Dear Mom,

I often feel like I’ve turned a corner. That I’ve somehow figured out a way to survive my life without you. Then, something happens. Not always something big. Often, it’s a seemingly insignificant moment which reminds me that no matter how far I’ve come in my grieving process, I’m still doing this life thing without you.

This week I’ve had a bit of a setback and I’ve been reminded how much I still need you.

Grief is a funny thing. Often it comes in waves when you least expect it. Driving past a restaurant or building or billboard or tree that reminds us of the person we’ve lost. Hearing a song. Watching a movie. Reading a book. Memories come and sadness follows.

For me, this week, it was different.

This week, it was this very letter to you. I was sitting down thinking about my topic. Considering angles and examples. I had this sudden urge to ask you for advice. 

I was struck with the sobering truth that you died before I had the chance to talk to you about the real shit. The adult shit. 

Before you died, I was still too young to understand what I was about to lose. Sure, I was 28, but still, I was young enough to feel invincible. To feel like I knew best. That I knew how to make the big decisions. I didn’t need my mom anymore. I was an adult. 

Now I’m barely feeling like an adult, and I suddenly need help. I need answers. I need advice.

The strange part is that it’s nothing major. Nothing has happened. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult. The big moments are easy to get advice for. Everyone can help when there is a tragedy. A sickness or a loss of a job. The big setbacks are almost universal. It’s the little ones. The small setbacks. The times when I feel like I’m making mistakes or not trying hard enough or I have a general sense of being on the wrong track. 

I wish I could ask you, Mom, how did you deal with your own small, internal, setbacks? How did you deal with the moments in life when you felt like you were tossed out of a moving train and forced to start at the bottom? How did you feel when you lost? When you failed? When you weren’t sure?

I’ve had many moments throughout my life when I’ve felt the need to scrape my body off the asphalt and reinvent myself. Lately, it’s more subtle. Lately I’ve felt like I’m stuck. No. Directionless? No. It’s more like I’m behind. Like I’m catching up. Like I’m chasing a moving train, and I know I’ll never reach it. It’s like those dreams I get where I’m driving but also can’t seem to get the car to go where I want it to. Or I’m walking and my legs won’t work the right way. I’m unable to get back on track. I can see it. I know how to get on it. I simply can’t.

I have been working as a Pilates Instructor/Personal Trainer for nearly a decade now. Throughout this time, I’ve seen a lot of different clients with different bodies and different needs. And through the years those very clients have had their bodies and their needs change. Most of them have experienced big physical setbacks. Injuries. Pregnancies. Surgeries. Sickness. Diagnoses. Cancer treatment. 

I’ve seen it myself as well. Pregnancy. Cesarian recovery. Fibromyalgia flare ups. Migraines. Small pulls and tears and strains. Small, yet significant, aches and pains. 

What I’m going through now is worse, in my opinion. It isn’t my physical body. I’m not entirely sure what it is. It could be mental or emotional. More internal than external. Whatever this is, it’s been hard to bounce back. It’s been challenging to get unstuck.

Recently, I was on a roll. Had really taken control of my personal nutrition and workout plans. Felt like I finally got my energy back and my writing also increased. Productivity can spread for sure. I was waking up early, stretching, writing, working and then working out. I was feeling good. And then, for no apparent reason, I slowed down. I was tired. I didn’t feel like working out. I didn’t feel like cooking. I wanted to be lazy and eat junk and not think about the routine anymore.

It seemed that I had hit a wall. Or was it a plateau? A rut? Are they all the same thing? Regardless of the label, I haven’t been able to crawl out of it. It’s been weeks.

I know it has a lot to do with my recent uptick in migraines. My lack of sleep. My constant state of low-grade nausea. My stress. The overwhelming feeling of never being able to catch up.

I think I can figure out why this happened. And I probably know how to get out of it. It’ll be challenging, but I’ve been on the track before, and I do know how to get back. What I want to know is, why do these moments of feeling stuck seem so much more challenging than the big external setbacks?

It feels like the classic, for me, issue of concrete versus abstract. External setbacks are like math. Internal setbacks are like art. It goes back to my feelings with rejection. I don’t like subjectivity. I don’t do well with the unknown. I don’t do well without feedback because I don’t know how to improve.

The external setbacks (injuries, sickness, etc.) often come with strict guidelines. They often come with doctor’s orders. They are often accompanied by a trusted list of dos and don’ts as well as a solid timeline. 

The more psychological internal setbacks often come with no guidance. No rules. No limitations. No containment. It feels out of control with no sense of end in sight. 

