At first I was absolutely excited, but then I got nervous as all hell. Driving in New York City is really scary, especially with all those aggressive drivers out there. My arms were absolutely stiff on the wheel and the instructor tried to get me to relax. Good luck buddy, I’ve been tense for years. A few lessons aren’t going to help me ease up right away.

Today we worked on turns and drove around my neighborhood. Not too bad for someone who hasn’t driven in a car since she was about 13. Still nervous toward the end, but as I began to relax the instructor told me that my next lesson would be in another borough and that I would be driving on the highway to get there. I think if I was down south, it would be so much easier to learn. I don’t like all these cars around me; hell, I don’t like people around me as a pedestrian.

Here’s hoping I loosen up within the next couple of weeks.

Because of these new changes in my life, I’ve decided to resurrect the Quarter Life Project but still talk about dealing with loss. In the past year I’ve been no stranger to it in almost every aspect of my life. Today’s new thing was supposed to be my first driving lesson, but the weather effectively ruined/postponed my lessons for another day. Curse you, snow.

After a short visit to Baruch College to take care of something, I figured I’d head off to the Museum of Sex since it was in the area. I’d been dying to go for a while but was always too timid to venture in there by myself. Not today.

This one prevents AIDS.

From condom tins to the vibrators that looked like hairdryers, the museum had quite an assortment of things to look at. This poster was one of my favorites.

One of the rooms had a peculiar odor to it, one that was similar to rubber but not quite. It also had an assortment of gadgets as well as life-sized dolls. I’d always been curious to see what they look like close up, and now I don’t have to wonder anymore.

And the last room was all about Sex and the Moving Image. It featured shorts, stag films, and clips of various movies showing how sex has transformed on film over the years. Surrounded in an entire room of television and projector screens, I couldn’t help but get stimulated… visually. Ha.

I left with a souvenir: a new shot glass paired with my entry ticket, of course. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.

I heard various people say I was handing her death rather well, implying that people who break down in front of others are weak, I guess. At her funeral  I was void of showing any emotion (except one instance where crying became contagious). Here’s a secret: while she was sick and I became sure that things weren’t going to get any better, I went to bookstores and read almost every book in the grief/death section so that I would be better prepared to deal. It didn’t make it any easier, but it did prep me for when it happened.

When a cousin’s unexpected death toward the end of the year ripped through the family, I felt it was my duty to be there. Perhaps it was too soon, since the nauseous feeling I had in the weeks following mom’s death returned. Nonetheless I fought through it and stayed there, attempting to be the rock they could lean on. I recall hearing his mother saying she didn’t know how I had the strength to get through this.

Here’s a secret: I’m fuckin’ TERRIFIED. I feel like my strength is a lie, a cover. It’s not me.

I deal by not dealing. I remained stoic throughout the entire year and dealt with my issues by pretending they didn’t exist. As far as I was and am still concerned, my mother didn’t look like herself in the casket. To this day I refuse to believe it was her in there, even though I know she’s never going to walk through that door. I actually admire those who can show emotion during times like that; I think they’re able to heal faster than someone like me who internalizes everything.

Mom’s loss definitely affected the way I interact in relationships with family, friends, etc. I noticed it the other day when someone said they’d stop by after work and never showed up, and when I didn’t hear back from one of my mom’s closest friends who I’ve grown attached to after calling her for the past couple weeks. I find myself getting close to others, and then pushing them away for fear of losing them too. This feeling of abandonment is at an all-time high.

I bought two bottles of wine and plan to finish one tonight. There are dark days ahead.

My family is gone, and while I may have friends to fill some of the void, it’s different. Friends have their own lives to worry about while my mom was a presence that was always around, whether I wanted her to be there or not. I miss the bickering between us and the crazy things she used to do, and I’m scared that as time goes on I’ll forget her.

Seven months later and I still fall asleep with the TV on, until early this morning when it decided to stop working. Now I find myself up at 3am, unable to go back to sleep. I suppose the television helped me feel like there was someone here, and that I wasn’t completely alone all the time. I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts… it’s entirely too quiet in this house.

