I'm with you on the community. My LJ pretty much got abandoned after my first year out of college... but here, yeah, it's like a portal to talk to friends, not strangers.

I'm sorry about your mother... My mom is probably getting both of her hips replaced next year, and it's hard for me to imagine my vibrant mother turned into an invalid. It's too much facing mortality for me. The thought of her dying... well, it's unthinkable.

Finally, although I'm not to the point in my life where I feel old, or left behind, I get a similar "This WAS your life" feeling from going out with old friends when I visit my home town. Many of them never really left, life had totally gone on in my home town and I wasn't around to see it. At the same time, though, I've changed and grown and left it behind too.

I think the only thing for it is to not think about it as getting old, but instead as personal evolution or something. I don't know.

Anyway, welcome to the blog side

I know what you mean. On all of it: the blogging (and for the same reasons,) the dealing with growing older, the dealing with death. I don't know if it helps to say I've gone through it too. Our pain always seems so unique.

A biiiig I don't think this has been a very good month for many of us.

I'm glad to see you expanding your voice into the blogs here. I've turned into an exhibitionist recluse, so this is my only way of exposing myself to unsuspecting strangers.

I... can't imagine what you've gone through nor what you are going through with your mother. My mother is recovering from her third bout with breast cancer, and that was enough to knock me off course and into deep, fatalistic introspection for a good long while.

As for feeling old: I've always felt aged. Not really old, not really experienced... just sort of world weary. They say that there are those that are born with old souls, and there are those that are eternally youthful. I think I've always been middle aged.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts!

I am so very sorry about your mom. Since I'm older than you, so please consider a few observations from an elder.

The age you're at is a really weird age and I recall feeling exactly the same way. It's just a 'tween stage. Then things change, and if you stay current with with world (and I can't imagine you won't), that feeling will pass. Seriously. I have a few Gen-X friends who are feeling the way that you are, and they keep asking me why I seem to feel younger than they do. I have to remind them that when they met me 10 years ago, they didn't feel that way about me. Every decade brings its perspectives, and being in your late 30's is just weird.

Plus, your mother just died. The world's a little dampened down for you right now, and no matter how much you think you'd prepared yourself for it, it's a serious, serious passage. I lost my father at about the same age that you lost your mother. It's just damn tough work. It makes you feel old, it makes you feel your mortality, it makes you yearn for those carefree days. You're very brave for talking about it and doing things to try to move on.

So be kind to yourself, you are a BPAL person, so you must be way cool. And you're self-aware, so you have it going on. Just take it easy and vent whenever you want. I'm happy to listen and will try to limit my soapbox comments to a minimum. In the meantime, and

I'm so excited to see that somebody (several somebodies) actually read what I wrote, and commented on it. I'm beginning to understand the thrill of blogging Thank you to everyone who replied; your words of wisdom are much appreciated. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

Hi there

I just recently (as in TODAY) realized there is a blog section here at BPAL! So I started to read a couple and hit yours because of the title...I'm a gen-x gal too.

When I read this post about your mom, my heart sank. I went through the same thing two and a half years ago. My decision alone to pull the plug. eek. I still have a hard time with it. Anyway, I know it's coming up on a year for you. I hope that you are doing better, and that you have found a way to keep her memory close to your heart without being reminded of that day specifically. Does that make any sense?

Take care!