The Fog

Disclaimer: If you're looking for cute toddler pictures or equally uplifting fodder, look elsewhere. As today's title will attest, we're not in that kind of mood. Also, the language in this blog is not suitable for children. Reader discretion is advised.

Today I am in The Fog. Yes, it deserves caps, because it is a proper name. This Fog, The Fog, rolls in now and again. It has for many years, and for many years it didn't have a name. It used to happen often, now it visits me rarely, perhaps once a year, hardly more. The Fog is not a depression, though I've been there. It's simply a day of adjustment wherein my body, soul and mind need to reconnect to the present and let go of past hurt, confusion and yells of "It's not fucking fair."

The Fog follows A Dream (I'm starting to feel like Winnie the Pooh with these nonsense caps, I'll stop.) The dream is always different - the situation is different, the players are a motley cast and sometimes the same, but not always. What makes it The Dream that brings The Fog is the underlying feelings, tone and impression.

The Dream is about my mother, though she's never made an appearance. The dream is about losing her. It's about that headspace. That time. Of being there. Of being 16 and having my world blow the fuck up in my face and being absolutely, stunningly powerless to do a damn thing about it. The dream drips with regret, sorrow and, yes, self pity and a great big ole stench of "Why me?".

But not just why me in the sense of losing mum. Oh no. As if the teenage years aren't bad enough, life decides to throw THAT in my formative years. So there were other things happening too. Things that most of those around me could never in a million years have understood. They still don't, and very few actually tried. I don't blame them. In fact, I'm jealous of them in so many ways for having NOT dealt with it. I'm babbling. Where was I? Right.

The Dream is rank with regret not necessarily in regards to my mother, but to me, to my adolescent self. How I wish I could go back and smack her across the face, and then sit, pour her a cheap wine and let her spill it. All of it. All the shit she did and didn't do, the things she said, was accused of, the hurt, the betrayal, the loneliness.

The Dream itself is harmless. In it, at some point, I always end up telling all sorts of people I do and don't know how I feel (or felt, rather) and they understand, and they hear me, and they let me heal and they forgive me. But do I forgive them? I never know.

And yes, in the dream, mum is still alive, because it is THEN, not now.

And when I wake, I'm hit with the reality that she's gone again. All over again.

And the fog rolls in.

No amount of coffee pushes it away. I just have to wait. For real life, this life, to catch up again and carry me forward.

And so I wait.