63 Days

Messages left on the line between January 8th, 5pm CST - January 11th, 7am CST.

Hi. I don’t know how long my story can be. So, I’m going to try to keep it quick. I’m in my 50s. My mother has recently been going downhill with Alzheimers and what has brought me warmth in a difficult year to experience this, what has brought me warmth is that one of her closest friends who I did not have a friendship with or a relationship with just a friend of hers- has started calling me and texting me and emailing me just on the random times that a mother would. You know, on my birthday, during the holidays this past couple of weeks. I posted something about my daughter on Facebook and she texted me how proud she was. Just this woman who I really didn’t have a relationship with has taken it upon herself to take over the duties of a mom from my mom who was her best friend and it’s just this beautiful - I get very- it’s very beautiful to me that someone would do that for someone else, for their friend. I hope if this ever happens to me that one of my friends will take over parenting my children even as they get older. There’s a beautiful cyclical nature of motherhood and women and community. That has brought me a lot of warmth these last couple of weeks. Thanks!

I’m nervous. I think my greatest warmth and comfort in the past couple of days has been time and just being able to do things in my own time which is something I haven’t been able to do in a month. So, yeah. Thank you.

Last night I knew I needed a good cry and so I set up a little cozy area and I got tissues and water and pillows and blankets and put on comfy socks and I turned on the new season of Queer Eye which I hadn’t watched yet and I let the stories completely take me and let myself get completely wrapped up in them and just cried so much watching them and it felt really good to do and it was really nice crying and not all the episodes made me cry but I watched it for hours, I stayed up really late just watching each episode. Some of them made me cry a lot. Ones that I didn’t even expect like there’s an episode where they help some kids get a prom after being quarantined for so long and I didn’t think that one would get me and I just at the end was just crying and saying they got their prom and I was so happy for them. And it was so good and I needed it and I felt like I slept better after that long cry session than I had in a long time and I think I really needed it. So, that brought me a lot of warmth and comfort last night. Thank you.