Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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I laugh, but still, yeah I can see how that’d get old quickly. Some people just can’t seem to take getting a no too well – they have to pick at it until there’s a reason that they can understand. I guess hoping it’s something they can change or do to change the answer? I dunno. I understand the “But I want to know what’s up” impulse really well, I’m nosey as all hell by nature – but that’s one of those times you have no right to demand answers.
Not experienced a lot of it personally, but used to hear plenty about it from a female friend of mine that wasn’t into guys. She had to deal with a tonnn of “Why not?” and either explain herself repeatedly or have people figuring she was somehow a jackhole for not explaining her sexuality to a random individual.
90 percent sure? I was 100% sure Tracy was already hitting on you, Ruth…
Ruth is never more than 90% certain, as reading signals is a learned, unnatural behavior for her.
No one owes you an explanation of their sexuality, and you owe no one. Unless maybe you’re in the middle of a relationship, then communication is likely a good thing, but still ‘owe’ doesn’t seem the right word.