Time in my mind...

I've been living differently for over a year now.  Without my Mom.  This life is so consuming.  I don't have a day that goes by where I've forgotten that she's not here anymore, it's impossible to forget.  Two days ago I grabbed the ranch dressing from the fridge and it was expired July 12.  Gwenyth asked if it was still good to eat being it was only 13 days "old."  I told her that I didn't know if it was good or not and to myself I thought that the reason why I didn't know was because I didn't have the option to call Mom and ask.  Mom knew these types of things.

Another moment in life is my 15-year high school class reunion.  I took the driver's seat to help put together a celebration for this special moment in life and as I speak to each classmate I have a memory that goes across my mind.  I can remember so many details of so many memories of those days, it's amazing.  I find that I like the feeling of just remembering and so I've been doing it quite a bit.  So much that I feel as though I'm living in my head.

This phase of my life where all I do is seek memories isn't new.  While the 15-year reunion enhances it, it's been going on since Mom passed away.  I am noticing that I crave to have that remembered time or the lost time back.  I want it so badly and so often that I am spending an excess amount of time in my mind.  Too much time, in my mind.

I'll remember how things were and what happened and then I'll focus on how if there was one different decision made and life would have taken a completely new path.  What would have happened if this...?  or if that...?  Would I do it the same if I could be there again?

The memories don't have to be of my Mom to be satisfying.  I'm finding that any memory of a time when Mom was here on this physical Earth gives me back that feeling in my heart of the normal life that I long for, the normal life with her, but can never get back.  This new normal without her is so permanent, death is permanent.

And the heartache is permanent.

I can never go back to high school and have that feeling that I can think of when I sit here and close my eyes...I see my friends, we're all laughing and smiling, we're having fun, we have everything we want in that moment (we're kids, we didn't need much) we are healthy, we have our family pets, we have opportunities to look forward to, we have no fear, we share love and desires, and we all have our Moms and Dads and nobody is sick and nobody has had to endure a loss of a baby, a sibling, a parent or emergency surgeries and we are free of so much pain....and sadness...and those little problems, those puny teeny tiny little arguments (that seemed huge at the time) I'll take back in a heartbeat so all of the other pains of mine and my friends go away.

And that's what happens in the time in my mind.

Now I know that we are all happy to have had the experiences which we have gone through and to be parents ourselves, but this measurable amount of time that I spend in my mind is like a vacation.  "Where are you going on vacation to this weekend, Anne?"  I'm going to my past.

I just can't give it up...not now, not yet.  I'm not sure if ever.  I find myself wanting to do it again.  Who's ever said that?!  High school all over again?!  This girl right here wants even just a day of high school where Mom is making me to be home by 10pm on a Saturday night.  For at least one more night and I would be so happy, this is something that I want more than anything else in this world right now. And it's impossible so I will continue to have that night in my mind.