It’s like when doctors advise you to de-stress. Yeah, ok. I’ll get right on that. I’ll go home and simply de-stress. It can feel like an impossibly tall mountain to climb. I know I will never reach the summit. I will never be entirely stress free. I will always, always, have setbacks that require me to fall down to the ledge below forcing me to re-climb the same terrain. 

I feel fortunate that mine aren’t external setbacks. I don’t want injuries and sickness. I’d love to stay healthy and strong. But I also can’t continue to disregard the mental. I can’t pretend like the emotional setbacks don’t exist. I don’t want to assume that losing the desire to be productive and stay on track is abnormal. There is nothing wrong with me. Most of us go through it. It’s human.

I wonder why we never talked about this? How come you never felt the urge to open up to me about your own lulls? Your own ruts? And let’s not pretend you didn’t have them. We both know you struggled. Was it considered taboo to talk with your children about this? Was it thought of as too much sharing? Too much information? Does it somehow stem from your own childhood with parents that didn’t share anything? Who didn’t talk about their feelings and definitely didn’t want to know about yours?

But you were always so open with me. Perhaps you didn’t want to burden me with the mundane moments. Maybe you didn’t want to worry me with your worries. 

Now, as I sit here and wonder when I’m going to force myself to get up and try again, I’m wishing that we had spoken about this very topic. I wish I had advice from my mom about how to exist in life through all the ups as well as all the downs. And not only the big ups and downs. 

I guess the issue for me is that we as a society put a lot of emphasis on the loud and important moments. We talk about how to get through the loss of a loved one. How to get through diagnoses. How to get through not getting accepted into the school of your dreams or being turned down for a job. We focus on the good moments as well. The weddings. The childbirths. The milestones. We prepare for these moments. We discuss how to get through the big stuff.

But we don’t talk about all those tiny slivers in between. Those small moments of contemplating the right move. Or obsessing over the wrong one. We don’t discuss what it feels like to be lost. To not know which road to take. Which choice to make. 

Currently, I’m feeling like I have writer’s block in my actual life. I’m writing. That’s fine. But I can’t seem to get myself to commit to the rest of my goals. I’m tired and don’t feel like cooking. I’d rather make something quick and easy. I don’t feel like doing my normal strength training routine. I’d rather just go for a walk or lay down and read a book.

I know I need a reset. I know I need to push myself over this hump and simply start back toward my routine. But I don’t have the drive to do it. It’s almost like I don’t care anymore. As if I could be happy just getting by. I could be fine with no planning. No routine. No goal.

Though, that doesn’t feel authentic. It feels like I’m giving up and that I’m not being true to myself. 

I can admit that I am at my best when I am overscheduled. When I have a million tasks on my list, I will get them all done. Perhaps I need more on my plate so I can reenergize my productivity? But that feels counterproductive. That feels like I’m shooting myself in the foot. Is it possible that I need to learn the skill of sharpening my tools? Could I benefit from slowing down and stepping back and allowing myself to focus on one thing at a time? Fully? Is it a commitment issue in a way? Could it be that pesky self-sabotage again?

Or do I need to start accepting these setbacks as inevitable? And maybe I need to reframe them as something else entirely? Instead of a setback, it could be seen as a redirect. I’m not being thrown off the train, I’m getting on a new one. Or changing directions. It’s not bad. It’s not negative. It’s simply different. A different point of view. 

Maybe you never talked to me about internal setbacks because you never saw them as significant. Maybe you came to this conclusion long ago and had already worked on yourself enough to overcome the doubts and worries that can accompany the small dips in life. I hope so, Mom. I hope you didn’t’ beat yourself up over the little moments. I hope you didn’t sweat the small stuff.

Either way, I wish we had talked about it. Even if you easily overcame the bad moments and never saw them as worthy of a talk, I still wish we had these conversations.

I don’t think I will ever get over the inability to talk to you about these things. I will always reach for my phone to call you when I have a question or need advice. My heart will never stop skipping that beat when my brain reminds my body that you are gone. But I will try my best to look at my grief setback as a moment to learn. A moment to remember who you were and how exactly you’d respond to me if you could. To remember that you would answer my call. To remind myself that I was lucky to have you for as long as I did and as much as it sucks to not have you around, I got the best mom who did teach me how to persevere and how to get back up and how to succeed, even if those words weren’t used exactly. 

You gave me the tools. I know you did. In your way. I just need to figure out how to use them to rebuild my life and myself.

I love you, Mom.

Love,

Rachel