Not special
I’ve probably written about my AP Classics teacher Leona Helmsley. (I forget her real name but seems fitting.)
Leona always reminded us, “You’re special, just like everyone else.”
I’ve thought about this since Mom died. A lot.
We were always special.
I had a young mom. We looked alike. We enjoyed each others’ company. We did everything together. We always had each other.
I’ve been acutely aware since June 16 that I am no longer special.
I don’t have my mom to make me special.
To make me FEEL special.
To prove to me over and over again, in a world determined to prove otherwise, that I really AM special.
Like, now I am just like everyone else.
Just another girl who’s lost her mom.
Another person who has to go through life without a single soul who believes in her or loves her for all she is and for all she isn’t.
And when you think about it, she couldn’t beat this stupid, wretched illness she got.
So maybe, in that, she wasn’t special, either.
I mean, I would punch anyone in their caricature-quality face if they said that last part anywhere I could hear it.
Hey Cindy memba this shit?
Like, the nerve of anyone without anything that makes THEM special, thinking they can make us feel not special.
Though I’ve spent an entire lifetime, career and dating history on hoping maybe the next asshole will be different. Nothing like having a loser try to make US feel like nothing.
I have been a bit obsessed with this whole ordinary-ness of it all. I kind of understand some people whom I’ve called names like ugly or stupid or frumpy or whatever variation of dipshit I’ve felt they deserved.
I mean, I still do. But really what I was saying is I/we were absolutely extraordinary and they were forgettable. Which, honestly, calling them that would have been more honest/hurtful than any other adjective.
I don’t want to be forgettable.
Everyone knew and remembered my mom. I finally got brave enough to post her photo on Faceypages and I got 60 people in an hour to say oh we loved your Momma.
How unbelievable that you two aren’t together right now. You were inseparable. You were always a unit.
And now, she is a memory.
I told my friend Eva that I think I am regressing. I was super sad … then I was functional … and now I am in the fucking abyss.
She said you’re not regressing. You are grieving. Something you are going to do every day for the rest of your life, on different “volumes.”
Some days it’s a 10, some it’s a 4; you just try to get to your new baseline and pretty soon it’s as much a part of you as your green eyes and blonde hair.
So, I am indeed special. Just like everyone else.
I don’t want to be “special” special. I want to be extraordinary.
My momma wasn’t just extraordinary. She was EXQUISITE.
I was thinking on the drive home, it’s not that this is my time to remember who I was.
(That girl died with her Momma. And her Cocoa. And her Maddie and Kadie. And her Gram and Grampy and Old Gram. And her Sia and Janna and Jane and Jesse and Larry and Elaine and everyone else who’s on her spirit team.)
Our only “family” picture with Cokes and Bell. And mom’s beloved birdos.
It’s my time to figure out who I will be next.
(The Dawn who doesn’t have that amazing family with her here. But the Dawn who does have Shan and Meg and Belly and Magic.)
I just wish that Dawn had cat-sitters. Because those jabronis need to learn to scoop their own shit otherwise so I can go see Taylor Swift, who belongs to both Dawns.
How do I get to be THAT special, like Taylor? I don’t need to be beloved. I just need to create.
That’s the meaning of life, to me, loud and clear. To create. To leave a legacy. Like my family did. Even though I’m the only one who remembers them, who do I get to remember me when Cindy’s hopped in her doom buggy and can’t click on my blog anymore?