The Funniest Thing (It's Not Funny)

[taoofraychela]

My dad died 2.5 years ago. It feels like just yesterday and a billion lifetimes ago all at once. I didn't write anything much at all when he was dying. I wish I would have. I wish I would have written it all down because now my mind is fuzzy, only the big things stick out from those last 2 months of his life.

I didn't just lose my dad. It was the final nail in the coffin for a strained relationship with my sister. But I guess you can't really lose somebody who acted like they wanted nothing to do with you anyway... and why be sad about losing your first and biggest bully?

But I digress...

My dad has been dead a whole 2.5 years. Soon I'll be telling my therapist, "It's been 3 years."

The first year of losing a parent is just what you would expect. This weird blur of grief where all you think is that this time last year they were still here and noticing all the ways that they are missing and all the things they are missing out on.

The second year is the reality check. The "oh wow, they're DEAD dead" feeling. Like wow ok Dad, you really had the audacity to go and die, wtf my dude. Less crying and grief meltdowns I think, but when they do occur, they feel like they could shake the earth.

And this 3rd year as it develops... what is this... fear. Fear that I'm forgetting him. Which is dumb right, because you could never forget your father. So why then does it feel that I could. Why is remembering his voice, his demeanor, why does it feel so hard to conjure it up, it used to feel so easy. On my phone and computer sits voice notes from him, I can listen, and yet I feel like if I do I might break too.

I keep thinking how I prepared for my dad's death long before he actually ever was on his death bed. The last 15 years of his life easily, I was on edge, constantly waiting for the day I got the call that he was dead. It was around the time that his own dad died that I started the "dead dad watch". He declined so quickly it was shocking to watch. It felt like he aged 30 years in a matter of months. His cigarette habit increased to 3 packs a day. His skin turned grey. Within a couple of years he started having incidents where he blacked out. He wouldn't see a doctor for it. He was scared. He didn't want to know.

He suddenly decided 6 or 7 years before he died that he wanted to quit smoking. But it was too late... the damage was done. His lungs were destroyed by copd. They put him on oxygen. He decided the only thing left to do was wait out death. His pride wouldn't even let him leave the house strapped to an oxygen machine. I wish I were kidding. He really was that vain.

But I was constantly waiting for that phone call. And now that he is gone... I wish I wouldn't have done that. I wish so badly I could have just met him where he was at. Because what happened was this...

He let himself go so badly that I could barely bring myself to look at him when we were in the same room. It hurt to see him like that. He had let himself go so badly and refused to seek help no matter how much anyone begged. His go to response was "there's nothing anyone can do." He said it with so much confidence even though he had never asked anyone, what can be done. But it didn't matter because even if they had a solution for him, he would not have done it. I strongly believe in so many ways that he was just done. Suicidal without being suicidal if that makes sense. There wasn't any fight left in him to do anything that needed to be done to better things for him.

At some point I stopped hugging him when I said goodbye after visiting him. I don't know why. It made me uncomfortable. I think in my mind I thought I was detaching myself from him. Less hugs, less eye contact, less closeness. I thought it would help things when he did pass, make it hurt less somehow. Obviously that was never going to be true, but it is what I told myself at the time. He wasn't the hugs and kisses dad anyway I told myself and we had always had a complicated relationship, but I'm sure he sensed the distance I was placing between us.

It was weird, because when he called me on the phone... he always sounded like him you know. Like the 40 year old dad I remember. And then when I saw him, the voice never matched the man I remembered. It felt weird because it felt like I didn't recognize him at all and yet, that was him. My mind never caught up to how quickly he declined, even though I spent so many years preparing for his death, it felt like each decline was more drastic than the one before. My heart and mind was forever playing catch up.

And now? To remember him at all? As he was... I don't know. Who am I remembering. The younger man who caused pain to his children with his words and actions? The middle aged man who was too caught up in chasing women to see his kids grow up? The man who realized it was too late? The man who gave up? The dying man? The corpse? Who am I trying to remember? Who do I want to remember?

[taoofraychela]

With guilt I opened up the baby book to see where I left off, how much time I had to make up for.

I apparently chose the right baby book without knowing it.

After the 1 year mark there are simply pages for birthdays. And then a first day of school. All the details were in the actual baby stage. Birth to one year.

My mom is constantly telling me to write this or that in the baby book and to be honest, I wish I had had a dedicated memory book to all the little things. Instead they are saved in a billion pics on my phone and in my notes app. And there are a hundred thousand things I am sure I have already forgot even though I thought "oh I'll always remember that."

It's funny because when she was a newborn, even in the midst of all my suffering, I had tried initially to write to her every day. I wanted so much to be that mom that journaled to her every detail, everything I wanted her to know about our journey together and life. But as I fell apart, so did that dream.

