Today I cried about a milk coffee pretending to be a cappuchino. The liquid was caramel colored and tasted of pasteurized milk. My sister had insisted to buy it for me because she loves me and she saw how distressed I was about not having had my cappuchino yet before we went on a walk in the forest. I broke down and lamented the fact that I let people talk me into things when I really wanted to get this coffee somewhere else but then decided I didn't want it at all after all because Mom started coughing terribly and covid fears are real.
I instantly felt sorry for guilt tripping her for something she had done so that I could be happy. Instead, I cried.
I cried because I'm hormonal - that's PMS - but also because I am at the verge of crying since a while: After years of mainly appreciating the way my Mother has been walking her journey into the big now (that is, dementia), I hit a wall of inconceivable grief this summer.
My cousin says it's the grief of having to let go of your mother even though she is still alive. I thought I had already navigated those waters, relating to her more as a friend, but apparently that was an illusion.
So I cry and I cry and I cry and I cry an ocean of salty tears. It's simmering beneath the surface. It is magnified by PMS and bouts of depression. This is the third big loss in my adult life and you'd think you'd get better at it but each time it's so different and yet so familiar.
The luxury of having my mother next to me, humming and singing into my hair as she is rocking me back and forth when she finds me a sobbing mess doesn't escape me. I'm deeply grateful for that.
Yesterday, she asked with great empathy when I had calmed down 'where does it come from? Is it from a deep sense of wondernment or is it sorrow?'
I loved that she considered awe a possible source for these tears. And there is awe. But it is raw and fragile.
