Down Home

I’ve been feeling a little homesick lately. But unfortunately, I am homesick for a place that doesn’t exist anymore. So there is literally nothing you can do to fix that pain. You just have to sit in it, and sometimes that’s really tough to do.

I have been craving some down home things. My mom was the queen of down home things: down home cooking, down home music, down home dancing, down home memories. She just knew how to capture a moment in time and make everyone else appreciate it just as much. She knew how to make a good life down home.

Well, now that she is gone that home doesn’t exist.

You know that home that used to be so annoyingly full of people all the damn time? The home that you used to be annoyed with your mom about because she was making us clean for “another party” for the 100th time? You know the home where we all sat together for so many milestones, good and bad, and where my mom got to watch her children have children? That home?

That home is gone. And that is a life-shattering feeling.

Some of you who are new to the blog didn’t know my mom and, boy, is she hard to describe. There aren’t enough words and there isn’t enough time.

Basically, she knew how to make anything better, whether it was a drink or a breakup, she just could makes things better. She was pig-headed as hell and her and I drove each other crazy over that, because, turns out, I’m just like her. The stubbornness and pig-headedness is now a personality trait I laugh at in myself whenever that fire tries to come out (and oftentimes I giggle and say hello to my mother when it does). She was full of fire! And fire can be beautiful and mesmerizing, but fire can also burn your fucking house down. That was my mom. She was fierce and fabulous, but she was also weirdly always prepared to off someone (with self-defense).

I miss her, terribly. We all do. And we are all grieving in different ways.

During this grieving period, it has made me painfully aware of how alone I am. I am not lonely, but I am alone. And it’s hard to write that because I can just hear people already coming at me with, “OMG! You are not alone!”….blah, blah.

Just hear me out.

Of course, 100000000% I am not alone. I have the best group of friends I have ever had, I have a business that I adore, I have an amazing family, and I have the world’s most perfect child, Mr. Theodore. I know I am not alone. So please don’t take this blog like that. Maybe just try to see a different perspective.

Even though all my siblings lost my mom, they all have someone to hold them at night. They all have someone to call any time of the day or night, to talk about anything and everything that has happened to them throughout their day, and most importantly, to hug them. They always have someone to hug them.

I don’t know if most of you know this but did you know that humans need hugs to survive? We need that intimacy and we often crave it. Humans aren’t meant to be alone. It’s why people get married more than once.

I’m not even joking. And I will definitely be married at least 2 more times because I want 2 completely different themed weddings, so trust me when I say I’m not judging it at all. I’m using that statement, that people get married more than once, to make my case.

People literally will go to a court, agree to give another partner half of everything they have if they split up, and they smile like an idiot while doing it. And we do that, because we need that human connection. We need it.

And when you don’t have it, it sucks, and quite frankly, it starts fucking with you and starts taking you down that rabbit hole.

Honestly think about how much you get to touch your partner (if you have one). Think about the hugs you take for granted now because they have just been so damn consistent over the years that now you expect nothing less. Or if you are struggling to think back on when is the last time you and your partner hugged, you need to change that. Just hold each other. Trust me. You need it. We all need it.

When is the last time you thought about that or acknowledged that? How grateful you are to have a partner to hug? Have you told them that?

Believe me, I was guilty of that too when I was married. I just see it differently now.

So, so differently.

I crave having someone to come home to and cry to because I miss my mom. I miss having someone to text throughout the day and disagree with about what to have for dinner. I miss having someone to hold my hand. I miss that…and loneliness loves company.

Dammit.

Thankfully, the work I’m putting into myself is paying off because I recognized that I was heading down a dark rabbit hole of jealousy, ugliness, comparison, anger, etc. I was comparing myself and feeling sorry for myself.

“Why do I have to be alone but all my siblings get to have someone?” “That’s not fair!”

Well, once again, my dear Emily, life isn’t fair.

I am just in a different season. And I realized that instead of pursuing a relationship to fill that void, which is not a nonstop clusterfuck of a nightmare anyway, I needed to start pursuing some soul food and head down home.

So, I packed a bag and headed south.

I have some family that lives in Weatherford, OK and I flew down there to get away.

When I was down there, it was so therapeutic because my mom helped decorate parts of the house they still live in so it was like I got to feel her for a few moments. And I was starting to forget how she felt.

Only people who have lost someone understand that statement.

There were so many different moments in the day I would just go in and chill in the kitchen. It brought a smile to heart and was doing the trick of filling my soul.

Being back down home just rejuvenated my whole being. It was so wonderful to have family dinner every night and have people to converse with all day and to have people there to help you with things. It was just so good for my soul to be down home. And I’m grateful that I learning that down home can mean different things now.

Down home now means being with people who you love and make you happy, no matter where they are. Down home is a place of comfort, safety, and security, and where you are free to be your authentic self. Down home is where you get to set your soul free.

The biggest lesson I learned on my trip though was that “down home” things don’t just happen. You have to make them happen. Because believe me, since my mom has been gone, not much “down home” shit has been going on. That hit me hard and made me call my sister to demand that we spend more time together. She agreed. And I’m sure our mother smiled down.

During my soul food journey down south, I really learned that I’m not really jealous of my siblings and their amazing spouses, I’m just lonesome for my family. But, the enemy was creeping in pretty hard and telling me to believe those lies of jealousy and abandonment. And sometimes that little devil can be so loud and convincing.

Thankfully, my faith is stronger than it’s ever been and I knew that that was the enemy and I knew I needed to switch up my routine to get out of that headspace.

I am continuously learning new ways to find those “down home” feelings and to feed my soul. I truly took for granted how much effort my mom put into making everything down home and celebratory, but now I am grateful that she taught us all how to do it. And now, as the circle of life continues, it is my job to make a life for Theodore that is “down home”.

Because someday, he’s going to be in my shoes, and I need to show him how to move on, and still live down home.

Happy Trails,

Em