Okay, it’s about time I started this for real.

Sometimes I think I’m being overdramatic; after all, up until my mom’s death, I wanted to be an actress. I’m dramatic by nature and probably always have been. So, there are times when I think I blame the world and all my indescribable problems on her death because there’s an excuse always at the tips of my fingers. If I believed in global warming, I’m sure I’d find some way to blame that on this as well. The point is, how much can I blame on my mother’s death twelve years ago and how much do I take responsibility for?

It’s only recently that I started to think of myself in terms of what this incident has done to me. I call it an incident like it’s something that can be healed with time but anyone who experiences this knows it’s not quite the truth. Time allows pain to fade, but it never diminishes. I was on the phone with my father last week (on one of his rare good days) and he stated that unlike me he never had a real appeal for friends in his life as of late. He started to talk about me, telling me that I was always able to… and before he could finish I stopped him. I knew what he was going to say. When I was younger (B.M.D. – before mom’s death) I could go into a room and within minutes I’d have a group of new friends. I was social; I’d get into trouble in school because I couldn’t shut up. I’m no longer that person. Now, when I am invited to places with people I am not comfortable with, I panic. For weeks, days, hours ahead of time. I don’t eat because I feel sick thinking about it. That’s ridiculous, right? I mean, who the hell panics when they’re set to go out drinking or see friends? I discussed this with my best friend (who lost her mother about nine years after I lost mine) and she also used to be a social butterfly: most popular girl in high school. She, too, panics when she’s supposed to go somewhere now. Both of us would rather stay home than enter into the real world. So what is it about this loss – no matter what age you are when it happens – that renders us into people we no longer know?

I’d like to think that all people who lose a parent are like this, but I’m not sure that’s accurate. I think to lose a father is devastating, but the same connection isn’t there that is with your mother. Even if you were closer to your father, your mother still carried you for nine months, nurtured in ways a father cannot. I read something from an actress that said that she was always looking for a place to call home because the loss of her mother (even at a very young age) caused her to feel like she was always roaming. I read that and felt like no one had stated my emotions better than that. There was an understanding what it was like to live someplace, to call it your home and to feel as if you don’t belong there. It’s amazing to me that you can feel so alone and yet you hear of other people who have lost a mother and it’s all right there.