Solar Eclipse in Aquarius: She Had a Marvelous Time
conjunct Mars (pang)
square Uranus (shock)
[I will write more about the moon someday, but I just needed this solar eclipse to be about her]
My mother Gina passed away one month ago today (3 weeks after my father). My mom was strong and beautiful: an audacious, loving, generous, “tough ass” party girl with many catch phrases and absolutely unforgettable style (seriously). She was rebellious and frustrated with any attempts to corral or contain her. I admired her and loved her so much. A Venus and Mars in Aquarius (like this solar eclipse), she was always both charming and aloof - brilliantly different and totally herself. She and my stepdad collected beloved weirdos, misfits, and ne’erdowells. She used to say no one seemed to see how sensitive she was, that her mother had always mistaken her for strong. A story about her: when she was a little girl, she saw another littler girl getting bullied and pelted with snowballs and stood in front of her and held up her coat and got pelted herself. It makes me cry, that’s just her. She was tough. She was a protector, an artist type, a dreamer who truly always, always wanted to believe in your dream. She was brave and took risks and she tolerated absolutely zero disrespect. I loved her, I hope someday I’m like her in many ways. I will miss her forever. Really, I’ve been missing her.
Grief is a room I haven’t wanted to walk into. I’ve been ashamed of the way I’ve been grieving: the avoidance, the pragmatism, the exhaustion, the stiffness, the anger, the laughter, the peaceful numbness when I should be in tears — ashamed of the ebb, ashamed of the flow. Anticipatory grief happens when you know someone is dying, it just hasn’t happened yet. It makes you forget who you are and live in the liminal until it’s over. The past two years of her illness have been the hardest years of my life. I am grateful to the many beautiful friends, family, and a love who carried me through.
She was an incredible business woman and a very good mother. She was always. on. the. goddamn. phone. A Moon in Taurus, she loved beautiful, quality things, hyper specific brands and colors and clothes. She knew exactly what she wanted. After breaking up with my father (she was a quiet, forgiving, people pleaser until she was around 33), she never let another man treat her like that and was demanding and brutal in business and honestly treated like a Queen the rest of her life by Joe, my stepdad. There’s so much more I would have liked to say to her but I’ll have to live with that. If I had loved her less, I could have talked about it more. In many ways, I felt like I became her annoying, meddling parent that she still loved a lot. For the last two years, we have called her a “teenage girl” - constantly getting into trouble. Crazy that I used to be the irresponsible one. She lived life like it was a party and affectionately thought of morning plans as things that should always be cancelled—the business calls shouldn’t start until 1pm. She (like me) loved to be cozy and was good at being alone but never lonely. She (like me) was an angry person who was quick to be a hater lol. She (like me) had problems with alcohol. My 4 years sobriety is on Feb 28 in a few days. We have departed paths. I hope she’s here with me still. She was my counselor and my friend and later felt like my enemy as she became my qualifier in Al-Anon.
She went on hospice suddenly after a two year battle with addiction and liver disease and we were by her side when she died. Toward the end, I would catch glimpses of who she used to be in a phone call or a talk and shatter to myself, grateful to have her back for 15 minutes. Sometimes (many times as my friends know) I wanted to escape her illness and leave my life behind. Alcoholism is agonizing. There is no way out sometimes.
Listen: “The Last Great American Dynasty” - Taylor Swift (I love that Kelli legally cannot make fun of me this once for a t swift rec)
Read: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Watch: Magnolia (because I like it)