(no subject)

CW - death of a family member

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It's hard to imagine how my mother will be managing today. Her mother, my grandmother, died yesterday evening after a long period of time living with dementia in a care facility. I'm sure it's much harder on her than it is on me. I don't feel like I got to know my grandmother very well, and most of the feelings I'm having are centered on that. I was so scared of people as a kid, and it kept me from getting to know any of my extended family, really. I feel like I started connecting more with my grandfather before his death, when I would occasionally visit for him to show me how to do metalworking, but I didn't know him as well as I'd have liked. And even less, my grandmother. I hadn't seen her for years now, between being in Europe and then in Canada, and my parents tell me she likely wouldn't have recognized me anyway if I'd been able to visit.

It's strange and difficult being so far from my family as they manage things like this. I wish I could be with them in person to help. But I cannot, and I'm just thinking of them and telling them I'm here if I can do anything, and I guess that's basically the most I can do.

I am having feelings about this myself, for myself, as well as about and for my mother and parents. I'm just not really managing to get in touch with them well enough to know what they are. But I had Tears of the Kingdom to distract me for most of yesterday and that helped keep me busy while things process in the background, as they do. It's interesting; I used to have a lot of trouble being in touch with my emotions; even just figuring out what they are. My therapist in Chicago used to, in the middle of our sessions, pause and ask me how I was feeling. It was a really hard question to answer. That seems to be much less the case since starting transition, and I think it was a part of the gender-related disassociation I'd had resolving. Feeling like this now, not really sure what feelings are in there, reminds me of those experiences.

Smoked Meat, Bed Assembly Failure

In other news, yesterday I heated up the chicken sausages we'd bought in our last grocery collection yesterday for lunch for Miriam and I. As I took them out of the microwave, I smelled something that was really disturbing me. I actually can't remember after that whether I asked Miriam to come and smell them or get them out of the microwave, or what. But they were out of the microwave on the counter and I put mine in buns and put cheese and mustard on them and took a bite of one and I was scared and distressed and told Miriam that I could not eat them. I think it was then that I realized that they smelled like the condo after the fire.

Looking at the packaging, I realized they were made with smoked chicken, and I was smelling and tasting the smoke. In the past, I would have said that I didn't really know what a smoked taste was. I would eat smoked meat and question whether being smoked had any effect on my experience of eating them. I wasn't sure if my sense of taste was even good enough to notice any smoke flavor. Well, it is.

And that triggered my first crying panic attack about the condo in some time now. They're definitely getting further apart, so that's good.

I also tried to put the used king bed that I bought a few days ago together in the living room to take measurements yesterday and realized that I'm just not going to be able to do that in this space. I had a lot of fear and anxiety and shame that the bed would turn out not to fit a standard king mattress and slat base and it would become horribly complicated to make it work and we'd have wasted all our time and money on it and it would all be my fault.

So yesterday was already turning out to be difficult for me, even before the news about my grandmother.