I have tried. I have really tried to make it ok for you. I have tried to be funny, to be patient, to be accepting that this is MY loss and not yours.
I have tried to be realistic--I've seen friends through their stuff and have gone back to my life pretty easily even knowing that I should be more sensitive because of what I've been through, what I've lost--and understand that your lives are full of what consumes you. I've tried hard to be fair, to lower my expectations of you, to stop myself from expecting you to behave the way I think I would or the way I'd like you to.
But every time it happens again, as it did today, on a stupid, made up holiday, I am ANGRY because you can't see the hurt.
What you don't know--and I don't know HOW you don't know after ten years of this EXACT conversation--is that every time you forget/neglect to take my son for a card for Valentine's Day, or my birthday, or Mother's Day, I am surprised, and sad, and hurt.
You think it's about the card. You answer me with "well, you didn't get me a card..."
NOT THE FUCKING POINT.
It's not about the fucking card; it's about the consideration. It's about YOU acknowledging that on days like today (and Mother's Day, and my birthday) I might feel a little MORE alone than usual, and might appreciate if someone did something nice to lift me out of it a bit.
It's about acknowledging that someday, my son is going to be someone's partner, and there's no one to teach him this except for me, and no one to make the point that sometimes, moms need to be cared for too.
It's about making the effort to TAKE MY 11 YEAR OLD SOMEWHERE and OFFERING HIM AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING NICE. Not a big thing. You live 10 minutes away. Pick up a card while you're out and about and give it to my son if you can't make the time to take him.
You know what makes it even worse? The fact that ONLY my bedbound and elderly father even THINKS that someone should buy a card for my son to give to me, and he can't do anything about it except tell ME to go get a card so my son can give it to me. Awkward.
So when I tell you that I'm hurt and upset, and you roll your eyes and say "I'm sorry. I suck at this." I feel like you are missing the point.
What you don't know is that I am still seething about it.
What you don't see is that I am crying over it.
And what--clearly--you will NEVER know is that it's NOT ABOUT THE CARD; it's about the fact that I have gotten so good at moving through the grief that when it sneaks up on me--like today--you think I'm being needy and unreasonable, that I must be off my meds or have my period, instead of just being sad and lonely and wanting someone to care for me a little bit.
What you don't see is the loneliness. What you don't know is how bottomless it feels, and how quickly it pulls me down into the grief again.
Maybe if you could see it, you'd give me a goddamned card.