I guess I could pick back up on it at any time. Detail her life and our days to her. Nothing is stopping me. Just that place where my mind is like.... but 6 years, it feels like I have been radio silent for 6 years. And that's silly, because we have been experiencing life together for 6 years and her memory of it is already stellar. She is always looking back at pics and I think that keeps everything fresh for her. I always wonder how much I would remember of my own childhood if we had pics like we do now of literally everything.

She is truly my joy lately. This balance between my sweet little toddler and pre-teen...that sweet spot that starts around 5-6 years old and lasts for a couple-few years before they decide that anything is more interesting than their mom.

The sweet little "hi mom-mom" in the morning... the still wanting to do literally everything with me... the sweet cuddles at night. I wish I could freeze time.

[taoofraychela]

the guilt of the baby book

because, instead of writing down every cute adorable thing and measuring all the memories and milestones...

I was trying to survive. I was trying to not let the dark thoughts win. And boy, were they winning.

Opening and seeing the blank spaces that need filled remind me of the things I couldn't soak in, couldn't take notice of. Memories that I blinked and they were gone. Things I will never get to experience again. Ages of my child I will never experience again.

The grief of my child growing, because yes that is real. The choice of being one and done and the fact that it comes with every first is also the last. A grief that comes with every "last" child, but many times folks at least get the firsts a couple times.

Grief over the mom I thought I would be vs the mom I ended up being. A mom I didn't want to be because she was being ruled by trauma and pain and anger of what had happened to her body. A disconnect. Happily filling out memories in a chipper tone, the happiness feels fake. Now the guilt of... will I remember accurately? What if there is a question or memory that I can't answer... can't remember? Will she know they weren't filled at the time that they happened? Will she care?

The baby book goes up to 5. I think. She is 6 now. I can fill it out and put it behind me. But I just have to find that courage to open it up again... and start.

[taoofraychela]

IG gave me my account back. Apparently I was flagged as spam. Even though I rarely make a post or comment. But okay.

So now I ask myself what moving with intention on social media is for me. Because today I sat in therapy and told my therapist the very stupid story of the deactivation of my IG and how it made me contemplate things.

Where my energy was going. How I was carry around the imprint of 10+ years of my past. How I had realized that the human brain is capable of letting go of past traumas if it is not constantly reminded and if we aren't constantly curating our digital footprints, it has the ability to send constant reminders to our brains about things that maybe we wouldn't think about as often without those subtle reminders.

It is like that, how we let people into our lives via social media that maybe we would have kept out... the old coworkers or classmates who no longer reasonate with us. Relationships that wouldn't survive otherwise, even if they are just a random laughing reaction on a post every 7 months relationship.

I remember my mom bringing up my elementary school best friend and how maybe it could be cool if I found her on social media and got back in touch with her. My last memories of this girl were not necessarily warm fuzzy ones. And also? We were friends from kindergarten to 4th grade. 4 years of my life. As a very young child. I straight up told my mom it was too silly for me to entertain at this stage of my life. Just because we can possibly find anyone we have ever encountered on social media, doesn't mean we should.

I realized I don't have to keep carrying the past with me. Stupidly enough, it was the IG account loss that really drilled that point home. Who would have thought? I've been in therapy for like 3.5 years trying to get my brain to understand that and all it needed was meta to temporarily pull the plug on me.

I don't need to constantly be reminded that my husband almost died. I don't need to constantly be reminded that I had a scary pregnancy.

I don't need to constantly be reminded that I had a horrible collection of injuries to my body that left me hopeless for far too long.

I don't need to constantly be reminded what steps I had to take in my journey towards healing. I lived it, I know.

I don't need to constantly be reminded that some people died. I live with the loss each day.

And I don't need the constant reminders that this world is fucked. Thus I need to curate my feeds to turn off the impossible bullshit I can't change and focus on the things that I can change. I don't need the rage bait. And I don't need the actual rage.

I've struggled with this since I grew up enough to realize how screwed up this world is. That space between being informed and just feeling awful because... what can we do? And that's the thing, if it isn't action, what good is just the emotion of rage? Depression? Hopelessness? Our brain gives us these things so we feel compelled to act. Social media gives us these emotions towards nothing that can be acted upon.

Facebook is easy for me, because I don't follow a lot of pages or anything and I'm just not a facebook person.

My neighbor has a solution I like in theory, and that is to delete the apps and just redownload them 1x a week to check in... and then delete them and stay off the shit the rest of the week. I think that might be worth a try.

I'm culling my following list massively... which... I've heard you gotta do slowly or else the moderating bots might ban you again because they think you are a bot (good lord meta you fucking suck).