My mother’s passing was bad enough, but some of the things I’ve encountered from people made it a million times worse. And that’s why today I’m going to talk about proper etiquette in dealing with a friend who has suffered a loss:

• Do not look at your friend with pity. This is one thing I absolutely HATED even when my mom was alive. When friends came to visit her in the hospital, they looked at her with such sadness on their faces that I know it took a toll on my mom, who was normally a happy person. She would kick people out of the room if the mood became too dark for her to take. After her death, all the looks I got were ones of pity, like I wouldn’t be equipped to handle the situation. Newsflash: I’m a twentysomething, I have a job, and I have a good head on my shoulders.
• Do not ask your friend invasive questions. Two days after my mother died, the house phone was ringing off the hook. People asked me how my finances were, if I was going to stay in the apartment, If I was going to get a roommate, and when the funeral was. Now the last question isn’t really so much invasive, but at the same time I was still trying to wrap my mind around planning the funeral, finding all the information my mom had left for me, and figuring out how I was going to do this all on my own. One lady called the house and started grilling me from the moment I picked up the phone: “When is the funeral going to be? Is it going to be in such and such church? What day will it be? Is it going to be in the morning or the evening?” Honestly, that was the only time I lost my cool and started yelling at someone through the whole ordeal. As for the other questions, if they’re something you wouldn’t normally ask that person, then it’s still none of your business even when death is involved.
• Do not ever compare your friend’s death to anything else unless you have experienced a similar, if not the same, kind of loss. I actually ended up talking to a UPS man my mom knew very well and discussed the whole ordeal. I learned that he had dealt with the same thing when his son passed. The things people said to him were unbelievable; one compared him losing his son to someone losing their job. Also, a person mourning the loss of a pet should not compare that to the loss of a relative, it’s not the same no matter how much you try to convince yourself it is.
• If you’ve recently lost someone close to you, do not throw that on your friend in conversation. Just because you’re going through the same thing doesn’t mean your friend is now your grief counselor. This summer, a friend of mine that I hadn’t talked to in months came to me about his friend’s death. Being that we hadn’t talked in months and the first thing out of  his mouth was this, and being that it had been approximately three months after my mother was buried, the conversation was not only uncomfortable for me but it was something I really didn’t want to hear about. One thing people have to understand is just because a person has experienced death in their lives doesn’t mean they want to talk about it 24/7. It also doesn’t make them well-equipped to answer questions, especially if they’re still dealing with grief themselves.
• Don’t try to find the right words. If you have nothing to say, it’s okay. Seriously. Another thing I encountered were people who said things like “She’s in a better place now,” “At least she’s no longer suffering,” or, “She’s with her maker now.” These words did not make me feel better by any means. I remember a friend called to check up on me and see how I was doing, and after a while there was a lag in the conversation. I knew she was trying to find the right words to say, and I told her to stop. It was enough that she cared to call, and that made my day. It’s okay to feel awkward, just so long as you’re there for the person and the person knows it.

If anyone has anything to add onto the list, feel free.

A day after mom was buried, I headed off to another state for a cousin’s wedding that both me and mom were supposed to attend together. I figured the time away from home would make me feel better, and for the most part it did- I was away from my job, and I didn’t have to think about anything back home. But after the ceremony was over and the reception took place, I felt even more alone than before. I ended off the night sitting at one of the tables alone and sort of spaced out, and it occurred to me that every wedding I went to or knew of this year was going to be pretty painful for me.

So cue the summer, when I attended a book club meeting at a cafe and happened to run into a newlywed couple who had gotten married the day before enjoying lunch with their parents, respectively. I was really happy for the couple (I knew one of them), but throughout the meeting I’d glance over at the table where they were and become a little envious of the fact that when I get married, I’d never be able to enjoy a leisurely lunch with my parents and his parents, whoever they may be. And while some people would say I’d be a part of a new family, I still want to be able to hold on to who I am and have other people be a part of that.

The following week had me again leave the state to be a part of a wedding. I figured the busier I kept myself, the more I wouldn’t have to focus on it. And just like the wedding I had been to earlier this year, I was fine until it ended. The day after was probably one of the hardest days since the only people left were from the combined families. I happened to have lunch with all of them, and I felt like such an outsider.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m truly happy for all of the couples that tied the knot this year. But all it did was just remind me of the family that I don’t have. And it hurts.

October 15th would have been my mother’s 66th birthday, but instead it’s going to mark the six-month anniversary of her death. In some ways it feels like she’s been gone for a long time, yet it feels like these months flew by. I’m still trying to clean up the aftermath, literally and figuratively. There’s so much stuff in the house to go through and I won’t let anyone help me with the stuff in her room, which is basically Ground Zero. Emotionally I wouldn’t consider myself a wreck, since I haven’t had any emotional breakdowns. What HAS happened, however, is I find it extremely hard to concentrate, and my memory is pretty poor. This poses a problem for the fall semester at my college and at my job.

