I can only cry when I'm alone now

dear mom,
it was over a year ago that you died. 368 days since my sister called me and told me. since then I have spread your ashes on the grave of your beloved horse and scattered them into the ocean where you got married six years ago, just as my own marriage was disintegrating. you were starting while I was ending. and when you died, you took my finally quiescent life and turned it upside down. every aspect of my life has changed since then. it has taken a year for it to start to settle down, and even that is nothing consistent.
I have no internship for fall, not sure where I'll be living, and the person that I'm dating lives over a thousand miles away. sometimes I get so angry about you dying, as though it were something anyone could have prevented. as though things would be different now if you were still alive. I just want to be angry at someone. I want there to be a reason for all of this. I want there to be a reason that you're dead, and for everything being in turmoil. for my life utterly changing. I don't see the point in going out to meet people, or in initiating plans. I don't look for as much comfort in others as I used to. People die, or they go away, and it hurts just the same. but I was finally getting to know you, and I know I've said this all before, but I just hate how much time I wasted not loving you. how much time I lived in shame or fear or guilt.
and I hate that your husband has abandoned us because we remind him of you. and I hate that he never seemed to like me. and I hate that your friends all talked to my sister, but not to me. and I hate that I just got pushed to the side because I wasn't strong enough to take everything on my shoulders like she could. and she knew you better than I did, because she was more like you. because she remembers things. there is so much I never knew about you; so much that I will never know about you. and there is so much you didn't know about me, too.
we both gave up for a while. I stopped answering your calls because I was tired of feeling guilty and you stopped calling because you were tired of me not answering. I wasn't a great daughter and you weren't a great mom but I guess we did the best with what we had.
I'm not as strong a person as I would like to be. I have a lot of trouble doing things, like paying bills on time, like handling stressful situations, like getting shit done on a deadline, like making phone calls or talking to strangers in power. I want someone to take care of me so I can just live in my blissful bubble. I think I got that from being the youngest. I think I got that because I always had someone else to do all the shit I didn't feel like handling. so yeah, you're a little to blame, but I'm the one that kept doing it. and now it's turned into some hardened anxiety that I can't seem to fully break apart.
mom, I am still angry. and I still hurt. I wonder why you gave up on me. why you didn't keep calling me. I wonder why you had to be so inconsistent. I wonder why I had to mirror that. sure, I would like to have done things differently. I would have liked to know you better. I would have liked to have called you more often, and seen you more frequently. I would have liked for you to have wanted to understand me, or shown that you did understand. or asked me questions. something deeper than what was there.
I miss you, but I think I mostly mourn the loss of what will never be. because we had finally started off to something new, and it was truncated before it could lead anywhere. I am so sad that we never got to really be friends. I am sad that we didn't get to be adults together, and I never really felt at ease in your presence. we never taught each other how to really listen and not judge. I would have liked to teach you how to meditate. I would have liked to learn it myself.
mom. the loss of inertia is painful to feel. it is running into a brick wall without slowing down. it is the slice of an axe through a watermelon. it is suddenly, alarmingly, over. the lost future aches inside my chest. my inability to connect is tangible. I don't feel you anymore. when dru died, I still felt him around me. but with your loss, all sense of spirituality fled. I want to believe that you live on in the bumble bees and elephants that I see. but I just don't. you are gone and it is like a chunk of lead in my rib cage. there is no undoing this. I am not sure what to do. I have gone through art project after art project, trying to find some peace. it has come in small bursts. but now I am stuck on the precipice, looking down into uncertainty. I miss you and I want you to tell me it will be ok, because you were my mom, and you were pretty much always right.
I wish I had done more for you. I wish I'd done more with you.
I wouldn't call these regrets. just notes for the future.
I love you, I miss you so much. I hope I didn't hurt you too badly when you were alive.
love,
me.