had I been crying over it.

It was at that point I opted to lie down. Not necessarily to sleep, but to change my focus. I had to step back from where I was, and remember for a moment the support and encouragement my mother gave me in her moments of clarity.

I listened to Ben Folds’ cover of “Golden Slumbers” (since I did not have a copy of “Abbey Road”) and was transported back in my mind to a simpler time. I remembered a rainy summer afternoon spent looking through cookbooks and begging to have her make anything that looked yummy and finding a cupcake recipe. I remember using a slotted spoon as a guitar while my mother used the beaters from the electric mixer as drums on the side of the bowl before I licked them clean of their chocolaty goodness. I remembered rubbing my flour coated hands on her black pants. I felt terrible about it, but all she said was, “I guess I’ll just have to put sprinkles in your hair then,” and she proceeded to chase me around the kitchen with a shaker full of icing sprinkles while I squealed with the kind of delight you can only truly experience when you are very young.

I finally tasted the cupcakes before being tucked into bed that night; shortly after she sang me to sleep. It never ceased to put a smile on my face.

Slowly in the dark a smile emerged while the song played in my ears. A single tear rolled down my cheek. I rolled over and slept last night just like I was six all over again.