149,760 minutes

As of writing this post, that is how many minutes since my mom died. This calculates down to 3 months and 12 days since August 2nd around 22:15 (10:15 PM). [Actually it is a little longer than that, as Australia was ahead of the USA by 15 hours at the time.]

3 months doesn’t seem that long ago, and when I think about mom dying just over three months ago, it doesn’t seem like it was the right amount of time. When I moved it to minutes, that seemed right. Well, not right, but it captured how my brain was treating each passing minute, hour, day, and month — like the eternity that seems to have transpired.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of my mom. I miss her every day. I know those feelings will always be there, and there are some days when it is really tough. And there are some days when it is crippling. Not being able to share with her seeing something that I know she would love, the political discussions we used to have, or simply sharing the latest adventure of Max the cat. So many reminders … every day.

Depression affects us all in different ways. For me, my mind has determined that shutting down and compelling my body to sleep is one of the solutions to help deal with my thoughts and feelings. I call it “rebooting.” It is kind of how I handle stress, except unlike with stress induced rebooting, I don’t wake up with a resolution. There is no resolution when you are dealing with the death of a parent, especially one that you are were so close to. And that is part of the dilemma. I tell myself that I’ve resolved what happened, but I think my mind has other ideas and reminds me that I don’t have that resolution. Maybe I never will.

Perhaps writing about it (as I have started to do) will help me sort through all the noise that fills my mind. Maybe time will be kinder. Except I’ve learned that time is rarely kind. Minute-by-minute time moves forward and then you find yourself 149,760 minutes later still wondering why, and feeling the need to reboot growing stronger.