Today feels heavy. I didn’t get out of bed as early as I wanted to. I didn’t start schoolwork with the kids as soon as I should have. The dead father hanging in the stairs paid a visit after I zoned out on the couch staring at our stairs this morning. I am sitting outside but the sounds of suburban nature – truck engines, city buses, backup alarms. talking neighbours, power tools – aren’t helping. What is helping is knowing I am fortunate enough to hear those things because it means I’m learning to ground better.

Mothers day has passed and fathers day is coming. My mother died of cancer when I was young. My withdrawn father remarried. I saw it all as a fact of life growing up. What else was I to do? Feel? How indulgent. Apparently that’s what I’m supposed to do though. Feel. Fine. I feel sad. I feel sad because parents aren’t supposed to intentionally leave their bodies for their children to find. I feel sad because young children aren’t supposed to see their parents die violently in front of them. I feel sad because I don’t know who my own mother was. I don’t know the sound of her voice or her favourite colour or when her birthday was. I feel sad because I’m too afraid to poke old wounds to ask these things. I feel sad hoping she would have been proud of me despite all of the booze and drugs and mental health challenges.

What’s different is at the same time I’m also hopeful. I’m writing this instead of hiding in the bathroom crying. I’m not having a panic attack over the flashback or my intense feelings. I recognized it and managed to stay present. PTSD is going to cause me to have days like this. Accepting PTSD is helping get me through days like this.

Now I’m going to figure out what I want to listen to this afternoon. The new Taake/Whoredom Rife split EP will be first up on the turntable. I am after all still the metal paramedic.