A few weeks ago I came across a friend’s photo album on (that ubiquitous time-waster) Facebook.  In his album entitled “family” he’d included an image of his father’s headstone.  I happened to view this image around the time of the 12th anniversary of his father’s death and so “eavesdropped,” if you will, on a posted wall conversation.  This friend, whom I’ve known since just after his father’s death, unabashedly adopts this loss as a visible part of his public self-identification and I realized suddenly how very different this is from my own relationship to my loss.  And I realized that mixed in with that horrible emotional cocktail of loss is shame.

Since losing my mom this loss and all the weirdness that it entails (moodswings, sudden fits of weeping, social anxiety, neediness, a constant sense of unsteadiness and suspision) lurks beneath a thin veneer of normality like a nasty pustule covered with badly applied make-up.  As if I’m trying to pass for someone that doesn’t have the sorrow of loss festering constantly.  When I meet new people I feel like this is something I have to confess in order for them to know me: I wait for the right moment and then attempt to slip it in the conversation without provoking the common condolences and awkwardness.  Neither of these are usually avoided.  Loss makes others feel awkward, embarrassed of their own normalcy, uncertain of what to say.  This fact has made it nearly impossible for me to feel comfortable around new people (and of course, since moving to a new country I am constantly surrounded by new people).  Alienation has become my new home.

Seeing my friend’s declaration of continued loss-identification on such a public (albeit virtual) forum I realized that on some level I don’t want people to know this about me.  Loss has made me weak, different, broken, dark, fragile, uncertain.  They are qualities that frustrate and trouble, and I want nothing more than to cover and ignore them.  I am ashamed of this elegiac residu and by extension I am ashamed of my loss.  I feel that this loss has marked me as something of a social pariah, having experienced things that people - in particular people my age - are largely uncomfortable with.

So, while I do ackowledge my mother’s death on my own facebook page, it’s not as blatant as all that, and doesn’t generate conversation from anyone other than my sister.  and even that makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t want the loss to be there, to exist, to have happened in the first place, and therefore I want to keep it as private as possible.  And of course, this conflicts on the other hand with needing it to be acknowledged, with needing the recognition and acceptance of others.

Then again, I keep this blog (largely imagining that only strangers read it, if anybody).

Tagged: marya on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 ·