I'm getting rid of the news pages, have decided I will get my news from a dedicated source that isn't attached to social media. Like my news consumption will be intentional... not.... here's a picture of a flower, a cat, there's a country getting bombed, here's a garden, here's some dumb shit Trump said. It fucks with your brain to consume it in that way. I don't think my head will ever be right after watching a genocide unfold on on my phone.

I think I'm going to use that thing on my phone, that sets an amount of time to use an app daily and that is that.

I am going to routinely ask myself... what can I be doing instead of social media if the urge to go on social media strikes. I deeply want to use my life for things that bring me joy, not killing time staring at my phone just because it's something i got used to doing.

I was trying to explain everything to my therapist today and when I was done she was like "damn you're making me want to go and delete my IG" but now that I've seen this impact of the energy of a digital footprint, I can't unsee it.

And I unsee myself.... and see myself at the same time. Untethered from a story that I have long been building and telling myself. A story that needed to be coherent for an imaginary audience. It all needed to make sense. And for who? Me? I don't know. And yet it always makes sense in the most imperfect ways.

I finally feel unblended from the traumatic shit life has thrown at me for the first time in a way that i can really appreciate it. Which is amazing because this time last year I was still very much in the thick of it.

I am and always have been a whole person with complex feelings about a whole lot of things. I have also come to realize that that just by being a whole person I am and always have been enough. But I didn't always know that. More importantly, I have never held that as truth in my life until now. Instead I was always looking to be enough. To be good enough. To be enough for my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, my teachers, my spouse, my kid, my employers, anyone who would ever hold space with me ever. I've lived my entire life feeling too little for the people in it. Always.

I am very much at the midpoint of my life. Not having a crisis but for the very first time, asking who am I. Not, what do these people want from me and how can I give it to them... but what do I want and how can I get it for myself

[taoofraychela]

I know. So just go make a new instagram account.

But the universe, the universe has for quite some time been screaming at me to stop doom scrolling social media. Especially fuckinng meta apps. Because if meta knows how to do something right, it is how to rage bait you. I knew it was doing it and yet it was hard to look away.

And i mean, with the current state of the world... how could you not. Sometimes you just want to know that you're not absolutely insane and other people are still thinking logically.

Now I know what you're thinking.... I told someone to fuck all the way off or something that is that is probably how I ended up with my account disabled. Honestly, I've never been mean to anyone. I might have been blunt, but I've never attacked a stranger over anything on the internet. Meanwhile literal nazis are just chillling on meta platforms with zero issues... so make of that what you will. Apparently you can cheer for the death of children in Gaza... but being anti genocide is a step too far.

Anyway, suddenly a 10+ year digital footprint was dead. Will they give it back to me? Who knows. But now I'm questioning if I want it back.

Because to get all woo-woo... I think the things that we carry digitally can be just as heavy as other physical forms of... stuff... in our every day lives. And I didn't realize how heavy that account actually felt until it was stripped from me. And then suddently it was like oh, that's what it was carrying. It was carrying lots of good memories yes, but also constant fucking reminders of how much shit just... sucked. When I don't want it to suck anymore. And it has slowly in some ways not sucked as much as it once sucked.

And also? I'm sad that I traded in writing for just pics. I never attached as much meaning to anything I wrote there as I did when I just blogged for my own amusement. I feel like going back to basics like this might actually make me reflect on things that I just could no longer do... I got used to that feedback loop of scoll...engage with a like... a 5 second comment...scroll scroll scroll.

And has social media in its current form made me an unhappier person? 1000%. I'll admit it. In a way that I never felt before in my blog days, my tumblr days, or the early insta days, before everyone had to become an influencer and attempt to capitalize on literally anything and everything.

So this is where I am... desiring to take back my power and see where life leads me being a little more unplugged.

[taoofraychela]

Around 2014 I left tumblr, where I was very happy to let my freak flag fly, to make the transition to instagram full time. Instagram was still cool then. People uploaded pics. No one was trying to sell me shit.

And now... it's funny, I have left instagram to come back here and have a little bloggy blog. Actually I didn't leave insta on my own. In the middle of a scroll it informed me that I was banned. For no good reason. After a moment of what the fuck, a bizarre feeling of relief I did not expect flooded my brain.

That instagram account contained the worst 10 years of my life. Like the very worse. I thought shit was bad before? Oh. Oh no. Life has had some pretty fucked up shit in store for me.

And some really good shit too. Because my husband got a liver transplant when he was previously dying and we went on to have a baby. A baby who is now 6. And I'm pretty certain all i did was blink.

I wanted a place to write again. I place where I am not distracted by the algorithm. A place that isn't trying to constantly sell me bullshit and rage. And then I remembered my beautiful humble home of tumblr. It'a good to be back.