This blog is no longer going to be focusing on new things done every day, but about life after the death of my mother as a twentysomething. Losing your parent at any age is difficult, but reaching full adulthood and not having a parent to share experiences on being a mother after their child has become one is something I’ll probably be longing for the rest of my life. You know, when I have kids.

In any case, I’ve made some observations over the past few months that I’ll end up sharing over time, with regularity. I promise.

In any case, when I really get into something, I have a habit of finding out everything I can about it, reading articles and finding other assorted information by google searching. Eventually I ran across his Youtube channel and watched a bunch of videos, one featuring this 10-year-old kid (I believe his name is Nicholas) who got to perform part of In The Heights on the set due to his videos of performing some of the lyrics in his home. I thought it was cool for Lin to do that, which only made me respect him more. But I digress.

I found out Lin-Manuel was part of a group called Freestyle Love Supreme, which after watching a few videos I thought was sort of similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but with beatboxing and freestyle rap added to the mix. I found out they were playing at Comix, so my new thing for today was to go see them, as I had never been to a comedy club, nor have I seen a comedy show before (or at least none I can remember).

Tonight’s show consisted of five members: Two-Touch (The host), Lin-Man, UTK the INC, Shockwave, and Wade Everiman. Arthur the Geniuses was on the keyboard. The music was great, the beats were awesome, and the comedy was priceless. One of the funniest things was an improv of a kindergarten-aged girl getting her hair cut in the bathroom and the repercussions from it, spurring some of the funniest lines, such as “communal bathroom time!” and “I should’ve never trusted that bitch in the bathroom… I am so alone.”

Now before I came to the show, I tried to learn at least one thing about each person so that I’d have something to talk to them about after the show. Instead, it turned into awkwardness. First, I wanted to talk to Lin and ask him a bunch of questions about the improv, about In The Heights- why he left it after only a year of it being on Broadway, etc., but I see this kid and I clam up. I couldn’t say anything to him. It was only after he was about to leave that I was able to muster up enough courage to get him to take a pic with me, and that was about an hour after the show ended. Seriously, you’d never think that I was a journalism major.

I tried talking to Arthur, bringing up the fact that we had a mutual friend in common. What I should’ve done was talk a little more about music after the fact, but instead the conversation died and became awkward. Awesome.

I got to speak to Shockwave, who introduced himself as Chris after we made some small talk. I thought it was cool, yet odd how he recognized my face  from where I’d been sitting, as I was close to the back. I was able to ask him about The Electric Company, but then the conversation sort of turned to stalkers. I’m really afraid these guys are going to think I am one, since I ended up going to this show by myself and lingered around for an hour, not really talking much and just observing everyone in the bar area after the show. I really looked like a loner.

The only person that I seemed to be able to hold an okay conversation with was Two-Touch, who introduced himself as Anthony. After speaking to him for a little bit about his comedic history, I decided to call it a night since I have an early day tomorrow.

I think the reason I was so awkward is because I went alone, and I think that’s something I have to work on. I don’t have problems opening up if I’m with someone else, but if I’m by myself I find myself out of my element. In any case, I plan on returning with friends for sure.

I also ended buying a pair of blue suede shoes and some wellies, picked up a bridesmaid dress for a wedding I’m going to be in, and got tickets for an improv show tomorrow night. I’ve never been to a comedy club, so I am truly looking forward to this. There’s definitely a lot of stuff planned for this month, now that I’m back on track.

My case is a special one, since normally the writing tutors there deal with grammar, spelling, format, writing a thesis, and the like. Because I have a general understanding of all of those things and don’t really need any help with that, they took a different approach and introduced me to free writing.

For those who don’t know, free writing is where you sit down for a specific amount of time and just write whatever comes into your head without stopping, keeping the pen moving at all times. I’ve tried it before, but my inner editor/critic stops me in my tracks and I’m unable to write continuously. This time, not only was I shown how to do it differently, but after I finished it was torn up, never to be seen again.

Gotta say, the fact that I’ll never again see what I wrote during those exercises helps me a lot. Because I know no one’s going to see it, I take a little bit more liberty with what I write and found myself writing things I’d never have written in that timeframe.

So next week I get to do a little bit more free writing, and work on some assignments depending on what the professors assign. I really hope I can nip this stifled writing thing in the bud, since it’s my career goal.