life these days

• I am a teary, sweaty, fat little ball of grief these days, mostly huddled on the couch watching CNN (or the Twins but sometimes, like most of their recent road trip, that just intensifies the grief) or flipping through magazines
• Everything reminds me of my mom. which, of course, makes me cry.
• Every time I try to tackle the mountain of thank you notes staring me in the face I cry and cry until I make myself sick. Something about doing them makes the loss so real or so final, or something. I'd be lying if I said I understood it.
• I'd sell my soul for one more phone call, or even more, just one more hug.
  
• I finally brought flowers out to Fort Snelling on Memorial day. Mom and dad are buried in the same plot and share the same headstone, dad on the front, mom on the back. Ever since going out there I feel as though I've lost him all over again, too.
  
• A couple of weeks ago mom's nursing home called to inform me that we owe them $1600. (A long story that involves mom's social worker repeatedly giving me the wrong information over the past few months and reassuring the mom's Medical Assistance was covering everything. It wasn't. The social worker is now in Fargo, however, and out of my reach and of course the billing office doesn't care.)
• The next day a hail storm visited us and inflicted thousands of dollars in damage to our roof, siding, screens, window frames, and George's car.
• The next day I started shaking uncontrollably. This was on a Thursday. I didn't stop until George brought me to Urgent Care on Saturday and the doctor prescribed Xanax (a tranquilizer). She should have just shot me with a tranquilizer dart and be done with it instead of giving me pills.
• I started shaking when we were discussing how I could go to graduate school while we were trying to pay back the $7,000 we borrowed for mom's funeral plus all of the above. Obviously, we did not come up with an answer.
• I keep having horrible nightmares that mom is angry with me and I don't know why. I wake up sobbing and drenched--soaked--in sweat.
• All I want to eat are cinnamon rolls. Mom always had them for me when I went to visit her, so they are now my sweet gooey comfort food of choice. Hardly any of my clothes fit.
• My rosacea is terrrible. I keep getting pustules on my forehead and cheeks, which has never ever happened before. It started right after the funeral.
• I've had an ulcer since I found out mom wasn't going to get better. That was around mid-January. It HURTS and I'm on medication twice a day.
• I now have a bad sinus infection too.
  
• I keep remembering something my both of my parents used to tell me: Tough times don't last, but tough people do. But I feel so lost without them, like I'm only partially a person now, as though something crucial died with them.